I have no idea how many other people are like this, but I already don't look at my receipts when I'm in a grocery store. If I do, it's because I realized I forgot something and want to know if I actually forgot something. So for me, the experience ends up being the same.

Sure, I often don't pay attention either. But once in a while, I notice something wrong anyway, and also I'm free-riding on the fact that some people pay more attention.

A store that is arranging things so that there are no checks is a store that is going to profit from its own mistakes. Impersonal forces will drive it to do so regardless of particular human intentions.

There’s an old joke about a guy making money downtown exchanging $5 bills for five $1 bills. When asked how makes money the response is, “Well, I never make a mistake...”

I know a couple people who have reported mistakes, and they were refunded with no questions asked. I have used it dozens of times with 100% accuracy so far

LinusTechTips, when Amazon’s store first opened, visited and “returned” something they grabbed, and they just refunded them. They called Amazon and were told there’s no way to process returns outside of a refund (for the store)

People have been buying things and only getting an invoice at a later time for millennia, and managed fine.

Interesting you should mention invoices. I got my car repaired recently, and the invoice was about $1,000 more than expected. They assured me there would be no problem with the insurance, but obviously if they and the insurance company had their shit together, then it would have been reviewed and approved before doing the work. The insurance company may have eventually approved it and I hope to be getting a check soon, but the fact is, I paid them up front and have been left hanging for two weeks now. Neither business answers emails, calls me back, or does anything in a reasonable amount of time (it's been months since the claim). One told me that the delays of the other are in fact violating state regulations. Yet both companies are well-known and often recommended - I didn't choose them at random.

This is the sort of relationship I do not want to get into for ordinary purchases. It demands too much trust, which is hard to build and unnecessary for most things.

Name and shame, please!

Not when payment is extracted in real time.

Isn’t payment by credit card in almost all cases? You can view a statement before paying it a month later. How’s that in real time?

The vendor payment commitment is immediate. The cardholder is a borrower from the issuer standpoint.

No, again the vendor and payment providers settle at a later time.