- Am I likely to have to return my purchase?
- Am I using cash instead of credit/debit?
- Do I want to review what I purchased to make sure everything was the correct price and/or (if it’s a bunch of items) that I got everything?
- Am I being reimbursed/reimbursing someone?
- Am I in a shopping mall where I’ll be bringing this merchandise into other stores with similar offerings?
if any of the above factors are true:
- Do I have an account which will let me receive a digital receipt instead?
- If not, then yes.
If none of the above factors are true: No. At that point to me it’s just a waste of receipt paper and my time.
As they are mandatory printed where Iam, the only choice is do i throw it away, or do they throw it away
Here in Germany, there’s a law to prevent tax fraud, which results in companies always creating a receipt for every purchase. Even if you don’t want a receipt, they print it and then directly throw it away. (I don’t know, if the law is dumb or the companies are).
And yeah, it’s resulted in me just always taking the receipt and then usually throwing it away at home.
Taiwan had the same concern. What they did is make it so that receipts also work as lottery tickets, to encourage people to ask for them and hold on to them.
Excuse me what? A lottery ticket‽
Not from Taiwan, but the way it works is that there’s a unique ID on each of the receipts. The ID is there anyways, so no additional things to be done at this point. What’s different is that a lucky ID is announced e.g. every month, and the person with the receipt can collect a small amount of money.
In case someone else also wants to know more about this lottery:
Big brain.
Reminds me, I think economists love VAT so if this were a global thing for every transaction and we could agree internationally on minimum tax rates, I think society would be better funded (but I’m def not an economist)
I’m gonna run an experiment in 2025 and keep every single receipt so I can itemize my sales tax. My state has a stupid high sales tax and I don’t believe the sales tax tables from the IRS are accurate.
Anybody say yes to bump the “yes” stats so companies don’t try anything funny based on likelihood of getting away with it?
Naw that’d be weird whistle
Edit: (for dine in) I’m totally gonna review to make sure only 20% tips were charged to my card and they weren’t fatfingered… any day now… (wonder how much I’m ahead/behind lifetime on proper tip entry)
Yeah, I always ask for a receipt at counter service/fast food eateries. Half the time, even though I only order like 2 items (3 at the very maximum if I’m feeling chippy), the order is inevitably missing something or incorrect so I like to have it as proof when I tell them I’m missing my drink order or something.
I don’t know how people fly by the seat of their pants and just let places like Taco Bell or Dunkin Donuts just give them random items without proof of what you ordered lol. Maybe I’m just unlucky!
Or yeah, if I think I might have to return an item, I don’t want a receipt.
Otherwise, 90% of the time, I don’t want one.
those people aren’t flying by the seat of their pants. they just live in harmony with those around them. they don’t feel the need to cause trouble because some thing happens.
How is it causing trouble to say “excuse me, I had a latte with my order. Thanks!!”??? I’m polite about it and I wait ample time to make sure they truly forgot and aren’t just behind. Hell, usually I’m actually approached by one of the employees when I’m just standing there waiting for a prolonged period of time, not the other way around.
But I only order 2 things. When I’m missing one of the only two items I paid for, I have a tendency to speak up. It doesn’t make me an asshole. Believe it or not, there are polite ways you can indicate that you are missing half your order.
I actually don’t correct them if they give me 2 incorrect items, so long as they are in the same category of what I wanted (a food and a drink item)…happens frequently. It’s when I’m missing a category of item that I ask for it.
Some contactless payment systems like Apple Pay can have a receipt automatically emailed if the POS system supports it.
Avoids paper waste from unwanted, avoids missing a receipt when it was wanted, and much easier to organise.
Sounds complicated. Just say yes and figure it out later.
Yeah, it only matters if it happens often, and if it happens often then you’ll probably get used to it anyway, so that you don’t have to mentally go through a list anymore.
I default to yes if asked, so I don’t have to think. Later when I’m relaxed I can make the final decision
Always ask for a receipt. Let the capitalists sweat a little over the chance of you returning your purchase.
Business purchase: receipt.
Big private purchase: receipt.
Everything else: no receipt.
Is someone gonna ask to see it before I leave the store? Then yes. Otherwise no
There are probably subtle subconscious cues that he’s unaware of himself
Does the cashier seem like she wants/needs me to take the receipt? Will she be crestfallen if I say, “I’m okay, thanks!?”
I always ask for a printed receipt. You never know when something breaks and you need to return it or you order food and they get it wrong. It’s way easier to dispute stuff when you have a receipt. I’m actually surprised it’s not given out by default in the US. Back in my home country it’s required by law to issue a receipt.
Always? Like if you buy a juice and bagel, you are grabbing a receipt even if the exchange happens in real time? Why? I always do for groceries and wine (good luck bringing in a rotten watermelon and just telling them you bought it there yesterday), but not much else.
Yup. I guess it’s just second nature to me since I grew up in a place where you get a receipt for every transaction with a registered business. It goes both ways. It’s proof that you bought the item from that business/store, and it’s also proof that you paid for that item in case you get accused of stealing it. And yes, I come from a third world country.
I always say no because receipts have been shown to commonly contain BPA and other cancer-causing/endocrine-disrupting chemicals that can be absorbed through your skin. The data seems to be mixed on whether or not the dermal uptake is significant enough to pose a threat, but I just don’t want to take the chance.
If you have to have a receipt, try to touch it for the least amount of time possible, avoid touching the printed side, and keep it in a container or Ziploc bag in your main bag or somewhere else.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/receipt-paper-harmful/
https://www.ecocenter.org/our-work/healthy-stuff-lab/reports/receipt-deceit-toxic-chemicals-receipt-paper/test-results
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412020319863
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33313651/
https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/isee.2013.S-2-37-02I would guess that the exposure to BPAs from handling receipt paper for a few seconds would be incredibly minimal, especially when compared to other potential sources of BPAs like food and drink packaging etc.
Maybe don’t reuse receipts as paper towels or toilet paper, but briefly handling them enough to put in a wallet etc is probably safe in the grand scheme of things.
So yeah, I think I am going to stop using those CVS receipts as toilet paper, but they should have a warning because they look very much like toilet paper.
Crazy this is the first I’ve ever heard of this
One of my favorite Mitch Hedberg jokes. https://youtu.be/xPq0-8dyl8I
Lol I came here just to see if someone had posted this. I think of this joke almost every time someone asks if I want a receipt.
Same, that and his escalator joke. Rip Mitch.
His joke always reminds me of Patrice O’Neal’s counter point:
You left your SI in the link
Thanks, fixed it
I like to think about it for a second or two and then say yes. And if i get one i act like i got the right answer in a quiz.
I tend to switch it up between “No” and “Stare at them without a word until they throw it away on their own”, and then there’s the rare manoeuvre “Come back in after just leaving and say that I’m sorry but I realised I actually need one this time”.
I only ever ask for the receipt when I wanna see how much of my food stamps are left immediately after spending some. Or for some kind of electronic device I think might break in less than 90 days.
I always ask for a receipt at gas stations with talking pumps because I want to waste their resources. It’s petty and small, but fuck them.
Fun fact! If the talking pump has buttons (usually four on each side of the screen), press all of them from the top down right when it starts yammering at you, and one or more of these magical button presses should shut its trap!
I, too, hate being audibly ad-blasted at the gas station.
Most of the ones in my area don’t actually mute, sadly.
I once even had an attendant ask what I needed help with over the little speaker, because one of the buttons was an unmarked ‘call for help’ button.I did try pushing the buttons the other day and got the same. Basically told them I was looking for the mute button and that their speaker was messed up because a previous person had done some manual percussive muting of their speakers.
Ha! I always thought I was the most petty and malicious fucker out there for doing exactly this. If they have a working hidden mute button I forgive, but if not I punish them with wasted receipt ink/paper (I don’t even look at it!) and fill their trash bin much faster than it would otherwise be filled! Together you and I are going to teach these assholes a real lesson!
“Would you like the receipt?” “I don’t know. Does it have a nice personality?”
the only place I regularly ask for a receipt is at the grocery store, so nobody can hassle me on the way out. and I do sometimes have to return grocery items
I’ve given up unless I’ll need it for taxes or legal reasons. For years I thought I could organize them. But that’s not me.
Can someone explain to me what’s the joke ? I don’t understand…
Not sure there is a joke in there. For some reason the question kind of surprises you and you have to quickly decide on the spot whether to have the receipt or not. So you end up winging it, sometimes having it, sometimes not.
Nowadays, I mostly decline but on occasion still end up agreeing, so I can relate.
I think they might be European like me. What question?
In the US, you often get a choice (via the PoS terminal or via the person at the register) if you’d like your receipt. Whether it’s printed automatically without asking you is in and of itself arbitrary and not even consistent within a single type of business, and there are often several options (“No receipt”, “Print”, “Email”, “Print and Email”). Even if it’s printed mandatorily, cashiers will often ask if you want a receipt and toss it if you don’t. Finally, different PoS terminals have different interfaces for this sort of thing. So it’s generally not at the forefront of your mind, it’s not really standardized, and you need to quickly weigh a bunch of factors as to whether you want the receipt and often in what format, so the poster here is joking about how extremely arbitrary their answers are since it usually doesn’t make that big of a difference which you pick.
ok I get it now, and yea European ahahaah
but we do have these things here too, I just did not realize that was much of a troubling question. My time of thumb is purely ecological: I prefer not having it. I’d prefer by mail if that’s not possible and paper is only kept if there is a debt involved
