Walked into shop with £5.00, purchases = £2.40 left shop with £7.60!

[MeRightYouWrongMeBigYouSmall]

The shop assistant clearly thought I had given her £10.00.

WIBU not to say anything?
Should I own up and return the cash?
Or should I count it as a wee bonus and buy a lottery ticket (or a few)

Ryoko - 2 hrs that is seriously crap customer service! They can cash their tills up at any time. Crap!

I was once accused of short changing a customer, he said he gave me a 20, he gave me a 10. My manager came and cashed up my till which was spot on so the customer then proceeded to demand my manager searched me as I had "obviously put it in my bra".

Put it in your bra! I would have demanded the police be called after that comment.

sexist or perv one or the other, or both really.

I'd have kept it

I work on a till ..if I give someone the wrong change its my fault

but I don't have to make up the shortfall if my till is short

altinkum is wrong.

It is theft as soon as you realise what has happened and fail to return the money.

You have dishonestly appropriated the money - by being aware it was not yours and you were not entitled to it AND then with the intention of permanently depriving the owner of it.

However if you genuinely never knew that you had been given extra money you would not commit theft as you would never have had the necessary mens rea of dishonestly appropriating it.

Other examples would be accidentally picking up the wrong coat in a cloakroom. At that point you wouldn't be guilty of theft but you would be at the point you discovered the coat was not yours and decided to keep it anyway.

There is also the specific offence of theft by finding where you could be prosecuted for 'theft by finding' if you found a £5 note dropped in the street and kept it and it was shown that you had not taken reasonable steps to trace the true owner.

Most chains penalise if the till is over OR under, btw, so any mistake is bad for the till operator.

Many many years ago, when I was a teenager, I used to have a saturday job at Woolworths. I was told always to put banknotes in a special clip on the front of the till until I had given change and it had been accepted by the customer, so that if there was a question about whether the customer had given £5 or £10, or whatever, the note was right there, and there was no uncertainty.

Till operators should still do this - once the note is in the till, they can't prove what denomination they were given without closing that checkout and reconciling the till - it would protect them as much as the customer.

We once had to ask for this to be done, because the till operator forgot to give us our cashback, and we didn't realise until we got nearly out of the store - we went back, told the store manager, and he closed the till to check it, and eventually we did get our money.

I agree that the service that Ryoko's mum got was appalling - they should have closed their till at once, and cashed it up - making her wait until the end of business was appalling.