"You didn't want your penny did you?"

fluffnutter

arcon5 wrote: »

I'm betting though that wouldn't stand up in court.

These these, it's implied that if you give somebody a higher value of money for goods you expect change. If I purchase goods at £9.80 and give them £10, i'm doing to on the agreement that they will give me the difference back -- and shops know and accept this, hence the fact they usually have change and their tills calculate the amount to give back.

Moreover, not only do their tills calculate the correct change, they're also programmed to scan and record the goods at the stated price, not what the customer has handed over.

Accepting whatever price is proffered by the customer would create an accountancy nightmare. Balancing the books with stock sold would be nigh on impossible.

fluffnutter

unholyangel wrote: »

Its been said on this site quite a few times that realistically, you should pay in the exact amount because no change can be demanded.

If for example something is £9.99 and you offer £10 as payment....you're offering £10 in exchange for the goods, not £9.99. At least this is how it has been explained previously.

Both parties to a transaction are free to agree to accept any form of payment whether legal tender or otherwise according to their wishes. In order to comply with the very strict rules governing an actual legal tender transaction it is necessary, for example, to offer the exact amount due because no change can be demanded.

So when I offer £5 for an item on sale for a tenner, that's OK too? If I can't demand change when I offer more, than a shop can't demand more money if I offer less.

You've taken that last paragraph from the royal mint website and used it to suggest that offering £10 for a lesser-priced item means you can't realistically expect change. I doubt that this is a practical example of what the rules around legal tender are about.

JulieElizabeth

I love going to Burger King because of the amount of discarded pennies one can find on the counter and surrounding floor area.

Azari

moneypooh wrote: »

I stopped for petrol the other day and they had chocolate bars on offer at the till. I only wanted a small bar of galaxy for my son and the SA tried to convince me to buy one 4 times bigger, but only 30p more expensive. I said I didn't want the bigger one and he seemed shocked because the bigger bar 'was much better value for money". He was quite pushy but I didn't budge. He really didn't understand that I didn't need a bigger bar, the cost really wasn't the issue. In times where childhood obesity hits the headlines everyday pushing bigger bars of chocolate isn't really appropriate regardless of the savings?

Why did you not buy the bigger bar, divide it into 4, give your son one quarter and place the rest at the back of the freezer ready to be dished out on other occasions.

You would have saved a little money in the long term and, apparently, every little helps.

symikins

on ski trips to bulgaria and also ltaly many years ago l was quite often given a handful of sweets as change

dzug1

fluffnutter wrote: »

So when I offer £5 for an item on sale for a tenner, that's OK too? If I can't demand change when I offer more, than a shop can't demand more money if I offer less.

.

Yes that's OK too - the shop can either accept your offer or decline to sell to you.

The same as you can either accept that you're getting no/too little change or cancel the transaction altogether

esuhl

WelshBluebird wrote: »

Sorry, but I think it is more that £9.99 sounds less!
Or am I too cynical?

I'd never heard the explanation that it kept sales assistants on their toes, but I did read about a psychology experiment where people's ability to estimate the cost of a basket of shopping was tested.

I can't remember the details, but the conclusion was that people's perception of cost isn't on a progressive linear scale, but they instead categorise costs into "value blocks", so people see an item priced at £9.99 and unconsciously think of it as being in the "items worth more than £9 but less than £10 block". Items in that "block" are judged to be roughly equal in value. Adding a single penny can shift the perceived cost into the next block.

So shoppers trying to keep a rough running-total will generally estimate a basket full of items priced at £x.99 to cost less than when the pound were rounded...

NBLondon

dzug1 wrote: »

Yes that's OK too - the shop can either accept your offer or decline to sell to you.

The same as you can either accept that you're getting no/too little change or cancel the transaction altogether

Correct - and unholyangel was correct in the first place. A shopkeeper is under no legal obligation to give you change. That's why vending machines etc. may have signs for "No change given" or "Exact money only". They do it to get repeated custom; because otherwise people would go elsewhere. If the cashier in the opening example is also the shopowner, they could make that decision. The computerised barcode reading & stock updating tills take that decision away from the operator but I've seen intelligent cashiers do the same thing as Alex-Riley describes - ask for an extra pound coin to make the change a fiver instead of four ones that they don't have.

wary

warehouse wrote: »

Next time you go in there give her 1p too little. See how quickly she asks for that d*mn penny.

I have firsthand experience of how companies react if someone tries to pay a penny less. I was once sent a letter that was 1p short on postage, and the post office said I couldn’t have it until I paid £1.01. Having said that, when I went to collect the letter, the guy in the sorting office did use his discretion and said I didn’t have to pay for the sake of 1p.

katerinasol

WelshBluebird wrote: »

Sorry, but I think it is more that £9.99 sounds less!
Or am I too cynical?

I don't think it sounds less, I always round it up to a tenner in my head anyway