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ash
ash asked in Politics & GovernmentLaw & Ethics · 2 years ago

Was this a cashier scam, or just a mistake?

the other day, I was in a grocery store with my son. I had made my purchase of $18.76 with my foodstamp card. The cashier said "oops, I made a mistake. I added taxes onto that!" This confused me because I thought the system was set up so that taxes could not be applied. By this time, I had already punched in my pin, and the transaction had been finalized. He told me "let me reverse that transaction and we can start again, your foodstamps have gone back on your card." I agreed. Well this time when he rung it up, the transaction came to $19 and some change. He said he had fixed his error asked me to run my card again. I did, and it was declined. I had an app on my phone that allowed me to view all of my transactions. It showed the original $18.76 coming out, but not being put back on my card, and i only had $16 and some change left. After some back and forth, the a woman I assume was a manager, came up. She tried to run my card again! Then she took my information and told me to take my groceries, and that when the foodstamps came back on my card, they would take it out then. She had taken my foodstamp card number. The next day, I went back in, and she told me that she was required by her boss to pay $20 for my transaction because she was told by her boss that what she should have done before letting me leave was to take the remaining foodstamps off my card and that I would be reimbursed the original purchase. "eventually"

Update:

Yesterday, I called the number on the back of my card. They said that they saw the transaction, but no reversal was submitted. The scary thing is, if there has been enough money on my card..the transaction would have gone through twice, and I would have paid twice. I ended up cancelling my card and am waiting on a new one. Was this whole thing a mistake, or a well orchestrated scam?

Update 2:

I have only stated how it was stated to me. It has been 4 days now and the foodstamps were not credited back to me. So well after the 24 to 48 hours. The employee on the first day, told me it had never happened before. On the second day, he told me it had happened and it was the customer's responsibility to call the number on the back of the card, and after two weeks, I get my foodstamps back. the manager was trying to tell me i owed her $20 cause she had to pay for my order

5 Answers

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  • ?
    Lv 7
    2 years ago
    Favourite answer

    I'm not familiar with Food Stamps, but this sounded like a scam to me too. Grocery stores do NOT charge tax on food, and can't add tax on items that are not taxable. I'd be very careful if you continue to shop at this store again.

  • babyboomer1001
    Lv 7
    2 years ago

    I'd call it a total f*ck up.

  • Slickterp
    Lv 7
    2 years ago

    A reversal of a charge doesn't happen immediately. It takes a day or two.

  • lucy
    Lv 7
    2 years ago

    This was NOT a scam. What happened is that the cashier hit the (wrong) key, thus did not come up as SNAP (food stamps). I worked PT as a cashier and depending on the store/computer, may have to do an extra (steps) to force the system to (know) it is SNAP.

    Now, NO cashier ADDS tax, it is impossible to do. The computer does this automatically. So in my state, ALL food is (non) taxable, and paper products, candy and (non) food is taxable.

    And (YES) with snap, NO taxes are applied, but that only applies to FOOD. So you have 2 choices, which is to ring up everything, which SNAP will (only) take out the food amount, then the same bill for (non) food, you then have to pay in cash. Most of the time, the customers will just have the cashier ring up (2) orders, the 1st for the food under SNAP, then the 2nd one, which the customer pays in cash.

    And yes, they should have reversed out the charges to credit back your SNAP. For it to come out more on the 2nd time, means they rang something up (twice) or did not ring it up on the 1st time. Either way, when you came back with the receipt, then they should have credited or debited your account. Now, Snap is the government, (not) a bank, thus my guess is that it takes 48 hours vs instant or 24 hours on a (regular) bank account.

  • STEVEN F
    Lv 7
    2 years ago

    NEITHER. The system doesn't allow the cashier to determine if taxes are charged or not.

    What you claim is literally NOT POSSIBLE using any system CAPABLE of accepting government benefits.

    Note: HOW you pay has NOTHING to do with if taxes are due. WHAT you by is either taxable or not.

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