Aibu to ask for the most "WTF" complaints

Toooooo many people being put through to you from someone else and having a massive go that you’re still the wrong person!

I have had to deal with several complaints from families that their child wasn't first on the operating list. "They are a child they shouldn't have to wait"

I work in a children's hospital.

All the patients are children. They can't all go first.

I briefly worked for Three and a man told me it's like we just give these contract to people and expect them to manage it alone... because he ran up a bill of £££ calling Australia... well yes you do have to manage your own phone account funnily you twat.

So many, too many to remember. Some of the most common ones-

• customers ringing the shop to make a complaint and after checking cctv and whatnot, ringing them back and them realising it was a different shop (surely you'd check before ringing and making a fool of yourself?)
• for some reason, we still sell 10p bags alongside 20p and £1 bags for life (petrol garage shop). Occasionally, we run out of the 10p ones. Customers going absolutely mental at having to pay for a 20p bag for their Lucozade and Cadbury caramel bar to go in. Like honestly, either pay for the bag or carry it. Like every other shop.
• complaining about the price of something and pretending it says it was cheaper. Obviously if the wrong shelf edge label has been left on then we'd sell it to them at that price, but it's maddening when it's an item like a pre packaged steak which literally has "£7" on the item, on the label and then a huge bus stop label also stating £7. It was never down as two for £5 or whatever you've made up! Stop being cheap!

This are just wonderful!

I was complained about once by a family I babysat for at a local hotel. I knew I'd be there until midnight so I needed to eat after their little boy was in bed. It was an apartment hotel so there was a microwave where I heated up my ready meal (one of those instant sachets of pasta and a pot of tomato stir in stuff) and decanted it into a bowl and used one of the room-provided forks to eat it with. I washed the bowl and fork and left them on the draining board as I couldn't find a teatowel. This was apparently the crime of the century - the family complained to the manager about me! The manager actually bothered to ring me at home and tell me off for it, saying I shouldn't have put the packaging from the pasta sachet in their kitchen bin either!! I'd been working for the hotel for a couple of years without complaint, including having babysat that particular child several times before as well. His parents always left so early in the evening I brought toys and story books along as well to make sure he had lots of fun before bedtime, and I was quite bonded with him, so it seemed particularity unfair they should bitch about me.

I used to work for an opticians chain which had two branches in the same shopping centre (about a 30 second walk between the two, straight ahead, and it's on your right...). We very often got people arriving for appointments at the wrong branch (easy mistake) and would direct them to the correct place and ring the other store to let them know they were on their way.
One time a lady arrived at our branch and her appointment was actually at the other branch. She had booked her appointment online, but apparently it was our fault that we weren't the branch she had chosen. We gave her the directions, telling her we would let them know she was on her way so they didn't think she was late for her appointment.
She arrived back 5 minutes later Fing and blinding because "the other branch doesn't exist" and she'd "been fucking walking around for 15 minutes trying to find the fucking place". It was apparently completely unacceptable that we couldn't see her for her appointment at our branch (even though we were fully-booked)... She shouted at the top her lungs for a good 5 minutes before the manager who had swooped in could get a word in. She took the lady down to the other store herself and told her if she ever swore at any of her staff again she would be asked never to come back to either branch.

I was once waiting for my car which was in for a service and heard another couple absolutely kick off at a staff member who came to let them know their car hadn't passed its MOT because a part was faulty and they had ordered it in but it would take two days to arrive. Said couple were outraged that the particular part of the vehicle hadn't been checked earlier on in the day so they could have tried to source the part elsewhere, and found it disgusting that the garage didn't have the part in in the first place. I was sat there thinking, how would the garage know to look at that particular part of the car first, what if they'd looked at that and it was fine and another part of the car wasn't when they checked that later... Also, considering how many parts a car is made up of... Surely it's not surprising that they have to order stuff in sometimes? People really are ridiculous.
I sympathised with the staff and they brought me a hot chocolate.

My OH works in customer services and they often get complaints from customers who chose standard delivery for orders and then are outraged that their missing package can't be tracked...

Cockadoodledooo Your post has just reminded me of when 'cash back' first began. My elderly mother used to go food shopping with my cousin, and at the supermarket checkout, she'd heard the cashier asking customers if they wanted cashback.
When my mother was telling me about this, she said "that's good of them, isn't it?". She thought they gave you £50 out of the goodness of their hearts.

WE have a modest village house in rural Andalucia. Sun beds are kept under cover but outside - guests apparently couldn't use them because they had spiders on them!

When my daughter worked at an extremely upmarket restAurant on Skye a customer complained that she was ‘low class’ and she expected a higher standard of waitress. I nearly died of rage related apoplexy.

Daughter is many things but low class (who says that?) isn’t one of them.

I worked in a community building where we rented rooms including an office to run children’s activities. The building also rented out rooms to other companies, franchises etc. One time I was in the office doing some training with an apprentice and a parent came and knocked on the door to ask where the activity that normally ran in one of the rooms was. I explained that this activity wasn’t associated with us, the company rented as did we, so I really didn’t know anything about it. The parent then went on to quiz me relentlessly - “is she not coming?” “Is it on today?” “so is it cancelled?” “How do I find out if it is cancelled?” “Do you have her number?” “Can you ring her to find out?” On and on and on she went, with me repeating that I really didn’t know as it wasn’t anything to do with me. (I wasn’t being deliberately unhelpful - I just honestly didn’t know!)
Eventually she huffed out of the office. Fortunately the apprentice was sitting at the desk with her back to the door as by the end of this exchange she was trying so hard to not laugh!

At the start of a new school year I met my new class of 30 children- including the "new girl" who'd come from a small rural school. I can honestly say that in my 46 years of life I have only ever truly disliked one child. The new girl. This child and her mother spent the entire year relentlessly complaining to me and about me regarding the education I was failing to provide. According to the new girl, at her old school (most sentences began with a very superior rendition of "At my old school...") she had been deemed so clever that her teacher had had to devise an entirely different curriculum for her as her genius was so superior to all the other pupils. Now she was bright. She was just about top of the class, by a whisker. She was not exceptional and she was not top of the year group of 120 pupils. It did not matter how many times I (and my head of year) explained that a class teacher with 30 pupils cannot (and should not) run an entirely different curriculum for a single pupil- especially when that pupil doesn't need it. We had perfectly well differentiated work to stretch the most able as it was. She was just used to being the star of the show and was fuming when we refused to let that continue.

My one smug moment (can't believe I was so pleased to get one over on a 9 year old!) came when we were doing a science write up for an experiment we'd just done. She gave me hers with the bored, disinterested and slightly disdainful look she had perfected and I noticed she hadn't filled in the section that said "What I found out" (or similar- it was quite a few years ago). When I challenged her, she informed me she had found out nothing as she already knew it all. I grabbed a pen, put a cross through the words "found out" and replaced them with the word "proved", explaining to her that she was obviously ready for the next step as a scientist because real scientists often think they know what an outcome will be but they have to prove that outcome over and over. And sent her back to complete her work properly...

Oh yes ny00025 the ones that expect post when they’ve not informed us of their change of address/email/tel number!

I'm an older geezer, and I know there are newer ways of complaining these days.

But in the days when telephone complaints were the only way really, I developed a penchant for listening to daft people ranting on the phone for about 30 seconds, and then gently put the phone down on my desk and walked away.

The caller had no one to rant at then, and I didn't hang up on them either. Best tip from a colleague ever.

Oh the days.

My favourite recent one - this customer was doing a feedback survey on how I'd handled her complaint

Not happy that I hadn't contacted her & on next line, complained that I'd tried to phone her during the day while she was at work.

Complained that she still hadn't received my letter (it was returned by the current home owner who's lived at the address for 12 years 🙄)

A customer who didn’t turn up for a booking asking me why I hadn’t rang him asking where he was!

Same customer asking me to compensate him for bringing his Dad’s vehicle in (when we rebooked the apt) his Dad had a minor operation and couldn’t drive. Stipulations of the warranty are that it must be carried out at a dealership. He was an arse and he seemed to be royally pissed off that his Dad has asked him to help him out!

I feel sorry for any sales assistant that had to deal with my late Mother.

She'd turned into the old girl that says "I'm 85 you know".

I took her to Tesco, she picked up a very ripe bunch of bananas & complained to the till assistant that they were going black & should be discounted. I'd picked up a block of parmesan for myself, & she reckoned we shouldn't have to pay for the bit of rind on the end.

The shop handled it very well, the manager gave her the bananas for half price, & reduced my my cheese (after I was found trying to hide under the counter).

In a pub I worked in I had a lady order the salmon, ate the whole thing and then wanted a refund because it was too fishy.

An email in a customer service roll asked how many napkins were in the "set of 6 napkins?"

I do electrical inspection and testing for a living and had one lady complain on several websites that I 'did not do what was agreed'

I had been asked to do a EICR (wiring check) and smoke detectors, we did not do the smoke detectors (and did not charge for them) as her flat was dangerous.

She left me a bad review that I have on my website and it has got me several thousand pounds of work as when people read it they laugh, it breaks the ice and they know I am a safety first type of guy.

When I worked in a shop when I was about 17 the phone rang so I answered it as you do. Next thing this bloke came in and had a go at me for ringing the police on him for shoplifting then threw and empty sandwich pack at me. Which is what he must of stolen as he never purchased it. The only thing was if he never said oat I wouldn't of even known he stolen anything. 😂

@Biancadelrioisback

They would have outed themselves as trans if they gone to the papers!

I had a really awkward one once.
I ran a venue which served alcohol behind a bar, a staff member came to me really uncomfortable and quite upset saying that they think they're in trouble.
A young trans teen/young adult approached the bar to buy some wine. Staff member had asked for ID as they did look quite young and we were challenge 25. Young person refused to show ID because their ID didn't reflect their chosen gender. They apparently had kicked off and threatened staff member with SM shaming and going to the papers. I had to go over and explain that we couldnt care less what sex was on their ID, we needed proof of age and I was not convinced that they were in fact old enough to buy alcohol anyways. I explained that if we were caught serving to someone underage, not only would we have a personal fine, but potential loss of licence and employment termination. I was quite frank and said that it wasn't worth my job to serve them, and if they went to the papers I would happily explain the situation.
They ended up coming back to the bar with their care worker who asked if I could just take her word that the person was old enough. Again, I explained why I couldn't do that. She offered to look at the ID and "give me the nod", again i explained why that wouldn't work.
They ended up storming out but on the way they thrust their ID at me and asked if I was happy now. They were 17.

Working as a bespoke milliner, I dyed feathers, ribbons and so on to match customers' wedding clothes. Customer arrives with frock to collect hat, purrs with delight at the colour match, pays and leaves. She returned a week later spitting nails, wanting a refund because it didn't match at all. How did it not match? 'I wore a different outfit and this hat you made looked terrible with it.'

My mum rang me in error once, I answered and she was surprised it was me. She said, somewhat indignantly, 'I dialled xyz number' to which I said she couldn't have done and must have mis-dialled. She barked back, 'if I'd dialled the number wrong, why did you pick up?!'

Another one - we sell items of different colours but tell people that colour online can never be guaranteed so they can get a free sample sent for matching or send an example in with their name/phone number and address and we'll recommend the closest colour. At least once a month we get sent a envelope stuffed with various items of differt colours. No cover letter, no return address, in fact no identifying features at all. Very rarely do people follow up. It's bizarre. The ridiculous thing is they probably think we are the idiots.

The number of people who don't know their address and post code is astounding (we can usually look it up if one or the other is right but if both are wrong/missing there's really nothing we can do), typically they are also the ones who don't leave a phone number 'for data protection reasons' then call after a week or so ranting that we haven't sent their package or been in touch.

It's been reassuring to read that lots of customers complain the the wrong company about faulty goods/things they want to return. I was starting to think we needed a stronger brand. Clearly it's quite common!

I work in an office outside of which there is plenty of on street parking. There are also a couple of disabled parking spaces.

I was called to the door once because a lady was complaining that I had parked in one of the disabled spaces. I knew I hadn’t as I have never parked in the disabled spaces. She was insistent that I move my car. I repeatedly told her, it is not my car. She got arsier and arsier, telling me to move my car from the disabled spot. I kept saying. - it’s not my car in the space. I was lectured on how unfair it was for me to use a disabled spot I was not entitled to use. I agreed it was unfair to use a disabled space if you weren’t allowed to - but it was NOT my car.

Eventually I just walked away from her. There was no convincing her it wasn’t my car in the space as apparently I’m the only person who drives a black car.