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AIBU?

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Original poster

Is this complaint unreasonable?

120 replies

mickeyfartpants · 13/01/2015 08:33

I went in to a large (old & prestigious) Oxford Street store and bought a gift for my son.

It was £12.99 and I gave the cashier £20. She asked me for £30 more. I was confused as I thought she might be asking for the penny or something so I said sorry, what? She answered that she had entered £50 on the till instead of £20, so all I needed to do was to give her £30 more, and she would give it straight back. All I had on me was the £20 I had given her.

I asked why she couldn't just take £30 off the change amount and she frantically started doing some sums on a pad next to the till. There was a queue mounting so I asked DP, please just give her the money and end this awkwardness

He only had two twenties. So he said again, its ok, just take £30 off what the till shows is the change. More frantic sum writing and she was starting to look very confused. I said to her, look, the change is £7.01 if you need to know. She gave us £7.01 and that was that.

Later on, we looked at our receipt and the gift should have had a 10% reduction. So we were effectively short changed. The receipt shows £38.31 as our change so she had to give us £8.31 back.

Anyway, should I email them about this? It was excruciating to watch her struggle to do basic maths while customers waited. I understand the human error of pressing the £50 by mistake, but I wouldn't have even had to know about that if she'd been able to work out the change and not ask me for £30 more!

I know its only by just over a quid but the whole thing was just like it was a monty python sketch.

OP posts:
Pantone363 · 13/01/2015 11:41

MN at its best

Whoever reads your 'complaint' will PMSL, show it around the office, email you their template 'gosh ever so sorry madam' letter and move on to the next one.

She made a simple maths error, shock horror lots of people don't have basic arithmetic (which clearly means they should not be in the hallowed position of toy shop cashier to Londoners)

Let it go OP....unclench

OnlyLovers · 13/01/2015 12:01

the hallowed position of toy shop cashier to Londoners

I'm not sure whether you're sneering at people who work as cashiers in shops, in which case your opinion stinks, or at 'Londoners' (cos EVERYONE who shops in London is a native, right?) ... in which case your attitude stinks.

Babewiththepower · 13/01/2015 13:16

She would never have even got the job in a 1980's Greggs. We did it all in our heads. That's the calibre of employee's these days though, and Selfridges need to be made aware. YANBU especially as the whole thing resulted in you losing your 10%. Imagine if it was 10% off a £1000 bag.

knittynoodle · 13/01/2015 13:19

Sorry babe, I can't work out what 10% of £1000 is it without my till. Just hang on there while I just work it out on this pad here...

5Foot5 · 13/01/2015 13:30

I have never worked in a retail environment but it occurs to me that this girl's till will have shown an imbalance at the end of the day because she will have 1 more in it than should have been so presumably by now some sort of query will already have arisen?

Or is it only banks and building societies that have that kind of till reconciliation at the end of the day?

Topseyt · 13/01/2015 13:33

I wouldn't send any complaint if the amount in question was only around a quid, especially if I had already got some distance from the shop in question before noticing it. If it was for a large amount I would contact them and ask for a correction to be put through, but not for such a tiny amount.

I imagine an often crowded West End store such as Selfridges must be one of the most challenging places to work the tills (the last time I was there was many years ago, but some things never change). Experience is the cashier's friend, I imagine, but there must only be one way to gain it once basic training has been completed, surely. It would be high pressure because of the sheer number of different customers going through it.

I work in financial services, not in retail. My mental arithmetic is OK and I would have known what the change should have been for that simple transaction. Working a till on a very busy shop floor like Selfridges at Marble Arch though would be a very different proposition to just sitting at a desk doing simple stuff in my head and larger sums on a calculator, without a massive queue of customers jostling around, some probably tutting and shaking their heads just for good measure. I am pretty sure I could go blank if I made a mistake in that sort of situation and struggle to put it right, particularly if I were new-ish in the job or something.

I must say, I sometimes marvel at the stamina some of these workers must have. I am in the "have a little empathy" camp.

BuzzardBird · 13/01/2015 13:39

It won't 5foot, I have explained it all above ^

Scholes34 · 13/01/2015 13:45

No point in making a complaint to the store. Better to have a rant here, because it all comes down to a dependency we now have on computers/tills etc and are unable to think independently. I had a similar situation in M&S café recently. My purchases came to around £5.07. I handed over £20 and then spotted a 10p in my purse. I said I could give a 10p, but the cashier wasn't able to work out that she could give me a £10, £5 and 3p in change, rather than lots of coins. She got very flustered and I got lots of coins.

My mental maths was helped out a great deal when I had a Saturday job and had to add up all purchases in my head because the till wouldn't.

slithytove · 13/01/2015 13:47

Yes the till might have been up by £1 depending on other transactions that day, and yes in retail the tills are cashed up daily.

But in my store, £1 wouldnt flag an investigation on its own.

YesIDidMeanToBeSoRudeActually · 13/01/2015 13:51

I would assume she just had a "flustered" moment and then couldn't see her way back, all retail workers have probably done it whether you work in Harrods or Asda. I know I have and I still remember 20 years later, the customers which were lovely and which were complete cocks when it happened as I felt so foolish. Maybe she was tired or had just been so busy she lost her concentration for a few moments. My "foolish" moments were when after I returned to work when my baby was six weeks old and I couldn't have given change from a pound for a 99p item without a calculator for a few weeks!

I just can't imagine being of the mindset to complain about something which is really so trivial, it wouldn't even cross my mind! I'm sure she didn't do it spite you, whereas if you complain you would be doing it to spite her - if that makes sense.

It must be hard expecting everyone to be perfect all the time OP. Can't you just let it go?

Topseyt · 13/01/2015 13:55

Would any shop till, particularly a very busy department store, balance to within £1 at the end of any given day? I know little about them as I haven't done that type of work, but somehow would be surprised. There must be any number of things or incidents in any given day which could cause it to differ from what it should, surely. I'm talking price queries, perhaps goods that have found to be slightly imperfect (shop-soiled??) so the customer wants to negotiate on price if they still want it?? I have done that on occasion, though it is uncommon.

I would have assumed that they must balance "within tolerance", but do they really have to be exact? Be interested to know.

slithytove · 13/01/2015 13:59

Our tills were rarely exact, but most balanced to within 10p.

Price queries, discounts etc would all be registered through the till.

Imbalances come from the till being put out with too much/not enough, bags of change not being right, short/over changing customers, or theft.

BitOutOfPractice · 13/01/2015 16:31

Her till would have balanced. It had the right amount of money in it to correlate with what she'd rung in. She didn't ring in the 10% discount so it wouldn't show up in the till balance.

See! Not as easy as it looks is it? It's especially rich the op complaining since she didn't notice the 10% being missed off the translation till quite a while later yet we are assuming the shop assistant is 7 shades of thick because she forgot it.

Give the girl a break and

slithytove · 13/01/2015 16:38

Chance are the discount automatically was taken off. You know it went through as it was on the receipt.

It probably added to the cashiers confusion as the customer said a different amount.

slithytove · 13/01/2015 16:39

So the till would have been £1 up

Coumarin · 13/01/2015 16:47

God, just leave it.

Till training is minimal in all retail environments. Staff are e PE red to learn as they go. You sending a complaint over two minutes lost time and a pound won't change that. It will, however, get the woman who served you into trouble causing her to feel even more anxious and flustered under pressure.

Seriously, not said this since I was about 14 but get a life.

Coumarin · 13/01/2015 16:49

*expected

fluffling · 13/01/2015 16:58

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

YoullLikeItNotaLot · 13/01/2015 17:00

Dafspunk

I completely understand that it's a simple sum and she should have been able to do it but have you never panicked and had a mental block?

Agree. Regardless of who people say the OP should complain about recruitment/training/customer service, it WILL come back to this individual assistant.

It's not a massive deal, you weren't scammed, you missed out on your quid of discount, she's had a bad day.

grocklebox · 13/01/2015 18:33

People, all she had to do was cross out a 3. Mental block or no, she had fingers, a pad and pencil, and several minutes, and she couldn't minus 30 from 37.01.
This is not a til training issue, its a what the fuck are people learning in a minimum of TWELVE YEARS OF MATHS LESSONS in your country?

grocklebox · 13/01/2015 18:33

People, all she had to do was cross out a 3. Mental block or no, she had fingers, a pad and pencil, and several minutes, and she couldn't minus 30 from 37.01.
This is not a til training issue, its a what the fuck are people learning in a minimum of TWELVE YEARS OF MATHS LESSONS in your country?

BitOutOfPractice · 13/01/2015 22:58

Slithy if it went through automatically, why didn't it show in the total?

slithytove · 13/01/2015 23:21

It showed on the receipt. I guess the op did the sum of £20-12.99 in her head.

slithytove · 13/01/2015 23:22

At no point does op say she could see the total on the till

FoulsomeAndMaggotwise · 14/01/2015 00:18

Oh for god's sake! She was working in one of the most stressful retail environments you can work in, they fire you for nothing in that place, there was a queue, she's probably expecting to be treated like crap by her customers based on her experience and she made a mistake. She got flustered, had a mental block and accidentally short changed you for a quid. Boo hoo.

Give the girl a break and find something more important to worry about.