Eating With The Tongs Of Honesty

(I work in a department store in the kitchenware and electrical department. The shop is famous for its open returns policy; i.e. a customer can pretty much return anything. As I’m in charge of returns, so this is usually a big headache.)

Customer: “Hi, I need this to bring these items in. It’s a bit of long story.”

Me: “Uh sure, is there a fault with them?”

Customer: “Oh no, it’s just that I ordered a pair of cooking tongs from your website, and my receipt just says one. I only get the amount for one debited from my account.”

Me: “Okay?”

Customer: “Well, I only wanted one, but I had six sent to me and I called your helpline and they said post it in, but I wanted to bring it in to make sure it gets here.”

Me: “Just so I’ve got this right: you only paid for one, receipted for one, you got six, and you’re bringing the other five back here?”

Customer: “Yup! Do you need to check my order or something?”

Me: “No! Sorry if I seem confused; this just never happens. I’ll take those and we’ll just add them. Thank you for your honesty, and here, have these tokens or some free coffee and cake from one of our cafe bars!”

Customer: “Oh, no! Don’t give me those for being honest; have nice day!”

(I told my line manager what happened. She said it wasn’t uncommon for the wrong amount of items to be sent, but we never usually get honest customers coming back!)