Horrid Customers

[Sdashiki]

Fast food, frequented by old people (take your pick, it doesnt matter):

I was getting the food for an older couple. The wife goes and sits down, on her way to the table she grabs an empty cup we keep by/behind the registers, and fills her own soda (self serve).

So I continue to get the food and hand it to our cashier, mentioning to look at his wife over there already enjoying a large drink.

"Would you like anything else sir?"

"Yes, a large drink."

"That'll be $xx.xx"

Well he looks confounded, does magic math in his head and asks why it costs so much more?

"Thats X, Y, 2 Z's and 2 drinks"

"What!? I didnt order two drinks, just one!"

"Sir, your wife sitting down already has a drink. You asked for another."

"I only wanted the one she has."


Not a scam really, but to play it like we made the mistake? Come on old man!

 

[instaxgirl]

People who work for places like Starbucks always have the best stories about annoying customers, or customers who can't grasp the cup size system etc etc

She can't understand that I don't have any $50 bills in my till and demands to speak to a manager. This is where things get really fun since I'm management and inform her of such and that I can handle any issues she has.

My friend's a supervisor for Starbucks. I think her favourite part of the job is when she gets to go "actually I'M running the store today" to problem customers. Or when they're still a problem and she gets to tell them never to come back.

Quite possibly, we have this one guy who tries to scam us every month or so....for $15! It's kind of funny tearing apart his hopes every few weeks.

There's a Victoria Wine next to my friend's flat where every day this guy comes in and tries to shoplift. He opens the door and the staff say "get out" and just turns around and walks out again. Funny the first time it happened and we just turned to the staff like "what?"

I worked part time in a clothing store in a shopping centre for almost 5 years. Mid 40's, roughly 6ft 2, middle class guy came in, pulled something out a bag with another store's tag on it (not one of the stores in the centre) and asked me to take the tag off. Told him I couldn't do it. He was a dick. Told him no one in the centre would do it as it was completely against centre policy. Advised him to return to the store he bought it from. He was not very nice about this but I'd worked there for years so there was no way I was backing down just 'cause a customer was being mean to me.

Guy left, came back 20 minutes later, got up close to me then just yelled at me for lying to him about centre policy. Some **** for brains teenager in another store had taken the tag off for him (tbf he was quite intimidating). He just stood and shouted at me and then stormed out while another customer gawped at him.

Both times my manager was in the stockroom. Both times she came back and I was standing there all OH MY GOD!! I was furious because that idiot man had thought he had the right to intimidate me just because I was a skinny 18 year old girl and he was bigger and uglier than me. He was the worst customer in over 4 years.

A similar situation once a customer came in with a scarf she'd bought in the centre. We were open late, the other store wasn't and the tag was still on the scarf. My manager made an exception and took it off for her. The woman was all very grateful then went "I actually felt quite sorry for the girl who served me. She was very nice and everything but you know, she was black" in a voice like "aah she couldn't help being too stupid to take a tag off."

Me and my manager just gaped. Especially seeing as how that manager was half egyptian.

 

[notjustjay]

Mid 40's, roughly 6ft 2, middle class guy came in, pulled something out a bag with another store's tag on it (not one of the stores in the centre) and asked me to take the tag off. Told him I couldn't do it. He was a dick. Told him no one in the centre would do it as it was completely against centre policy. Advised him to return to the store he bought it from.

A similar situation once a customer came in with a scarf she'd bought in the centre. We were open late, the other store wasn't and the tag was still on the scarf. My manager made an exception and took it off for her.

My parents have been on the other end of this, unfortunately. We live in Canada and occasionally make the drive south of the border to shop at outlet malls in Buffalo, Waterloo, Syracuse, NY, etc. At least twice someone has forgotten to remove the security tag (or remove the obvious one, but overlook a less-obvious one hidden inside a jacket pocket or whatever) and they didn't find out until after they got home. The mall they bought it from is hours away so they went to stores closer to home trying to get the tag removed. They ask nicely and explain and usually people are willing to help. The one time the saleslady kept looking at all of us suspiciously, and I'm sure she was trying to detect signs of deception, but couldn't find any.

I don't understand why so many people seem to have such a hard time with "if you are friendly and nice to the salesperson, they will be too".

 

[harperjones99]

People who work for places like Starbucks always have the best stories about annoying customers, or customers who can't grasp the cup size system etc etc

To be fair they did choose to use non standard names in some effort to be "unique". Unless someone goes there all the time and knows the system I don't see how not innately knowing their labels is the customer's issue. If some smug little cashier was giving me grief because I don't know their "system" that is not intuitive or common and that they deal with every day, they can go choke on it.

It's like when you say you want a large something somewhere and the person smugly says "We don't have "large" ...don't you mean the Uncle Dan's Super Mega Size?" "Is that the same thing as a large?" "Yeah" "Then that's what I mean smartass"

 

[mscriv]

I've been a DJ for over 10 years and boy have I seen some stuff go down between vendors, family, guests, etc. It's crazy sometimes how people act. One of worst was after I finished a wedding at a facility. This guys comes up and asks are you the DJ? "Yes sir, I am, how can I help you?" "You've got 10 minutes to get your stuff and be out." I had no idea who this person was as he had not been present at all during the event. I kind of chuckled and said I would be out as soon as I could. (our routine set up takes about an hour to get all the gear broken down and loaded out)

Well, it turns out he is the owner of the facility and didn't not like my response. Before I know it, he's in my face, yelling at me, saying I'm the worst DJ they've ever had and that the event was horrible. On top of that, if I don't get my stuff out in the time frame he demands then he's going to have security escort me out of the building and I can pick up my gear the next business day. I never lost my composure and kindly asked him to lower his voice. I then explained that I would be more than happy to work as fast as possible and that if his goal was for me to finish quickly then I would suggest he allow me to get started unless there are more insults and yelling needed. He walked away continuing to pop off as he went. One of the event staff came over and apologized for him.

The security guard showed up a few minutes later and supervised my break down. The guard explained that the owner's policy is that his staff can not leave until all vendors are out of the facility and it is locked for the night. The catch is that he pays them by the hour and thus he's on the hook to pay his staff while the vendors wrap up and leave. That's why he makes such unreasonable demands on vendors.

Can you believe that? This hothead, makes his staff stay while he goes home and then gets upset and rude at vendors because he doesn't want to pay the expense required to follow his own policy. The good facility owners I've worked with send their staff home after clean up and then they stay personally to see the vendors out and lock up the facility. That's good business and it builds relationships.

And in case you're curious, the bride and groom, their families, and the guests thought it was an awesome party.

 

[No1451]

I am greatly enjoying that site with the bad customer stories, I really wish that I could treat some of my customers this way. The only time I've actually raised my voice to a customer was when they were threatening one of the cashiers. I mean really, who threatens a 16 year old girl?

Make me wish I had cause to let off some steam at customers a bit more often.

@instaxgirl: I hate people who do that, go to where you bought it idiot, no other store has any responsibility for it.

 

[notjustjay]

Can you believe that? This hothead, makes his staff stay while he goes home and then gets upset and rude at vendors because he doesn't want to pay the expense required to follow his own policy. The good facility owners I've worked with send their staff home after clean up and then they stay personally to see the vendors out and lock up the facility. That's good business and it builds relationships.

Sounds to me like a good excuse to take your leisurely time, shoot the breeze with the security guard, etc.

 

[question fear]

My favorite scam story from Borders:

I was a manager, I had a supervisor (keyholder) who reported to me working with me one night. We had a cashier on registers who was very sweet, but dumb as a box of rocks.

The cashier calls the supervisor over, and explains she is processing a return of several expensive leather journals (totalling around $125.00). The cashier says she inputted the receipt information and that the customer paid in cash. The supervisor plugged in her approval code and the customer got her cash and left.

The supervisor walked past our display of journals, etc a few minutes later and noticed an awfully suspiciously large hole where the high end leather journals had been. She called me over, and we went to talk to the cashier.

I asked the cashier for the receipt from the journal return, which should have been in the register. She explained the customer told her that while she didn't have her receipt, she wrote down the information on a random piece of paper. Immediately I pulled the cashier off the floor and started quizzing her on what happened...the customer gave the cashier a crazy sob story about buying the journals as favors for a wedding party, but then someone was in accident and they called off the wedding, blee blah bloo. And so my dumb as rocks cashier let a scammer walk off with $125 worth of cash for returning our own damn leather journals to us.

And as badly as I wanted to believe dumbo was in on it, we reviewed with other stores who turned down the same scammer. And we didn't have any similar incidents with her.

 

[63dot]

Not a bad idea, I usually keep the bill I accept in my hand while handing out change, can't do it 5 minutes later when she comes back unfortunately.

I really have to wonder if these sorts of scams ever work, because people have tried various scams with me before, we even had one guy who called both the store I work at and the other that is quite literally 5 minutes away(and of course we collaborate whenever we get customer complaints in case it IS a scam). He had the gall to call both stores and arrange to get his refund from both(pending a receipt of course) within a 10 minute time frame.

We let him come in and then told him that he must have made a mistake as there was no refund waiting for him. Damn did he look pissed.

It's amazing what works. I am Asian and I was born here, but increasingly, the majority of Asians I see literally just got here and often seek employment in a 7-11 or similar store.

The worst case was when some customer brought in a bill magnified at 2x and passed it off as real to an Asian immigrant who thought it was real. The law in California does not prohibit photocopying money if it's not actual size.

 

[No1451]

It's amazing what works. I am Asian and I was born here, but increasingly, the majority of Asians I see literally just got here and often seek employment in a 7-11 or similar store.

The worst case was when some customer brought in a bill magnified at 2x and passed it off as real to an Asian immigrant who thought it was real. The law in California does not prohibit photocopying money if it's not actual size.

Crazy, I have turned down bills before for being fake(yeeha RCMP seminar) and the people always give me dirty looks, like they think that just because they got screwed by being given fake bills I should accept them

 

[MacRy]

Horrid customers? I've had a few.....today. I work in a Jobcentre and a significant portion of my customers are horrible, ignorant, arrogant, smelly, abusive, vile, violent and just downright rude. Only today we had to call the police for someone who kicked off because they failed to attend an interview (which they requested!) and when told they would have to rebook it went absolutely mental for no good reason and threatened violence towards me. I've had things thrown at me, been spat at, sworn at, shouted at and threatened on a regular basis by people who we are giving free money to and without provocation. You want horrid customers? Come to work with me for a week!

I find the best way of dealing with horrid customers is to get security to escort them out of the building (if they are not physically restraining them) and get the police to mace them outside

 

[mscriv]

Only today we had to call the police for someone who kicked off because they failed to attend an interview (which they requested!) and when told they would have to rebook it went absolutely mental for no good reason and threatened violence towards me.

So are you going to hire him/her? Sounds like they've got real passion.

 

[MacRy]

So are you going to hire him/her? Sounds like they've got real passion.

Seeing as how she threw a can of coke at a colleague a few weeks back and also kicked off when told she couldn't park her car on the pavement outside the building a few weeks later, i'm going to guess that she's pretty unemployable. She wasn't coming for a job interview anyway, she was applying for a government loan because she had spent all of her giro and had no money to live on. I think the word i'm looking for here is.....erm....scumbag.

 

[63dot]

Crazy, I have turned down bills before for being fake(yeeha RCMP seminar) and the people always give me dirty looks, like they think that just because they got screwed by being given fake bills I should accept them

The US is one of a small handful of countries with bills the same size. So when an immigrant comes from a country with different sized money, they may be easier to fool. I didn't see the need for different sizes of currency until somebody told me that it is for the blind so they can tell the difference.

 

[greygray]

She sure is one hell of a wretched bitch. Rude, uncultured and bitching in the purest form!

 

[rebeccamartin]

my god thats really bad. i think its quite common for all those who are handling customer directly. i too have many such incidents from my friend who was working in a call center.

 

[MacRy]

Today's update: Threw two people out of the building today. One for swearing at and threatening me and one for shouting abuse at the security guard. Apparently i'm the C word

 

[MacRy]

...and so it continues. Yesterday had me physically parting a security guard from two racially abusive pikeys and throwing them out. Being shouted at for no good reason by a rude customer who got threw out by security and witnessing a fight outside the front doors which the police were called to. Just another day in your friendly neighbourhood Jobcentre. Thank F its the weekend!