‘You don’t keep my money!’: Customer outraged after Home Depot refuses to return money. Then, his bid to find support on Tiktok backfires

Times are tough and so every little penny counts. One man on TikTok has taken that mindset more literally than others as he called out Home Depot after the store rounded down his change and refused to give him one penny.

The man, who goes by “Paw Paw” on TikTok, explained that he had been shopping in the appliances store. When it came time to pay he had already worked out that his change would be $10.51, however, when the woman behind the cashier gave him his money she only handed him $10.50 in change.

When Paw Paw asked where his penny was she told him that they had no pennies in the store and that they always rounded down when returning change. While most people would simply accept this, after all it’s only one cent, Paw Paw wasn’t about to take it lying down. He asked to see a manager and stated that he would want the items he bought returned if he wasn’t given the correct amount of change.

The manager told him the same thing as the cashier, claiming that they had no pennies in store with which to give change. He argued that if they were going to round then they should round up as he didn’t want a corporation to steal from him no matter how small an amount. After much back-and-forth, the manager eventually relented, giving him a nickel.

People on TikTok weren’t exactly in his corner

While sticking it to the corporations that rob us blind with their inflated prices is usually praised online, many commenters thought that Paw Paw was overreacting as it was just a penny. “Jesus Christ dude I’ll give you the penny.” Wrote one, “Use a credit card, problem solved.” Another added. Although they weren’t all against him, “I feel like I’m being punished for using cash,” one agreed.

What many don’t understand is that it’s not just about the money, but the principal, Paw Paw saw it as stealing, which it technically is, if it’s such a small amount then why should Home Depot have it and not him? Besides that, there isn’t exactly a penny shortage in the U.S. While the Trump administration has ended the minting of pennies, there are still roughly 300 billion of the coins in circulation according to the BBC.

Despite this fact, it’s becoming common practice for stores to round change down to the nearest five cents. Unfortunately we could see this happening a lot more and all those pennies will eventually add up.