When I was working minimum wage at a gas station many eons ago, we would have ‘2 for $x’ specials where x is less than 2 times the individual price of whatever item.

People would often not want to buy 2, but I would ring up 2 in the till for the special price and charge them for the single. Then when the next person did the same, I would charge them for the other single.

So over the day, I would sell 10 energy drinks at say $4, but ring them up as 5 ‘2 for $6’ specials. This would put the till up by $10, and then I would use that $10 to have a free meal.

Anyone else do anything like that?

    • dQw4w9WgXcQ@lemm.ee
      31·
      1 year ago

      It might be more obvious if you increase the volume.

      Immagine that your employer has instructed you to sell 1 bottle for $3, but you can sell a whole pallet containing 500 bottles for $1000 (coming out at $2 per bottle). So you ring up the whole pallet and pay it off over the next few days by adding $2 to the cash register and keep $1 for each sale. Over those days, you have made one single sale of a pallet, while pocketing $500.

      The work hours which was meant for you to generate sales of $3 bottles has been reduced to effectively selling $2 bottles, while the remaining expected value ended in your pocket.

      As others have said, I don’t really care about big corporations losing out on some money, but you are 100% stealing when you reduce the expected sales value and pocket the difference during your work hours.

    • PeachMan@lemmy.one
      32·
      1 year ago

      Personally I don’t care and I don’t really think it’s THAT unethical, but it is definitely theft. So be aware if you pull little tricks like that in the future. If you get caught, you’ll DEFINITELY get fired and your employer MIGHT press charges (and they would win).

    • hedgehog@ttrpg.network
      11·
      1 year ago

      Per https://solink.com/resources/top-types-employee-theft/ it’s basically “Skimming”:

      This popular POS employee theft scam occurs when an employee charges a customer full price but takes a little cash out of the total for themselves. This may result in telltale cash register imbalances, or, it can be more complex, like using coupon codes on a customer’s purchase while still charging them full price and then pocketing the difference.

      Your implementation sounds pretty close to the coupon version.

      Are your bosses ever going to notice? Unlikely. And if they did they’d probably fire you at worst, rather than press charges.

      Now, that said, if your manager or employee handbook or any other source of authority at your job says it’s okay, then it is (excepting, of course, if they explicitly tell you it isn’t) - but that’s because it’s a benefit your employer has given you rather than one you’ve taken.