by Vivian on Jan 11, 2012

Tried to use a $10 gift card at the Sonic Drive-in in Murrieta, CA for a $14.70 purchase. I tried to pay with the $10 gift card and a $5 bill. The clerk said she could not take two forms of payment for the transaction otherwise her draw would show as short. She told me my option was to pay with cash for the entire purchase, but I decided in order to use the gift card, I would remove some items from my order so that the entire purchase did not exceed $10. I still have just under $1 on the gift card. The clerk said she could not give the remaining balance in cash; it must go back on the gift card. The clerk said it was a company policy that came from corporate. I could not believe what she was telling me, and will investigate further! If I find that this is indeed a corporate policy, I will forward a complaint to state and federal agencies. I figure that if 100,000 individuals across the U.S. have a remaining balance of, let's say, 75 cents on their gift cards, that's $75,000 that Sonic is stealing from customers. The practice is illegal!