The Donation Scam

Ring Ring...

"Thank you for calling Goofmart Pharmacy where we don't chicken out about giving you a Shingles shot. How may I help you?"

(That's actually in one of the pre-generated scripts they give us. I think whoever wrote it is playing up the Chicken Pox angle. Good job, buddy.)

"Yes, YOU PEOPLE overcharged me! I'm on a fixed income and I'm extremely upset about your SCAM at the register."

"What happened?" I ask, as gently as I can.

"I picked up my prescription and there's a charge on my account for $23.70! But my prescription is only $10! There's a charge on here that says 'DONATION $13.70 THANK YOU' but I didn't donate anything. YOU PEOPLE are scamming me because I'm elderly and you think you can take advantage of me!"

I instantly think of Mr. Phil MyScript on Twitter, that nasty old man that thinks everyone is out to get him.

I tediously go back and forth with the lady trying to assure her that we don't have any reason to scam or be tempted to scam anyone because we wouldn't get any of the money that would be donated at the register.

In fact, I'm still waiting for my check to come in for all the generics I've been pushing for Big Pharma, as I've been accused of before...

I then add that we wouldn’t do that even if we could get away with it. It’s illegal and immoral. I assure her that we will get her a refund and that there's no reason to transfer out her prescriptions. I do my best to try and settle her down and we talk about the process of payment at the register. I'm now into this conversation ten minutes, and if you work pharmacy, you know how quickly ten minutes gone can put you behind.

As we're discussing how it works at the register, it finally dawns on her that she entered 1-3-7-0 thinking she was putting in her PIN for her debit card when it was asking the donation amount. It's clearly her fault because she didn't pay attention to the POS machine prompts.

She no longer thinks we scammed her, but she still blames us for not watching it carefully for her as she was putting in her information. But I know better because I’m sure it's all my fault, personally, anyway.