Strangest complaint you've ever received

I worked in Laura Ashley for a few years - there were no end of customers bringing back curtains etc that they'd bought in places like John Lewis and were disgusted that we weren't able to refund them...

The best one was a woman who had extended her dining room and wanted to wallpaper the new part to match the rest of it. She had brought a swatch of it in with her, it wasn't a current pattern so I offered to go through the old catalogues and see if I could find a SKU for it and do a stock look up to see if any other stores had any lying about in their stock rooms. The wallpaper was so old it had been discontinued over 15 years ago and of course no stores had any left. Well, considering how much effort I'd gone to trying to help her she hit the roof and was outraged when I politely suggested she might choose another wallpaper. Her words to me just before she stormed off - "you shops are all out to make money!" There wasn't really much I could say to that really...

An extremely irate man once shouted down the phone at me for at least 20 mins at the company head office, because he'd travelled in a black cab with our company advert on it and the driver had been rude to him... Apparently this was our fault!
My manager ended up coming down just to listen to him on my spare headset, he was quite something.

A disheleved local (v smart area) came into reception and leant right across the desk to shout and point in my face because he was sleep deprived and convinced someone from our office was persecuting him by shining lights into his bedroom all night.
Our lovely driver had to 'escort' him out for me, I was shaking!
It turned out the security lights from the scaffold on his building were being reflected back by our glazed building...
Um, close your curtains/blinds perhaps??

Another set of neighbours complained that they didn't like the typeface we'd used to label the floors of our (largely glass) building, and we should change it.
After the third visit, I said I wasn't keen on their curtains either, so could they please change them to something more to our taste. (Again, had permission from my manager!)

I once had someone complain to me that a roomful of computers had mice with dirty balls.

I had a neighbour complain to me that my cat was coming and looking at her bird table, and this was putting the birds off (never mind that she herself had a cat that was Satan personified). I nodded very seriously and said I would have a word with him.

I work in a building society and one of my mortgage adviser colleagues had a very happy very looked after fish in a fish bowl in her office.

A customer complained to our head office that the fish was too big for the bowl (it wasn't) and demanded it was removed. My colleague was forced to take it home and put it in a tank with her other fish where it was promptly cannibalised by the other fish. That customer killed the fish IMO.

Someone was going to write to his MP as I wouldn't couldn't make ab appointment for him to see his GP. I don't work at his GPs practice or even for the same trust

Guests who were staying in the hotel I worked in complained to my manager that id ask them to leave the pool for being 'rowdy'. The truth is they were drunk and skinny dipping at midnight (pool closed 7pm ish) on their wedding night joined by......the brides parents!

Had I not had so many complaints from other guests about the nose they were making I'd probably have left them to it!!

I install window displays, we once got a letter saying we were standing too high on the ladders and "how would her family feel if that young girl fell?" Quite sweet in a strange sort of way.

We were supplying wooden flooring to a client for his house. Our lovely sub contractor was fitting it. Unfortunately he was also fitting the very expensive custom order v posh vinyl flooring in the conservatory (supplied by our competitor).

Customer stomps into our showroom 15 mins before closing (sat lunchtime) because they have run out of the posh vinyl with about 4 strips to go. Stood over me shouting the odds. I explained that we didn't supply it or sell it & he needed to contact our competitors. But he couldn't because they closed an hour ago. He and his wife were having a party that night & it had to be finished fgs! If I didn't get it for him he would follow me home and sit outside my house all weekend! He was 6'4" built like a brick shithouse. I am 5'4". I apologised that there was nothing I could do and pointed out that they shouldn't be walking on the floor for 24 hours after fitting and maybe his guests could stay out of the conservatory? At this he became more incensed, reached over the desk, and started shouting in my face.

At this point another lovely customer, took him by the arm and suggested that if he didn't sling his hook he'd phone the police, by this stage I was a gibbering wreck!

I was happily browsing in my local library, when a man asked me where the books about dinosaurs were, I replied with something like " not sure, maybe over there" he launched into a furious rant because he had mistaken me for a librarian and though ai was not helpful enough.

Not very funny really except that it has happened to me twice in a library and once in a bookshop, I have glasses and wear my hair up, people see me and think librarian, if the pay was better I would consider giving in and training as one!

Years ago I had a phone call that started, before I could say the normal burb, with "A bomb would blow you all up, I could do that you know" I without thinking I turned and said "Well, if your going to continue like that then I'm hanging up. If you want me to know what your on about and help you, then I suggest you adjust your tone"

After dealing with his problem (an unexpected Bill) I turned round to find a steaming manager who sent me straight to his office for speaking to a customer like that. Even after explaining I was still told off for it.

Apparently that wasn't the correct way to talk to a customer or deal with a bomb threat.

HR spent hours investigating what my manager was actually complaining about.

I used to work for a security company.A customer wrote in asking for details of intruder alarms,so I passed the enquiry to the lady who posted the leaflets out.She sent the info,with a typed letter asking them to contact Mrs Mirage if they had any questions or would like a quote.

A few days later,I had a furious letter from the chap,he was enraged that the intruder alarm info had a bit about security cameras on it.I phoned him to try and sort it out but he was incandescent with rage because I had dared to suggest he might need CCTV.I gently pointed out that the leaflet covered both options,but he wouldn't be placated,he was going to write to the directors and get me sacked,he was going to go to the papers.We never heard from him again after that though.

In the same job,I had a man threaten to turn up at our offices with a shot gun.His alarm was ringing and he wanted an engineer out.Unfortunately,he owed us money,so I refused to send anyone out until he settled up.He yelled at me,yelled at my manager and said he was on his way with his shot gun.However,it was such a long time since he'd paid us anything,that he thought we were at our old address,and we'd moved premises some years earlier.

I don't work there any more.It was very stressful.

I am an American living in England. I connected with a Guide unit within a month of moving here and almost immediately started on various qualification schemes. There was a complaint from the assessor doing one of my Nights Away qualifications that I was "too American" and that it would be "too confusing" for the Guides.

Um, I am American, I can't change that. And I had been with the girls for about 15 months at that point. They knew me, my ways, and I knew them and theirs. Besides, they watched more American television than I did!

I should have walked away from Guiding then since the comments were on my official assessment and they really pissed me off.

When we viewed the house we later moved into, the previous owners were telling us about the local area, very nice, quiet etc. Then in all seriousness started moaning about how the birds sang very loudly sometimes and how disruptive it was.

Got back from holiday a few weeks ago. Witnessed one lady shouting at the receptionist of the hotel about how disgusting the cleaning standards were. Sh had just checked in and found a single fingerprint on the window. Staff were very apologetic and sent someone to clean it immediately. That wasn't good enough, and she demanded to be given a different room!

I used to work in a well known pub chain. A (male) customer wrote to the manager and complained that the girls' shirts weren't tight enough.

I once had a customer phone me and complain because I had the cheek to ask 'hope you are well' in an email, hr said he doesnt have time for all that rubbish.....but he has time to complain about it?? Idiot!

I used to work in a shop and a woman called screaming at me because our delivery lorry was outside and she couldn't park and she was a POTENTIAL CUSTOMER and everything. I pointed out that we needed to stock up or there would be nothing for her to buy, and that if she'd let me finish the call and get on with unloading the lorry she could then park outside and grace us with her custom. She screamed 'YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE A JOB' and hung up. We were pissing ourselves all day over that one

I am a complaint handler at work, I really wish I got funny complaints!

Remembered a great one my mum told me years ago when she worked for Clarks.

An elderly gent had brought his leather slippers back because they made him trip up. He was asked if he thought they might be the wrong size. He replied no they were the right size but the glue holding them together must be letting off fumes when they were warming by the fire.

I got a complaint from a photographer that the stage lights were reflecting glare off my boobs and could I please do something about them. (I'm the singer in a band btw, and I had a fairly low cut dress on).

I used to work in the office of an alarm fitting company. One day the boss was off to install a system at an old lady's house.

I got a phone call from the lady saying that a man had turned up in one of our vans but he couldn't possibly be the right man because he had a beard.

I assured her he was the right man and that in fact he was the owner of the company (thinking this would please her) She replied "oh no, I won't have an alarm installed by a company ran by a man with a beard" and hung up.

I have two. I worked in a Bingo hall once and the old ladies didn't like female staff. They complained that I was too young and made the uniform look slutty. All the young male staff got boxes of biscuits, I got sneered at.

In a shop I once worked in, we got a written letter of complaint that we were selling tshirts with demonic symbols. There was a tshirt with a modern design with some lines on it. Some lines crossed and it was slightly lower than the middle, so inverted cross to this guy.

Foslady - you just reminded me of my time working for a council housing repairs department. A lady called up to tell me there were armadillos coming through her living room wall.
I didn't put that on the ticket...

Millions from my student days working for a major supermarket:

Too much surface water in the carpark. It was autumn and check my mn nickname as to why that was slightly not my problem.

For some reason a pair of rubber gloves from another store ended up in ours. Bloke would not have it that I could not put them through.

We had run out of specific shade of lipstick from a cosmetics concession over which we had no control. I helpfully suggested trying the Boots right next door. Literally the doors are adjacent. She complained to customer services. And then the girl on there told me off.

I was subjected to a tirade of abuse because the supermarket's top of the range mincemeet was not labelled Luxury but 'Supermarket's Top-of-tge-Range'.

Hmm. On second glances, most people's replies seem to be work related. Fuck. I'm not a prostitute, honestly!