Receipts

[Lat-Literal]

There was some kerfuffle going on at the checkout of the local all purpose store. The young woman did not want a small packet of rizlas. She wanted something else. Various packets were produced by the shopkeeper until something emerged that was about ten times the size. "This?" he asked. "What is the purpose?" so as to ascertain what it was she really wanted. "Because I am going to get high" she declared loudly, laughed, and looked around for knowing laughter from the audience on either side. As it happens, I was immediately behind her. What she got was my stoniest cold expression.

Then there was a fiddle-faddling with another couple of packets and we went through the same procedure again. "Because I want to get high" she repeated with a greater expectation that the reception would be the one she required. But again she got me and the same expression. I couldn't care less what people get up to in their lives. But I absolutely can't stand the way that illegality is flaunted with the belief that everyone will comply with the sentiment when they come down so heavy on legal things. Also I don't do zeitgeist. Before you know it, there will be health warnings on breakfast cereal.

Eventually, she went and I paid for my butter and a couple of other items in cash. £4.25. "Right" the shopkeeper said. "Right" I said not moving as he expected towards the door. There was an awkward silence. "Right" he said again. "Well, don't I get a receipt?" I said in my best Meldrew style. "Oh you want a receipt...of course you can have a receipt". Thank you and goodbye. Later I was in Waitrose. A few items. £15. Very nice woman behind the till. Helped me with my bags. "Would you like a receipt?" "Yes please" but what I really meant was "what the hell is this? Of course, I want a receipt".

I want a receipt in case the stuff turns out to be duff and I need proof of where I made my purchase. I want it so that they show that they are involved in a professional transaction, however slight. More than that, I want it without asking as a thank you for shopping with them rather than someone else. So what the hell is going on from small local shops to supermarkets? Should I think there is tax avoidance in all similar cases and that the expectation not to be given a receipt is the retail equivalent of accepting there is dope? Receipts are given automatically by/at self service checkouts.

[Richard Tarleton]

I'd make a distinction between consumables (coffee, petrol) where the item is non-returnable anyway, and situations where there I may have to return it (clothing, rotten fruit). The self-service checkouts give you a receipt automatically, but when paying for petrol (normally below £30, contactless) I decline. Perhaps they're trying to save paper? I don't need to "keep it for my records".

[Serial_Apologist]

They could be asking if you want a receipt as part of a company policy to help save trees. I always prefer any receipt I am offered not to have printing on the reverse side. That way I can use it for making out shopping lists. But certainly they are essential in case goods have to be returned. Sone goods, eg printer refills from Currys/PC World, may carry a promise of a reduction on the receipt. I always manage to forget this on my next visit.

[oddoneout]

Contactless payments don't issue receipts unless requested, and so many people use that method for small transactions that for many till operators not handing over a bit of paper is the norm. Also, so many folk don't seem to want proof of purchase even if issued, and I suppose at least if the cashier keeps and disposes of it then it reduces random litter in and around the site.

[gradus]

I never bother with receipts for day to day things especially with contactless payments, otherwise I end up with pockets full of paper.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I can't do without receipts - I so easily forget how much I've spent (and, not infrequently, what I've bought) unless these bits of paper remind me to "do me books". I'd easily and regularly overspend my monthly budget without receipts.

[vinteuil]

I can't do without receipts - I so easily forget how much I've spent (and, not infrequently, what I've bought) unless these bits of paper remind me to "do me books". I'd easily and regularly overspend my monthly budget without receipts.

... isn't it easier to pay with plastic, and then at the end of the month you can see at a glance what you've been paying and for what? And you can check online betweenwhiles if the fancy takes you. It's how we keep monthly tabs on moneys out...

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[Lat-Literal]

Thank you for your replies which I appreciate. Having also discussed this with several people today offline - we were mainly in disagreement with each other on this matter - some of the above comments are quite similar to theirs. Unfortunately, I don't accept the paper saving argument. If that really is the purpose, it is yet another indicator of how the world has gone crackers given the minute amount of paper it represents in the round. It reminds me of the post financial crisis discussion in my workplace where otherwise sensible people felt that the best way of saving money was not to give people coming into meetings from outside a biscuit. They all started to get the hump when I said we should consider ending executive cars, unnecessary away days and parties - in other words, proper money which meant employees, not others, making the sacrifices.

On contactless, perhaps I need to be better educated but I always get an automatic receipt when using contactless at Tesco and in the small hand held machines at local newsagents etc. I am not sure that I fully understand the distinction between consumables (coffee, petrol) where the item is non-returnable anyway and situations where there may have to be a return. I am advised that in the Westminster area. the average sandwich shop doesn't provide a receipt but the average purchase there could be a disappointing coffee and a distinctly off egg sandwich. On "many people don't want a receipt" and the fairly closely related "it's too much hassle", my question would be who says so. When and by whom was it decided? It is also more of a hassle to have an exchange of words about whether a receipt is wanted or not rather than simply to provide one.

I am actually genuinely shocked by this trend of which I was only vaguely aware until it hit me. I thought it dovetailed in quite well with the cannabis point because each is an example of where there is a significant - and insidious - cultural shift seemingly based on a consensus that one has to buy into it irrespective of the law. But specifically in regard to receipts, the position is more vague on what the law requires. Is the fact, for example, that receipts are provided by self-service checkouts indicative of what the law really requires? Is the position different on internet purchases and, if so, is this where the trend is coming from? Is it piggy-backing in a deliberately confusing way in the shift of approach in regard to plastic bags which does have a political and legal underpinning? Or is the law as lazy and dismissive of the customer as the sellers have become?

As for motives, is it a tool for putting people off paying by cash? For reducing the workforce so that the number of self-service checkouts is increased? Or - as I implied - a method of tax avoidance for where cash is paid. We are long used to the process of decorators, plumbers and electricians preferring cash so that they can avoid tax. I tend to comply with their expectations given that is a supposed norm but whenever anything explicit is said in such an arrangement to the effect that we all do these things, I don't like it and I don't identify with it. I am aware that throughout my working life tax was deducted at source. In the absence of clarity, which I'd have thought was the least we could expect, I am tempted to view most non automatic receipt shops as being either in tax avoidance or tax evasion. Which means there is even less money for public services.

[Joseph K]

I thought it dovetailed in quite well with the cannabis point because each is an example where there is a significant - and insidious - cultural shift seemingly based on a consensus that one should buy into it irrespective of the law.

If there is a cultural shift, there's nothing insidious about it in this example. Cannabis is far less harmful than tobacco or alcohol, and definitely, therefore, should not be illegal. I think people in a way ought to flaunt it when they can get away with it. Mock this ludicrous law!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... isn't it easier to pay with plastic, and then at the end of the month you can see at a glance what you've been paying and for what? And you can check online betweenwhiles if the fancy takes you. It's how we keep monthly tabs on moneys out...

I pay for most things by plastic these days - that's why I need the receipts; in t'olden days, I knew how much I was spending by how much cash I had left in the wallet. Being told at the end of the month that I've overspent isn't any use and less fun - and I don't do Online Banking.

Bits of paper - suits my lifestye preferences perfectly

[vinteuil]

I pay for most things by plastic these days

... tho' I'm sure that always paying in cash rather than with plastic will tend to reduce expenditure. When I took my very early retirement I was very unsure how much money I wd have to live on and felt the need to be very careful indeed - so for twelve months I didn't use plastic at all - once a week I wd get a certain amount of cash out of a hole-in-the-wall machine, and live within that pre-determined limit. I found it was not difficult to be frugal - tho' probably it was a year when I didn't buy too many CDs. Also amazon hadn't been invented...

A few deaths and a marriage later I no longer need to exercise such restraint - but it was a useful and instructive period in my life...


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[Lat-Literal]

If there is a cultural shift, there's nothing insidious about it in this example. Cannabis is far less harmful than tobacco or alcohol, and definitely, therefore, should not be illegal. I think people in a way ought to flaunt it when they can get away with it. Mock this ludicrous law!

Some would have similar sentiments about the "unnecessary" controls on gun ownership.

If we go down your road, then there will be a lot of flaunting in other areas that does lead to serious harmful effects.

That is the essential problem with individual pick n mix.

Like democracy is to politics, the law is "the best bad system" for maximising cohesion.

It may at times be an ass but the ass needs to be seen as having integrity beyond any suitable formal challenge to it.

[Lat-Literal]

.....so what is the legal position on receipts?

[Joseph K]

Some would have similar sentiments about the "unnecessary" controls on gun ownership.

Sorry but comparing weed to guns is so utterly, gobsmackingly ludicrous. Do I really need to point out the differences between the two?

If we go down your road, then there will be a lot of flaunting in other areas that does lead to serious harmful effects.

Can you give me some evidence for this, like from a country such as the Netherlands?

That is the essential problem with individual pick n mix.

Like democracy is to politics, the law is "the best bad system" for maximising cohesion.

It may at times be an ass but the ass needs to be seen as having integrity beyond any suitable formal challenge to it.

If the law is stupid and defies common sense, then many people will ignore it... people under the influence of alcohol are far more of a threat to cohesion etc. than stoned people!

[Lat-Literal]

Sorry but comparing weed to guns is so utterly, gobsmackingly ludicrous. Do I really need to point out the differences between the two?

Can you give me some evidence for this, like from a country such as the Netherlands?

If the law is stupid and defies common sense, then many people will ignore it... people under the influence of alcohol are far more of a threat to cohesion etc. than stoned people!

You clearly have strong views on the matter, JK. I doubt extensive discussion here would alter much. The comparison is obvious in terms of the current legal position except that gun ownership is permitted in some circumstances in Britain. In other words, the legalisation of guns is further ahead. I wouldn't apply much of a read across with the Netherlands when the country Britain is most similar to - and always ultimately mimics - is the United States. We are its poodle. And that fact would suggest the greatest likelihood in future years is in you or anyone else being able to consume cannabis in, say, East Sussex after a referendum there but not in West Sussex or in, say, Lancashire after a referendum there but not in Cheshire.

It also suggests the greatest likelihood in future years is that every adult British resident of allegedly sound mind will be permitted to own a gun. It wouldn't bother me. I won't be alive or else I will emigrate. But the reality is that freedoms are not generally ring-fenced to please certain people all of the time. One leads on to another. Frequently, one group gets what it wants and then gets what it doesn't want. It can end up leading to unforeseen but very predictable consequences of greater social constraints, especially when the balance isn't right.

Incidentally, I used to be slightly more liberal on this issue. However, what turned me was (a) the softly-softly approach by Government/NHS in these areas - the guidance effectively says to patients if you wish to speak about use we will be discrete given the illegality and if you don't it's entirely up to you : contrast with the tens of thousands of ads now going out on radio about lawful alcohol use and the obsession on sugar and (b) the fact that the financial crash which led to suicides, bankruptcies, house losses, break ups and unemployment was entirely a cocaine fuelled crash just as the next one will be and the one after that too. The only plus point I can see in any liberalisation of the drugs laws is that the cutesy two fingers up will become wiped out by simultaneous campaigns as brutal as those on light drinkers and the obese. There will be absolutely no fun in it. But I suspect we'll have a decade before it when there won't be any such campaigns because MPs will want to appear modern and freeing as a glib cultural pay off for pursuing austerity measures of ever increasing severity .

You will note that I didn't say about the law-breaking woman in question that I felt she should stop what she was saying or be driven to the police but rather I said that I wasn't going to clap my hands to it and hypocritically grin like a fool however much the pressure was on me to do so. That is my legal right. Does anyone know what the legal position is on receipts?