Whenever a city dweller like myself sees a big fat suburban store like Target, something happens. It’s as though we’ve been allowed entrance to the magical city of Oz — all these choices! no crowds! wide aisles! I think you have to live in a big box store-deprived city like NYC to understand. I have a friend who feels like he’s acheived Nirvana whenever he travels and is allowed entrance to…Walmart.
Anyway, there I was Saturday evening — driving through New Jersey — when my wife spotted a Target. “Pull over,” she just about screamed.
We were with my sister, another city dweller, who practically has to restrain herself from spending money in these stores. But in we went. My wife and sister went one way and I went the other. My wife bought a bunch of absolutely necessary items like pillows for our bed and a serving tray while I descended on the electronics section and purchased an external hard drive to back up our computer. Whoo-hoo! Who says we don’t know how to have fun on a Saturday night?
I really didn’t have a good grasp on what my wife bought at the time and she didn’t really know what I bought so when the cashier rang up nearly $300 for the bill, we looked at each other and said, “Wow, it kind of adds up.” I mentioned that the hard drive did cost $99.99 so the total seemed kind of reasonable. I confess to having no idea how much throw pillows go for these days.
It wasn’t until we got home that my wife checked the receipt and noticed that the cashier charged us twice for the hard drive — the most expensive item in the bunch!
I called the store and they said they’d be happy to look into it — all I had to do was come in with the receipt. “But I live in Brooklyn,” I moaned.
At that point, both the helpful guy on the phone and I realized that there was no way he was just going to believe me that I was overcharged for a $100 item. How could I prove that I had not really bought two of those hard drives. It was at this point that the CSI Target team swung into action. I’m not sure if David Caruso was on the team but he well might’ve been.
I held on the phone while the CSI team “checked the videotape.” Who would’ve guessed that Target videotapes every single transaction and can rewind the tape in minutes? All I had to provide was the receipt number and off they went.
Minutes passed and then a breathless clerk named Glen returned, “I just saw what happened,” he reported. “The items piled up on the belt and the hard drive was accidentally read twice. You were charged twice for one item. It was…..an accidental overcharge.”
OMG, not that! I thought but…actually, it was kind of good. I had been cleared by the videotape. I was free to return to New Jersey to pick up a refund….in cash! I took off my sunglasses and breated a sigh of relief.
