The Gift Card That Keeps On Taking

(I work in a grocery store as a cashier. I am ringing up a customer and we get to the end of the transaction.)

Me: “That’ll be $5.17 for you today.”

(The customer swipes his card and it gets declined. At this point I notice that it’s a Visa gift card.)

Me: “Oh, I’m sorry… It didn’t seem to accept that amount. Do you know the balance that’s left on the card? It’ll probably go through if I type in the specific amount.”

Customer: “I don’t know. You check.”

(He shoves the card at me.)

Me: “Oh, unfortunately our system is only set up to check the balance of our store gift cards. I don’t have a way to check the balance for you. Sorry about that!”

Customer: “You check. You should know the balance.”

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, like I said, our registers are only set up to check balances on store gift cards. That’s a Visa gift card, so I have no way of checking the balance on your gift card.”

Customer: “Why are you making this so difficult? It’s your job to know my balance, not mine.”

Me: “As I said before, I unfortunately have no way of checking your gift card balance on my register, since it’s not a store gift card.”

(Finally the customer takes out a crumpled receipt and tosses it on the counter along with the gift card, which has the original balance written on it.)

Customer: “You do the math and figure it out.”

(I type $3.15 into the register and hit the debit button.)

Me: “Okay, so $3.15 is going on the card and I just need you to swipe one more time.”

Customer: “I already swiped it before. I shouldn’t have to do it again.”

Me: “Oh, you just need to swipe it one more time since it didn’t go through the first time.”

(He finally swipes his card. I thank him and tell him to have a good night.)

Customer: “You should learn to relax.”