Rules on giving change

Ben D Bus

I regularly buy lunch at a sandwich bar where their standard special is €5.95

9 times out of 10 when I hand over €6 there are no 5c coins in the till to give change.

What's the law here? The cashier certainly works on the basis I shouldn't be bothered over 5c change, and I'm certain that's the plan. I now make sure to hand over €6.05 so I can take 10c change.

It's a tiny amount of money but because it seems to happen by design it's really pissing me off. But their sandwiches are so good I suffer through this nonsense daily.

Legally, what is the sellers obligation if they can't provide the correct change for a cash transaction?

Nody

They don't legally have to give you any change for any amount you offer (i.e. if you'd offer a 100 EUR bill they could take it all legally) if memory serves me right.

ssmith6287

obligation is on the customer to have the correct amount of money. Altough I would imagine extremely rare that a shop style business doesn't offer change

VincePP

Yep, no legal basis for giving change as the store offers you the price and you then offer a payment in exchange. If you hand over more than what the store requested, there is no legal onus on the store to give you change.

That said, normal practice is that you receive the correct change.

It is very annoying if its a regular occurance. Maybe write a little annonymous note suggesting that they invest in a few bags of 5c coins or change the price to €6 as it leaves a bad tatse in the mouth

Ben D Bus

Thanks for that. Not the answer I expected tbh, but at least now I'm informed.

From now on it's a €5 note and 19 5c coins for the benefit of the people in the queue behind me

ED E

Eventually we'll implement swedish rounding and cash payments will automatically become €6 while card payments will stay at 5.95.

L1011

ED E wrote: »

Eventually we'll implement swedish rounding and cash payments will automatically become €6 while card payments will stay at 5.95.

It'll take another good bit of inflation for us to round to .10. Still some people whinging about rounding to .05!

ED E

L1011 wrote: »

It'll take another good bit of inflation for us to round to .10. Still some people whinging about rounding to .05!

Our closest economy doing it is Finland and they round to 5 cents (upwards) for cash. 10c might be a little too far until contactless is king.

Ben D Bus

ED E wrote: »

Our closest economy doing it is Finland and they round to 5 cents (upwards) for cash. 10c might be a little too far until contactless is king.

We round to (nearest) 5c too.

ED E

Oops, I've been abroad since that went into full operation in October so I hadn't noticed

3rdDegree

Ben D Bus wrote: »

We round to (nearest) 5c too.

Never seems to happen. Everywhere I go, they still never round. I can count on one hand the amount of times I have received change rounded to 5¢.

Eugene Norman

Ben D Bus wrote: »

We round to (nearest) 5c too.

Then what's your complaint?

Eugene Norman

I don't get why people would want lots of 5c coins anyway. However let's hope that shops also round down.

P. Breathnach

Eugene Norman wrote: »

I don't get why people would want lots of 5c coins anyway. However let's hope that shops also round down.

They do, in my experience.

Any trader who rounded everything up would quickly lose my business, and I expect that other people would feel the same way.

Kenny Logins

Eugene Norman wrote: »

Then what's your complaint?

They're keeping the 5c.

Eugene Norman

Kenny Logins wrote: »

They're keeping the 5c.

There are easier ways to save in this situation like making your own sandwich. Once contactless is universal I'm never using cash.

Midnight Sundance

Why can't they give you 10c back in this case? Why should they get to pocket your 5c when they are the one with no change? I'd be asking her to round it down if they don't have the change. Someone has to lose here and it shouldn't be you.

Hollister11

:rolleyes:

Midnight Sundance wrote: »

Why can't they give you 10c back in this case? Why should they get to pocket your 5c when they are the one with no change? I'd be asking her to round it down if they don't have the change. Someone has to lose here and it shouldn't be you.

Technically the OP made an offer of €20 for a €5.95 sandwich, so the shop can keep the 20.

Now they obviously wouldn't stay in business very long, but that's a different story.

Ben D Bus

Eugene Norman wrote: »

There are easier ways to save in this situation like making your own sandwich. Once contactless is universal I'm never using cash.

The store in question does contactless. But there's a transaction charge for contactless, isn't there? I don't want to give the bank the 5c (or more) either!

Edit, just checked, it's 1c per contactless transaction it seems. I thought is was more. Maybe that IS the way to go.

ED E

Ben D Bus wrote: »

The store in question does contactless. But there's a transaction charge for contactless, isn't there? I don't want to give the bank the 5c (or more) either!

Edit, just checked, it's 1c per contactless transaction it seems. I thought is was more. Maybe that IS the way to go.

Get a better bank or card. Use Visa Debit Contactless daily, no charges.

Del2005

Eugene Norman wrote: »

I don't get why people would want lots of 5c coins anyway. However let's hope that shops also round down.

If they rounded down then they'd run out of 10c coins, shops can never win.

Del2005

ED E wrote: »

Get a better bank or card. Use Visa Debit Contactless daily, no charges.

None for you but the shop gets charged and smaller businesses get so ripped off by POS suppliers that they only take cash, even though that is expensive.

VincePP

Del2005 wrote: »

None for you but the shop gets charged and smaller businesses get so ripped off by POS suppliers that they only take cash, even though that is expensive.

all that is changing - I prefer customers to pay be card as the difference in cost between the cost of lodging cash 0.45% and cost of taking card 0.69% is very small and there's no counting and sorting and bringing to the bank to do and I'm a "small" business


Years ago cards cost 3% - 5%, but that's long gone. Any retailer on more than 0.95% for credit card or 13c for debit cards needs to change. (those rates are the published standard rates by one of the big processors - you can negotiate lower)

mrsoundie

What if you asked them if they had the change in the first place?

If they, then said no, leave the goods behind, as the transaction is not to your satisfaction.

Alun

VincePP wrote: »

all that is changing - I prefer customers to pay be card as the difference in cost between the cost of lodging cash 0.45% and cost of taking card 0.69% is very small and there's no counting and sorting and bringing to the bank to do and I'm a "small" business


Years ago cards cost 3% - 5%, but that's long gone. Any retailer on more than 0.95% for credit card or 13c for debit cards needs to change. (those rates are the published standard rates by one of the big processors - you can negotiate lower)

Do you pay less to the banks for contactless transactions? I'd have thought they would be, but you never know.

VincePP

Alun wrote: »

Do you pay less to the banks for contactless transactions? I'd have thought they would be, but you never know.

Don't know as our average sale is well above the contactless limit. Debit cards for me are changing to a percentage from June 1st and I'm paying 0.35%, so I would suspect standard rate will be 0.5% or less. Basically from next month it will be cheaper for me to take a debit card than cash even on a €1 transaction.