Ah yes, this brings me back to my days when I worked at Target as a cashier and at the service desk. Cashiering wasn't too bad generally, the second there was a problem you just called over the assistant manager on duty, and 99 out of 100 customers knew you had no power as a cashier, so they didn't usually give you any grief. I did get the occasional "what do you mean, my credit card was declined. WHY?" I'd reply "Umm...the bank won't tell us information about YOUR personal, private account ma'am. If you want to know what's going on, you'll have to call them. There's a payphone just over there." (pre-cell phone...gosh I'm old!

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The worst one I encountered was a woman that just would not take "No" for an answer. She had bought an $80 boom-box stereo two or three days earlier, and wanted to return it. She did have the receipt...but she had the bottom cliped off where it shows the form of payment, cash check or credit card. Target was (and still is) with the times and had a code at the top of the receipt that you pluged in on all returns and it would tell you the orginal form of payment, really just pull up the whole transaction like an electronic receipt. So I could tell it was paid for with a check, even with the incomplete receipt. The customer was asking for a refund to her credit card, or barring that, a cash refund. She had pretended that she had used a credit card to pay for the transaction right up until I told her what we had in our system showed she used a check.
Transactions paid for by check have different rules since it can take so long for the check to clear and funds be released from the customers bank. Due to this, any check purchase that is being returned under 10 days from the date it was purchased has to be in the form of a check that is mailed to the person on the 10th day, meaning with mail service it could be up to two weeks before you get your money.
She did NOT like this answer, and while she didn't swear at me, she yelled at me saying this was a horrible way to treat customers, it was her money and we had no right to hold on to it for so long, and anyway it must be a mistake because she PAID by credit card, how dare I not believe her, I was calling her a liar etc. etc. And she demanded to see a manager (as if I wasn't going to call one after all of that!!!).
Okay, fine. Assistant manager comes up, says the exact same thing as I did, that we had to follow policy etc., she yells at her (same tirade that I was treated to) and asks for my assitant managers boss. One of the stores managers (but not the head store manager) also backs up me and the assistant, more histerics ensue and she then demands to see the head store manager, and isn't leaving until she speaks to them.
Head manager comes up (by now this had been going on for a good 30 minutes), and tells her she can either give us the info to mail her a check or she can take her stereo and go home, and that she's lucky we are accepting the return at all as she attempted to alter the reciept (she claimed that's the receipt we gave her but we could tell it was cut with scissors and not torn off a register). The store manager then told her if she didn't provide her info for the check then she must leave immediately or the cops would be called, as we were finished with her and she was wasting all of our time. She left in a huff just as the head manager was about to call the cops. Of course she did not complete the return.
As near as we can figure, she was desperate for money and needed the amount either put on her CC to cover some charges that put her into trouble or get the cash so she could spend it on whatever or pay bills. Having access to none, she wanted to try and return a purchase she had writen a check for and get either a credit card refund or cash back, so she altered the receipt thinking if we couldn't tell how the item was purchased, we'd just take her word for it.
I know a lot of people here on the DIS complain about store refund policies, but this is the exact type of nonsense that made retailers tighten up their policies. Every time there is a fraudulant return, the stores have to raise prices to cover the shortfall and we all pay for it in the end.