Ulog #016: Cashiers and Receipts

Two years ago, it was the eve of my mum's birthday, so me and my brother traveled home to mark the birthday before running back to our places of work the next morning. It was on a Sunday evening. That evening, we visited a restaurant in town, bought some snacks, ice cream and rice with chicken. Our orders were well packaged and handed to us.

The lady at the billing machine summed up the items we ordered for and announced how much we had to pay. We nodded in agreement but she refused to print out the breakdown of our order. She just mentioned the supposed total figure. Something seemed fishy but I was about to ignore it, while my brother couldn't just take it. He demanded for the breakdown and the lady said the computer system just froze and she will not be unable to input any command until she reboots it.

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We then told her that we would wait for the "reboot" and she seemed to be struggling with the idea. When she saw that we would not go, she found a way, we didn't care how, but she printed our receipt and the real price was much less than what she initially called for us. We were not bothered about chastising her attitude, so we just paid the right amount and left. She probably thought we got the money on a platter and were just spending lavishly, so she could take advantage.

I was reminded of this event yesterday, when I got some toiletries in a mall in the evening. I didn't do a mental calculation of what I bought. I just heard my bill and I paid, tucked the receipt in my bag and left the mall. I was waiting at the nearest bus stop to take a cab home when I decided to just take a glance at the prices of the goods I bought. I opened the receipt and noticed something strange - I didn't buy the first two items on the receipt.

I was first of all confused. I checked my pack if something I didn't buy was mistakenly packed with it but there was nothing outside the items I picked. I immediately walked back to the mall. Apparently, someone bought those items before I got to the mall and the cashier somehow just added my own items to the previous person's items. I perceived that it was a sincere mistake on her part. She apologized and refunded the extra amount and I left.

I've learnt now not to always assume that things are right until I have checked through and confirmed that they are really fine. I figured had checked my receipt at the point of payment, I would have saved myself some time and energy. On the other hand, if it was an intentional thing that the lady did by including those items, she could have argued pointblank that I bought those things and have dropped them somewhere before coming to make my "false" claim. That would have been too disgraceful for me to handle.