At my store, there isn't even the question of would you do it.
You can't, not at my store. AP would be on you like angry on a wet cat. If an ETL or the STL wanted to do that, that's more allowed. It's a "customer service" issue but only to a point, and I don't consider myself high enough up the chain to use personal money to do my job. It blurs the lines between work and not-work too much for me.
A girl (late teens~early 20s) had ordered a drink then swiped her SB gift card.
Zero balance.
"What?! I just got this for my birthday! My Grandma sent it to me!"
Shows attached card with birthday wishes written on it; continuous wheedling as I keyed it in; still zero.
"What am I gonna do?"
I suggested she call the 800 number on the back, key in the number & see if she could get a transaction history.
She looked at the finished drink but offered no other method of payment; I tossed it in the trash & she walked off distraught.
Talking with the other baristas, she'd pulled the same stunt with 3 of them & they ended up paying for her drink.
Years ago before Vibe, there were times a guest came to return baby registry items and reports the lose of the baby, and needed to do returns. And they were trying to return items that had outdated (3-6months more) or no receipts. Even some of the items were no longer in the system.
I did what I could by procedure, trying what I could what they had and without receipts, and gave them the Guest Experience business card. I strongly encouraged them to call the number to explain the situation.
Hmm, 979, I assume that's an account #. What is that used for exactly? I am guessing from context it's for requisitioning things for a guest, in the past I'd always just couponed gift cards to make them free when necessary, but if there's an account specifically for that I suppose I should be doing it that way instead.
The only scenario I can think of where a return "can't" be done is if the guest lacks a valid ID.
I used my ID to return an item for a fellow TM once because she has no drivers license (she's rode her bike to work for as long as I've worked here, I assume she lost her license to a DUI). She had a passport ID, but the system doesn't accept that to do a return off of it.
Even then I had another cashier log in for the transaction and oversee the transaction so I wasn't returning things to my own ID while logged in as myself.