This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/talesfromretail by /u/hellis3mpty on 2026-04-05 22:20:22+00:00.

when i was in college i used to work part-time at a home improvement store that i will not name. they had a loyalty program, not a paid membership type thing but if you signed up with your email and/or phone number you could get exclusive discounts and such. whenever people approached the counter to purchase something, the very first question we'd ask them was "are you part of [program name]?" so they could enter their information preemptively and have any discounts automatically applied to their purchase.

this couple came up to the register one time and as per usual, i asked them, "are you part of [program]?"

they proceeded to look at me as if i had two heads.

now, a lot of people would sign up for the program not knowing what it was called, so it was possible that they DID have an account; they just didn't know the program had a specific name. i try again. "it's our rewards program?"

they dubiously repeat "rewards program…?" as if they've never heard of such a thing.

fair enough. it had previously been called something else before we did a rebrand, maybe that's where the confusion was. "it used to be called [previous name], we recently changed it."

once again, they have no idea what i'm referring to. i ask them if they would like to sign up and they decline. no problem. i proceed to ring up their order, which is a LOT of items, easily totalling over $600 usd. once the final item has been scanned, i tell them their total and ask them to follow the instructions on the pin pad. the woman swipes her card, my computer alerts me that the payment has been accepted and auto-prints their receipt, which i hand to her. "alright, and there's your receipt. thanks so much for shopping with us, and you two have a great day!"

she takes her receipt. looks at it. looks at her bags containing $600+ worth of product. looks at me. looks at her receipt again. looks at her bags again. looks at me again.

she then asks me, "so where do i put in my phone number?"

my eye twitches. "i'm sorry, your what?"

"yeah. i had a 25% off coupon with my account and i wanted to use it today."

as it were, our pos system didn't allow me to partially refund items, nor to void an entire receipt. meaning i had to manually scan each item and refund them one-by-one, then do the entire transaction over again.

i nearly quit on the spot.