Peaky Binders

Customer: “I have to return these binders my kids didn’t need for school. I don’t have the receipt.”

Me: “Did you maybe get the receipt emailed to you?”

Customer: “No.”

Me: “Hmm. Normally, we could look up the receipt with the SKU of the item and verify it with your card number, but we have sold so many of these binders in the last few weeks it would take us forever to find it. Without a receipt, the register will only let me give you a store credit for the lowest price it’s been sold at in the last 90 days, and these were buy-one-get-one-free recently, so I know they’re going to come up at a penny. Do you want to try looking for your receipt and coming back?”

Customer: “Well, can’t you just scan them and see?”

Me: “Okay.” *scans them and they all come up at a penny* “No, it won’t let me give you anything for them, unfortunately.”

Customer: “Well, what if I just buy new ones and use that receipt to return them?”

Me: *hesitantly* “That’s… fraud…”

Customer: “How is that fraud?”

Me: “Because you’re using a new receipt to return something old. And they’re not on sale anymore, so if you originally bought them on sale, you would be getting more money back than what you paid for them. Plus, you would still be stuck with binders you don’t want, anyway.”

Customer: “Why?”

Me: “Because you would have twice as many binders as you have on your receipt.”

Customer: “Well, I would just go to another store to return the other ones.”

Me: “You can’t do that.”

Customer: “Why not?”

Me: “You can’t return something twice with the same receipt.”

Customer: “It’s not fraud just because I can’t find my receipt!”

Me: “No, but trying to buy new ones and return them all at the new price is fraud. Are you sure you can’t just find your receipt?”

(She leaves and calls the store to talk to a manager — I’m pretty sure she is just calling from the parking lot — and the manager says we can try looking her receipt up. She comes back in immediately and my manager can’t find her receipt.)

Manager: “I can’t find the receipt. And these binders have had different sale prices during the back to school time, and they’re expensive, so I can’t just return them without a receipt.”

Customer: “Can’t you just scan ones from the shelf, then? So they don’t ring up as a penny?”

Manager: “They’re the same binders.”

Customer: “But the ones I’ve brought in ring up as a penny. Can’t you just scan new ones so they scan at full price?”

Manager: “No, they’re the same binders; they will still ring up at a penny. The register does it automatically when there isn’t a receipt.”

Customer: “I don’t understand why can’t just give me what I paid for them!”

Manager: “Because you don’t have a receipt… which tells us what you paid for them…”