When you work in a retail environment, you always have to be careful to ensure that customers aren’t stealing.

What would you do if a customer kept trying to edit the amount she was paying on the credit card terminal?

That is what happened to the cashier in this story, so she finally just grabbed the items and made her leave.

Always watch when a customer is paying.

Maybe look away when they punch in their pin, but always pay attention.

People really can’t be trusted.

A little while ago I was cashing a customer (C) out. She was acting really shifty and it was raising alarms in my head.

At my store we have to punch in the amount and press OK before we pass the terminal to the customer to activate the sale.

If it is cancelled a receipt will print with the reason for cancellation (transaction not completed etc).

Sounds pretty normal so far.

Her total was somewhere around $250 dollars.

Me: OK your total comes to xxx.xx, how are you paying?

She flashes a card at me. I punch in the total, double check it on the register screen and pass her the terminal.

What is going on here?

She fiddles with it for a sec, looking up at me from under her bangs trying not to be obvious. Then she pushes a button and a receipt prints. It beeps funny when a transaction is bad.

Me: Oops! Looks like you pushed the cancel button by accident. No problem I’ll just start it over!

I reach for the machine but she twists her body a bit so I can’t grab it over the counter.

No way this is allowed.

C: It’s ok I can put it in, I have the same one at work..

Then she starts punching in numbers and quickly puts her card in! I reach further and snatch from her hand because that’s an obvious no-no.

C: Hey!

Wow, this is straight up theft.

She reaches to grab it back from me, but I’m just out of reach. I look at the screen and she has typed in 0.75. Sneaky bugger.

Me: Please don’t touch the terminals like that. Your total is xxx.xx not 75 cents.

C: I must have mistyped it!

Me: You shouldn’t have typed it in at all. We can try again.

This is a smart move.

I pull her card out and type in the correct total. I’ve moved the bags towards me casually so she can’t grab them as easily.

Me: Here you go, xxx.xx.

Does she really think she will get away with it?

This time she steps a little further away, inserts her card, clicks some random buttons and when it prints she quickly rips off both the receipts (so i cant see it failed) and goes to grab her bags.

When the printer prints a receipt with the big black letters of transaction failed it makes a grinding kind of noise because of all the extra ink.

I’ve had enough.

I wouldn’t sell to her at all.

I grab the bags and put them behind the counter.

Me: I’m sorry but I can’t let you leave with these until you actually pay for them. I’ve had enough of whatever you’re doing. Are you paying or not?

C: I did pay see I have the receipts.

This customer is straight up crazy.

She waves both the receipts at me (including the merchant copy I’m supposed to keep). I narrow my eyes and thrust the terminal towards her pointing at the screen that is flashing “TRANSACTION CANCELLED PRESS OK TO CONTINUE”.

Me: Are you going to pay or not.

C: Yes I am, this card must be having a problem let me go get my other one from my car.

Gee, I wonder if she is coming back in.

She said that as she was backing towards the door and leaving. She floored it out of the parking lot and never came back.

Some people have balls I’ll give them that.

Good, I hope they never let her in the store again.

Now she has a lovely framed security camera picture hanging in the break room.

The nerve of some people. Why do they think that it is ok to steal?

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about it.

It is really obvious.

Yeah, she’s done this before.

Only in some stores.

Sadly, I’m guessing a lot.

This banker has a good solution.

The nerve of some people.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude customer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.