“Maybe it would be enough to merely ask the customer if the flowers had already been paid for”
Sadly one who would steal would also lie.
“What if the customer refuses to produce the receipt. What happens at that point?”
At that point I would call the manager when this customer started ranting and raving I stepped back and allowed him to search for his receipt, it was very disconcerting to see such a prominent person carry on so.
Just this morning a customer showed my coworker a picture of a sales tag on an item that was no longer on sale so he gave her the sales price (.79 off) after she left he went to the shelf to take off the old tag but it was not there she had taken the picture when it was on sale, this was very early in the morning and we were light staffed so he didn’t have anyone to call to check the price like we would usually do, we cannot take a customers word or photo a front end runner would have to go and look at the item on the shelf.
One early morning regular switches labels on meat products putting lower price labels on more expensive cuts of meat, I could go on and on it would be nice if we could live in a society where this kind of chicanery does not exist but until that happens don’t freak out on me for doing my job.