Posted on 11/02/2011 5:43:43 PM PDT by Morgana
PORTLAND, Ore. -- A woman in Portland said her local grocery store refused to allow her to pay for her shopping cart items with $32 in loose change.
The shopper, who was too embarrassed to use her name, said the clerk at the Save-a-Lot store would only accept $5 of the change, claiming it was store policy, KATU reported.
The woman told KATU that she tried to use her loose change at another area grocery to buy her family food -- a Fred Meyer store -- but the manager there directed her to a coin exchange machine instead, where the fees run about 10 percent.
She said the Fred Meyer manager later agreed to cover the exchange machine fee after she started sobbing.
Representatives from each of the stores later apologized for the incidents, and advised that store employees and managers would be retrained on checkout policies -- specifically that all payments, cash or coin, were accepted.
(Excerpt) Read more at wlky.com ...
what is with people?
I’d rather wait behind a person paying with coins, than wait behind a cart-load of steaks, snacks, and candy that whips out a purse FULL of Food Stamps to count out.
I tend to agree.
She COULD have tried the service desk first though, to see if they would turn her coins into dollars for a faster checkout. Save the cashier and people waiting in line behind her from the misery.
The smart move? Divide your purchase into $4 increments (so as to cover sales tax). After the third or fourth transaction, I believe the cashier would reconsider.
I doubt that has happened recently.
I usually have a couple dollars in change in my pocket. Glad to get rid of the extra weight ;)
The store has their right to set their policies.
She wasn’t really doing anything wrong, just against the store policy.
I am satisfied with the knowledge that some of those same jerks are some of the people begging me for a job today.
It ticks me off to hear of stories like this. Here is a woman who wanted to spend a legal currency to provide for herself. All I can say to those who wanted to stand in her way or look down upon her is: Karma is a ruthless bit&h and it will catch up to you!
I rather be behind her than some luddite with a checkbook.
Either the store gets a cut of the machines revenue or the store owns the machine outright
They are forcing people to go to the machine.
Also it takes a store employee a considerable amount of time to count $32 in loose change.
I can understand the store policy not to accept more than $5 in loose change. It is the fault of our leadership. It is a unproductive use of employee time
The value of coin money has been reduced to the point that nickels and pennies should be removed from circulation as they are essentially worthless. In reality you can not buy anything with any coin less than a quarter.
Same here! I have done what she did only not bought $30. worth of stuff. Usually a $1. or $2. dollar item that I paid all in the pennies I saved up. Most stores love them because they need the extra pennies for change.
Either way it is legal tender and the bank can always take it.
I’m a cashier.
What I would appreciate most, in this situation, is for people to have their change organized for easy counting.
Most of them have the change thrown in a baggie in all sorts of amounts.
Also, one of the reasons why that grocery store might have had a problem with that is that many cashiers are often rated for productivity by how many customers they can push through the door.
Which? The coins payment, or the fistfull of Food Stamps?
Grocery store cashiers are required to maintain an RPM (rings per minute) to avoid be disciplined and/or fired. They are also required to maintain an accurate till to avoid being disciplined and/or fired. Counting out 32 dollars in change to maintain an accurate till will wreck the RPM’s.
Maybe the lady could have rolled the change. Then it could have been weighed at the service desk.
She gets her groceries, the cashier keeps his or her job.
Imagine if every customer came in and paid with change.
Most stores would and should be grateful. Here is $32. in change they don’t have to go get from the bank.
AS for others waiting in line? Okay, all of you how many times have you been in Wal Mart, K Mart, Target, or any other place like that where they have 25 cash registers yet only 5 or less people are running them? Okay have the moron sitting around picking his nose in the back come over and open the next register so the line comes down. Even better let the manager open the next register, that is what he is paid to do, paid to think not be a dumba$$.
That is hilarious.
Brinks delivers change daily to our local supermarket.
The food stamps are now on EBT cards just like a debit card this eliminates the purse full of stamps and the repeated purchase of one package of ramen noodles to collect enough change to purchase beer.
Long ago and far away I used to grocery shop with rolled quarters from my laundromat business never had a grocery store complain.
I doubt anyone has "whipped out a purse FULL of Food Stamps" in a long time.
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