Self-checkout gets awkward fast when a customer becomes convinced the machine stole from him.

Near the end of one busy shift, an older man hands over cash and insists he paid with a larger bill.

When the screen says otherwise, he starts accusing the employee of taking the missing money herself.

See why one ten-dollar dispute quickly turns into a full-blown retail standoff.

Sir, I Didn’t Take Your Money

More self check shenanigans again.

I only had a few minutes left on my shift when the store got slammed with people.

My supervisor popped over originally to do an observation on me, but seeing how busy it got decided to help out instead.

While she was working with one customer I had an older guy walk up who a bag of dirt in his cart.

I greeted him and offered to help him, since he was looking at the self check machine like it was a bomb.

Here’s how the conversation went.

Guy: Ma’am, I….I don’t know how to use this. I don’t understand how these work.

Me: That’s alright sir, I can grab you right quick.

I scanned his bag of dirt, total came out to $20 roughly.

Guy: How much is it?

Me: $20, cash or card?

Guy: Cash. -takes out his wallet and hands me a $10 bill-

She thought he would get out more money.

At this point I assumed he was getting other bills out so I insert the $10 as we chat about technology. I tell him I can barely figure out my phone (this is very sad but true….) and he tells me about not being totally computer savvy.

He still has his wallet out and is digging around in it before he closes it again.

Guy: Miss, could I have my receipt please?

Me: Sir, you still owe $10.

Guy: I gave you $20, that should’ve paid for it. Do you need change?

Me: No sir, you still owe money because you only gave me a ten.

He’s convinced she’s lying or a thief.

Guy: -starts getting agitated- You entered it in wrong, I only have $20 bills!

Me: -trying to think of how to explain this- Sir, there’s no way for me to “enter” it in wrong. The machine scans the bill as I put it in, see? -indicates the screen that clearly shows $10 has been entered-

Guy: You took it, then! I only have $20 bills.

Me: Sir, I didn’t take your money. You handed me a ten dollar bill and I inserted it for you.

Guy: -starts looking through his wallet again as he repeats that I took his money-

Eventually, the supervisor took over.

Me: -now I’m starting to get annoyed- If you don’t believe me, I can get security to look at the footage and confirm it if you like.

Guy: -starts almost yelling at this point- I didn’t ask for that! Ma’am, I DIDN’T ask for that!!

Me: -at this point I just didn’t want to deal with him anymore- Sir, I’m sorry, but I can’t help you anymore. I didn’t take your money.

At that point I walked away as my supervisor took over to talk to the guy. I helped a few other customers and then went to go clock out.

The supervisor saw what happened.

I could hear the guy still complaining and ranting over the supposed theft.

He eventually left, but I saw him come back in and talking to one of my managers about what had taken place.

I didn’t get in trouble or anything, my supervisor assured me she’d watched the whole thing and wasn’t quite sure why the guy was so insistent I took his cash.

She watched him take the bill out of the wallet, hand it to me, and saw me insert it into the machine.

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So….yeah, that’s it. I mean unless the guy was pulling a very poor attempt at a bait and switch at the self checkout.

Wow. It is weird that the guy was so insistent that she stole his money.

It seems like he’s confused by more than self checkout.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This cashier has been in a similar situation.

Here’s what the customer seems to be thinking.

This is good advice.

Another cashier shares a similar story.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who decides to mute her boss’s number after he insists on calling her at home after hours.

It was obvious this customer was lying.

The customer kept insisting OP had taken his money, even after she offered to have security review the footage.

Her supervisor had watched the entire exchange and confirmed OP did nothing wrong, while the manager ultimately had to ask the man to leave.

The register kept the ten bucks, but the customer definitely lost the plot.