Target Employee Incompetence Freezes Nearly $800 Of Customer's Money
Erica, who writes Philadelphia Weekly's Style blog, went to Target this past Saturday to purchase some new tank tops. She and her boyfriend filled their cart with a lot of other stuff too—"Ready to stimulate the economy?" she joked to him on their way to the register—and they agreed to split the cost equally. Now when I worked retail, that was an infrequent but not impossible task. When you ask a Target cashier to do that, get ready to have your debit card debited twice for the full amount of the bill, and then told two days later that the voided transactions will take 72 hours to clear.
The trouble started as soon as Erica didn't behave like a good little consumer and do what she was told by the don't-make-me-think cashier.
The total came to
$383.95$383.90. When I asked her to split the cost down the middle so could each charge half she snottily said, "I don't know what half is." I was annoyed by her flip reaction, but pulled out my cell phone to calculate the cost. We'd each pay $191.95, I told her.I slipped my Visa debit card into the automated machine and pressed the requisite buttons. When the total came up, it read "$383.95." The cashier instructed me to sign my name and click "Pay another way," which I did. My receipt printed and the cashier said, "You paid for it all. He can just get you back."
When Erica grew angry at what happened, another Target employee came over and replaced the awful one, who said "This girl is freaking out" and walked away. The second employee ran the transaction again, had Erica swipe her card again, and charged her the full amount again.
Erica and her boyfriend then had to pull all the scanned items out of the bags and place them on the belt for re-scanning so her boyfriend could pay for everything, just to put an end to it all. Only now on Monday, Erica has discovered that her account is running on fumes, and Target can do nothing to help. In fact, the first customer service person she spoke with told her she'd have to drive down to Target and bring her void receipts to prove she wasn't lying. Apparently Target shreds all of their records every Sunday night, and their electronic records are lost when the lights are shut off for the night.
I'm crossing my fingers and hoping hard that "72 hours" is a padded estimation and that I'll actually have my money back sooner. I'm lucky that my rent isn't due, that I didn't write any checks recently. I'm fortunate enough that my boyfriend will lend me the cash to get through till my bank account in unfrozen. But what if I wasn't so lucky? Eight hundred dollars is a significant amount of money... [it's] almost two full months of rent for my apartment, it's practically an entire paycheck, it's more money than I'd ever spend at Target.
The one bright side to this: Target apparently gave her some sort of discount for her troubles the third time they rang up the bill, which basically worked out to a free deep fryer. Now let's hope she doesn't end up paying for that with overdraft fees.
"Target Is Holding My $800 Hostage" [PW Style]
(Photo: j.reed)
Post a comment
Comments:
Sounds like you need a new cell phone.
$191.95 x 2 = $383.90
"...[it's] almost two full months of rent for my apartment..."
I almost fainted!! Two months rent?? I pay $1450/month for a one-bedroom.
I worked as a cashier and unfortunately the way the POS software is setup, mistakes like this can and do happen. I never use debit cards for purchases because it is so risky. Heck if she paid with cash it would've been easier to resolve than with the debit card fiasco.
why not just charge the full amount on one bill and make life easier. Your the fool for making someone else do your work.
Oh the cost of living. Where I live about $300 per roomate is about typical depending on the place.
The OP tried to take advantage of the checker's rudimentary math skills and steal a nickel from Target. She's lucky she's not in jail!
Erm, why didn't she take out half the items and pay in one transaction and her boyfriend take the rest and pay in another? Putting them all through and asking to split the bill just seems needlessly complex. I mean rather than two run of the mill transactions you're asking the checkout person to do one longer more complex and unfamiliar one. Just seems stupid.
Obligatory: $400 for some tank tops? You crazy girl!
@georgi55: Damn you're faster than me. But yeah, perhaps Target was getting her back for trying to defraud them of a nickel.
The serious answer is that it sounds like she probably hit the wrong button on the signature pad since it screwed up twice with two different employees; the only thing that was the same was her.
I'll go ahead and retract that one, I clearly didn't read the second line.
another Target employee came over and replaced the awful one, who said "This girl is freaking out" and walked away.
In this economy, you'd think someone that can be so easily replaced would actually pretend to want to keep their job. :(
The money order machine was broken at Wal Mart, but they rang me up anyways. I had to explain to my brand new landlord that I couldn't pay the deposit on my new apartment because Wal Mart stole $1853 of my money. Took waiting in-store for 5 hours while they figured out how to undo it. Luckily, the manager was a decent person and took the money out of their safe so I could make my deposit deadline. I thought it was actually a pretty decent thing to do, even though we had obviously done nothing wrong, I'm sure it's not company policy to short your safe pending various refunds/transactions clearing.
Not sure if this is really on topic or not. Years ago I was at a McD the computer was down but they where still selling stuff. Its not hard to know what the cost of food is with tax. My total was $4.92, I handed the girl a $5 bill. She really did not know how much to give me back. This was not the 1st time it happen and its was not the last.
When I do this I just take out what I need to pay for and let the other person pay for there stuff. I really do not want this to happen to me.
Splitting the bill for two tenders is soooo easy to do and is done multiple times per day. I've worked in five retail positions and this happened every single day.
All you do is put the first tender in for whatever amount you want, and then put the rest on the second.
It could not be more easy. I have no idea how this got screwed up.
The Target here has an option on its card reader to use multiple forms of payment, so I don't see that this should have been so difficult. Maybe she is new, or just a dumbass. Or a bitch, one of the three.
If it doesn't clear, call the credit card company and get it all refunded.
Was it really that important to cut the transaction exactly in half? She could have either split the items in the cart before reach the register, each party deciding to pay for certain items, or she could have just had her boyfriend write her a check or give her cash afterwards.
Now I understand that the Target cashier should have handled this better, but if she were new or didn't deal with this often, I can see a mixup like this happening really easily. Next time just save everyone the hassle. Is it really THAT important to divide the transaction down to the penny, especially when some of the items (tank tops) were solely hers?
The credit card machine that I used for work had a conformation request to make sure this does not happen. That said you had to make sure that you don't charge too much by not paying attention. Also you could easily add an extra digit and have overdraft charges and countless fees by the time we corrected it. You could refund the money but it would take about 72 hours.
This is interesting that this story popped up now, because all the Target stores near me have added a new screen to the credit card machine 'Do you want to put it all on this card'. It annoyed me because it is yet another button to press, but I guess that this scenario happens more than I thought.
Blame the customer because the cashier is inept?
The cashier, who may have been new or may have had no idea what she was doing, could have paged her manager. The extra five minutes that would have taken is definitely worth everyone's time.
There is no excuse for pretending to have a clue, recklessly taking a chance, and costing a customer twice what she should have paid. Let's just assume the cashier wasn't being malicious on top of being inept at division.
@Ben_Q2: "Its not hard"? "its was not the last"? "let the other person pay for there stuff"? You really shouldn't be criticizing anyone's intelligence. Maybe, like your post, the girl was just having an off day.
Has anyone clicked on the link to this girls actual blog? It sounds like she's a loose cannon. It makes it hard to have any sympathy for her.
@ chocolate1234
splitting a transaction with 2 tenders is not that complicated of a procedure for most retail systems. how many times do people have a gift card that only covers a partial amount of the entire purchase? don't blame the OP about this situation, the problem is obviously with the cashier. why should they have pushed 2 carts around, keeping all their items separate? maybe the OP's boyfriend doesn't mind buying her things. that does happen still.
This is not completely Target's fault.
Everyone who uses a debit card or credit card knows that the money doesn't automagically come back on a return. It takes a few days.
If they deal went through on her card, she should have just gotten a check from her boyfriend later.
Yes, bad customer service on Target's side, but bad consumerism on the OP's side too.
Why didn't they just divvy up the belongings relatively equally and have her boyfriend pay for half of them via separate transaction?
Good thing I didn't go to the local Target this weekend. With my luck, I would have been stuck behind this circus.
Err... if you know you want tpo split the total, why not do two separate orders? Less chance of error. It may not be 50/50 but chances are you can get it close enough and have one pay the difference.
@chocolate1234: It wasn't a mixup; the cashier deliberately misled her into thinking she was honoring the fairly common request and then tweaked her. That's sleaze no matter what.
The point where they were putting every item back on the belt so the cashier could re-scan $400 worth of merchandise is when they should have decided that it would be easier to just put it on the one card and have the boyfriend go to an ATM to pay her back.
@eelmonger: Actually, in the original blog the total is $383.90; there was a transcription mistake in the Consumerist posting.
I worked at Target as a cashier for a while. It sounds to me like this cashier was poorly trained or was just lazy. It is NOT hard to put into the system that you want to pay $195 on one card. The cashier has to do it manually- swiping the card through the card reader in front of the customer WILL make the customer pay the full amount.
@floraposte: I take it back; the comments on her blog make it clear that she initially posted the wrong total and has since corrected it.
My one bedroom costs me $390/mo and it's on the good side of town. Where do you live?
Apparently Target shreds all of their records every Sunday night, and their electronic records are lost when the lights are shut off for the night.
Surprising on its face; and surprising to me because I've been able to make returns at Target days after purchase, using a credit card in lieu of a reciept.
@ allthoseships
(Sorry, the reply button isn't working)
True, on the gift cards. In that case though, the machine will automatically ask for a second form of payment since there isn't enough to cover the entire cost. In this case, it just automatically ran the full amount.
As for my comment about splitting things equally, I don't see anything wrong with her boyfriend splitting the cost of the tank tops. My fiance and I do stuff like that for each other all the time. The difference is that we don't feel the need to split the transactions down to the penny (honey, you owe me $.12). I wasn't saying they had to have two carts, but she could have simply emptied out approximately half the cart at checkout. My roommates and I used to do this all the time in college, and whoever ended up paying less would just make up the difference the next time. I understand she wanted to divide it in half, but I can see this situation happening REALLY easily at a retail store, which is something she should be aware of. Check out this girls blog and read the full story. It makes it hard to feel bad for her. It sounds like she turned on full bitch mode the second the cashier messed up.
@BuddyGuyMontag: "automagically" is my new favorite typo. Or maybe you made the term up, which is even better. Because being able to make money disappear for 72 hours IS like magic.
If your card was swiped twice, you were charged twice. however provided Target actually performed a "post-void" transaction, then that will process through their computer systems, and be sent to your financial institution. It is then entirely up to your financial institution how long they take to credit that amount back to your card. Frequently this can take 7 to 10 business days. Computers will pull the money out of your card a heck of a lot quicker than they put it back on your card.
I am not condoning the actions of the cashier, a split tender-type situation should not be a difficult transaction to perform, but mistakes happen, albeit this is a costly mistake, but next time just do what others on here have said, and split the purchase up, or have your boyfriend give you the money back in cash to deposit into your account.
I think we have all run into a few of these low-wage earners that APPEAR to be high school kids or low-educated bored idiots who don't give a damn about anyone but themselves. If they mess up they are more likely to blame that b**ch customer than themselves. Then they clock out to hurry home to watch Jerry Springer.
@ braintre1
Unfortunately the bank doesn't have control over the length of the hold. Target put the hold on, and Target needs to take it off. I work at a bank, and hear this stuff often. Apparently stores like to tell you your bank will take care of it, but the party responsible for issuing the hold has to be the one to take it off.
@ahoy-captain: Yes! I worked in a computer store and used to split payment all the time for people picking up their new $1000+ laptops.
The comments aren't allowing me to reply to anyone. I'm logged in, obviously, but when I click on the reply arrow icon, it tosses me up to the top of the page. Anyone else getting this?
If I could divide by 2 properly, I wouldn't have to work as a cashier at Target. Oh wait, I can.
Yes, this cashier was poorly trained, and rude to boot.
But seriously, am I the only one who thinks it's ironic that the OP maligns the cashier for not knowing how to divide the total by two and then has to pull out a CALCULATOR to figure it out herself?
My son is four and he can already divide better than that!
Okay, not really. But he will be able to by second grade...
@allthoseships: Splitting the difference between a gift card and a credit card, and 2 credit cards are completely different. At Target, and I know this from working there myself, if you use a gift card that doesn't cover the whole amount, once the cashier scans it, the register automatically prompts you for another form of payment to cover the rest.
For someone that used to work at retail, the OP apparently doesn't know how it works or how banking works.
When you ring up a total and want to split the bill, the card reader will show you the amount you are going to be putting on the card before you sign. I've never seen this be otherwise at an retail establishment I've frequented but I know this occurs at my local Targets. She had every opportunity to confirm the total before signing and completing the transaction. She made the issue worse by insisting the Target employees 'fix it' after the initial transaction had gone through.
I don't have any sympathy for someone that doesn't pay attention to the details and puts all the blame on the other party.
This does demonstrate one of the advantages of using a credit card over a debit card - when you have a screwup like this, it's the credit card company's money that's tied up and not yours.