The Christmas Gift Card That Keeps On Giving

(I work in a bookstore. It is Christmas Eve, an hour before we close. The most important part of our customer service policy is fast cashiering. We have a huge line and only three cashiers, including myself, when an elderly couple comes to my register.)

Woman: *puts a pile of magazines down, and hands me two of our membership cards and a printout slip for a gift card saying it has 23 dollars on it* “We’d like to get these, please, and we want to pay with the gift card.”

Me: *rings up the magazines* “Okay, ma’am, you have two membership cards here… Do you know which one you want to use?”

Woman: “What? No. Those are gift cards!”

Me: “No, ma’am, those are membership cards. They give you ten percent off your purchase.”

(I ring in one card and find that it’s expired. I don’t know why they had two, as we could have just renewed it, but I use the second and give them both back to her anyway. I show her on the screen where she got ten percent off)

Woman: “Fine. Pay with this.” *she hands me the slip for the gift card, which only tells me the last four digits of the card, and the amount; it is worthless as payment*

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am, I can’t use this. Do you have the actual card with you?”

Woman: “No. I don’t understand! The manager last time slid the card in the machine and gave me the slip and then kept the card. He said I could use this instead!”

Me: “I’m sorry… You say our manager took your card? Do you know which manager this was?”

Woman: “It’s the younger man.”

Me: *knowing who she’s talking about, and knowing that there’s no way he would take a card away and tell her to use the slip* “I’m sorry, ma’am, he’s not in right now. Let me call another manager over.”

(I call another manager over, who is equally confused. She then calls a second manager over. At this point all three of us are trying to calm the woman down.)

Woman: “So you can’t use that slip? Why would we even get a gift card anyway, if you’re just going to tell me I can’t use it? That’s just stupid!”

Man: “Just leave them; I don’t want them anymore if we can’t use the card.”

Woman: “NO! THEY’RE GOING TO USE THE CARD OR THEY’RE GOING TO GIVE US OUR MONEY BACK THAT WAS ON THAT CARD!”

(The managers calm her down and run to the back office, leaving me there at the register with them. Using the two membership cards, they eventually find out what happened.)

Manager: *showing her the receipt they found on file* “Okay, ma’am, according to our system, you used that gift card over two months ago, on a cookbook. You completely used it up, which is why the other manager took it. When a gift card is used up, we throw it away to avoid exactly this confusion.”

Woman: “Well, I’m glad we figured this out. Pay them, honey.” *she then walks away, leaving her husband and the rest of us, guffawing*

Man: *pays and takes the bag from me* “Merry Christmas!”

(The whole ordeal took a half an hour; definitely not fast.)