For those who worked in retail...

[JSnuffy]

... Have you ever had anyone come back and pay for merchandise that they mistakenly took out of the store and/or thought they had paid for but found out they hadn't?

I was at Sam's Club today and was waiting in the customer service line. A 30ish military type guy tells the representative that he bought two cases of beer last week. He had used the self checkout lane and the machine had not charged him for the beer but he only realized it when he got home. So here he was, several days later, to pay for $50 worth of beer.

The woman behind the counter looked at him like he was the stupidest @#$#@ on the planet.

Has this or another similar situation happened to you? Was it the exception or the rule?

[brewens]

1. I made the mistake of putting a case of pepsi on the bottom of the cart at Costco.

I went through the self checkout lane and forgot about it down there and didn't notice it. I mean I REALLY didn't notice it. I left it there, even when I put the cart in their outside cart parking spot. I never realized it until I got home without it.

Someone might have gotten a freebie off me, or Costco got it back. That could have happened pretty easily.

[CBHagman]

2. No, no one ever came back and said he'd/she'd forgotten to pay.

But I can certainly believe someone could be honest enough to return to a store and say he wasn't charged for something he got.

[JSnuffy]

5. Hmm...

I guess I wasn't surprised at the guy paying for his items.

I was more irritated at the look of WTF on the store rep's face.

[Lionessa]

3. No, but I've done it. Mainly to make up for all the 5 finger

discounts I took when I was under 20, decades ago, but I'm paying back the karma one mistake at a time. It's harder now with scanners and such for there to actually be mishandled cash, or charge, and I never use self-check so most of good deeds were quite a few years ago.

[madaboutharry]

4. Once a bagger at the supermarket put groceries from someone else's order in my bags.

When I unpacked and found them I called the supermarket. They told me to just keep everything and that when the other customer called them they would just give them new stuff.

[southernyankeebelle]

6. Yes, both my husband and I both brought things right back in after we noticed we didn't pay for

something. I remember one time when I was a teenager I was walking in a store and there was this young woman walking around with a newborn baby in her arms. I was about 15 feet away and she dropped something I went over to pick it up and saw it was money rolled up. I called out for her but she didn't hear me and I had to chase her down. I tapped her on the shoulder and told her she drop this. She thanked me and said that was her rent money. I felt great I did a good deed for someone.

[meaculpa2011]

7. I've done it...

more than once. Most recently at the drive-through where I bought dinner for the family and was only charged three dollars. When I discovered it I went inside and explained, but they didn't know how to deal with it.

When I worked in a supermarket (LBJ was president) cashiers were responsible for any shortfalls. We had a very kindly manager, though. If one of the registers was short, he would take 40 or 50 cents out of each one to make up the difference. When you're making 95 cents an hour a seven dollar hit meant that you worked that night for nothing.

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. I tried to give money back to the bank one time

ATM gave me $10 too much. Bank teller told me to just keep it, it was too much of a hassle to return it. And my account would be charged for it anyway.

I was never charged. So yes, there really is such a thing as free money.

[murielm99]

9. I have gone back in and paid.

It has not happened often, but it has happened. Once example was the time I got an entire ham for free. Hams are expensive. I went back the next day and paid.

Not long ago, the customer behind me took my chopped sirloin and a gallon of eggnog. Those were expensive items, too. I think the clerk or the bagger were remiss in not placing my items in my cart. I had to do it myself. They were rushing me through. The person behind me was already having her things packed before I was fully ready to leave. It may have been an honest mistake, or she may have gotten some free goodies. I noticed before I left the parking lot, and went back into the store. They replaced the items for no charge.

[1monster]

10. Once in my college days, when I was working at McD,

this young man was deliberately flustering me (his form of flirting, I guess). I got so discombobulated and I just wanted him to go away so badly, that I forgot to charge him for his meal. When he came back to the counter, I tried to avoid him and let someone else get him, but he was having nothing of it. He insisted on me waiting on him.

And then he totally embarrasssed me by telling me loudly that I had forgotten to charge him.

Strangely enoug, we became friends. Thirty some odd years later, I still see him around town once in a while and we chat for a few minutes.

I have gone back into a store and paid for stuff I didn't see in the cart when I was unloading at the cash register. And on more than one occasion. Usually something small.

[whathehell]

11. I've done it myself.

Too bad standards of honesty are so now low one gets looked at like they're a dumb $%%$# for "doing the right thing", as it were.

[Massacure]

12. I've worked retail and I've seen that behavior.

My favorite story is about a teacher I had for several classes in high school. She was pregnant the first year I had her, but even after I graduated I still continued to see her shopping were I worked throughout college. This incident was shortly before I graduated college; one day she came up customer service desk with her kid who was maybe 5 or 6 at that time and asked to speak to the store manager. When the store manager arrived she hoisted him up onto the desk and I noticed he was holding onto his piggy bank. Then she asked him "What do you have to say", and he started balling his eyes out "I'm sorry I stole your candy bar!" Then she put the empty wrapper on the desk so I scanned it. She made her son open up the piggy bank and count out the cash to pay for it. My manager and I thought it was the cutest thing ever, and it was probably a good learning experience for her son even if it was somewhat traumatic.

[nobodyspecial]

17. Excellent parenting

Bet the kid never did it again.

[KT2000]

13. Yes - the checker thanked me

I had forgotten to tell the check I had some water refills.

I don't want anything dishonestly - bad bad karma.

[sharp_stick]

14. Not quite the same thing

but I once chased a guy back to his car to give him the case of beer he forgot on the bottom of a cart and chucked back in the cart corral. I briefly considered keeping it but realized quickly it was just Heiniken (sp?) so I gave it back. He was pretty happy with me.

[OriginalGeek]

15. Fairly similarly but from the other side

My wife once had lunch at a Chili's with her friend and when they were done she went to her car and found a roll of cash just lying in the parking lot by her car. It was rolled up with a register tape around it and a rubber band holding it together and so she took inside and asked to speak to the manager. SHe told him she found the cash out in the parking lot and showed him the tape and he looked at it and said "well, that isn't the type of register tape we use - it's probably not ours. If you want I will take your name and number and put it in the safe and wait a week to see if we are missing any cash or if someone comes to claim it" and of course that was fine with my wife so she left thinking surely someone would claim it.

A week later the manager called her and said they didn't find themselves short and nobody else claimed it so if she would please drop by at her convenience she could have the cash.

180 bucks meant an awful lot to us in those days. Well, it would still be awesome to find but back then it was REALLY awesome to get.

I hope karma paid that manager back some how because he certainly could have kept it and we would never have known the difference.

[SheilaT]

16. Several times I've gone back

to pay for something I inadvertently left the store with.

[LiberalEsto]

18. I've gone back and paid

simply because I believe in karma.

[safeinOhio]

19. Just last week a customer called

because he forgot to pay for his gas.

[libinnyandia]

22. Several years ago, when I lived in New York, I was getting gas and saw the price at the pump was

a couple of dollars less than on the sign. I ran up to the cashier and told him. I paid the full price. I'm not sure if anyone else did.

[TBF]

20. I have to be honest -

I'm not sure I'd call the store if I actually realized at home that I hadn't paid for something. But I have on occasion gotten through the check-out and then realized one of my kids had something in their hand that I hadn't seen (they are young) - then we have to walk back to the line and pay.

[Hoyt]

21. Several times I've told a clerk they gave me too much change. They got ticked at me. n/t

[limpyhobbler]

23. When I was younger I used to be that honest. But now I would never go back to pay.

I've gotten jaded over the years.

I would never steal from a person.

But getting a free case of beer from walmart does not violate my sense of justice.

[Nay]

24. I haven't seen it, but I did do that once at a grocery. I missed the 2 gallons of milk

I had in the bottom basket of the cart. Went back in to pay.