On the 17th October at approximately 3:30pm I purchased a copy of the Courier Mail and a packet of cigarettes from your shop. At the time, I had two $50 bills in my pocket and a $10 bill. Your shop assistant assumed I gave her a $20, even though it was not possible that I gave her $20. I had gone to your shop with two purposes, one to buy the Courier Mail, and second, to break a $50 bill so I would have smaller notes for later in the evening. My only reason for buying the cigarettes was because I felt it was unreasonable buying a $1 newspaper with a $50 bill ! I went to your shop with the express purpose of breaking one of the $50 bills into smaller denominations.

The shop assistant insisted I gave her a $20 bill. She says she was sure it was $20 because she pressed the $20 button, therefore it must have been a $20 bill. So apparently she could not have pressed the wrong button, or not been paying attention. I, however, sat in my office, took out the money in my pocket before leaving, looked at the two fifty dollar bills, and thought, “ I’d better go to the newsagent and break one of those or I’ll have no small denominations for tonight”, and decided to go to your shop to break one of them. Who do you think is more likely to have made a mistake? I was looking at two yellow bits of paper with $50 on them. What was your shop assistant looking at? Can she remember?

I hope you understand from the above, that I have absolutely NO doubt, NONE, that I gave your assistant $50. It was one of the reasons for visiting your shop! If I had a $20 bill, I would not have needed to break a $50, and I wouldn’t have bothered even buying the newspaper.

Having explained that to you, you can understand I was waiting expectantly for the shop assistants phone call last night to confirm her error. No phone call. My wife called in today and was told that in fact the shop assistants till had been under for the day, so according to them I was wrong and I had given a $20 bill. I find it strange they didn’t ring to tell me that, don’t you? Would it be because its very hard to lie to someone who KNOWS it’s a lie. I find it even stranger that I managed to give a $20 bill I didn’t have.

Can I just repeat, I had two $50 bills and a $10 when I entered your shop, I actually sat in my office before leaving and checked the money in my pocket, and that’s when I decided to buy a newspaper and cigarettes to break one of the fifties. I had NO $20 bill. When I left your shop, I had 1 $50, 1 $10, and the change your assistant gave me ($5 and some coins).

So there are only two possible explanations for this, neither of which is very nice. The first explanation is that your staff are so incompetent, that not only did they under change me to the value of $30, they then proceeded to over change every other customer so that the $30 profit they made from me was wiped out. Or the second, more likely, explanation, is that to cover their error, one of them pocketed the $30 difference.

To summarise. I went into your shop to break a $50 dollar bill, as I only had two $50 bills and a $10 bill. I bought a newspaper and cigarettes, so that my purchase would seem reasonable to hand over $50. I handed over $50. I got change from a $20. Your staff denied it was a $50 note. They promised to check their tills at the end of the day and call me. They didn’t. They told my wife the following day the till was actually under for yesterday. I think I’ve made my conclusions fairly clear on that, its either incompetence or theft.

I’m not going to lose any sleep over $30. I have no need to create a fuss about such an amount of money. But I do feel it my duty to warn all my work colleagues and friends (and hopefully they can warn all of their colleagues and friends) who work in the area of George Street to avoid your shop until you discover whether your staff are stealing from customers, or just incompetent.