The Gift Card That Keeps On Giving, Part 2

(I am the cashier at a dollar store. Three guys come up to my till with a heaping basket of groceries. I ring up and bag all their items, and the total comes up to just over $50, so roughly 40 items. Note that we only take debit and cash, not credit.)

Me: “All right, so that will be $50.50.”

Guy #1: “Okay, it’ll be on a Visa gift card.”

Me: *a little skeptical* “Um, okay, but I don’t think the Visa will work. We only take debit and—”

Guy #1: “It’s a Visa gift card. It will work. Oh wait; I only have $35 on this, so I’ll do the rest in cash.”

Me: “Oh, okay. Well, I’m going to need the cash first.”

(Guy #2 then hands Guy #1 a $50 bill from his wallet, which I notice is full of other bills.)

Me: *noticing the $50 bill* “Oh, so do you want to pay this in cash?”

Guy #1: “No, just the $15.50.”

Me: *a little confused* “Oh, all right.”

(I enter that he will be paying $15.50 in cash, then press the debit/credit button.)

Me: “Okay, I don’t think it will work, but I guess you can give it a try.”

(They swipe the card. It doesn’t go through.)

Me: “Yeah, I don’t think even the gift card will work. This machine doesn’t take Visa credit.”

Guy #3: “Is it all right if we take some stuff off?”

(At this point in the transaction, we can’t go back and void anything, so I call my manager, who ends up entering that they paid the rest of the amount in cash, without them actually paying anything, then rescanning all the items as if to return them. Then, they decide to take some stuff off.)

Me: “Yeah, sorry about this guys. The machine only accepts gift cards for our store, and doesn’t accept Visa whatsoever. Now, what would you like to take off?”

(Then they begin selecting items to take off, and since they are taking off several, I begin to think that they’re planning to pay in cash, and are just making sure that they have enough. I start scanning the items again.)

Guy #1: *waving his gift card* “Boy, I sure hope this works this time.”

Me: “Um, the gift card isn’t going to work in the machine.”

Guy #1: “Are you serious?”

Guy #3: *to the other guys* “Well, can we get $10 in stuff?”

Guy #2: “No, we don’t have enough cash.” *even though his wallet was full of it*

Guy #1: *to me* “Well, I guess we aren’t getting any of this stuff.”

Guy #3: “Yeah, we can’t get anything now, and for the record, you didn’t really verify that we couldn’t use the gift card.”

Me: *almost speechless* “Um, well, sorry guys. Have a good day.”

(They leave all their bagged groceries on the counter. Guess who had to run around the store putting them all away?)