It's another beautiful day at Malmart, and today I ran again into one of the things which cashiers hate, i.e. the Visa/Mastercard gift cards or rebate cards.
It seems like a simple concept, but of course nothing is simple in Retail Hell.
As fellow cashiers probably know, the gift cards act like credit cards with a limit of whatever is on the card. If there is less than the total transaction value and the cashier is not informed the card is declined, just like a credit card.
If the customer knows how much is on the card then the amount charged can be altered, allowing the card to process. Quite simply, if the customer doesn't know how much is on the card I can't make it go. They made it easy to find out the balance with a phone number AND an email address, but you know most customers can't be bothered to take five minutes out of their INCREDIBLY busy schedule in order to save ten minutes or more when they're in line demanding to know WHY their card isn't working.
Too-Busy-Grandma didn't have time, but she had time to spend at least five minutes trying to make her card work and arguing with me. The kicker was that after she had attempted to swipe her card after I informed her TWICE that Visa doesn't share its information with Walmart and that her attempts were futile, she informed me that we were all incompetent, as it was a GIFT CARD.
Oh, it's a gift card all right, a VISA gift card, not a MALMART gift card. My own roommate, who has heard a billion stories about this very topic came through my line and did the SAME THING!
When these people are confronted with the fact that that it acts like a credit card they keep repeating "but it's a gift card," a perfect example of a common symptom of customer ignorance: believing that repeating something will make it true.
I can say that I love my job a billion times, but that doesn't change the fact that when I'm at Malmart I have the almost uncontrollable urge to turn my pen into a stabbing device.
Anyway, have a happy whatever-holiday-you-The Malmart Peon
I too have had to try to explain that situation to people in countless situations. All of them just look at me with this dazed blank stare as if the lil hamster on it's wheel up there is running with all it's might but the gears just ain't turnin...and then they start the stream of insults and proafnities.
Posted by: Spritzy | December 26, 2009 at 07:15 AM
If you can dial a phone,you can find the balance on a gift card.Yes I too have tried to explain this to countless dimwit custys.Interesting how they don't have a few minuts to make a simple phone call,but they have several hours to spend in our stores buying crap they don't need.When will people grow brains?
Posted by: mudflapgirl | December 26, 2009 at 08:43 AM
When I run into this issue, the very first thing I do is ask them if they know how much is left on it, or if it's new, what the balance is on the card.
If they say no, I simply explain to them that they're going to have to call the number to find out the balance, before I can process it on their transaction. I tell them that there's no way for me to check, because Wal-Mart's system isn't designed to do that.
Then I suspend the transaction before they can start anything, hand them the receipt they need, and tell them when they find out the balance, hand it to any cashier, and they'll finish processing the transaction. Until then, their items will be on hold in Customer Service until midnight.
It's a bit pushy yeah, and I thought for sure I'd get in trouble if I ever got caught, but it turns out that our zone manager found out about it, and now wants that to be the required way we handle those type of transactions, as it keeps the lines moving...go figure.
Posted by: Twink | December 26, 2009 at 08:48 AM
Prime example of one of the prime truisms of retail: Persons are smart; People are stupid.
Posted by: Riferous | December 26, 2009 at 05:27 PM