Customer Sues CVS For Writing Her Name As “Ching Chong” On Receipt

cvs-lawsuitHow many times do we have to tell the cashiers of America to STOP PUTTING STUPID AND OFFENSIVE NAMES ON CUSTOMERS’ RECEIPTS? Sorry we had to go all-caps on you there, but after all the stories of idiotic name-calling that have gotten employees fired and retailers sued, you’d think people would stop. And yet here we have the story of a CVS customer of Korean descent who is suing the drugstore chain after allegedly being labeled “Ching Chong Lee” on her receipt.

According to the lawsuit, filed earlier this week in a federal court in Camden, NJ, the customer had placed a photo print order online, using her own name. But when she went to pick her order up at the store, her name had been changed to the aforementioned “Ching Chong,” which her lawyer describes to 1010 WINS radio in NYC as “a very pejorative, racial slur meant for Asians. That is not her name.”

When the woman took her issue to CVS customer relations, she was told the employee in the incident would be “counseled and trained.”

“There’s no amount, in my opinion, of training from CVS or any company that’s going to stop this kind of hate and bullying against someone’s race,” the attorney tells 1010 WINS. “To me, this is something that deserves psychological counseling, not CVS counseling.”

The suit seeks $1 million in damages.

Regular readers of Consumerist are very familiar with moronic comments left on customers’ receipts. The one that comes immediately to mind is the incident at Chick fil-A in Dec. 2011, in which two students were given the names of “Ching” and “Chong” on their receipts. Then of course there was the New York Papa John’s that described a customer as “Lady Chinky Eyes.”

Or the Pizza Hut where a customer was dubbed “BIGBLACK,” or the Domino’s that not only dropped the N-word on a customer’s pizza box label but also assumed the customer wouldn’t tip because of the color of his skin.

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.