Aibu to ask for the most "WTF" complaints

A customer was once furious that we "wouldn't allow" his mother to book a seat on the accessible platform at a Christmas concert in a large music venue. I explained that this particular concert was extremely popular and therefore accessible seating had sold out very quickly however the next best option would be to book seats in front of the accessible platform which were also easy access and only required two small steps down to get to. (His mother wasn't in a wheelchair, she was elderly and struggled with lots of stairs). Customer accused us of discriminating against his mother and said that he would be walking down the accessible platform on the night of the show to make sure that everyone sat there was definitely disabled!

So many, but a couple that stand out are the customer who sent their gammon back because it ‘tastes like big bacon’, and also a dad who brought his approx 3 year old, ordered a chicken nugget meal with chips and peas and then shouted at me when I brought it to his table because the meal was hot. I asked what he would like me to do to help and he said he didn’t know but his wife ‘always puts it on the mantelpiece to cool down’ 🙄🙄🙄

The worst post-complaint response ever was after a family of three came in and ordered a main meal, said everything was fine when we did a check back, ate every last bit, then refused to pay the bill as they’d decided that they didn’t actually like it. We insisted they paid, as the evidence indicated otherwise, then they went and used the toilets on their way out and when I went to check them before closing (I’d already checked previously as they’d come in close to closing and were the only ones there) they’d covered the walls in shit. Delightful.

To be fair Schadenfreude, the term "cows eggs" should have made the need for a sarcasm font somewhat redundant.

surely the stock wouldn’t have gone off bang on midnight 🙄
No, but just as nobody wants a fresh turkey on the 27th, there is a limited market for party food that's left in the supermarket on the 1st.

Years ago I worked for a well known company that sells insurance to over 50s. My colleague Linda (not her real name) was dealing with a home insurance complaint where we'd refused to pay out because it was clearly an issue of wear and tear. A week or so later we received a letter from the policyholder addressed to "Mrs Linda Hitler" with swastikas drawn all over the envelope and complaining bitterly what a disgrace she was and worse than the Gestapo. IIRC Linda proudly displayed the envelope on the wall next to her.

Same office, we received a letter telling us we were disgusting for including the title "Ms" as an option on our car insurance policy documents - it should be Mr/Mrs/Miss only and by including "Ms" we were contributing to society becoming a nation of multicoloured bastards without morals. They hadn't even taken out a bloody policy with us!

This thread has made me chuckle!

When I worked in a clothes shop years ago an elderly lady came in asking for a refund on an item that she had paid for but didn't actually have.

She bought in all the items she had purchased and I cross checked them all against the receipt. All items listed on the receipt were in the bag. She hadn't been charged for anything she didn't have but was ADAMANT we owed her money for the missing item! But you never paid for it!!!

When I worked at a School I once had a gentleman telephone and shout down the phone at me for at least 20 minutes, because another School the next town over, weren't picking up the phone to him. When I tried to explained that he was through to the wrong number he said he wasn't stupid and was well aware that but he had to ring someone to complain and what was I going to do about the other School not picking up the phone.

When in Rome a few years ago we did the tour of the Colosseum. An American lady complained (repeatedly and loudly) to our poor tour guide. She was extremely disappointed that the Colosseum was in 'ruins' and why hadn't the Italian government spent the money to redevelop so it looked like it had 2000(?) years ago when it was first built? She had thought it was going to look exactly like some Hollywood movie she'd seen set in that time period.

It was funny at first but did start to grate after she repeatedly kept complaining to others it was false advertising and giving advice on how best to raise money for the rebuild.

Worked in a fast food restaurant with a play area. A group of kids had been fighting outside, came in and one of them, who had a head injury and was bleeding from both his knuckles, came in and passed out next to the ball pit. I closed off the area, apologising to the various parents for the disruption. His mates started shouting abuse at me for calling an ambulance and apparently I should have dealt with his head injury myself. A week later his father comes in and asks to speak to manager. Manager has to pull my into a meeting because this little dickhead, rather than admit to fighting, has told his Dad that his head injury (and somehow also his fists) were caused by slipping in our toilets as I hadn't put up a wet floor sign. Shame that CCTV showed me putting a big 'OUT OF ORDER' sign on the toilet doors that day, along with his son being dragged in through the doors by his friends. I told him about all the abuse they gave me with glee, never seen someone look so sheepish.

The woman who complained that we had sold out of advent calendars. Proper rant and rave about disappointing her children. It was the 6th of December!

But they don't want to order so much they end the trading day with full shelves, do they? The goal is to have as little wasted stock as possible, which they will have if they over order and it doesn't get sold.

I know people were worried about the millennium bug, but surely the stock wouldn’t have gone off bang on midnight 🙄

@Eddie16

I used to work in a local deli/cafe, a customer ordered a bacon and egg muffin then complained it didn't look or taste like a sausage and egg mcmuffin
We also used to do afternoon tea, and you'd have a party of say 10, but all wanted to pay separately but couldn't understand each one had to be put through the till as a separate transaction and be moaning about how long it was taking

When I was about 19 and working in a shop,we had lots of shoplifters that would take one shoe and leave the other to get afterwards when the store was quiet.
We ended up with 4 massive bins out the back with the odd shoes that we picked up throughout the day. A customer picks up a shoe that has been missed as it's a busy day,skeleton staff and far too many people shopping to keep on top of and asks for the other. I check to see if its been put elsewhere even though I'm knee deep trying to serve 3 other people,cant find it and suspect the other other is possibly in the bins. Explain to customer that incredibly busy right now can she wait 10 mins for me to serve the other customers that I'm also dealing with while my manager is chasing me round as I'm not quick enough in doing my job. The woman throws a donkey fit at me,screaming and calling me all sorts of names and hurls the shoe at me which smacks me in the face while my manager stands there and let's her carry on even though I've just been assaulted.
I left not long after that.

I've also worked with a handbag company that are british made to a certain extent,a lot of production is done in China though they do have a British factory in Somerset.
A customer threatened me (just me,not the comanpy) with legal action, she had read in an article that all the bags were british made and when she had got home her bag label said made in China. I explained what I knew and offered her head office number for any further enquiries, I was told as her son was a barrister,she didn't like what I told her or the service I had given her so she wanted my information so she could get him to sue me personally.
I also worked as a bra fitter,lady came in asked for a fitting, yes fine, please go in the fitting room,take your top off and leave you bra and other clothes on.
After 2mins,I asked if she was ready for me,yes come in. I opened the curtain to find her waiting for stark bollock naked for me to do her fitting. When asked to put her clothes back on as I refused to fit her while she was nude,she kicked off and wanted to speak to my manager,I promptly got the manager and explained the situation,manager actually sided with me and told the customer she would be escorted out of the store if she didn't get dressed and stopped harassing the staff.
Why I still work in retail is beyond me.

Parent who complained that the alphabet contained letters that appeared in swear words so we were actively teaching her young son to swear.

Sorry springydaff

We need a sarcastic font . . .

I used to work in an HMO Department (House in Multiple Occupation) dealing with complaints about them to the local authority. Of course, if you have an entire department set up to deal with complaints, this is a field day for the that person who has nothing better to do with their time than complain. A lot of the work actually involved placating complainers.

One woman (A) lived in a house next to the university. The house next door was an HMO. They were both older style properties with good sound insulation but the A had a baby and could hear people using the stairs when returning home next door and blamed her baby crying on this. The students next door did everything they could to be as quiet as possible but, like everyone, occasionally had a night out and returned home late. One also worked in a takeaway and came home late. A found this out and complained to us that we should stop them coming back after 9pm at night, due to the noise of footsteps. As a department, we liaised with the students, who wrote back describing how hard they were trying to be silent. The students even took their shoes off to go up their own stairs, but apparently the noise of the key turning in the lock was still enough to disturb A. We had to write to A pointing out that the students had a human right to enter and leave their property and there was no evidence of them being noisy or unreasonable. A then took to getting up at 6am or so and pressing the student's doorbell for 10 or 20 minutes at a time. Eventually, the students had had enough of A and reported her to the police. The police caught A in the act and she received a warning for anti-social behaviour...

We also had one who complained about an HMO leaving rubbish in the common stairwell of a block of flats. We sent round an investigating officer, who found bags of rubbish containing mail addressed to the complainer...

Cow's eggs... are VERY BIG, so when they are fried they make you VERY FAT.

Excuse me?

Am I missing something here

her daughter was lactose free and that meant no dairy so why was there a fried egg on it? Were we all stupid?

She was quite right!

Cow's eggs are full of lactose, and in addition are VERY BIG, so when they are fried they make you VERY FAT.

I thought everybody knew that.

MIL. Oh how I do cringe.

She loves the 10p Tipping Point type coin pusher machines at the arcade on her holidays. She'll easily spend £50 in a few hours trying to get the cheap nasty plastic tat prizes. One time she had put about £15 in one and went away to get a bite to eat. Sure enough a family comes along and wins the prizes (admittedly they gave the machine a thump too)
She went off at staff that she's paid all that money to get the prizes to the edge and "that fat bloody family has just come along and taken them all!" The staff gave her a handful of prizes from a restocking basket. That was not the first nor last time she has complained there either. She regularly ends up with free prizes just to shut her up.

She complained her dog friendly accommodation smelled of dog (it wasn't a bad smell by any means but you could tell it was pet friendly)
She complained that she could hear the boiler working overnight in a caravan in a bed next to the boiler when there were 3 other beds she could have moved to and not heard a thing but refused and kept turning the heating off. Unfortunately we had a baby under a month old sleeping in a basket on the floor. We kept waking up cold with a baby with icy cold hands! I was furious.

Once DH and I won £800 on hotpicks. After going online I discovered the location of the nearest lottery outlet that could pay out that amount, I planned to go later that day. MIL wouldn't have it though and demanded that each small village shop that did lottery check and pay out my ticket. (I took her round the village for her weekly shop each week)

"That's her money! You have to pay out! You're happy enough to sell the things you should pay her now!" She ended up shouting at all the staff.
We all to had to keep telling her that they could only pay up to X amount. To get large amounts it was specific shops and I was happy to go.

As a retailer way back I had more than one person complain about I wouldn't pay a losing lottery ticket out just because they had used pencil to make their 3 into an 8...

Also had a lad go mad because I wouldn't refund his open packet of cigs that he'd bought in error 5 mins earlier and smoked one (which was dutifully placed back in now with a brown filter)

I used to work in a university library. We had a building on another university’s campus for one faculty. Some students couldn’t understand that there was one library for A university and university B had their own library. I would get students from university B bringing in books and students room university A getting angry when they had dropped books at the other university library and we fined them - because we hadn’t received the books back!

One student sent in an email complaining that a member of staff was rude to him, can’t remember why but it was a silly reason and the member of staff in question was very sweet who wouldn’t be rude. The email was hilarious, we all had a good laugh at the part where he said “as someone applying to be an army officer I expect staff to show due deference to me. If any of my men were rude to me they would be disciplined severely.”

Just so happens that DH was a military officer working in recruitment for the army at the time. The student didn’t get in.

Had a customer throw a basket at me as something he wanted was out of stock. I was pregnant and lone working.

Same customer (different day) picked up one item and lined up (again, lone working). I was putting through an order and could tell he was getting very irate. He cuts right in front of customer, leans over the desk toward me, threw a £10 note and said 'give me the change when I come back in'. I explained I wouldn't do that and he'd have to just wait as I need to scan the item. He continued to tell me how much of a joke I am and that 2 people must work at all times. The shop had only been open about 20 mins and were very short staffed at the time and wasn't essential for 2 people to open up.

I had one the other day
The fellas had a question-I answered it-all fine
They complained to head office about my Yorkshire accent!(I’m now in the midlands)
They said I sounded ‘too posh’!!
Not a lot I can do about it really
Others include-
Why does my cheeseburger have cheese in it?
Why doesn’t my plain burger have sauce in it?
There are too many wasps buzzing around-well you will sit there with sugary food/drink
One lady wrote to head office because she had walked past in a busy Saturday afternoon and I hadn’t smiled at her through the window-I had been stood at the other end of the store as she walked past
I’m too friendly
I was talking to one child and a woman moaned because she wanted her burger in peace and ‘kids shouldn’t be allowed in fast food places’
Another was I didn’t pour her a ketchup for her-she hadn’t asked!i would have cheerfully done it if she’d asked me!
I refused to hold a massive dog while she ran in to get some food (she was pissed out of her head) and she screamed in my face that I should have just held her dog even tho it was snarling at everyone that walked past
A woman dropped her kids off with no money and walked out we had no choice but to ask em to leave as they whereby eating and being real pests-climbing over tables flicking ketchup up the walls and swearing-they must of rang her cos next thing I know she’s in my face screaming that we should know she wanted to do her shopping in peace and we had ‘nothing better to do’ at lunchtime-on a Saturday-in the holidays

99% of people are lovely-it’s a shame about the others

I worked in a high street bank which was located in a town centre. One morning at 8.00am a cyclist was hit by a car and killed right on the main road into town, all the roads where blocked And the staff could not get in to open the branch.

One member of staff managed to walk in and stood by the door explaining to anyone who came along what had happened and to let them know we would be open as soon as staff could get in.

We received four written complaints about that morning. What exactly they expected us to do was beyond me

I worked at a hotel that had its own golf course. Members complained massively when the course was closed - during a blizzard - on Christmas Day.

I used to work in a call centre for a cable tv/phone company. When customers didnt pay their bills we would remove their services. Initially we would switch off extra TV packages, movies, Disney etc. I had a women call to tell me that I had ruined her child's birthday as we had turned off her TV package and would we just put Disney back on. Explained this wouldn't be possible until her bill had been paid. She said "Well you'll have to tell her then". She then proceeded to put a weeping 5 year old child on the phone who was screaming and begging me to let her have Disney. I just said "put your mummy back on sweetheart" Poor poor child.