To ask retail staff your worst customer stories?

I worked at Boots, and there were so many whingeing and uppity customers. I’ve had customers yelling at me specifically because I’d been the only one covering both normal and self checkout tills, opening and rummaging through gift sets then telling me to get an unopened one ‘from the back’. But they didn’t bother me as much as those who just had no shame. The worst two I remember:

A woman returned a used electric foot file, put it down on the counter in front of me and sprinkled a load of dry skin everywhere. She just stood there waiting for me to clean it up.

Another woman let her child piss in a potty, child then tipped the potty out in middle of the shop floor. The woman just looked and continued shopping, carrying the potty around. Just casually distributing droplets of piss as she went.

The management were no help though, and were all die hard believers of ‘bend to the customers will’. So accept any behaviour, do not question refunds, clean their filth up. But every so often, a manager would get hoisted by their own petard.

One customer brought £100+ worth of skincare back for a refund, complaining about allergic reactions. I asked the manager to step in, because I wasn’t comfortable without proof of purchase. She glared and sort of scoffed at me for daring to question it, and handed over the cash. Turned out customer had just picked it up off the shelf, opened the packaging and brought it to the till😂. That manager got suspended when the account manager for the brand got involved (over 15 years ago so it was a lot of money back then). That was one time I cheered the customer on tbh!

Oh I have so many (worked in various designer outlet stores all my life, including through covid)

• Used tampon left in the changing rooms of our sister store, they’d clearly used a set of lingerie to ‘wipe’ and had left that on the floor too.
• Two unsupervised kids running in and out of the changing rooms, one shit on the floor and then proceeded to march it through the shop
• One kid pulled down and entire window display including hanging vinyl and mannequin (parents did march him back in to apologise to me but still, watch your damn kid, it’s not him I’m blaming)
• Had a customer spill their entire Costa coffee down the entirety of a denim wall display (ruining about 60 pairs of denim) and then used a cashmere jumper off the next display to conceal the spill on the floor, including their cup.
• had a customer scream in my face that they demanded a refund as the handbag they had just bought (I served them not 20 minutes earlier) was marked. I’d been and got a new one from the back and had unwrapped it in front of them before they purchased it. Pulled it out the bag and it was covered in spilled purple nail polish- they also had a small bag from the beauty store a few stores down which had a familiar shade of purple finger marks all over, as did her trouser leg.
• (Working in a popular watch/ jewellery brand shop) Had a customer throw their broken watch at me and demand ‘just fix it idiot’. The grotty thing was 20 years old, out of warranty and not like it had just been purchased. Needless to say, I said it would be an hour and when they came back I said it was tricky and would take another hour… rinse and repeat
• during covid when certain areas were in lockdown, had a man become very angry because we didn’t have his size (outlet, limited stock) and so he announced he was from a certain area with was locked down, pulled down his mask, coughed into the shirt and threw it on the floor before walking away.

Getting moaned at for the poor selection in the reduced section.

People trying to haggle the reduced food.

Dealing with 'customers' who would only come into the shop to pay bills (PayPoint), check lottery tickets, use the ATM, ask us to change notes. Yet none of them would actually buy anything from us. We eventually ended up closing as we just weren't making any money.

Sophomanical skanks trying to 'long change' the cashier.

I did. I went off to clean myself but I couldn't cope and told them I was going home!!

Oh and one of my colleagues in the clothing department had a customer who was buying boots for his wife. He asked her to put them on so he could see how they looked.
She did and after she took them of he picked one up and put it over his nose and mouth and breathed deeply.
Disgusting pervert.

Guy in a wheelchair who had touched up a female staff member when she took him round the store to shop. He then demanded someone take him to the toilet, staff member refused so he took his penis out. He was removed by security and barred.

I personally ruined Christmas as no turkeys left at 10 minutes to closing. Store was closed etc.
Called a jobsworth cunt when I asked customer to hand me the things in the front of their trolley to scan (they were shoplifting !)
Had a bag of shopping thrown at me as my till was closed as I was already late finishing.
If a customer claimed a price was wrong on the till I had to get a supervisor to check. ‘Customer rights ‘ and ‘By law you have to give me the lower price’ would often be quoted at me.

I worked in a bank and every week a woman would come in with a cheque made out to cash already signed, the policy was if they wanted to cash a cheque we had to witness them sign it, so every week I’d ask her to sign it again on the back and explain I had to witness her sign it, one week she came in with it signed on the front and back and kicked off when I asked her to sign it again on the back. I mean how difficult is it to understand someone saying to you “I have to witness you sign it”?

Worked at a bookies. Someone won big- like£10k.
he was raging because the safe was on timer and he had to wait 15 minutes for it to open and then a few minutes for us to count it out. slamming his fists on the counter - I told him the more he did that the longer it would take me to count- he soon shut up.
He was a regular so knew how it worked.

How long ago was this?

I worked in a hotel where the whole Leicester city squad came to celebrate their big win.

It was about 2am and we stopped taking cash and would only take orders to be put onto their room bill.

Some woman comes up and demands to pay cash, can't remember her room number etc. Then I had the whole 'do you know who I am?!?!' (Apparently she was the girlfriend of one of the 'stars') I replied with 'No...no I don't' head tilt. Oh she had such a shit fit. It was glorious.

This was about 25 years ago

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.

It just shows, some people really are sub-human.

Worked in a leisure centre so not quite retail but very much public facing.

Had a man throw rocks and spit at me for removing his free swimming/gym card (issued by the council to children in care, he was no longer a child FWIW so it was definitely out of date anyway) because he consistently broke rules, abused the facilities, and was rude and aggressive to staff. Council policy was to return the cards to them if the customer didn’t abide by the rules. Management didn’t even ban him though.

Had a man with a membership come in and rant at me for 10 minutes (whilst I had a queue) about how much worse our facilities were than another leisure centre. I replied with ‘your membership does include (place he preferred) so maybe you’d like to swim there?’ And he absolutely lost his shit. Swearing, squaring up to me etc. Duty manager backed me up and threw him out but general manager bollocked me for being rude! I literally have no idea what they expected me to say to him.

People injecting heroin in the changing rooms.

A homeless man living in a store cupboard.

A man that used to waltz in and expect to use the facilities for free who started being really unpleasant to me when I realised he actually wasn’t a member and expected him to pay. Used to grab my hand and stare me in the eye when I have him his change. Again, management did not give a fuck.

LOADS of vomit and shit incidents. Used pads and tampons left in cubicles.

Carpark was an ongoing drama too. People were absolute cunts about paying £1 to park in the centre of town.

I had a retail shop that did the warranty repairs for Samsung and Nokia.
I came in late one morning and a colleague was on the counter with a very irate man, I went to see if I could help "apparently the bitch wouldn't repair his phone under warranty as it had a cracked screen" I tried to advise him to go down the insurance route as warranty is for manufacturers defaults, he was screaming and shouting at he that the phone was faulty an the screen broke itself, I pointed to the impact mark and he point blank refused that the screen broke due to an impact, apparently it he never mistreats his phone and the screen broke on its own, I told him that if we repaired it under warranty then we wouldn't be paid for the part of our work as we have to send the faulty part back and the part is smashed , he then threw his phone at my face.
Ended up with a black eye and a bloody nose but we had his details on the system and the police did F.A.

My DD works in a high street store selling women's fashions. They regularly get customers come to the changing rooms with arms full of clothes at five minutes to closing (when changing rooms are already closed off) who get abusive when told they are too late as the shop is about to close.

On more than one occasion DD has been tidying the changing rooms and found a customer has used the cubicle as a toilet 🤮

As a 16yr old working in Next, a man came in at christmas to buy underwear. He rubbed himself up, when I showed him the underwear. I refused to continue with sale and got laughed at.

M&S at chrsitmas, when I worked there at 18. There was a mad rush for fresh turkey's and I saw a collegue get pushed over into a chiller counter and no one helped him. The customers just focused on buying their turkeys.

When working at a small sainsbury's we had trouble with a group of men stealing meat, they would fill up baskets with meat and walk out the shop. They were big scary men, once on my shift they came in and I didn't chase them etc just called the police. My manager made a complaint against me. I remember advising that him £8.20ph is not worth my life chasing a group of men and that Sainsbury's maybe should hire security. I left shortly after and haven't returned to retail since.

I've also met some lovely customers. At the same sainsbury's a women would come in every were with a handmade curry spice jar. As I once told I loved spicy food and her daughters were not local anymore so she made the spices for me and another colleague and gives us amazing receipes for food.

Anyone buying a microwave with grill and oven function
Anyone buying a camcorder
Anyone being so awful, we’ve had to call police or security to remove
Anyone making a member of staff cry, because something out of bour control went wrong with a delivery
Anyone rude or condescending speaking to any staff in store

I used to work in Tesco and a customer went to the toilet in the Photo Booth. There were perfectly clean customer toilets too. Could also write a book about the people I experienced there!

I worked at M&S when I was 18, scanned and folded some trousers. The customer then scolded me for folding them wrong, showed me how she wanted them folded then threw them at me and said ‘now do it properly’. Horrible woman hope she has a miserable life!

I worked in a game store and was selling a PlayStation to a guy who was flirting with me. I worked partly on commission so was playing along to upsell come controllers with it.

His girlfriend sees this from outside the store and comes charging in, knocking things off shelves and screaming at him for flirting at me. She got to the till and started throwing match everywhere at him for flirting with me. I ran into the back and let my big burly male managers deal with her. Police came and she was taken away.

This is beautiful 🤣 You're a diplomat!

@WickedWitchOfTheEast87, sounds like betting shop staff should get danger money 😲

@peakedatseven my god thats shocking and I've seen some appalling behaviour from customers in my time! Actually that reminds me of another incident it didn't happen to me but manager in another shop a customer threw water in her face when she was locking up and told her that was a warning next time it would be acid 😱😱

I also had a customer who had shit himself and sat there in it until other customers smelt it and told me I tried to have a quiet word so as not to humiliate him and he kicked off at me saying he was well aware of it and didn't I understand he was sick and coming to the shop was the only thing he did so what was the problem! At this point it was running down his legs was all over the chair and floor I again calmly and compassionately explained that in the current climate (lockdown had just been lifted) it wasn't hygienic and others could get sick. He was massively offended and said if he left now he would miss the next race and surely the customers wouldn't mind him staying another half an hour until the race was finished. I'm sympathetic that he was sick but I honestly couldn't understand how he thought it was right to sit there in his own shit getting it everywhere and the other customers should put up with it because he was sick. He was completely not bothered about it only that he wanted to watch the next race. I had to clean that mess up it was horrendous even the customers who weren't fond of me actually showed me sympathy!

I'd be here for days if I listed every incident with abusive and batshit crazy customer I've dealt with so I've listed the worst below.

I worked in a betting shop in some rough areas and my god I near enough went mad from customers telling I was wrong and they had been betting since before I was born to try and con me into paying them out.

The worst was a customer who spat in my face because he was pissed off he had to wait 2 mins for the toilet to be opened as my cashier was serving a customer and I was counting cash out back. Customer started screaming at my cashier so as I was managing I went out to support my colleague the guy then started screaming at me to give him "the fucking key" banging his fists on the counter I calmly refused and told him to leave as we don't tolerate that behaviour. He bent down spat through the bars and aimed it right at my eye level and I got a face full of spit!

Another customer was pissed off with a price change on a football match and demanded the original higher price, my colleague politely explained we can't do that we aren't allowed to and we could lose our job if we did that. Customers response was to call my colleague a stupid black cunt and make gorilla noises at him. Funnily enough when I told him to get out because we won't be serving him he called me a fat cunt and demanded to speak to the manager I replied "you just called her a fat cunt and my staff a black cunt so fuck off back to whatever gutter you crawled out off you ain't getting served" he was incredibly offended and said thats why women shouldn't be in this job we're too emotional!

Another customer spat on the gaming machine because he lost his money then accused me of fixing the machine and stealing his money so demanded it back. I said no so he cashed out what was left and started smashing the machine up and refused to leave until I paid him his money. I called the police so he got cocky trashed the shop turned the stools over and threw the betting slips everywhere it was like the stock cupboard exploded! He laughed whilst doing it saying he was gonna enjoy watching me having to clean it up. I called the police and then sent photos to the area manager who called and told me not to pay him and don't go out on the shop floor until the police removed him.

The police came he told lie after lie and then looked sheepish when I said our camera's would have recorded it and by the way security were aware and were watching and listening to him as it all happened as I pressed our panic alarm.

The police gave him a heavy fine for criminal damage and made him clean up all the mess he made or they would arrest him for threatening behaviour and I would be pressing charges. I grinned like the chesire cat watching him clean up all the mess the rare time a customer got instant karma 🤣🤣🤣

I have shared this story before. Working in a supermarket, a customer approached me to complain that she came earlier in the week, and the 3 packs of mini trifles were 2 for £2. They were now on a different offer, £1.80, BOGOF. I tried to explain that it was a better offer, but she wasn't having it. In the end , I said I would honour the original offer AND give her an extra 10% as a gesture of goodwill. She left happy.

Nooo oh my word I'd have to go home immediately

another Christmas one - I was working in a supermarket deli dept & taking an order for a customer wanting several cooked hot chickens. When I asked her what time on Christmas Eve she wanted collection I was yelled & abused at - she wanted them on Christmas Day, hot & ready for her family lunch.

Like my Christmas plans totally involved going into work & cooking for her 3 chickens on Christmas Day morning. Not.