Was I a (slightly) sucky customer?

[matty]

Tonight when I was shopping in the supermarket, I wanted to use up the remaining balance on an electronic gift card and pay the rest of the bill in cash. The cashier asked me what the remaining balance was on the card, and I said I wasn't sure, but it was about $8. She asked if I had the receipt from last time (which would have the exact balance printed on it). I said, "No, do I need it?" in a slightly sucky tone.

The cashier said it was all right, she would look the balance up, which she did, it was $7.20, transaction went through fine etc. I made sure that I thanked her extra nicely, but realized I had still been a bit sucky.

Of course I had no problem with the cashier - it's more that I think the supermarket should be able to work its systems so that cashiers don't need to save the transaction, look up gift card balances and then bring the transaction back up to do something like this - surely there is a computer system that allows split cash/voucher transactions to be calculated automatically?

[Broomjockey]

I really don't think you were sucky, as most places I've been to can just swipe the card and the balance pops up, and gets applied to the total, and anything extra can be payed however. If their system can't do that, then they need to upgrade to something better.

[BookstoreEscapee]

I was thinking exactly what Broomjockey said.

It's possible they had some kind of connection error and the system wasn't pulling the card info. We used to have that problem once in a while. I remember one day the system was auto-approving all cards, which was fine for credit cards, but if gift cards got approved for more than their balance they would end up with a negative balance (of course this was in the customer's favor so they didn't care). We would have to call for the balance, but then the whole company was trying to get through so that took forever, too. This was when AMEX still did the gift cards; I think such problems were part of the reason they switched to a different GC company. I don't remember ever having such problems after the switch.

Of course, if we did have a problem like that we would just explain to the customer we were having technical difficulties, and ask if they knew the balance or if they wanted to wait while we called or pay some other way.

[Chazzie]

Naw

Naw, I don't think you were a sucky customer at all. That's a perfectly fine question to ask. I've never had a store ask if I have a reciept unless I was returning something. In fact, some stores ask whether or not you WANT the reciept.

[BookstoreEscapee]

It's so rare that you need a receipt to use a gift card, but then you never know when the computer's gonna go wonky so it's a good idea to hang onto it...

BN's registers used to print out a separate little receipt for each gift card with the balance on it. Which was fine if you were only doing a couple cards. But when you are ringing up a school order of 200 gift cards and each one prints out a separate little receipt? Yeah, that was fun. So glad when they turned that feature off. Now you can do a balance inquiry if the person really wants a separate receipt to give to the recipient.

[TiNAMARBLEx3]

I don't think you were being sucky. At my job though, when we check the gift card balance at my job, we just swipe the card and the balance comes up. Most customers at my job usually don't save their gift card receipts.

[mattm04]

I would say no. The store could been having computer issues with the GC issuer. Sucky would have been screaming like a 2 year old and demanding a manager the second it did not go your way.

[sarahj]

All the giftcards I know over here work like a debit card. When you pay, the cashier has to tell the register how much you want to pay using the card. If your transaction is $20 and the card is only worth $10, but you just put it through for the whole amount, it'll decline due to insufficient funds. Kind of annoying. That's why I either write the remaining balance on my gc in permanent marker or keep the receipts from previous transactions with it.

Otherwise, yeah, we have to do a balance inquiry. Should only take a minute. It's annoying but next time just keep the receipt from your last transaction with it.

[Becks]

I don't think you were sucky.

I, for one, wouldn't know the balance of a gift card of mine off the top of my head, and I'm not fond of hauling around receipts "just in case"...especially since I rarely haul my purse along with me.

[Marxfan]

You were just fine, and it's not as if you bit the cashier's head off.

Don't even worry about it. No matter how you asked "do I need it", I'm sure the cashier didn't give it a second thought.

[BookstoreEscapee]

All the giftcards I know over here work like a debit card. When you pay, the cashier has to tell the register how much you want to pay using the card. If your transaction is $20 and the card is only worth $10, but you just put it through for the whole amount, it'll decline due to insufficient funds. Kind of annoying. That's why I either write the remaining balance on my gc in permanent marker or keep the receipts from previous transactions with it.

B&N has that issue with things like Visa or AMEX gift cards, but not with the store's own cards. If the card has never been used before, it will go through even if it's not enough to cover the transaction, and the register will then prompt for the remainder, but if it doesn't have the full starting balance on it, it will decline and you have to actually enter the amount you are redeeming it for. That's usually the only time we need to ask if the customer knows the balance. Otherwise we'd either call for the balance, or put it through multiple times for smaller amounts until it stops taking it. Which is annoying but it works. Then I'd advise the customer to call and check that the balance is zero before tossing it.

[matty]

Thanks all for your replies, and a special thanks to sarahj - the system makes sense to me now.

While I've had several retail/customer service jobs, I haven't done any cashier/register work for a few years (which kind of surprises me when I think about it!)