Long-changed
I was in the queue in Stanford's book and map shop at lunchtime, and the woman in front of me bought a book worth £9.95. She paid with a ten pound note.
Now, I didn't actually see what happened immediately after, but then the woman started as if to leave the shop, then stopped and said that the shop man hadn't given her the 5p change. He said that he had, and she said, "No-o..." [where one's voice goes down, and then up again on the 'o']
His sardonic retort was, "I can give it to you again if you want?" The woman seemed happy with the outcome, took the 5p and left the shop.
If the woman was right, why wasn't she incensed by the man's sardonicism? If the man was right, then one of two queries arises:
- if it was a genuine error by the woman, does she have a memory shorter than a goldfish?
- if it was a deliberate ploy by the woman, is this a con trick which is easy to perpetrate, and if you accumulate the profit of 5p (or 1p for £X.99 items) from every cash transaction you ever make, you can earn good money?
Have any readers witnessed this first hand?
2 comments:
It's the principle - or at least the 'perceived principle'. If the woman felt that she'd been done out of money - even if it was just 5p - she might feel a bit cheated and stupid and 'taken advantage of' all day. She might be thick skinnd enough to ignore/deflect sardonic patronising remarks, but not enough to live with feeling stupid having been conned out of money.
I personally always feel a bit cheated when places (usually my local Kebabarie) display £2.99 for something but dont make any attempt to give you change. That said, I never complain.
the problem with trying to make money in such a way would be that after a while, you wouldn't be able to return to the same store ... and one would then presume the time it would take to go out of your way to a different place wouldn't really make it worth it any more.....it would be an interesting experiment to see how many times you could get away with this in one day though (in different establishments, of course!)
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