A Group of Friends Returned Items in Separate Transactions. The Cashier Thought It Should Have Been One
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Imagine returning something to a store where you can’t get cash back, you can only exchange it for something else. If there wasn’t anything else you wanted at the moment but a friend with you wanted to buy something, would you do the whole thing as one transaction so your refund could go towards their purchase, or would you insist on keeping the transactions separate?
In this story, one cashier thinks it’s a much better deal to pool the items together, but I disagree.
Keep reading for all the details to see if you agree with me or the cashier.
They coulda gotten $80 of stuff FOR ONE DOLLAR, but they wanted separate transactions…
Let me preface with a quick run-down of our exchange policy at work: You bring the item and receipt in within 14 days and you can get an exchange for the money value of the item.
It’s no refund and no store credit, so on the day you come in, you need to shop around.
We can’t give back more than $2, so we encourage shopping as close to the actual amount of the items as possible.
NOW…
She made an assumption, but it was wrong.
I served a group of three today, two of them had exchanges. They loaded up all of their items, together, onto the counter, exchanges first.
I didn’t ask if they were all together, I just assumed they were being smart and pooling together their purchases and exchanges to get the most bang for their bucks.
I ring through the exchanges, which comes out to $80 they must spend, and then I ring through all of their items. Their total comes to like a dollar, and I ask which of them is paying.
This is when they tell me they want their transactions separate.
She tried to explain why this wasn’t a good idea.
I tell them if I separate it all, they’ll end up paying more, so it would be better if just one of them pays the few dollars rather than they all pay separate.
They got aggressive and told me they HAVE to pay separately.
They’d already been giving me the cold treatment, none of my attempts at giving good customer service were improving their sour moods, so I decided, screw it, I’ll do these separately.
If you insist…
The first guy’s exchange was only $10, and he paid $24 because he spent more than the exchange.
The last guy paid $17, no exchange.
The middle guy, though. His total was -$40, which I can’t give back, so I ask him to A) shop for another $40 or B) take some items off the exchange and come back another time to shop for the $40.
Let’s see what he decides to do.
He doesn’t realize quite what happened yet, or what he and his mates missed out on, he just takes option B.
I give him back enough items to where he only has to pay $1, and he pays.
He and his guys leave, smug and angry as ever.
I wonder if they’ll ever realize their blunder…
Honestly, I don’t think they messed up. If I were doing some returns with some friends, I wouldn’t want to help them pay for their purchases with my returns. I’d want to be able to use that refund myself later.
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Let’s see how Reddit responded.
This person agrees with the cashier…mostly.
But this person thinks the customers handled the returns correctly.
Another person agrees that the customers did the right thing.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a craft store customer who refuses to take no for an answer when it comes to wrapping his purchases for gifts.
Most people seem to agree that the customers handled it well.
The comments section certainly didn’t seem to go the way OP expected. She was calling the customers out for being stupid when it turned out that she was really the one who was stupid. If it were her money, maybe she would’ve understood why the customers did what they did, or maybe not. Maybe she’s not very good with money, or maybe she’s just really generous and doesn’t mind paying for her friends’ purchases.
The cashier wasn’t as smart as she thought.
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