They never listen do they?

[Plaidman]

Two stories today, of people who just couldn't listen.

If we sell it, then I can cash it

SC: Hey, can I cash money orders?
Me: Only brands we sell and I can only do up to 50 dollars.
SC: This is great! Its a ten dollar one, if thats ok?
ME: As long as its under 50 and the one we sell, yeah.
SC: *pulls out a MO that is diffentally not ours* So I got this while I was in texas.
ME: .... We don't sell that.
SC: But I got it at Plaid!
ME: No. Impossible. We're only in Oregon and Washington
SC: ....oh.... But its only ten dollars, it should be ok!
ME: ..... No.


We don't take that!
Gawd I hate bottle returners, they are rude, stinky, screamers and thieves. The man comes in, and has two HUUUUUUUUGe bags of bottles that are already leaking through the bags. That being said, we have three sections for bottle returns. Two boxes about 5 feet tall, one for cans the other for plastic bottles. We carry the original crates for that carry bottles (They can hold 4 six packs, so 24 bottles per case). We also can only return what we sale, period. So while that means we can take coke cola cans, we cannot take for example, cherry coke cola cans because we don't sell it. After many years of customers attempting to scam us by throwing whatever they want, be it brands we don't sell or store brands like Fred Meyer into it, and skipping how many they throw in (1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 12, etc) we have implinted that all customer put cans into small cases, so we can count them quickly and weed out what we don't sell, and then we throw them into the big boxes. That being said.


SC: I throw them in the boxes and count them!
ME: No, we put them in these small cases so we can fairly count them.
SC: K!!! *starts putting in kinds we can't sell*
ME: I can't take those.
SC: *Puts it back into his bag, and pulls out another can of the EXACT kind I just said we can't take*
ME: I just said I can't take those!
SC: *puts it back into his bag, and then pullls out YET ANOTHER EXACT KIND I have just said TWICE I can't take*
ME: I SAID I cant TAKE THOSE!
SC: OK! Fine! *starts throwing plastic bottles into the huge bin! 1, 2...
ME: STOP! Put them into the small cases!
SC: Ok, I had three in there
ME: No, you had two.
SC: I had three.
ME: No. You didn't. You put these two in! *Grabs the two he threw in*
SC: Just because you said it, doesn't make it true.

At this point, I lost it. I told him to go to the store down the street, because he obviously cant' listen, nor follow the big ass list of rules we have posted twice on the walls for bottle returners.

SC: But I need my beer!
ME: Not my problem. We can't take any of your bottles, and your tried to scam me already. I dom't need your grief.


He did leave at least, but he made sure to attempt to break my door on the way out.

[depechemodefan]

ew, liquid dripping from the bags. You know it's stagnant.

[HYHYBT]

Why are they so picky about what cans are returned to which store? It's not like they can be reused anyway.

[Anthony K. S.]

ME: As long as its under 50 and the one we sell, yeah.

. . .

SC: ....oh.... But its only ten dollars, it should be ok!

Ah, yes, I recognize this particular breed of Sucky Customer . . .

The ones who don't understand the word "and" . . . I realize that we are taxing the brains of the average SC by asking them to comprehend such an intricate little nuance of the English language . . . But, for the good of all, we must at least attempt to make them understand that the word "and" means both, not just one or the other.

Just recently, I had a customer attempt to return an item with a receipt that was dated at least three weeks, or perhaps a month, earlier.

My supervisor explained to her that since she was past the 14-day return period, we couldn't take it back.

The customer said, "Well, I don't understand. Then why does this receipt say . . ."

She turned over the receipt and pointed to where it said :

After 14 days or without a receipt, no returns or exchanges will be permitted.

. . . You know, it seems pretty basic. That statement means that in order to return an item, you have to have a receipt AND return the item within 14 days. If you fail to meet either requirement, you can't return it. Pretty basic, right?

Not to her, apparently, as she said, "Well, I have a receipt."

While I was fighting a desperate battle to refrain from rolling my eyes, my supervisor gently explained to her that she needed to meet both requirements to make a return or exchange, not just the second one alone.

<Sigh>

He did leave at least, but he made sure to attempt to break my door on the way out.

At my store, we once had a customer who actually did break one of the glass panels on our front door, with his fist, as he was storming out.

(I don't remember why he was so angry. I think he had been asked to leave the store, over some issue about his cell phone.)

I think that this guy seriously believed that he would just go to his car, get in, and drive away . . . I wish I could have seen the look on his face when he reached his car, only to be stopped by two police officers who informed him that he was under arrest for damaging private property.

(When happened was . . . As soon as the guy walked out of the store, our manager called our shopping center's security office and informed them of what had happened. The mall security, who are NYPD officers, caught the guy before he could leave.)

He was escorted back to the bookstore, where the manager informed the police that the store would be pressing charges.

Get this . . . The guy tried to talk his way out of it by saying that his mother was in the hospital and that he needed to go see her.

. . .

Why is it always the mother?

Come on, just a little effort . . . Try showing just a tiny bit of originality. At least pick a different relative. Father, aunt, uncle, brother, sister, cousin, niece, nephew, son, daughter . . . But, no, they always pick the mother.

[trunks2k]

Why are they so picky about what cans are returned to which store? It's not like they can be reused anyway.

If it's anything like CT, IIRC it's against the law because it's a deposit and laws on how it all has to function. When you buy the cans/bottles you pay the deposit. The store then sends the amount of money from the deposit to wherever. When you return the bottle, the store gives you back the amount of the deposit and then gets reimbursed from wherever the original deposit went. At the end of the year, there should be a surplus from wherever that goes to the state. IIRC, by law, the stores are only supposed to give a deposit back based on what they sold and the amount of $$ the send to wherever should be greater than or equal to the amount of $$ the get from wherever. It's to keep people from gaming the system (though I'd bet they'd still receive way more from deposits than they give out).

Of course, they can't tell if they sold an individual bottle/can and that a deposit was made on it, but if they don't sell a given brand then they know they didn't sell it.

All that said, plaidman's got a weird system. In CT we have machines that are programed with the bar code of the depositable products sold at the store. It scans the code and checks the weight to see if it has the correct weight for the item, if it's all good it's crushed/shredded, if not it's rejected.

[HYHYBT]

All I can say, then, is that the state's running the thing the wrong way around. Of course, if the purpose is to collect the unclaimed deposits rather than reducing waste, they're right on it.

[bainsidhe]

Do you have to take returns? Why even bother with it unless it's required? That, or a lot of sales are made by people making bottle returns.

[Broomjockey]

That, or a lot of sales are made by people making bottle returns.

I think I remember Plaid saying that a lot of bottle returners immediately reinvest in a case of beer.

[Evil Queen]

Wouldn't surprise me Broom; Datajager and I played with the idea of recycling the same way (one of hte grocery stores we went to had a recycle machine out front for soda cans). We didn't make much off the two months of collected cans (He and I both, at the time, was going through a case of soda a week) so we used what little money we got for another case.

Granted, this was while pepsi was $5 a case but still.

[Plaidman]

Do you have to take returns? Why even bother with it unless it's required? That, or a lot of sales are made by people making bottle returns.

That and its required by state law. Under 5000 square feet retailers must take upto 50 bottles. They cannot deny when it happens, though they can deny if they don't sell. Above 5000 thousand feet, (And it use to be all retailers so it really sucked when this was law) you must take up to 144 cans. Back when I first started, belive me the homeless used that in force. Now that is only big places like Fred Meyers, we get bottle returns alot less, but we still typically get all 50 from all bottle returners. Since we are under 5000 feet, we are very small store and no real place to store said bottles in that amount. We typically get 8 or 9 bags about four feet tall FILLED with bottles/cans a week.

Some of our stores are so small, they have to store them in the freezer, and alot of them leak onto the frozen food.

[mattm04]

We the the machines that scan the bar code. If we sell it it crushes it and give you a receipt for the total which can be used for cash or the amount off you purchase. If not it rejects it. Often times we have SC's who are too lazy to use the machine and try to get the Custoemr Service peopl to had count it and give them cash.

[Dips]

All I can say, then, is that the state's running the thing the wrong way around. Of course, if the purpose is to collect the unclaimed deposits rather than reducing waste, they're right on it.

If it works anything like is does in Massachusetts it's not the state doing that; it's the store.

Most retailers don't *want* to take returns and would gladly refuse to do it at all; however the law has minimum requirements.

Stores must take back bottles and cans for items they sell but they don't have to take back items they don't sell and they don't have to take back items which are dirty.

There's nothing stopping them from taking things they don't sell but, since they don't *have* to, they won't. Why should they when there is limited space and it's a pain in the ass?

We have special stores here called redemption centers. They will take everything (up to a daily limit) that has a deposit on it (as long as it's not dirty), whether they sell it or not. The state gives them the deposit amount plus a bonus for each item. So the streets get cleaned up and the redemption center makes a small profit. I go there because it's convenient for me to bring everything back to one place and the staff is friendly and fast.

[HYHYBT]

That makes sense. Though it seems like it would be a much bigger pain having to go through and see whether you sell that exact item than it would be to just take everything.

[TheRedHeadOFDoom]

In oregon there are odd laws on bottle returns, in addition to the limits of either 50 or 144, and the limits of what brands, there are also rules of what condition the can/bottle can be in.

The can/bottle, cannot be crushed, or overly dented, and must have the label intact/barcode able to be read. Cannot have anything besides the original contents, dust, or water in them (I.E. the bottle of Corona with all the little lime wedges or the soda can that has been used as an ashtray for three months DONT WORK HERE!!!!).

So, imagine, if you will...

A smelly, sweaty, all around grungy, dirty, evil, panhandling homeless man,(smelly as in reaks of urine, and the smell has texture. like, texture) standing in your store on the hottest day of the summer. The hottest day being 108F. (normal temp is at the highest is in the low, low 90's.) He is holding a bag of cans that almost smells worse than the owner. You then get to stand near him and explain to him why the store can't take certain cans, and he is getting mean because you are saying "No".

Now imagine taking up to $110 in returns, very similar to this, $2.50 at a time, in an 8 hour shift.

This is why a convience store should never be made to take bottle returns of any kind. There is a reason most bottle return machines are outside....