They say you should never look a gift horse in the mouth.

But what if it’s a bunch of gift certificates for a store you don’t like as a reward for all your hard work? Then things can get more complicated.

Especially for the employees of said store, who now have to deal with a bunch of people trying to exhange them for cash.

Let’s read the whole story.

I don’t like anything you sell here. Why can’t I get cash for this gift certificate?

I worked at the customer service desk for a “catalog showroom” type store in the 1990s.

This was a national chain store and had been around for decades.

There were companies that would give their employees gift certificates for our store instead of cash bonuses.

The reality was that their employer was trying to be generous and didn’t want their workers to be taxed on their “bonus,” but the employees were furious.

But they took it on the store.

We could always tell when those companies had their Christmas parties because over the next few days, we would see an influx of visitors wielding gift certificates.

Invariably, we would have a few people come in and walk straight to the service desk, demanding refunds on the certificates.

It amazed me that they all thought they had a unique argument for why we should give them cash.

I think my favorite was “you don’t sell anything I like/need here.” We sold housewares, electronics, sporting goods, power tools, toys, and jewelry.

I guess it’s possible they wanted groceries or auto parts, but they were basically angry that they didn’t have fiscal autonomy because their employer made the decision for them.

They would try various strategies.

The same tricks were attempted each year. Once they were told that we couldn’t refund the certificate, they would attempt to get creative:

They would buy a 2-pack of D-cell batteries and expect to get cash for the remainder (nope, we just cut them a decreased gift certificate for the balance).

They would buy something for the full certificate amount and then return it with the receipt (we issued the refund as a gift certificate or store credit).

And they wouldn’t always be honest.

They would buy something for the full certificate amount and then return it, saying they “lost the receipt” (we would issue the refund as a store credit but additionally it would be for the lowest sale price from the past 90 days).

The people would be spitting mad at us as if it were our fault that their companies made the gift certificate decision.

It got to the point after a few years that I recognized some of the people and they tried the same stunts each year.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this.

An idea.

The more you know!

Another reader chimes in.

What else is he supposed to do?

Yup.

The smartest solution, probably.

The store has actually nothing to do with the whole issue.

They’re directing their dissatisfaction at the wrong people.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.