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Signing a credit-card receipt should be simple, especially after every identification check confirms the customer.

This man provided matching photo ID and watched his own card process without the slightest problem.

Then he signed the receipt and well, it got…odd.

The cashier suddenly had several new questions.

“I…uh…think I signed the wrong name.”

And I’m back with the landscape supply store that I work for. The company makes and sells mulch in bulk by the cubic yard. We sell to everyone, commercial and residential.

My boss is also really stubborn. I have worked in the office for over four years now, but I still can’t convince him to upgrade most of the office equipment.

Our credit card reader is one of those unattached machines from the register that I have to hand punch everything in to.

It’s kept behind the counter so customers hand over their credit cards and I do the transactions.

The machine is slow and frustrating and it always spits out a receipt that the customer has to sign with a pen.

It does have a working chip reader though, so I can’t complain too much.

They needed to check his ID.

Anyway. I had a customer come in once who paid with a credit card.

I told him the total and he handed me his credit card. It wasn’t signed on the back so I asked him for his driver’s license.

He produced it without a problem.

The names matched and the picture was definitely my customer.

So, I charged his card and handed it back with the receipt he needed to sign.

He picked up a pen from the pen holder on the counter and then proceeded to hover over the receipt.

Me: “If you would please sign your name on the line at the bottom.”

Customer having an identity crisis: “Oh, right.”

But then, something weird happened.

And then he scribbled something on the line and handed it back to me.

Me: “Thank you! Have a nice day!”

The customer then proceeded to stare at me sheepishly for a few seconds before saying:

Customer having an identity crisis: “I…uh…think I signed the wrong name.”

Me: “Uh, okay.”

The manager handled it like nothing was wrong, though.

This hadn’t happened before, so I went and got my boss. He told me to void out the prior charge and have the customer pay with cash instead.

So, I have no idea what this customer was thinking.

I have a few questions.

Let’s see whether or not Reddit does as well.

Here are a few options.

Mine is just a scribble.

Seems plausible.

Maybe that’s it.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a fast food employee who shuts down a customer angry about her change with a single word.

I feel like the second one is more likely.

The customer’s face, license, and credit card all matched, but his signature somehow introduced an entirely different identity.

Management voided the transaction and required cash, leaving the employee no closer to understanding what had happened.

His card and license agreed; his pen filed a dissenting opinion.