To ask retail staff your worst customer stories?

Many many moons ago I had a part time job whilst a student abroad working in a clothing shop.

One day a lady took in a large amount of clothing into the fitting room with her. Ten minutes later she left fairly hastily but left behind an awful lingering smell.

In the corner of the fitting room she had unceremoniously dumped all the items on clothing in a pile on the floor. So we picked them up and we're in the process of sorting and refolding them when we noticed that a couple of the t shirts were covered in large brown smears. It didn't take long to work out that she had had some kind of accident and wiped her arse with them. However, due to the texture we deduced that this was most likely a solid job and not a sudden attack of the runs, which left us wondering where she had dumped (scuse the pun) the offending product.

A search commenced. It was a bit like a rather hideous nose led game of hunt the thimble.

My friend found it wrapped in a t shirt stuffed behind another stack of t shirts near the changing room exit.

In fairness that day was one of the funniest and most memorable during an otherwise highly boring job.

people dumping trolleys of food at the tills due to having to que

Once this thread runs dry, another one for NHS employees would be an eye opener. Patient confidentiality permitting.

I’m shocked too, especially the bookie
ones.

I had a customer who not only used the changing room as a toilet, she also wiped her bum with a £40 jumper she hadn’t paid for. This was about 20 years ago.

Oh Lord, reading these posts made me feel sick. Some people can be such scum. 🌹

Too many to count. Most recently, got called "fucking pathetic" for being out of stock of a particular pasta salad.

I'm gobsmacked by this thread!
It's seems that the majority of people are absolute scum and far outnumber the nice ones 😩

Worked in Tesco. Over the space of several years I had a flasher in a beige Mac coming up to my till. I was only 17!

I also worked in the clothing and we had a large round revolving rack and one day we discovered someone had taken a shit under it!

we had one lady who ripped the lid off 75 boxes of L’Oréal hair dye because it had a coupon that would scan without having bought hair products!

One person brought in poo in an ice cream tub for us to “test” as he thought a product he bought in the store had made him unwell.

And finally a lady who was at least a size 20 bringing back a pair of size 10 gusset leggings with a shredded gusset because they were “faulty”

Worked in a Spar and this customer would come in, say nothing, point at a scratch card then throw his money on till. Then walked out. Billy the Cunt we used to call him. Nothing wrong with him, just an ignorant old bastard.

@difficultspaghetti I don't miss doing 12 hours in the bookies it amazes me the utter stupidity of some customers think up to get a payout do they not realise we get told all kinds of bullshit all day 🙄

The ones who pissed me off the most were thieving colleagues and the perverts the disgusting things that have been said to me were horrible! I had one colleague nick money out of my till she was so stupid about it she returned the money to the safe and the manager told me she doesn't have the code I soon worked out how she got it and the manager was the interfering one she said I can't accuse without proof and accused me and someone else of ganging up on her the she worked a shift with her and a few hundred quid was missing of course 🙄 good luck on your shift me and colleague used to play spot the tosser where we'd guess by a customers behaviour and attitude and whoever lost bought dinner or snacks 🤣🤣🤣

You poor posters on here, you must despair of humanity.

I think the behaviour and entitlement of the general public has worsened over the past few decades. I started work in the 70s and have worked in retail, hospitality, betting shops, care homes, community care etc.
There was always the odd shitty customer who would usually get short shrift off the manager and escorted off the premises, but nothing anywhere near how is seems to be nowadays
Over the years I grew less tolerant of rudeness by people and being treated like some lesser being.
We often got customers who, when not getting what they wanted, would storm off, loudly declaring that they would never shop here anymore. I would respond, with a big cheesy grin "bye then, see you next week" 🤣
I never understood why these rude and unpleasant people think threatening never to shop with us again will have any effect, usually once the customer had left, us colleagues would punch the air in joy 🤣🤣

My favourite was the phone call I took complaining that her coffee was too hot.

When I went to chat to the cafe manager. He rented her clearly because she insisted that he always served the coffee too cold and demanded after making he put in in the microwave for 90 seconds.
He told her that would be way too hot, and She replied that she knew what she wanted and he has to do it.
He put it in for 30 seconds and handed it to get saying "be careful it's far too hot to drink".I

She told him that the customer is always right.

Most recently, a customer called me a fucking stupid slut and whore.

I've had customers threatening to wait for me outside.

Had my arse touched.

Customers refusing to leave.

Customer calling police because we wouldn't give him money that wasn't his.

General rudeness mess making and arguments.

Piss/shit on floor in Toilet

Drugs in the toilet.

Gotta love retail

Used to work making desserts at a pub restaurant. Large order came through (v memorable as it was for 8 people - most orders were only 2-4 people).

A while later, manager came over and accused me of not making the order. I said I knew I had, and told him which waitress had taken it out. Apparently the table was complaining they hadn't received them.

Turned out that they HAD received them, and eaten them, then hidden the dirty dishes and cutlery under the table to try and get more for free.

I worked in Matalan when I was a teenager, this one happened to be in a bit of a dodgy area which I think caused some of the (literal) shit we dealt with.

The worst thing that happened was a man wanted my opinion on some clothes and when he came out he was pitching a tent in some pyjama shorts. He kept asking me what I thought of them with a creepy smile on his face. I muttered “they’re fine”, walked off and used the radio to request a male staff member to join me. Management didn’t seem at all concerned.

People trying to get a refund for things that smelt of fags or sweat and swearing blind that they’d never been worn.

One charming lady called me the c word because I wouldn’t refund the full price when she had paid the sale price.

Years ago when the London Tube had ticket offices I was working in one underneath a National Rail terminal. This older man came to the window and was just unpleasant. He wanted a specific ticket which is fine but took time to issue. He started saying I was too slow, too incompetent, and very stupid. He commented on my appearance and asked me if I was married, because who would want me? He carried on with his insults and called me a stupid fat pig. I just burst into tears. 😭

My colleagues took me off the window and I was put in a back room with some sweet tea. They pulled the curtain down on the man and rang the station supervisor. The man complained to the supervisor saying I was rude and slow and rubbish at my job. Luckily for me I had a good track record and the supervisor backed me up. The man was told by the supervisor to leave and never return. 😲 The man was shouting and cursing the supervisor & staff by then but he realised he wasn't going to get anywhere and left.

I've worked on the Tube for over 20 years and have loads more stories but that was one that has stuck with me.

I get verbal abuse daily in my job, I have had someone threaten to slit my throat and another said if he sees me on the estate he will stab me..

More recently I had a cust want me to sort out an issue she was having with her neighbour..fine....thats my job so I replied that I would talk to the neighbour.

Oh no, she doesn't want me to talk to her neighbour, I'm a disgrace for even suggesting it. So I advise if I cannot tall to her neighbour, I cannot help resolve their dispute..

She repeats, she doesn't want me to speak to her neighbour, she just wants me to "do something and evict her"

Let me get this straight, you want me to evict your neighbour, which I can't do, only a Judge can. But not even be able to tell her why?? When I pointed the logic out to her she went mad at me. Called me all the names under the sun, she was going to hunt down my family and make sure they all died a horrible death, yadda, yadda, yadda!

GTFO of here you crazy bitch!

DH is police and he once had someone purposefully stab him with a used needle as he walked past, then gleefully tell DH that he had HIV and the "pig" could go die of a "fagg*t disease". It was horrible whilst we waited for his results.

Oh and I once had a tenant smash my car window with a broom because I wouldn't buy her a mop.

I find the majority of my customers to be lovely. If anyone is rude, I speak to them extra politely which sometimes takes the wind out of their sails. One guy was thoroughly obnoxious the whole way through the transaction so I piped up breezily “ Have a wonderful day”! The next customer commented on how well I had handled him. Another guy bit my head off when I told him I wasn’t allowed to open the till & give him change. “ Remind me never to come here again”! The worst place to work in our store is Customer Services as they get loads of abuse, both verbal & shockingly sometimes physical. One colleague got a boxed Hoover thrown at her! We don’t have a security guard but really need one. And some of the language!

Not personally but two colleagues I work with at a large supermarket retailer

1. A man asked where the condoms where. She showed him and he said " can I use them on you "
2. A man said to a woman " you'd look better pregnant love"

@MBeat that is appalling!!!

A lady ordered a pizza and complained because it had tomato sauce on it.... as do all pizzas unless otherwise stated

Got told off last week because all the bread out, was yesterday's, now I work in a big supermarket so I was super confused ,we get pulled upstairs if anything is out of date, she was proper angry and almost threw her bread at me, when I looked it was the correct date, when I told her she was wrong, I had to show the date on my phone because she wouldn't believe me😂.

When I worked on retail (New Look and Topshop) my issues were more with the managers. They were all horrible controlling people who enjoyed the power too much and loved declining holiday requests and just had a constant look of disappointment at everything I did. I then moved to waitressing and had a much happier time.

I know it’s not retail but my friend worked in a restaurant as a chef and someone complained the ice cream was too cold 🙄🙄