Laurent: In Australia the minimum wage is $14.31 per hour. Most cashiers are not earning much more than the minimum wage so stealing $2 from 8 customers every hour would double their wages and that doesn’t seem difficult to do. In countries like the US with a lower minimum wage there is more incentive for cashiers to do this and it’s easier for them to achieve goals such as doubling their income.

Really I expect that part of the reason why customers don’t take a hard line on short-changing is that they know the cashiers are not paid well. I’m not going to involve the police when someone who is less wealthy than me tries to defraud me of a small sum of money. I just say “nice try” and demand the correct change.

Brendan Scott has some interesting comments on this issue.

Fact is, the only thing Polanski was convicted of is “statutory rape” (FSM I hate this expression).

Supermarkets don’t stop this practice, at the end of the shift the cash in the till is compared to the recorded total, if it’s short then the salary of the cashier is docked, if there is extra then the cashier gets to keep it (officially they are supposed to give it to the supermarket – but in practice the managers don’t watch them counting the cash). So all the cashier has to do is to refrain from giving enough coins and they can then take the difference from the till at the end of the shift.

PS Sorry but I have to remove the URL from your comment. Allowing links to commercial sites encourages spammers.

Roman initially made a plea-bargain to plead guilty to statutory rape as part of a deal that would have protected the victim’s identity. He reneged on that deal by running from the law and I believe that he now faces the original rape charges.

Here is a quote from Wikipedia which accurately sums up a number of news reports about the matter: “The girl testified that Polanski gave her both champagne and Quaalude, a sedative drug, and despite repeated protests and being asked to stop, he performed oral sex, intercourse and sodomy upon her.”