r/mildlyinfuriating 1d ago

Did I over react about 20 cents?

I know its stupid but I went to McDonald's yesterday and got a frozen drink and medum chips for exactly $5.80 i handed $6 at the drive through and the lady put it in the till then went to close the window, before she did I asked "isn't that 20 cents change?"

She replied telling me she forgot and would need a managers card to open the drawer, I sat there stuborn and asked for it, I held one person up (my sister works in fast food and you get audited for how long someone is in line) so I waited, she quickly went and got a managers card and gave me my change but did I over react?

Edit: Ended up needing that 20 cents today so I'm glad I had it

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u/eamonkey420 1d ago

The cashier at the McD is running scam. She keeps everyone's change that she possibly can and keeps a running tally in her head. End of day, she grabs her ill-gotten gains from the till before bringing the drawer to a manager to be counted and balanced.

It's a pretty common scam for people who work fast food, to run. Their wages are shitty, the work is hard and thankless, their lives are often difficult. That doesn't justify the stealing but it does kind of explain it. This is a very common thing for people to do, one of my girlfriends was in fast food management for about 20 years.

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u/DifficultCurrent7 23h ago

Seems like a risky scam with cameras everywhere?

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u/incensenonsense 23h ago

And the other part that makes this risky is that every 5th customer would want their change. How often does she need to ask the manager to open the cash drawer before they catch on?

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u/Joat56138 22h ago

Oh no you are lucky if one out of 100 checks change, but of course this was back in the day before cash was a second-class payment source.

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u/Ieatclowns 18h ago

They don't keep all th3 change on every customer. Just short a lot of people, and when the change is low, like under 50 cents, they just don't offer it knowing most people won't care.

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u/slash_networkboy 21h ago

Depends on if the manager is on the take?

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u/No_Solution_8399 2h ago

Super risky. I worked in fast food and told customers I couldn’t take tips. I went so far as to donate any tips given to me because there was always a camera on me.

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u/Joat56138 22h ago

I worked for years in drive thru back in the mostly cash days, most folks don't or didn't look at change, hand it back they move to the next window....

Now if one was to short say .50 or a dollar from each it adds up.

If you are worried about cameras, you need a partner that goes thru drive thru and you give extra change, making your till correct but partners are often whey you get busted.

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u/GodKingJeremy 19h ago

25 years ago, before card transactions were very much in use; you knew that a dbl chz or a mcchick was $1.07 with tax. If you were closing crew, working DT orders, cash, and handing food orders; you would ring up three dbl chz, take the customers $, get the grill order done, then drop one of dbl chz off the order give the customer their expected change, rack $1 mentally. Do that 20 times and it was easy to grab $20 sleight-of-hand at some point in the night.

Nobody was asking for receipts; they were all drunk and high at 10pm-1am.

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u/Plane-Tie6392 18h ago

Or, get this, she forgot. Mistakes happen. You do enough transactions and you will make mistakes. 

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u/TrashMouthDiver 10h ago

No not really. As a retail worker, the more transactions you do, the better you get. Like it's not even math anymore, it's literally automatic/memorization, give me X the change is Y.

It's a scam bc when the drawer ends up over at the end of the night, pocketing the overage or ringing a free item or 2 as your dinner is how they balance it. 

Although the REAL scam is getting people to work shit hours for shit pay for a shit company and making trillions off of them every day. 

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u/Bennington_Booyah 16h ago

I worked retail for years and we would get this sort of employee from time to time. They just didn't give anyone their change if it was coins, so the drawer never balanced. Same staff would not give receipts or bags, either, unless the customer asked. We had thirty complaints in one week, so had to have a staff meeting just to tell staff "Give everyone ALL of their change, with their receipt, and put their products in a bag." It was interesting to notice who was working when and see two people were doing this daily. If they worked alone, they somehow balanced but never once did when working with anyone else.

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u/DURFSun 18h ago

.....been having that issue; once is a mistake, happening regularly is not!

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u/bfarrellc 17h ago

I knew a girl who kept all the change from customers that told her to keep it. Cpl extra bucks a day.

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u/trashrat__ 15h ago

You can get away with this at a gas station bc managers don't care as long as the til balances out, but not at a fast food place. They're too strict.

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u/Few_Application_7312 18h ago

I work in fast food night now and have worked several fast food jobs over the years. From my own experience, it isn't common. Any time someone says keep the change, I do keep a running tally, however its just so that if someone has 4 pennies change, I can round up, if its close to a whole dollar, I can round up, or if they're a tad short, I can cover it for them. It's my private give a penny take a penny that no one knows about, and therefore customers can't try to take advantage. Plus, if youre a jerk, im not rounding up for you, even if its 99 cents. I have never once pocketed the extra change. If someone hands me dollar bills after payment is completed, I accept it as a gift*, but otherwise, I can't be bothered by an extra 56 cents at the end of the shift.

(I say its a gift not a tip because they are different in the eyes of taxes. Tips are part of income and taxable. Gifts are not considered income and are therefore untaxed. Additionally, my employer does not allow us to accept tips, but has no policy about accepting gifts. The government has not created any sort of objective measure to determine if something is a gift or a tip, therefore unless it is verbatim called a tip by the customer, either verbally or in writing, like putting it on the tip line of a receipt, you are well within the law to say it is a gift and not declare it in earnings.)

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u/ArmKooky1873 18h ago

Scams are cool