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Everyone uses an electronic POS system and it will round however the manufacturer told it to round (which will be correctly). The only people you have to worry

Everyone uses an electronic POS system and it will round however the manufacturer told it to round (which will be correctly). The only people you have to worry about cheating you out of 3-4 cents in a world without pennies (the maximum you can be cheated) would be people without electronic systems. Which is to say, no one.

Loughla 6y ago
I just disagree with this. We will see Wal-Mart and other chain retailers make their own POS software/systems. 3-4 cents isn't a lot. Unless it's added up by all of the people shopping in those places over the course of a year. The incentive to cheat the system is there, therefore the system will 100% be cheated. That's The American Way, in my experience.
- jcrawfordor 6y ago
  Wal-Mart is also a huge corporation and every single attorney general, not to mention the FTC, would be delighted to learn that they're so clearly and unambiguously violating the law... This kind of fraud would be so easy to detect I just can't see it occurring on any large scale. The problem would be with small "mom and pop" businesses that could do it for some time without being noticed.
- jachee 6y ago
  As foretold in Superman III and The Office.
  - DerekL 6y ago
    That movie was titled Office Space, not The Office.
    - jachee 6y ago
      Thanks. It was tired and I was late. ;)
- chrisparsons 6y ago
  You'll have all the data to fact check whether or not they're doing this, too. We all do on a receipt.
- greenshackle2 6y ago
  So do you believe they are already screwing you out of fractional cents? There is already rounding going on, there's no guarantee that applying taxes yields a whole number of cents.
jwigg 6y ago
> it will round however the manufacturer told it to round (which will be correctly) either you're way too optimistic, or i'm way too pessimistic, but lemme tell you, we do not see eye-to-eye on that point.
- greenshackle2 6y ago
  Do you believe that they are already screwing you out of fractional cents? After all there is already rounding going on. Concretely, $1.20 with 7% tax is $1.284, do you believe merchants would charge you $1.29?
  - jwigg 6y ago
    I mostly meant that I don't have any faith that the code will work correctly. I'm not even assuming malice. There are all kinds of super simple rounding mistakes you could make that would mess up the rounding. Especially if you're writing for a market that you're not part of (eg, out-sourced coders living in one country, but writing POS code that is deployed in another country). That said, do I think that someone, somewhere, has/does/will out of malice abuse this specific oft-ignored dark corner of the marketplace, for personal gain? Yeah, I absolutely think that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salami_slicing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salami_slicing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVSlE28hOgI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVSlE28hOgI

Loughla 6y ago

I just disagree with this. We will see Wal-Mart and other chain retailers make their own POS software/systems. 3-4 cents isn't a lot. Unless it's added up by all of the people shopping in those places over the course of a year. The incentive to cheat the system is there, therefore the system will 100% be cheated. That's The American Way, in my experience.

jcrawfordor 6y ago
Wal-Mart is also a huge corporation and every single attorney general, not to mention the FTC, would be delighted to learn that they're so clearly and unambiguously violating the law... This kind of fraud would be so easy to detect I just can't see it occurring on any large scale. The problem would be with small "mom and pop" businesses that could do it for some time without being noticed.
jachee 6y ago
As foretold in Superman III and The Office.
- DerekL 6y ago
  That movie was titled Office Space, not The Office.
  - jachee 6y ago
    Thanks. It was tired and I was late. ;)
chrisparsons 6y ago
You'll have all the data to fact check whether or not they're doing this, too. We all do on a receipt.
greenshackle2 6y ago
So do you believe they are already screwing you out of fractional cents? There is already rounding going on, there's no guarantee that applying taxes yields a whole number of cents.

jwigg 6y ago

> it will round however the manufacturer told it to round (which will be correctly) either you're way too optimistic, or i'm way too pessimistic, but lemme tell you, we do not see eye-to-eye on that point.

greenshackle2 6y ago
Do you believe that they are already screwing you out of fractional cents? After all there is already rounding going on. Concretely, $1.20 with 7% tax is $1.284, do you believe merchants would charge you $1.29?
- jwigg 6y ago
  I mostly meant that I don't have any faith that the code will work correctly. I'm not even assuming malice. There are all kinds of super simple rounding mistakes you could make that would mess up the rounding. Especially if you're writing for a market that you're not part of (eg, out-sourced coders living in one country, but writing POS code that is deployed in another country). That said, do I think that someone, somewhere, has/does/will out of malice abuse this specific oft-ignored dark corner of the marketplace, for personal gain? Yeah, I absolutely think that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salami_slicing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salami_slicing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVSlE28hOgI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVSlE28hOgI