Burger King

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As a newbie money saver, thought I would tell a story (bit long I’m afraid) about an experience at Burger King in Manchester Airport about one and a half years ago (May 2003 – I know ages ago!) All is done and dusted with letters to and from them and have now received my money back, but thought I would post to pose the question of what do you do when the money you hand over is wrongly identified and your honesty is called into question....

Anyway, there I was a Manchester Airport wanting some food and so I chose Burger King (my bad taste and my bad choice! :P) Am looking at the prices on the menu and realise I don't have enough money (just a few coins), so I go to a cash point and withdraw £30 in the form of a £10 note and a £20 note. Arrive back at Burger King and after a short wait, order a Double Bacon Cheese Burger Meal costing about £5 with the one staff member who is serving (who is looking rather stressed out as it was busy at the time). Hand over the £20 note and receive £5 change. Of course I immediately query this with the staff member and he goes and talks to the manager. The manager comes over to me and says he is going to do a ‘till check’, where-by he counts all the money in the till to see if it is £10 over. After a few minutes, in which I’m standing in-front of other customers, feeling rather embarrassed but increasingly annoyed, he says the till only has a few extra pounds in it and so it can’t be my extra £10 in there. I ask him to do another check as I am absolutely certain that I gave the staff member a £20, but he refuses saying they are very busy.

At this point, I check my wallet and there is only a £10 note left in there and I stress the point to the manager that I had just withdrawn a £10 and £20 note and so was therefore certain that they had made a mistake. Manager wasn’t really interested and just gave me an address to write to. At this point, I am really p!ssed off. I didn’t lose my temper but basically just gave them back the meal and said to some customers nearby something about Burger King stealing money off me, which they effectively had.

After sending off a letter of complaint, being phoned up to corroborate my side of the story, and then having to write another letter after no response over a few weeks, I eventually get my £20 back with a letter of apology about 2 months after the incident. Their explanation was that there may have been some irregularities with the end of day money total of the till in question, although it sounded like they just made this up to make me go away and stop writing letters to them. So effectively no form of compensation.

While this may have happened rather a long time ago, it raises the issue of what do you do when someone misidentifies your money, especially bank notes? It basically comes down to your word against theirs and unless there is some form of proof, or you make a fuss about it as in my case, your money is gone.

Burger King has gone on my list of ‘will never shop/go there again’ and I have told all I know, never to go there. So maybe I will make some small miniscule dent on their profits, but I doubt it.

Thinking about it now, maybe I should I have stood my ground and demanded another till check or made a big fuss and warned every customer to double check their change. But would this have made any difference? The manager had made his mind up and thought that the mistake was with me. Have learned my lesson and from now on always try to pay for things with the smallest amount of money possible! oh and I don't go to Burger King anymore

Dasnookster

A tough call that one!

I am not agreeing with what Burger King did, but not everyone is as honest as you are and they probably get people saying all the time about how they have given them more money than they actually have. If I had been that manager and the till had not been ten pound short I probably wouldn't have given the money over either.

If I had been you I would have been seething too as when you know you are honest it would be extremely frustrating, but looking at it from both sides, not sure on this one.

16011996

difficult this one. i worked in a pub for a time, and we had to take customers name and address, and if the till wa up at the end of the night, a refund would be taken round next day, but you do get some who just try it.

MarkyMarkD

I agree with what BK did and what 160 says - the right procedure in a busy shop is to check the till at the end of the day, not to sort it out there and then.

Whilst you were absolutely sure that you were correct, people make mistakes like this all the time and think they've got the wrong change when they haven't. No sensible retailer is going to give "benefit of the doubt" to everyone who claims to have been short-changed.

Still, some compensation (like a free meal voucher) would have been in order when they identified their mistake - and an apology.

Poppy9

I think you should stand your ground at the time.

You often see signs in shops say PLEASE CHECK YOUR CHANGE AS MISTAKES CANNOT BE RECTIFIED LATER. Therefore if you point out their error then they should honour their sign. Also shop staff may be light fingered. Then the till will not be £10 up as it's in their pocket. In large shops/cafes etc always look to see where the security cameras are. In Mac Donalds they are usually trained on the tills so make them check them while you wait as they may overwrite them after a few hours. Also your money should be last note in. You can call the police if you are certain as technically it's theft if the shop refuse to give you the correct change. The police can then finger print the note.

When I worked in a shop (and before tills calculated how much change you needed) we were trained to always show a colleague a £10 or £20 note. The note was to stay on top of the till until you had counted the change. I try to remember when I am in a busy shop and I am handing over a £10 or £20 for smallish bill to say sorry I only have a £10/£20. Make sure it's loud enough for fellow shoppers/workers to hear.

Savvy_Sue

Don't tills have a sort of 'clip' at the front any more where you stow the note until you have handed over change? Or am I showing my age? 25+ years since I had a Saturday job at the Coop, lasted six weeks, hated it!

juno

Don't tills have a sort of 'clip' at the front any more where you stow the note until you have handed over change? Or am I showing my age? 25+ years since I had a Saturday job at the Coop, lasted six weeks, hated it!

Where I last worked, there was a clip for each note section, but it closed as soon as you shut the till draw. So if you put in a £5 note then it would show that until you closed the till. But we got told off if we put in a note the wrong way round, so if we put a note in the wrong place we would've got killed!

I think the problem now is that till training isn't as througurhgg. (i cant spell that word when i'm sober and im not now!) Only in one job (debenhams) was I given off floor till training, and the rest i was expected to learn as i went along. That's fine as long as you know what to do, but normally after one transaction you're expected to know how to cope with everything that could come!

IvanOpinion

Like Poppy I always state the amount of cash that I am handing over.

Ivan

worldtraveller

...I think most people have had a similar problem(s) at some time in their life. I'm not saying that we need to do the same as most sales establishments do in the U.S., but there till staff tend to say "Out of 10" (out of $10), or whatever, when you hand them money. Then there is a clear case of knowing that they agree with what you have handed them before it goes in the till.

loadsacash

I think that Burger King is an awful place - although it does tend to be the only place available in airports, railway stations and motorway service stations.

The staff are so slow. Any time I have been to Burger King I have had to wait for ages to be served.

I went to the Burger King in Princes Street in Edinburgh last january and there was a sign on the door saying that the men's toilet was out of order as it had been vandelised about a week before!

Give me Maccy 'D's any day!

Poppy9

Another thing about BK. When they are in Motorway service stations, airports, train stations etc. they charge a higher price than City Centre venues. I have not noticed this with Macdonalds though.