Incorrect receipted money

Rusty_Shackleton

I can't believe some of the claims being made here.

The only thing that is relevant is the receipt. The business has issued a receipt confirming payment, checked by two staff.

OP, ignore the people talking about the business taking you to court. If you genuinely let them count the cash, and they then issued a receipt for the full amount (i.e. you didn't reach over the counter and take cash back or anything like that), then the mistake is theirs and theirs to own.

If this were to end up in court, the only evidence you need is your receipt - it's literally issued as evidence of your payment. Till and cash management in the business is none of your concern. Your defence to the businesses accusations is simply how do you know staff didn't steal it, or the owners didn't steal it?

I'd ask to see evidence that you underpaid by £500 and ask how they know it's not theft by staff. If they can't produce evidence then tell them to get stuffed and they need to get the police in to investigate.

spadoosh

Rusty_Shackleton wrote: »

I can't believe some of the claims being made here.

The only thing that is relevant is the receipt. The business has issued a receipt confirming payment, checked by two staff.

OP, ignore the people talking about the business taking you to court. If you genuinely let them count the cash, and they then issued a receipt for the full amount (i.e. you didn't reach over the counter and take cash back or anything like that), then the mistake is theirs and theirs to own.

If this were to end up in court, the only evidence you need is your receipt - it's literally issued as evidence of your payment. Till and cash management in the business is none of your concern. Your defence to the businesses accusations is simply how do you know staff didn't steal it, or the owners didn't steal it?

I'd ask to see evidence that you underpaid by £500 and ask how they know it's not theft by staff. If they can't produce evidence then tell them to get stuffed and they need to get the police in to investigate.

Your argument makes perfect sense. Which leads to the question then why would the business pursue the OP for £500 they know theyre not entitled to? Like you dont do it at work do you, pick a random client/customer to try and extrapolate an extra £500 off them on the off chance they chuck a stack of money at you without you having counted it before.

I also mentioned that receipts can show mistakes. Ever been charged twice for something by mistake, ever had an item missed off your receipt? Yes it can act as evidence for something but it will rarely been seen as evidence in isolation, because it is fallible.

Ive mentioend i suspect the business have the relevant evidence which is derived from personal testimony of the staff members, assessment of stock levels and balancing accounts (or unbalanced as the case will be). By their apparent determination to pursue £500.

You should also bear in mind that were not dealing with criminal courts here. This is a civil matter and that comes down to the balance of probabilities. Now whats more probable, someone making a mistake counting money or someone stealing money. Whats more probable, a customer trying to pull a fast one by taking advantage of a mistake or a company deliberately trying to scam a customer out of £500 whilst giving them a receipt to say they dont owe any more.

The reality of going to court is somewhat speculative, it depends on the business and how likely they are to look to recover any money that might be owed, some are ruthless to the last penny. Others as you mention will own a mistake. From a legal standpoint both options are perfectly acceptable.

Rusty_Shackleton

spadoosh wrote: »

Which leads to the question then why would the business pursue the OP for £500 they know theyre not entitled to?

......

Now whats more probable, someone making a mistake counting money or someone stealing money. Whats more probable, a customer trying to pull a fast one by taking advantage of a mistake or a company deliberately trying to scam a customer out of £500 whilst giving them a receipt to say they dont owe any more.

I would assume more likely staff mistake or theft, and a manager or owner trying to apply pressure on a customer to make up the shortfall - perhaps because they're opportunistic, and the OP is considered the path of least resistance compared to recovering money stolen by staff?

You're making an assumption about what others will conclude re: balance of probability. I think it more likely the business is trying to pull a fast one to avoid the cost of staff theft/mistake. With respect to the OP, handing over the cash for staff to count out makes me wonder if the OP is elderly. Would that change your perspective on the matter Spadoosh? If the customer is vulnerable, can you see how opportunistic thieves might instigate this situation?

spadoosh wrote: »

I also mentioned that receipts can show mistakes. Ever been charged twice for something by mistake, ever had an item missed off your receipt? Yes it can act as evidence for something but it will rarely been seen as evidence in isolation, because it is fallible.

But this isn't a receipt from Tesco, there's a whole lot less room for error for one payment, that's intended as payment in full, than a typical transaction in a shop. The OP was there to pay the full remaining balance.

The only way I can think the shop could prove underpayment was if they have very high resolution CCTV and the staff counted it out ridiculously slowly for the camera. Even then, the OP could simply argue the staff had notes stuck together or something, and that's why they issued a receipt for the full amount, because it was paid. The receipt is an overwhelming piece of evidence, not so much that the money was definitely paid, but that the business accepted ownership of the goods had been transferred.

I appreciate your point about civil vs criminal, but I doubt any court is going to side with the business in the circumstances described by the OP (assuming it's wholly accurate)... I mean think of the precedent it would set!

spadoosh wrote: »

relevant evidence which is derived from personal testimony of the staff members, assessment of stock levels and balancing accounts (or unbalanced as the case will be)

These things aren't evidence against the OP. Two members of staff counted the money and issued a receipt for it. The records created by staff, who are clearly suspect in this matter, are not reliable evidence. Even if it's not theft, if they can miscount by £500 or get a receipt wrong, why is that more likely than them getting a till check wrong?

Aylesbury_Duck

I understand your viewpoint, Rusty, and I can't really disagree with anything you've said but OP's account of the situation, particularly his choice of words, makes me suspect he's not telling the whole truth. His account is carefully ambiguous and evasive.

Rusty_Shackleton

Aylesbury_Duck wrote: »

I understand your viewpoint, Rusty, and I can't really disagree with anything you've said but OP's account of the situation, particularly his choice of words, makes me suspect he's not telling the whole truth. His account is carefully ambiguous and evasive.

True, but again that could be down to something like elderly/disabled/English as a second language, and everyone here seems to be assuming that the OP is operating in bad faith, when they might just be somebody being unfairly pursued by a business... given where we're all typing this, we know full well there's no shortage of businesses who would sell their own grandmother and ours if they could get away with it, I don't find the OPs story all too implausible, other than handing over the cash for them to count... but then I can imagine my nan doing something like that

k3lvc

Out of interest OP - where are the goods ? Do you already have them in your possession or are they still with the supplier/retailer ?


This could have a significant bearing on how you take this forward

troffasky

The chances of somebody deliberately underpaying a business by £500 and then posting on a forum asking for help to deal with the inevitable response is approximately 0%. Armchair detectives, wind your necks back in!

spadoosh

Rusty_Shackleton wrote: »

I would assume more likely staff mistake or theft, and a manager or owner trying to apply pressure on a customer to make up the shortfall - perhaps because they're opportunistic, and the OP is considered the path of least resistance compared to recovering money stolen by staff?

If you suspect someone is stealing from you, you just dont go about protecting them and give them the opportunity to be stealing from you again.

You're making an assumption about what others will conclude re: balance of probability. I think it more likely the business is trying to pull a fast one to avoid the cost of staff theft/mistake. With respect to the OP, handing over the cash for staff to count out makes me wonder if the OP is elderly. Would that change your perspective on the matter Spadoosh? If the customer is vulnerable, can you see how opportunistic thieves might instigate this situation? It doesnt at all. Its a particularly stupid thief that tries to steal £500 and then give you something which is often used to confirm payment (the receipt), like how much do you think theyre playing that scenario out in their head?



But this isn't a receipt from Tesco, there's a whole lot less room for error for one payment, that's intended as payment in full, than a typical transaction in a shop. The OP was there to pay the full remaining balance. 'remaining', so something has been paid before, so not a single transaction, presumably for a number of items ('load of furniture'). Yep mistakes can definitely happen.

The only way I can think the shop could prove underpayment was if they have very high resolution CCTV and the staff counted it out ridiculously slowly for the camera. Even then, the OP could simply argue the staff had notes stuck together or something, and that's why they issued a receipt for the full amount, because it was paid. The receipt is an overwhelming piece of evidence, not so much that the money was definitely paid, but that the business accepted ownership of the goods had been transferred. They dont have to prove though, they have to make it look like the most
likely outcome. The majority of us immediately questioned the OP, well because it sounds odd. By definition its less likely.

I appreciate your point about civil vs criminal, but I doubt any court is going to side with the business in the circumstances described by the OP (assuming it's wholly accurate)... I mean think of the precedent it would set! The precedent is already set, each side provides evidence of their civil dispute and a judge decides on what they think is the most likely outcome. Thats the precedent set in civil court, higher courts dont have to follow their precedent.



These things aren't evidence against the OP. Two members of staff counted the money and issued a receipt for it. The records created by staff, who are clearly suspect in this matter, are not reliable evidence. Even if it's not theft, if they can miscount by £500 or get a receipt wrong, why is that more likely than them getting a till check wrong?

They are evidence. Evidence is the body of information indicating if something is true or valid. A huge ball ache for business is the need to have audit trails. Its basically so the tax man can come in and know where every single penny is or has gone. I spend a lot of time auditing and work to the penny, whether or not those two individuals can count or not is immaterial, anyone should be able to come along and count and get the same results. Its incredibly repeatable. Ive done this in a retail environment, tracing individual transactions among tens of thousands of them and you can always work out whats missing, the best thing is if you doubt yourself you get someone else in and they simply do their counts and get the same results. I also do this now with regards to book keeping. Incredibly repeatable, incredibly easy to highlight where accounts are under or overpaid and then youre just looking at a judge concluding that the evidence put forward is legitimate evidence and can then be used to conclude the probaility of each version of events.

As you say the receipt here should be key. Just show the company the receipt and theyll go away is what i said earlier. Apart from the OP not declaring if this has been done, im assuming it has been and the business are arguing that the receipt is mistaken. To do that, youd certainly hope they had something to corroborate that. Otherwise theyre really only wasting their time. I suppose their is the off chance that the random person they are dealing with is vulnerable, problem with thinking like that is, that person you think is vulnerable is just as likely to be trying to take you for a ride.

Aylesbury_Duck

troffasky wrote: »

The chances of somebody deliberately underpaying a business by £500 and then posting on a forum asking for help to deal with the inevitable response is approximately 0%. Armchair detectives, wind your necks back in!

I don't think that that's what's happened though. My suspicion is that OP didn't set out to underpay, but realised that the business made a counting error and hoped that would be that. Now he needs help because they're pursuing it. That seems to me to be the tone of the enquiry and subsequent posts.

I may be entirely wrong - I don't care either way - so I'll carry on being suspicious from my armchair, thank you.

spadoosh

troffasky wrote: »

The chances of somebody deliberately underpaying a business by £500 and then posting on a forum asking for help to deal with the inevitable response is approximately 0%. Armchair detectives, wind your necks back in!

No one said they deliberately underpaid.

What i think happened is they handed the money over. Was well aware they where handed back more than they should've been and is trying to play ignorant. Its called opportunism and is fairly common.

My OH did such a thing. She found a tenner on the floor and picked it up, finder keepers and all. Well she had the police show up at her place of work because she happened to be seen picking it up with her uniform easily identifiable. I clearly dont think shes a bad person, she was just ignorant and saw an opportunity.

I think this is more or less exactly the same as you buying something with £10 and the cashier gives you change as if you had given £20. Not your mistake, some will take advantage and keep quiet others will spot it and highlight the mistake.