Ah, scratchcards. Don't you just love them? This happened a little while ago. It was a reasonably quiet day when Crazy Old Woman (SC) decides to grace the petrol station with her presence. She has a scratchcard she wants to claim back on. I scan it into the machine, and she's won £20, not a bad result. But the SC isn't having any of it.
"Excuse me," she said, in that tone of voice where they appear to be acting as tho you are lower than dirt. "Where's the rest of the money?"
I gave her £20, so I'm a little perplexed by this. "I just gave you it."
"I didn't win £20," she replies. "Actually, if you bothered to look properly, I won the jackpot."
This particular scratchcard has a jackpot of £200. She hadn't won it; even if I had missed that, the machine certainly wouldn't. I try to explain this to her, but even after about ten minutes of doing so (time for a giant queue of customers to form behind her), she's still insisting that she's owed £200. I have this feeling of wanting to bang my head against a brick wall. There's a stalemate basically; she refuses to believe me, and I'm not about to give her £200 out of the till that she didn't win. There's no telling how long the stalemate would have lasted, if my manager Tessa hadn't walked thru the door at that moment.
Tessa examined the card, told the SC that she was wrong and had actually only won £20, and that we weren't going to give her any more. The SC finally left, whining about how we had "stolen" her money and that she was going to complain. She never did, and on the times that she's been back, we've not heard another word about the money we "stole" from her.
"Excuse me," she said, in that tone of voice where they appear to be acting as tho you are lower than dirt. "Where's the rest of the money?"
I gave her £20, so I'm a little perplexed by this. "I just gave you it."
"I didn't win £20," she replies. "Actually, if you bothered to look properly, I won the jackpot."
This particular scratchcard has a jackpot of £200. She hadn't won it; even if I had missed that, the machine certainly wouldn't. I try to explain this to her, but even after about ten minutes of doing so (time for a giant queue of customers to form behind her), she's still insisting that she's owed £200. I have this feeling of wanting to bang my head against a brick wall. There's a stalemate basically; she refuses to believe me, and I'm not about to give her £200 out of the till that she didn't win. There's no telling how long the stalemate would have lasted, if my manager Tessa hadn't walked thru the door at that moment.
Tessa examined the card, told the SC that she was wrong and had actually only won £20, and that we weren't going to give her any more. The SC finally left, whining about how we had "stolen" her money and that she was going to complain. She never did, and on the times that she's been back, we've not heard another word about the money we "stole" from her.
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