Taxing Taxing

(Two customers come in close to closing and order three milkshakes. One of my employees makes them, they pay and leave. Five minutes later they come back in.)

Customer #1: “These shakes all taste funny. We tried all three. They’re all sour. We would like our money refunded.”

Me: “I’m sorry about that. Give me just a moment.”

(The card charges for the day don’t go through until we manually process them at the end of the night. Rather than giving them a refund for the charge amount, I find their exact order and comp off the shakes, making their order total $0.00 and removing their charge from having ever existed. I hand them a copy of the comped receipt.)

Me: “Well, here you go. Sorry about the shakes. Have a good night.”

Customer #1: “This is only for $8.70. We were charged $9.22.”

Me: “It just says $8.70 because that’s the price for the shakes without tax, which was removed from the bill making the total bill zero. The tax isn’t displayed because no tax can be added to a total of zero.”

Customer #2: “What, so I’m still being charged the tax!?”

Me: “No… The total is zero. There is no charge being made at all to your card. The comp here says $8.70 because that is the original price for the shakes. ”

Customer #2: “So you only refunded me $8.70, not $9.22.”

Me: “The original price was removed entirely, making the total zero. As there is no total on your order now, there is no tax, so it’s not displayed. That’s just the way the receipt displays the information. The charge was reversed entirely. The total displayed is zero dollars and zero cents, which is the new total for your order.”

(The customers, brows still furrowed, cautiously leave. Another moment later, customer #2 comes back in.)

Customer #2: “Could I just have your name to reference in case of further incident?”

Me: “Uh, sure, my name is [My Name].”

(I include the incident in my end of the night communications to the next day’s managers in case anything comes up. I also work the next day, but am not the manager in charge. The next day, the manager comes to talk to me about mid-afternoon.)

Manager: “Did you see your shake lady come in?”

Me: “No. What? You mean the lady who thought I was charging her tax? From last night?”

Manager: “Yeah, she actually came in! I had to explain to her that it wasn’t an actual refund but a reversal. She wasn’t getting it. I was like, it was a same day charge so we can just remove the charge from ever having happened rather than the hassle of doing a refund.”

Me: “Yeah, I explained the same exact thing to her…”

Manager: “She asked to speak to a manager, I should have gotten you!” *laughs*

Me: “Oh, man, that would have been great. She drove all the way back up here over 52 cents.”