Store made me pay for sucky customer!!

[Amina516]

So, TA let me first say i AM on your side. The way you were treated was abhorrable and I would also be pissed. But I really dont think a lawsuit is going to get you anywhere. You had no actual damages. Do you have witnesses other than your BF? Does the store have a video tape with sound? Anything that can help you out?

I think going to the media and consumer reports/groupy people WAS a good move. I just dont know that the company is going to be made to give you anything (compensastion included) other than the half assed "we retrained" bit.

Keep Us Updated.I really hope youre able to get an answer you can live with.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Wow. Just...wow. -a-thon right here.

I don't know that I would've sued. I have a hunch the company my be figuring that their squadron of lawyers can get them off the hook and leave you with nothing but lawyer bills; thus they're telling you to go take a flying leap. But you obviously didn't make that decision lightly, and you gave them more than enough chances to set things right.

If this does get covered in any media--print, TV, web, etc--I'd like a link to it, if you're comfortable to giving it out. Just so I can see what outfit you're dealing with (this is a "name the company" scenario if I've ever seen one) and hopefully watch them squirm.

[BaristaTrav]

Having worked for two of the biggest corporations in the world, I can tell you that even the threat of a lawsuit can usually get corporate off their asses to address a customer complaint, wherein they may have previously ignored. So it can serve it's purpose even if you will not "win" anything in court.

[Sandman]

Any updates?

[Skrae]

Having read the whole thread, something definitely smells of fish, and not the Fish Custard that the new Doctor is apparently fond of.

It definitely sounds like a scam, for all you know that "customer" might not have actually been a customer and was in on the scam, if indeed there is one.

And as for S-H-E-double-hockey-playing-equipment, they really should be more concerned about this, given that the actions of a lone, "independent company's" employee could drag their name through the mud single handedly.

Were I in your shoes, I'm not sure I'd say that I'd for sure sue them, but I'd definitely give them the threat, and reiterate going to the media, specifically mentioning how they love to blow things out of proportion. Keep in mind you likely won't get much, if anything, and that lawyer and court fees may cause it to be not worth it.

Either way, good luck, and I look forward to seeing any news.

[I Pinch]

Sorry, this got rather long.

I work at a petrol station (which may happen to be a company-owned site of er, "beach thing corporate") and thought I might be able to explain, from a cashier's point of view, why the transaction was not so straight-forward. Bear in mind that an independent site could be running any system they want and the problem may not have been the same. However it does sound similar to what I'd go through, and it also sounds like a single-manned site like mine.




Where I work, there are two limitations that tie together to make this a sticky situation.

First of all we cannot charge the same fuel sale more than once. Once it has been paid, it disappears from the system and you can only get it back and charge someone for it again by voiding/correcting that sales receipt.

Secondly, we cannot void/correct/refund a sale made by a card through the till.

So lets suppose Customer A has £30 of fuel and Customer B has £55. Customer A comes in and gives the wrong pump number, ignores the cashier when he states the amount and goes through the motions with the chip n pin etc and ends up getting charged for Customer B's fuel. Instant problem. Customer A has now been overcharged by $15 and there's no way to undo it. There is just no perfect solution at this point.

At this point, fixing this depends on the situation. If you're lucky and Customer B is paying in cash, then you can take the £55 and just refund £15 in cash to Customer A, using the rest of the cash for his/her sale. It's not perfect as Customer A may have used a company card and will need to hand in the £15, explain what happened etc. Or Customer B may be claiming for the cost of fuel and has to explain why she now has a petrol receipt for her diesel car, and so on. It's a fix, not a solution.

I'm guessing this was what the cashier in this instance wanted to happen with his demands of cash.

If Customer B is also paying by card, then I'd probably ask Customer B to pay for Customer A's £30 through the till (with online authorisation) and then separately charge the other £15 with a manual voucher (the old card swipe imprinting thingy) and simply take £15 cash out the till to give to Customer A. This sounds like what happened with TelephoneAngel.




Whatever you do, you need the cooperation of Customer B. He/she can't just come up and pay for their fuel with a card. That sale is paid, it's off the system and can't be charged again. If the customer is leery of the multi-transaction thing then you can simply manual voucher the whole £55 sale at once but as the card has not gone through any online authorisation, you really need to make a phone call to the authorisation centre which could take anything from 5 mins to, in one case, 3/4 of an hour.

At this point, your problems are snowballing. It only takes a couple minutes of delay in a busy period to have a huge queue. A few minutes more and the traffic trying to access the forecourt will certainly be blocking the main road if it wasn't already. The longer the hold-up the bigger the problem. So now I'd be considering closing the site, asking customers who have not yet reached the pumps to leave and serving the customers who still have fuel to pay for. Only then can I devote my attention to Customer A and B. Of course this is totally unfair to B, the innocent party who is still waiting, but at least no one else is being held hostage in the queue, the traffic problem is solved and you can now devote all your attention to explain the situation, make phone calls when needed etc.

It can turn into a pretty stressful situation, and you can get all kinds of people shouting at you cos they want to pay and leave, cos they want fuel and haven't got it yet or just because they want to buy cigarettes. You've got to keep a cool head.

The cashier that TelephoneAngel encountered did it all wrong. He needed her cooperation to fix the problem! I just can't get over the whole shouting/humiliation thing. Frankly I think he couldn't handle the situation and lost the plot basically in trying to blame someone else.

Personally if I had been that customer I'd be tempted to call the police and explain that I'm at the petrol station, tried to pay and am now leaving without paying as the cashier is not charging ME for MY fuel and is now shouting at me to go to the bank. According to our local police here there is no crime involved if you tried to pay for your fuel. The worst that could happen is they would ASK you to return and pay, whereupon you get your pound of flesh from the manager who wants your money. Then it might be more evident that the cashier is not too suited to the job.



Anyway, sorry this got so long. I just wanted to point out that sometimes there isn't an UNDO button there for all of us.

[ottid]

Any more updates?

I would also like to point out that as the original problem stems from the independently owned site, not beach thing corporation, and therefore the legal action would be at Mr Independent, who probably can't afford the same lawyers as beach thing corporation. Media is the main way to hurt the larger company, and all of their media statements will refer to the fact that it is an independent, not company owned.

Also my 2c's on cost, this company is usually the cheapest here in NZ, drops before the two lettered one (well, most actually) and is one of the last to increase prices.

[TelephoneAngel]

Firstly thank you to IPINCH for explaining how this could have happened, in fact there would have been THREE transactions as he also wanted to scan the magazine I wanted to buy seperately, I might just have accepted TWO transactions but THREE was taking the piss somewhat.

I have just emailed beach corporate to point out that two weeks ago I emailed them asking for the name of the person responsible so I could get legal papers together, so far they have refused to give it but they must have it otherwise how could they have retrained him as per their (lies) to me.Lies because the manager of the store himself told me nobody was retrained and he didn't know what I was talking about when I asked him.However as he then pretended he couldn't speak English, if corporate don't give me the guy's name I can't sue.

I have asked agian for the name of the person but I'm pretty damned sure they're just in "fuck off we are ignoring you" mood.

[HYHYBT]

What, exactly, would you sue over? Was the total amount you paid larger than it ought to have been? It was a nuisance, nothing more; no damages = no grounds to sue... or so I've been told.

[Pagan]

*someone picks up phone does not give any greeting "yeah?"
me - is this xxxx garage? can i please speak to a manager?
person - yeah?
me - Can i speak to a manager?
person - "yeah?"
me - do you mean you are a manager?
person "yeah"
me - "i'm calling about a complaint i made and i'd like to ask."
person interrupts me "i don't understand you"
me - "i'm calling about a......."
person "i don't understand"
me "i'm calling.."
person"naaaahhhhh don't understand"
me - "you are doing this deliberately" *I hang up*

Whaddya wanna bet that this is the same ass you were dealing with in the original situation?

I am shaking with anger now

basically a senior executive called my boyfriend and basically said fuck off we don't give a flying fuck.

what he said was "we retrained the person and thats the end of it"

And that makes me wonder if it was indeed someone from corporate or if it was the station?

Now, maybe I'm not reading the OP correctly, but... isn't this kinda making mountains out of a molehill? You want to sue for, what? Embarassment and hurt feelings? Is that really worth the trouble?

What, exactly, would you sue over? Was the total amount you paid larger than it ought to have been? It was a nuisance, nothing more; no damages = no grounds to sue... or so I've been told.

I don't know if y'all have ever seen "People's Court" (http://peoplescourt.warnerbros.com/), but sometimes there'll be someone suing over a piddly amount of money, if any, and what it comes down to is that it's the principle. And so many of them could have been solved with a sincere "We're sorry", which is all that TA wanted, too.

[Pedersen]

Lies because the manager of the store himself told me nobody was retrained and he didn't know what I was talking about when I asked him.However as he then pretended he couldn't speak English, if corporate don't give me the guy's name I can't sue.

Actually, suing without the names is quite easy to do, and you have a number of methods to go about it. Before I proceed further, allow me to emphasize a particular point: I am not a lawyer, and I am not your lawyer. None of what follows is actual legal advice.

Still, without the name, you have many options: If this is a corporateBeachThing owned station, you sue BeachThing corporate. If it is an independent franchise, you sue independent franchise. If you must know the specific name of the owner, then a quick trip to your local records office will provide that information.

If you are looking to sue the cashier specifically, then what you do is you file suit against the station and against John Doe #1. Once the suit is filed, you are able to enter discovery, which will allow you to subpoena the name of the cashier from the station owner (a question that he will be required to answer or face contempt of court charges), and then the suit is amended to provide the real name in place of John Doe #1.

Note that you do not need to go after the individual cashier. After all, the cashier was representing the station when acting that way, and was therefore the voice of the station. As such, the station is responsible for his actions. They might do any number of things to reduce or remove their responsibility, but they are on the hook unless they do something.

As for the harm: Public humiliation is a form of harm.

As for the demands that can be made in a suit: punitive damages are not related to the actual dollar amount of the harm, but are exactly what they sound like: Money taken from the defendant as a way to punish said defendant for the harm done by the defendant to the plaintiff. The suit could also demand any number of other things, including a written (optionally public) apology, employee retraining, employment termination, and anything else the plaintiff can devise. What you will get is a question to be decided by the courts, but you can demand anything you wish.

Just some thoughts to ponder.

[MergedLoki]

Boyfriend was trying not to make a bad situation worse, and we would have ended up the sucky ones if that had happened but he wasn't very pleased about it, and me being upset and all.

kudos to your bf who must have zen-like patience lol.

if some asswipe pump jockey started yelling @ my gf for another customers/the clerks mistake. there'd be words.. at the least.

[Zellie Crescent]

Please update, please tell us that asshat will be fired.

[smileyeagle1021]

if some asswipe pump jockey started yelling @ my gf for another customers/the clerks mistake. there'd be words.. at the least.

Oh yes, if some moron cashier starting pulling that crap with my boyfriend... well lets just say I wouldn't be posting on customers suck for a while... oh and I'd probably need a new thing of pepperspray... and a good attorney...

[Bramble]

So has anything happened lately with this?