Shops Who Keep Your 5c Change

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Robbing' customers of their small change is a very big deal

January 18, 2008 Edition 1

Wendy Knowler

Have you noticed how a growing number of cashiers in stores both big and small are taking it upon themselves to "rob" you of five cents as change?

You buy something that's marked R19.95, hand over a R20 note and get nothing but a till slip back.

Complain and you're likely to be given that "get a life" look and an excuse along the lines of "we don't have any five-cent pieces".

If you insist on your change, they'll reluctantly reach into the till and produce a five-cent piece, or - and this is very interesting - take one out of a little tub on the side of the till.

The tub reserved for pedantic customers, no doubt.

Often you'll simply be ignored.

So what's going on?

Well, quite simply, either the stores or the cashiers themselves are trying their luck, knowing that most customers either won't notice they've been short-changed, or will be too apathetic to point out that they have been ripped off.

But it doesn't take a genius to work out just how fast all those individual withheld five-cent pieces add up to a big, fat unearned profit, especially in stores with a high turnover.

The more I think about this, the more outraged I become.

Because unlike the one- and two-cent pieces, which are no longer being produced by our national mint - prompting stores to round off their cash totals to the nearest five cents - the five-cent piece is still in full production. Which means there is no shortage of them.

But somehow some stores consider it perfectly acceptable to withhold them as customers' rightful change without explanation.

And if we consumers don't start objecting to this, in big numbers, the next thing you know, we won't be getting our change if it's less than 20 cents.

If retailers insist on marking an item at R19.95 to make their customers think it's a whole lot cheaper than R20, then they should follow through and provide the correct change.

And if they can't, they should put 10 cents in our hands.

Last year, I approached Mr Price for comment after one of their customers complained that he'd been short-changed by five cents at Mr Price Home in Fourways.

Responding, a spokesman said the company's cashiers should have enough five-cent pieces in their floats, and that she would ensure that this "is in place".

But, seven months on, of all the stores which consumers complain to me about on this score, Mr Price still crops up most often.

"I bought some items from Mr Price Sport and was told by the cashier that she was unable to give me five cents change," wrote "Claire" last week. "At the same time, I heard the cashier next to me tell another consumer exactly the same thing!"

Several others reported routinely being short-changed by five cents at Mr Price stores.

Asked to comment, a company spokesman said it was definitely not Mr Price policy not to issue change in full.

"Failing such change being available, our policy is to over-compensate with the next highest denomination coin," she said.

"Subsequent to your last correspondence (with Mr Price about this matter), Mr Price Home's operations manager issued an instruction group-wide re-iterating this procedure to all operations managers and store staff.

"If this is not occurring, then store associates are not adhering to company policy, and will be disciplined accordingly, once we have details of the particular store associates concerned."

To be fair, Mr Price stores are not alone in this practice.

Consumers have complained to me of being similarly short-changed at Woolworths, Checkers and Spar outlets.

As many have pointed out, consumers don't get away with paying five cents less than the marked price of goods, so why should we be expected to pay more than the asking price - without a word of explanation?

I think the time has come to name and shame the stores that are guilty of this, so if it's happened to you, please e-mail me at consumer@ knowler.co.za with the details.
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Cape Times
Happens to me a lot.
 
It happened quite often nowadays, I read this in the Cape Times yesterday morning, interesting article.
 
Yeah its a long standing issue this. I bough a DVD at Trade centre. The price was a whopping R99.99 so I paid wit a R100.00 bill, I got no change as it was rounded of. The next day I decided to return it as I did not want it anymore and I could get it cheaper somewhere else. When i returned it I had to wait for change as they were out. On questioning the issue why I have to wait as I paid with a R100.00 note as clearly indicated on my invoice the plep stated that was company policy. She cannot give me the R100.00 back she must give me the R99.95 cents. So I lost a full six cents. The issue is not the money but the fraudulent principle. How mane millions of customers they have and thus to how much does this all amount too!
 
I've never noticed this, but next time I'll check, I mainly pay with a card though.

I'd love to see what happens - if they claim no 5c, I'll make them refund me for the item :)
 
NoADSLyet said:
Yeah its a long standing issue this. I bough a DVD at Trade centre. The price was a whopping R99.99 so I paid wit a R100.00 bill, I got no change as it was rounded of. The next day I decided to return it as I did not want it anymore and I could get it cheaper somewhere else. When i returned it I had to wait for change as they were out. On questioning the issue why I have to wait as I paid with a R100.00 note as clearly indicated on my invoice the plep stated that was company policy. She cannot give me the R100.00 back she must give me the R99.95 cents. So I lost a full six cents. The issue is not the money but the fraudulent principle. How mane millions of customers they have and thus to how much does this all amount too!
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That I would have taken on...
 
Slightly off topic but still to do with change, i have really cool option on my debit card called "save-the-change" that if something costs £9.85, £10 comes off my account and £0.15 automatically goes into my savings account.

You should see how quickly change adds up into real money where in normal daily activity that change would just be lost etc...

Maybe the SA banks should implement something like that?
 
lion_fish said:
Slightly off topic but still to do with change, i have really cool option on my debit card called "save-the-change" that if something costs £9.85, £10 comes off my account and £0.15 automatically goes into my savings account.

You should see how quickly change adds up into real money where in normal daily activity that change would just be lost etc...

Maybe the SA banks should implement something like that?
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Not with the SA bank's greed
 
hmmmmmm something to look into. my wife will never leave the till without making sure she has THE RIGHT CHANGE.she tells the cashier MY GELD IS MY GELD (MY MONEY IS MY MONEY). somebody is making a pretty penny (ooops! a pretty 5c).why not charge 5c for a shopping bag instead.
 
Shouldn't the till slip say something like "rounding" and the amount?
 
I had the same thing the other day at Shoprite. BUT this was on a Friday afternoon and I had a trolley full of goods...so I left the trolley and an irrate cashier.

The security guard and manager both came running after me as I simply decided to walk out and we had a short conversation with both retreating quite quickly afterwards. The sheer audicity they had to come running as if I do not have the right to walkout if they try and short change you.

But the best part was that when I told some friends they went shopping the next day and at the till points 5 couples just left the stuff after it was put through and then walked to the manager and told him to put his stuff where the sun does not shine.

There is another bugbear. Over the festive season some companies present their debit orders a few days earlier. ADT was planning to do so until some customers got uptight.

Imagine a company with 100,000 clients each with a R300 debit order is 30,000,000 and then think about the interest these companies make by having the money for say 5 additional days in their account!
 
NoADSLyet said:
Yeah its a long standing issue this. I bough a DVD at Trade centre. The price was a whopping R99.99 so I paid wit a R100.00 bill, I got no change as it was rounded of. The next day I decided to return it as I did not want it anymore and I could get it cheaper somewhere else. When i returned it I had to wait for change as they were out. On questioning the issue why I have to wait as I paid with a R100.00 note as clearly indicated on my invoice the plep stated that was company policy. She cannot give me the R100.00 back she must give me the R99.95 cents. So I lost a full six cents. The issue is not the money but the fraudulent principle. How mane millions of customers they have and thus to how much does this all amount too!
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Petty these companies. :rolleyes:
 
Ok, so you are losing 5c. But let's be honest here: nobody is getting rich off 5c per transaction. A Mr Price Store on a busy Saturday probably has one transaction every two minutes or so. So on an 8 hour day that means 240 transactions, not all of which are cash and not all of which will have the 5c issue (if a customer buys two products for Rx.95 ea, the change will include 10c). Lets guess that 1/3 of the transactions are affected - (and I think that it'll be less than that)- the extra income for the store is a whopping R4.00 for the whole day. Nobody is buying a holiday house in the Bahamas on that kind of money.

My advice to the person that wrote the article - get a life and focus on something that has a real impact.
 
Nomino said:
I had the same thing the other day at Shoprite. BUT this was on a Friday afternoon and I had a trolley full of goods...so I left the trolley and an irrate cashier.

The security guard and manager both came running after me as I simply decided to walk out and we had a short conversation with both retreating quite quickly afterwards. The sheer audicity they had to come running as if I do not have the right to walkout if they try and short change you.

But the best part was that when I told some friends they went shopping the next day and at the till points 5 couples just left the stuff after it was put through and then walked to the manager and told him to put his stuff where the sun does not shine.

There is another bugbear. Over the festive season some companies present their debit orders a few days earlier. ADT was planning to do so until some customers got uptight.

Imagine a company with 100,000 clients each with a R300 debit order is 30,000,000 and then think about the interest these companies make by having the money for say 5 additional days in their account!
Click to expand...

If we're all going to throw our toys about being ripped off, let's focus on the areas where we are really reamed. When I make a cheque or internet payment from my bank account to an account at another bank, the funds are deducted from my account almost immediately (i.e. as soon as the cheque is deposited, or immediately in the case of internet transfers). However it sometimes takes as much as a week before a cheque clears, and three days before an internet transfer is completed. During that period, I don't have the money, and the payee doesn't have the money - so who is earning interest? This interest belongs to me if the payee hasn't been paid yet, but the banks happily keep it to themselves.
 
arf9999 said:
Ok, so you are losing 5c. But let's be honest here: nobody is getting rich off 5c per transaction. A Mr Price Store on a busy Saturday probably has one transaction every two minutes or so. So on an 8 hour day that means 240 transactions, not all of which are cash and not all of which will have the 5c issue (if a customer buys two products for Rx.95 ea, the change will include 10c). Lets guess that 1/3 of the transactions are affected - (and I think that it'll be less than that)- the extra income for the store is a whopping R4.00 for the whole day. Nobody is buying a holiday house in the Bahamas on that kind of money.

My advice to the person that wrote the article - get a life and focus on something that has a real impact.
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Even if it's half a cent, they are stealing by keeping your money. It's the principle that matters here.
 
MyselfY9Y said:
Even if it's half a cent, they are stealing by keeping your money. It's the principle that matters here.
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I admire your principles then.

For me, my time is worth more than the effort it would take to demand a useless coin that I would probably discard in any case. I tend to read price tags as round numbers (i.e. R19.95 = R20.00) so I don't get my blood pressure up about it... I'd rather focus on real issues.
 
arf9999 said:
I admire your principles then.

For me, my time is worth more than the effort it would take to demand a useless coin that I would probably discard in any case. I tend to read price tags as round numbers (i.e. R19.95 = R20.00) so I don't get my blood pressure up about it... I'd rather focus on real issues.
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The businesses in South Africa knows that attitude, that is why we are just too content and live with this local exploitation as with the case with Telscum! Because we pay they will never budge. Next is we will only have a 50 cent coin and you will still be content to be ripped off!
 
NoADSLyet said:
The businesses in South Africa knows that attitude, that is why we are just too content and live with this local exploitation as with the case with Telscum! Because we pay they will never budge. Next is we will only have a 50 cent coin and you will still be content to be ripped off!
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But it's not 50c. It's 5c - there are far more important issues to contemplate than the loss of a worthless copper coin. IMO you're not being ripped off, the cashier is probably just being lazy.
 
arf9999 said:
But it's not 50c. It's 5c - there are far more important issues to contemplate than the loss of a worthless copper coin. IMO you're not being ripped off, the cashier is probably just being lazy.
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OBVIOUSLY YOU DO NOT HAVE TIME TO READ THESE POSTS! So no further comments then! :D
 
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