Customer problem or Scam

Had a guy in the store tonight (monday) claiming he ordered pizza on saturday. Had reciept for 16.04, said he gave the girl a 50.00 and she only gave him change for a 20.00 back. He wanted us to give him 30.00 back on his word. I checked my deposit slip from Saturday and no $50 bills. His next claim was the girls scammed him out of it and split it. I’m not saying that couldn’t happen but theese girls are top employees who I have total piece of mind with. After he left I recieved 2 phone calls one from his wife and one from an older lady (mother) telling us how dissapointed they were in us, and as good business men we should have just given him the money.

What do you guys think?

I have the staff place the cusomters bill on the keyboard when making change. My POS system shows the amount paid and the change given right on the receipt. The staff give the change telling the customer how much change they are receiving along with the receipt then the customers money is placed in the drawer and the drawer is closed. If you follow this process you will avoid any problems like the one you described.

He’s a scammer, imo - mainly cuz he seemed awfully well prepared with his back up story that your staff must have split the money. Besides, if they had each taken $15, there should still have been a 50 in your deposit! Of course, had you pointed that out, his next line would have been “Well, one of them had to have put in a 10 & 2 20s to get the fifty!” My guess is that he did something he doesn’t want his wife to find out about (gambling or streetwalker) & decided to let you take the fall instead of him. Or he just got too drunk on Sat night to remember what he did with it.

at my store we do the same thing, in addition we always count the change back, much to my suprise… this is a lost art.

It sounds like you handled it perfectly. If the drawer was not over, and their was no fifty in it, you just can’t hand out free money. Do you have video cameras running? I think it would be wise to meet with the people you had working that night and document the event and have them sign a copy and put it in their file. This way if by some off chance they did do it, they will think twice before ever doing it again since you have another incident already written up in their files.

SCAM. Anytime a person starts a sentence with, “I was in here a couple days ago…” be ready for some sort of story. Pizza was made wrong, under/overcooked, forgot the subs, got incorrect change or my favorite, “you screwed up my order and I talked to someone there that said I could get free stuff to make up for it.”

Anything that happens today we’ll be glad to take care of it for our customers. But after a couple of days, all deals are final.

It’s POSSIBLE. I once made a deposit and selected to get $100 back from the deposit. I was sick and not paying any attention. I realized the error a couple of hours later, went back to the bank (it was now almost an hour after closing), knowing full well, they were going to look at me like I was crazy. Much to my dismay, the teller pointed at me and told the mgr “that’s him”… she had been pulling her hair out because her till didn’t match. Had she actually been TRYING to steal money from me, she would have gotten away with it and I’d have looked like a thief.

It’s also quite possible that the guy simply didn’t keep track of his money and honestly thinks he must have given you guys a $50 and now doesn’t have the correct change (either because he really handed you a $20 or has since spent the other money).

People aren’t ALWAYS lying, just most of the time.

some customers are just assholes.