Money Moral Dilemma: Should I report cashier who used loyalty card on my shopping?

stmartinsdiver

I would suggest that the next time you go into that store that you take your receipt and loyalty card in in and ask how your points have ended up on a card you don't recognise and leave them to investigate.

makesnosense

I understand that obtaining a living wage is difficult these days especially in a single income household. However what people seem to be ignoring is that even if the cashier is in a difficult position, you might be also.

I will say that saying someone has "chosen" their job these days is grossly misleading, especially if they have been receiving unemployment benefits as if you are offered a job on job-seeker's allowance and turn it down you can lose your benefits. Add to that you are made to apply for any job that comes along that you may qualify for and such a scenario happening to a cashier is not far fetched. Despite the possibility you are unlikely to know if that is the case, just as they are unlikely to know your situation. Even if they have children, if their household income is low they are entitled to child benefit.

In the past supermarket vouchers from loyalty cards have been the difference between eating or going hungry, not just for me but other members of my family. The reasons have varied, card fraud emptying my brothers bank account so that he had to rely on a couple of pounds of clubcard vouchers to feed himself until we could arrange help. My mother having an unexpected bill due to a council miscalculation leading to a last minute council tax problem and so on. These problems of course compounded by us being unable to save due to low incomes.

Knowing what may to some people be considered "just" 50p can be invaluable to people struggling so I would follow it up. Especially given you don't know who else is affected. I will also add to the comparison to speeding, that I consider this a serious offence also.

dianauni

I would be inclined to go to the cashier direct and tell her you know what has happened. In addition if I had a friend who shopped at the same store I would ask them to not use their card and to see if the cashier was still using hers. If she did then I would def. report her.

judywoody

Fitzmichael wrote: »

That's the modern attitude to honesty that's brought us to where we are. It's the attitude of those 'serving' you face-to-face in the bank etc, who mis-sold you insurance, investments, ..., robbing you to get their bonus.
How can the person doing this think there's no money=value involved when she is taking value from the cardholder and transferring it to herself? I realised when I was a boy going to school on the tram that people who got off without paying were doing something wrong and eventually worked out that we were all supposed to share the cost. It took some years before I realised that any shortfall would be reflected in fare rises for those who paid. If I knew that was your attitude, I wouldn't trust you with any business of mine. I think your final sentence applies more to you than it does to Duchy.

Please read my posts again and then comment! And by the way the examples you quoted were people who were already on good wages...please don't be dramatic....I have already said what she is doing is wrong but it's never a bad thing to give someone a second chance..

judywoody

duchy wrote: »

You've missed the point again ........ In this country people apply for jobs -there is choice. Whilst those choices may be limited by geography, education, other commitments etc - jobs are applied for not allocated.

As for me "stealing time" to you that may be acceptable and commonplace in whatever job you do (I note you work part-time) but it's rarely wise to assume that everyone does as you do.

All this nonsense about kindness. Is it a kindness if the store loses business because there is a perception that the staff are less than honest -and there are redundancies or reduced hours. The fact that the card number is on the receipt and was done slickly enough that the OP didn't see her do it indicates this is unlikely to be a one off. Customers notice this kind of shenanigans and vote with their feet. Why should other staff lose their jobs or have their hours cut because one person thinks the rules don't apply to them ? How is that kind?

Supermarkets are very clear with their cashiers about what is and isn't acceptable process - and the consequences.

In an ideal world all jobs would have a living wage but they don't and for every person who thinks poor wages entitles them to a bit of "skimming" there is an honest unemployed person who'd be happy to have the job and behave decently and honestly.

You must have been very lucky in the past with the choice of your jobs..I think you are better off than you make out to be in all honesty (despite a disabled child) and have no idea what it really means to be desperate for ANY type of job.. ever noticed that there are people out there who can't get anything else because of their level of education for example?

And to actually accuse me of "stealing" time whereas making yourself look like you or anybody else have never done this is purely and simply brash of you - not sure if you came across a recent statistic that shows how much money businesses loose because employees are idle. Maybe you are a holy Mary but statistics show otherwise and I am sure plenty of people here who commented on this matter are probably guilty of that because it's human to get carried away sometimes. What I was trying to say with my example is purely and simply that we are all guilty of some form of theft in one way or another whether you like/noticed it or not.

Is it kind to "steal" money from you employer? No of course not and if you read my post properly you would have noticed that I never said that it was ok of her to do that. All I am trying to encourage is that rather than getting her sacked (and potentially prosecuted) give her a chance. I think what she is doing as opposed to what her employer is doing is proportionally not the same (in terms of charging their customers millions more to actually finance this loyalty card scheme, putting their employees on zero hour contracts or very low hour contracts to employ as many people as possible and to make themselves look like great local businesses, sourcing unethical food, destroying the environment, avoiding taxes..I could go on) . Whether she needs sacking or not boils down to some extend to her attitude. If you think kindness isn't important..well.. to quote another person who just patronizingly indicated that because of my attitude I am a dishonest person:

That's the modern attitude to honesty [or in this case kindness] that's brought us to where we are.

You know - it cuts both ways. Honesty is important and believe you me I have very strong feelings about this. But at the same time we need to be balanced and not forget that we are dealing with human beings and that we are not perfect ourselves. So please stop this patronizing attitude because you are not better than anybody else -you might be super duper honest (at least that's what you are telling me) but you probably lack in other areas (and I don't have to look far as to what that might be....)

gloriouslyhappy

Good grief! Calm down everyone, it's just a hypothetical MMD!!

JeremyCH

Sorry, I'm with the majority - I regularly train in supermarkets and their approach is very clear - staff swiping their own card against a customer's transaction is both theft and fraud and they are well aware of this - as soneone said below - if they short-changed you and kept the money then I suspect you would compain immediately and I see little difference with this I'm afraid

OtherWindows

I work on the checkouts in Waitrose and am astonished to see that only one of you moneysaving experts has grasped the fact that the myWaitrose card is fundamentally different to all the others. It's a card that applies discount to certain products (eg milk (39p off 4 pints = £1), eggs (45p off 9 eggs = £1.50), butter (32p off 250g = £1)) and entitles you to free newspapers, coffee and magazines. So, if the incident happened in Waitrose, then it was just the cashier being kind and letting the shopper get the discount/free stuff or whatever. Is that theft?

judywoody

JeremyCH wrote: »

Sorry, I'm with the majority - I regularly train in supermarkets and their approach is very clear - staff swiping their own card against a customer's transaction is both theft and fraud and they are well aware of this - as soneone said below - if they short-changed you and kept the money then I suspect you would compain immediately and I see little difference with this I'm afraid

I wouldnt complain..especially not to her manager..I would check my change there and then and then notify her of the error..but that's not a complaint.

BethanL

You forgot your card, she deprived you of a few pence.

So she might make a few pounds a day if she does it on the shopping of everyone who doesn't have a card. What do cashiers get paid? A pittance.

If you could sleep easily after causing someone to be sacked from their job for such a petty thing as she no doubt would be then do it.