A customer orders an Americano with Honey. She gets out wallet with what seems to be 20+ cards, I trust her to complete the transaction when confirming price after taking her name...

Interestingly she makes no attempt to pay, hovers far away from the handover point. Close enough to observe when the drink is ready, far enough not to look too fraudulent. I observe for a full 5 minutes between cleaning tasks. Before calling her back to pay... It's not uncommon for people to try this dance when you are lone working in the evening. If no ticket printed, no drink. It's not peak, don't need to save 5 seconds between customers.

Long story short. She was using an old Lloyds bank card that doesn't have contactless (she knows it isn't contactless). She tried putting the card in the wrong way round (it's chip and pin, she obviously knew how this works). Before winging it for a free drink by talking about how much she is wanting the drink.

You are not getting a free drink bitch, you've wasted 10 minutes of my time already. I once again suggest a different payment method (at least seven of those cards must be credit or debit cards, not loyalty points cards) which she declines. Now she doesn't know her PIN, it's not asking for her PIN anyway as the card expired years back. Contactless doesn't happen because the card doesn't have the chip and card payment fails immediately because its expired. Each time waiting for the till to time out. Finally leaves the vicinity.

Lo and behold, 25 minutes later she comes back, this time making it seem like she has resolved the problem. FFS it's the old green Lloyds card again, this time slapping the card machine up despite not being contactless... "I might have to phone the bank..." Which is what she claimed she went away for. This time I am more abrupt because there is a queue of people waiting, unlike before.

She gets the hint, and stops trying when I remind her "we can't do free drinks, if you don't have another payment method I'm unable to help, sorry". Left humiliated.

Next customer curious of what it was all about asks about it. I fill her in that the previous customer was slapping an old debit card that isn't contactless and expired years ago, hoping to get a free drink. She was here half an hour ago and went away and tried again. She had about 20 other cards but was acting like she had no other payment methods when I asked her. She even inserted the card into the payment reader the wrong way round, and only gave up when I said she wasn't getting a free drink. This customer was in tears of laughter... "blooody cheek of it!" Indeed.