Customers holding money in their mouths

[Auburngal]

Plus coupons and lottery tickets/scratch cards.

Why do people think it’s ok to hold money etc in their mouths before giving them to retail staff? It is a disgusting thing past, present and future. Even in compulsory mask wearing times, even caught a couple of customers lowering their mask to hold money in their mouths. Then deny they didn’t do this - when at least another customer and/or colleague witnessed the incident too.

They would be horrified and demand to speak to a manager if we held money , lottery tickets and receipts in our mouths before handing them over to customers.

We have the right to refuse to accept anything which we seen being held in their mouths. If they kick off, management will back us 100%.

I remember a customer almost giving me a lottery ticket which she held in her mouth. I asked her when was the draw? She said the previous day. I said she still has another 179 days to check. So if the ticket was for a draw today - got til early Oct. I bet she went to the next shop that does lottery.

Now getting people coughing without covering up their mouths! Disgusting!

I suppose ideally if you're working you're set up with enough surfaces and things that you never find yourself with more things to hold than you have hands, and you're doing things that you have an established and practised routine for. While the customer is juggling a bag, a purse, a ticket, a receipt, some money, their phone, and their car keys, and maybe in a moment of distraction, they automatically and without thinking stick something in their mouths to hold it for a second like they would at home. That might explain why they deny it — if it was automatic and momentary, they might genuinely not remember doing it. But I'm very glad your management back you up if you, quite reasonably, refuse to accept the now-mouthed items.

That's disgusting 🤢

A friend of mine used to work in a mobile phone shop and said similar about people who wanted him to look at their broken phone then pulled it out from their bra. He refused to deal with them.

There's way more worse stuff on money than a tiny bit of someone's saliva. I used to be a cashier in a bank 20 years ago, I used to get up and wash my hands after every 5 customers, had sanitiser on my desk and never touch my face/mouth. Money is filthy. So I wouldn't worry about their saliva I'd worry for them putting that dirty stuff in their mouth. To make the point though you could take the money off them, put it in the till then immediately use sanitiser.

I bet that's one phone with a tripped moisture sensor.