I had to laugh at what happened to me at the grocery store yesterday.
I used my bank card to pay at the "self check out", and selected to receive $40 extra in change.
The machine spit out $60.
So I showed the young lady who was working that line and tried to hand the extra $20 back to her.
She said "you want to give it back?"
I said "Yes. It's not mine".
She called 2 people on her store phone but no one appeared. Maybe they thought it was a prank?
So after waiting 5 min. and holding up the Saturday crowd I suggested we go to the Service Desk.
The lady there needed to hear the story twice. Then she paged the manager, and in the meantime she's looking in the computer for instructions on how to process this. She looked and looked but there was nothing there to help her.

They all looked at my receipt to see if I really only asked for $40 back (their machine only offers $20 and $40!!), we kept waiting for the manager, I had to fill out a paper about why I was returning this (why? it's not a product that I bought there).
They ran the "conterfeit" tester thing over it to see if I was some shady funny money pusher.
Are they kidding? They think I copied this on my pc?
So I continued to wait.
One of them said "You're very honest". And the others looked at me like they couldn't believe this was happening. And I also got some looks like "just take it and run, dummy".

Finally they decided to take my name, address, phone number and said they'd get back to me about what to do. At first they said I should take the $20 with me, but I said "I could have just done that and avoided all this".
So they got an envelope and wrote alot of info and the date etc on the outside, sealed the trouble making $20 inside it, and put it in a drawer. They said if no one claimed it in
48 hrs I could come back and get it.
All of this took at least a half hour.
That's OK. It wasn't mine. I had to give it back. But boy what a hassle. It'd been easier (and quicker) to rob them outright. :)

that is so funny!!

No good deed goes unpunished!

:) :) That's funny

Honesty is becoming so obsolete that people don't know how to handle it. That's a shame.

It's crazy isn't it. I got an extra 20 (after hours) at a teller machine at the bank one time. I had to go back the next day, go inside, and explain what had happened. Got kindof the same runaround (including the fake money test). Talked to 3 different people before I finally got someone to take the money back. I think they're genuinely baffled why you do the right thing.

Make sure your account wasn't actually charged the $60.00 and not the $40.000 that you requested. Even if the machine only offers $20.00 or $40.00.

It is a shame that with modern technology we have such problems. So much for how great computer systems are. In the 'olden' days .... well, things were sometimes so much easier.

I see the other side of this - where people expect to be rewarded and hailed as a hero for doing the right thing. Where did everything turn upside-down like that? Was I taking a nap or something?

Integrity is in short supply, isn't it? I'm always amazed that doing the right thing is considered an oddity. The store manager should have exhibited good customer service, short-circuited that long process for you and thanked you for your honesty and figured out the rest of the process of crediting the money back to the cash drawer without you hanging around. I mean, your ice cream could have been melting! Good for you for not caving in and seeing the process to the end. A good lesson for everyone involved.

Isn't that just plain too funny!!! When I was muuuuuch younger, I went to the bank to cash my check and when I got home I realized that the bank gave me $50 too much. Well, there was a coat that I wanted that cost that much. Hummm!! Oh well, off to the bank I went. Went inside and asked for the girl at the window, thinking her drawer would be short, right? When she came over, she just gave me this look and said you could've kept it! :shock: Boy, there just went my coat!!! Try to do something nice!!!! :roll:

Well Done!

Well, I'm proud of you! Maybe it would have been easer to keep it, but you were honest, and you can hold your head up that you did the right thing!

Just remember that Karma can be a good thing - it will pay off later. Sorry for the runaround, but thank you doing the right thing.

If no one claims it????? Who could claim it????

Yup- I believe in Karma too :D You are the person I would love to have find something I lost.
HUGS

They said maybe a person who used that particular self check out before me had not taken their $20 that they asked for.
Actually I just got a phone call about an hour after I posted this story, saying someone had come in today and said they didn't get their $20. So they gave them the $20 I'd given back.
Now I don't want to be suspicious but he could have overheard the goings-on while I was at the Service Desk (there were several people there....customers and employees) and just decided to come back and say it was him. How can they prove it? Did he bring his reciept? How does that prove it didn't get his $20 yesterday and just came back for this $20?
Anyway, my bank won't update my Sat. activity till Mon. morning so I'll check. If it's down $60 from the grocery they told me to bring a copy of my statement and they'll give me $20. So I'm not worried. I did the right thing and that's all that matters to me. If someone falsely said the $20 was theirs they'll have to answer for it someday. Not me.

I bet it was somebody from the quilt board!!!!! :lol: :lol:

You are so funny. But really, people who do the right thing are in the minority now. Or maybe they are not the ones we hear about. Sad isn't it.

well done, sorry it took them time to figure this out and wasted your time

Absolutely correct that doing the right thing is in the minority. A few of us at work have been having this discussion in the last few weeks. When did this change start? So sad that it takes extra effort when your trying to do the right thing.

There was $60 sitting in a bank machine one early morning when I went in to use it. At first, I thought "gee, I can't use the machine, the last person isn't finished", and I went outside to look for that person but the area was deserted. So, I guiltily took the money and set in on the side while I did my business but still no one had come back. I didn't think leaving it there was a good idea, so I kept it and when the bank opened, took it in and tried to turn it in. They didn't want it, wouldn't even think of looking at the security tape to see who had used the machine before me, but did take my name and number in case someone came in. I held that money separately for a month and still feel sorry for whoever didn't claim it.

As for honesty - how many of you have seen that Ikea ad where the woman is running crazily from the store yelling "start the car, start the car!" because she thinks they undercharged her? Isn't that exactly what we're talking about?

This happened to my husband and me once at a store. We purchased several items and when we got home, we realized that they didn't charge us for an expensive piece of software. We called the store because we lived about thirty miles away on an island. We asked if we could pay for it over the phone. They said we would have to bring the item back in and pay for it in person. We asked if they would compensate us (with a discount) for our time and gas to come back to pay for it since we did not need to go off island again for quite awhile. (It was their clerk's error, not ours.) They said they could not, but that they expected us to pay for it. My husband, who was getting ready to deploy for three months, told them he would come back and pay for it when he got back from his deployment. Three and a half months later, we drove back to the store and the clerks just looked at us funny and said not to worry about it because they didn't have it in their system anymore. Aargh! We tried.

Thank you being honest.
I don't use 'self check out'. I think this machine has replaced a real person. A person that no longer has a job and can provide income for their family.

Marsye, it wasn't me. I didn't do it. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it. :lol:

My thoughts Exactly!

I would have check my account before I gave it to the store. What will you do if your account was charged $60 in stead of 40 now you will have to try and get it back from the store.
I have had this happen to me. The ATM took back my money before i could grab it.

One night after work I wnt to the night deposit and there in the machine was another business bag. I went and and drop in on down in and then did my drop. I called the store the next morning to let them know what had happen. So that they could tak to the perdon that didn't finish the drop

My oldest son pointed that out to me and I haven't used one since.
I learn from my kids a lot :D

how about an ATM which shows you your money then sucks it back in before you can touch it???.....gotta watch those things.

Glad to hear you did the right thing, Karen. What an incredible story, though. It's a shame that honesty has to be sometimes frustrating.

Now that its monday have you called you bank? Or if you do on line banking Have you gotten to see if you was short $20

Well, if they wind up giving it back to you, you can rest easy because now you've EARNED it by spending all that time in the store teaching them what honesty is all about! Good for you!

Someone did say to check your account to make sure that is still "correct" -

someone in front of me, left a 20 in the changer..i chased them down and gave it to them,before they got out of the store.
do you think that could of happened? the extra 20 was already in there?

i would of turned it in also..Good for you! what goes around,comes around...

a purse was left in a cart in the parking lot. i turned it in, and i really felt i should of kept it, to find out who it belonged to,and return it myself..they just didn't seem very interested, when i turned it in.

It's just downright disconcerting how "honesty" is viewed these days!
I went in a LQS a few years back with my grandbaby.
Upon going through my see thru nylon bag I discovered a roll of the stores scotch tape, that my grandbaby must have picked up off the counter in the second room where most of the fabrics are.
Ok...I'll take it back when i'm in town.
oops, when I wasn't looking, grandbaby yanked a bunch of it off the roll...she was a baby-baby, not a toddler that understands. My fault.
Ok, then I'll buy a new one, same brand and take both back. She'd only pulled off about two feet...yikes...that could leave you stuck...lol...no feet...(a little humor there...very little, I guess ;) )...
Got the NEW roll of tape, and the OLD roll of tape, and next time I was by the store...same SEE THROUGH purse, went in, and told the owner, who was sitting there in the front room sewing, and her assistant was there, and they were incredulous that I would buy more and bring it back.
The owner went on and on, (in a kind of ridiculous tone), about how sweet I was...I felt like a child!
I said, "I've always been like that!" and moved away.
Ok...so i decided to go in the second room to peruse the fabrics.
The assistant followed me and stayed glued to me the whole time!!!!
I couldn't concentrate, bought a bit too much fabric and when she checked me out, she answered the phone and forgot to give me my receipt.
Ok - since i like to have my receipts, I called later and you know what she said???? (this is the untrusting assistant),...
She said, "Oh, of course you can have the receipt if you really, really want it. I'll put your name on it and put it in this drawer. We get compulsive ppl like you every so often. We had a man...blah, blah, blah..."
I said, "Never mind. I don't want it."
I wasn't mad, but I felt like I had been talked down to by the owner, who was a preacher's wife??? followed around by the assistant, who didn't follow me the first time...and then criticized and was offended by her amateur attempt at psychiatric evaluation over the phone!"
I never went back.
Later I heard how this owner went to Wal Mart and bought out some craft and sewing stuff and re-marked it WAY high for her store.
She's out of business now.
We used to get to feel good about doing the honest thing, and it was considered ordinary...normal, and a little praiseworthy.
I should have yanked two feet off the new roll, handed it to the assistant and said, "now, we're even." :roll:
Where is my John Wayne?...where are the happy endings..."

Good for you Karen...now you can sleep at night. Thats my barometer for doing the right thing. If it keeps you awake at night...don't do it. But you are all right...I don't understand why it seems strange for people to be honest and do the right thing.

The other day a cashier gave me the wrong amount for change ..(too much)..I had to argue with her (I really don't think she knew how to count money-but thats a whole 'nuther rant)...she never did agree with me but I laid the extra on the counter and left the store. I was tired of arguing!

You mean they did not ask what you had for breakfast, or what color undies you had on??? What is the world coming to?

I had an experience in a Costco a few years ago. I had run in and bought one of their rotiserie (sp?) chickens and handed a $10 bill to the clerk. She was busy talking to co-workers and I was in a rush also. She gave me my change ($4 from the $10) and I just shoved in in my pocket without checking. The next day put on my jeans and pulled out the money - four $5 bills!!! I got my receipt and went in with the $5 bills. The clerk at the desk was stunned that I would come in and try to give the money back. She had me go to another manager and she went in to the office to check the end-of-day runs to see if the register on the receipt was short. It was and she thanked me. I said I only wanted my $4 back and to do the right thing and to make sure no checker was fired over this as it was an honest mistake. Why are they so surprised that some of us want to do the right thing?!?!

I found $2.00 in a hospital parking lot recently. The Red Cross was delivering blood at the time, so I tried to hand it to their delivery person, explained that it wasn't mine and asked him to put it to good use. He hesitated like he thought it might be laced with a foreign substance and wondered aloud what he would do with it before finally taking it. That struck me as funny, but he did at least appear to be an honest person.

IF NO ONE CLAIMED IT? Had they forgotten that you hadn't found it?