Up to how much money would you give back? (clerk's error)

[stinkubus]

Yes, the most common technique is what we in the trade called "running an open drawer". A sharp cashier can and will start to be able to quickly calculate the total cost of a purchase without needing the register. They can then either quote customers accurate totals without ringing anything up or ring up only part of the sale and pocket the difference. Someone who is good at this can easily go undetected until your store gets a full inventory audit.

People who aren't so good at math will usually try to cover their tracks by voiding out sales. The reason an overage is such a red flag is because this is almost certainly what they are doing and just overshot their mark.

 

[Kyriakos]

Yes, the most common technique is what we in the trade called "running an open drawer". A sharp cashier can and will start to be able to quickly calculate the total cost of a purchase without needing the register. They can then either quote customers accurate totals without ringing anything up or ring up only part of the sale and pocket the difference. Someone who is good at this can easily go undetected until your store gets a full inventory audit.

People who aren't so good at math will usually try to cover their tracks by voiding out sales. The reason an overage is such a red flag is because this is almost certainly what they are doing and just overshot their mark.

If it is a large store (like a central supermarket) with tens of employees, is it so easy to establish who run this trick?

Then again, it would be very tedious and require running this scam forever in order to (still) make very little money.
("I need to reach my daily quota of +15 euros") ^_^

 

[stinkubus]

Supermarkets typically employ someone whose sole/primary purpose is counting the money, so no they aren't really disadvantage. Since the stakes are higher not only can they afford to put extra labor on it they can also afford better tech in terms of POS (point of sale) terminals which can and do include features that make detecting this sort of activity much easier. It's smaller operations with thinner margins who are most at risk. Think convenience stores (although these have scaled up in recent years) or mom-and-pop type operations.

My last retail job was managing a convenience store. We had an old, mechanical cash register. If an employee had a large number of voids I would need to unwind yards and yards of register tape trying to find the transactions so I could get a time stamp and check security footage at and around the time they were done. Bigger stores, or those with better tech, can probably just get reports for entire shift's or day's sales at the push of a button.

You are correct, the risk/reward is terrible. That won't stop desperate people or kleptomaniacs.

 

[really]

I was watching some random Gordon Ramsey show where he rejigged restaurants and bars.
They set up cameras to record the old vs new processes.
One caught a barman scamming the till by keeping a running tab of the scam with lemon slices as a unit of account.

 

[AmazonQueen]

It's sort of ridiculous that banks don't have to accept responsibility for their errors. If I accidentally overdraw my account, do I get unlimited and/or state mandated mulligans? No, they are permitted to charge late fees which are indistinguishable from usury. If the bank honors a transaction that overdraws my account what they've done is provided me a loan. If you call the finance charge a fee then I guess usury laws don't apply.

Cash handling businesses accept the risk of shrinkage by making the choice to allow a human to handle their money. Caveat emptor applies to the labor market, too, imo. I can tell you from my time in retail that cash handling, even if very busy locations, is not all that difficult. Any cashier who consistently has large variances is overwhelmingly likely to be stealing from you. Someone whose till is consistently over is a bigger red flag than one who is consistently short.

Even worse, they can refuse to honour a cheque that would make you overdrawn, then charge you a fee for issuing a bad cheque, and if the fee makes you overdrawn they will then start penalising you for that too.

 

[C0nstantG@ming]

This is a little tougher because I wouldn't want to harm anyone in a way that makes them potentially lose their job. As a cashier you should be able to count quickly and efficiently but living in America I know that is not the case they rely heavily on their machines to tell them how much change to give.

If it was a few hundred or less I would give it back for sure but I would be seriously tempted if it was over a thousand. It's hard to truly say unless you're in the situation.

 

[Zkribbler]

Remember = the more money that is involved, the more likely it is to be traced to you.

 

[Bestbank Tiger]

Depends on when I notice and how far away I am.

If I'm on a cross country trip and empty my pockets in a hotel room 500 moles away, I'm not going all the way back.

If it's 500 feet from my house or office I'll return it.