My husband and I recently went grocery shopping at Chedraui Grocery Store, in Puerto Aventuras, Mexico (they have several locations, but I am only speaking of the location in Puerto Aventuras). We have shopped there for several years, and for as long as we can remember, the cashiers have always attempted to sell us lottery tickets.
They always ask, and we have always respectfully declined. Let’s just say that we have done this song and dance act for years and come to expect the upsell. But on this occasion, the cashier did not try to upsell us any tickets. This raised our suspicion and although we have always reviewed our receipt, this time we deliberately inspected it to see if the lottery ticket had been added to our bill without our knowledge or permission.
SIDE NOTE: there have been stories on social media indicating that some of the cashiers have shared with customers that Chedraui management has made the selling of lottery tickets part of their key performance measures (KPM’s). And some cashiers have written out, in English, on a notepad asking customers to please purchase a lottery ticket otherwise they will get in trouble. Not sure if any of this is true, but thought it was worth mentioning.
As we quickly looked for a 10-peso charge, there it was, the last item on our receipt, indicating that we had in fact, purchased a lottery ticket. Since we had not left from the counter, we showed the receipt to the cashier and asked her for the 10 pesos. She had a long line of other customers, so she pointed and asked us to step over to the customer service desk. We did and explained to the person helping us, that we were charged for a lottery ticket that we did not purchase and requested a refund. She went and spoke with the same cashier that had over charged us in the first place, came back and returned our 10 pesos.
Let me just say this, 10 pesos is not an astronomical amount of money. Depending on the exchange rate, it is about 50 US cents. But if this happens every time we go shopping, it eventually adds up.
The point here for me personally is the dishonesty about how it was done. And, if we are being completely honest here, if she’s going to charge us for the lottery ticket, at least give us the lottery ticket.
We certainly understand that any working person has KPM’s that need to be met and measured. But this is certainly not the way to go about it.
Here is the name of the charge on our receipt:
alcanza tu fortuna.
Here is a photo of the bottom of our receipt:
In closing, Mexico is not alone when it comes to scams. You can Google any country and find scams that have robbed people of their hard-earned money. Better yet, just Google where you live; you might be surprised of what is happening right in your own community.
The world has scams. Our role as consumers is to be mindful, wherever we are shopping or spending money. This means being attentive and aware of our environment, and cognizant of our thoughts and actions.
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