Tell me your most ridiculous complaints

[Bumbaglina]

I’m fed up today, I work for a solicitors and I’ve got a client who whatever I do it’s not good enough, it’s a perfectly normal file, nothing unusual all going along as most other files do.

First I told her something would take approximately 6 weeks, it came back in four and she complained I’d upset her because she thought it would take 6 weeks, why didn’t I tell her it would be four? I told
her something else would probably take a couple of months but I was very clear I don’t know exactly how long and it was only an estimate and on the 2 month mark she’s on the phone screaming and shouting why hasn’t it come back yet, I said a couple of months and this is 2 months exactly! The she sent something to me in the post and I received it a week later, why didn’t I receive it sooner? As if I have any control over Royal Mail? And so on and so on, it’s at the point that when I see her name pop up on my email I brace myself for what will be her next complaint.

Make me feel better with your ridiculous customers!

I had literally walked out of a cardiac arrest situation and the patient in the cube opposite started complaining we had ran out of jacket potatoes 🤦🏻‍♀️

I once had a customer that came in and asked for a coffee

He paid,all good but he had a weird vibe about him (I couldn't explain what it was,but just a vibe I didn't like) so even though we where rushed off our feet busy,I made a point of making his coffee just to get rid of him

Handed him his coffee and made this mistake of asking if he wanted sugar

He went mental,screaming and shouting at me and as he left,he turned and told me to 'watch your back,ill rape you and burn your corpse'

I don't scare easily but that really hit me hard and of course it would have been on the early shift,I was walking home that day as dp (who normally picks me up) was at work himself

I spent the whole journey home,looking over my shoulder

Another one is a couple who come in and there is something about them that scares me

Everyone thinks they are 'cool' but if I found out they kill newborns and drink their blood,I wouldn't be surprised

For weeks they'd come in,order their food,sit and eat it and then call me over to tell me their mcmuffin or a flatbread was missing

It happened so often,I would double check their order and then get a manager to check for me too but as they'd always come in when it was busy,it was easier for the manager to just give them what they said was missing

Cue a new manager starting who took no shift

I told her what had been happening and she did their order,we both checked it and sent it over

Within ten minutes,the whole 'oh you forgot my double sausage and egg muffin' started up

She was on it,she'd been watching them on cctv and told them they'd had it and their days of freebies where over

Ill never forget his eyes,they where pure evil as he looked at her and started shouting at her but she wouldn't back down and they left

They rang head office to try and get us both sacked (failed) and come in just to sit and stare me out

I won't have anything to do with either of them,I really fear my safety (main managers have to me not to be so silly but,honest to God,they scare me)

So I was complained about for not giving out free food

@JollyPanda you have reminded me of the complaint that all the ward staff were having a party in the middle of the night.

Actually we were all attending a cardiac arrest but that's almost the same, isn't it?

Oh and nobody did any work as all the doctors were playing computer games. No concept that this is how notes are written, trays looked at etc.

Worked in a pub, someone ratty snotty child bit me and I screamed “FUCK” and the mother complained. This kid bit me hard as well, a proper chomp. No kids after 8 by the way, it was 8:30. She made me get the manager of the whole pub to complain to him. He kicked her out and did let me go home early so it was kind of a win - it was actually two days before I met my DH as well.

I have worked a little bit in retail in my time, but thankfully have managed to escape most of the horror stories that you hear so widely.

That must have been the absolute icing on the nasty cake for you: having to apologise after all that she'd done.

I know managers can very frequently be horrendous at caring about or backing up their staff; but what would they actually have to gain by placating somebody like her? I mean, I could understand if, say, it were a lechy bloke in a pub who frequently harassed the barmaid, but he spent very well; but even without giving a stuff for you, why would they want to just give away free shop stock to aggressive and violent people who demanded it?!

Not suggesting in any way that any of it didn't happen exactly as you said; but just wow!

Friend worked in a shop selling products made of wool. One day a woman comes in and asks with great contempt “How many sheep have you had to KILL to make this wool product?”

Um. None. They are sheared.

Friends, she would not have it.

I bet she thinks cows are murdered for milk and hens are murdered for eggs

When I worked at a cinema, a customer wanted a refund as the film had subtitles (which would have been obvious if they'd looked it up).

I used to work at McDonalds when I was a student and I had a woman screaming at me that there was too much lettuce on her Big Mac.

Well, they kind of are. But that's a separate thread!

I one witnessed someone complaining that a coach left on time. She was 15 minutes late and ranting to the poor girl at the ticket desk.

she needed to finish her mcdonalds and though the coach would wait for her.

Eventually someone intervened and asked her what if she was on the coach and it left 15 minutes late?
silence 😅

A step dad of a y11 girl i said 'can you be quiet please' rang and ranted at me! She had gone home in tears, which of course was an emotional build up of other things. But nope, it was me asking politely. Next day me, her Mum and pastoral head got to the bottom of the real reasons.

These knee jerk reactions and threats of going to the head/governors, to which I replied please do what you feel necessary.

Unfortunately there are a lot of horrible people who react with aggression to others who have done no wrong and actually help.

Of course, no apology and no humility at parents' evening. What a twat!

Quite simply in society there's a power imbalance between anyone in a service role - no matter how high up, and the customer, because "The customer is always right" which translates to "The staff are always wrong" there's always an assumption that the staff have been unreasonable, not the customer, because they are elevated to a place of not doing wrong, or even if it's recognised they have, that they were provoked beyond measure to behave that way.

It also de- escalates the situation, it might be seem as giving in, but it does tend to stop the customer getting more and more irate, and the situation worsening or descending into violence, and in this day and age, taking to SM for what is effectively a witch hunt.
Which damages named individuals (I've had this, my name plastered all over socials by an irate customer - problem was I wasn't even in the building at the time, someone had a similar name and the customer got it wrong and I ended up having to remove my badge for a while because I was effectively targeted by other customers) and the business, because most people will believe what they read from the complainant and either not read or not believe any response.

I have a loose theory that in recent years this type of behaviour is being tolerated less, because businesses realise that actually there isn't now an endless supply of people willing to work in that environment for low pay, and they need their staff as much as they do their customers, combined with legal requirements to protect employees from harm. And I think that the 'Service is shit these days' trope we see a lot is partly because there's much less subservience and less tolerance for being treated badly no matter the situation and a lot of people are struggling with the notion that they don't have that power as much as they used to.

Not me (I don't have the energy to go into mine) but years ago DH used to work in a help centre for a now defunct ISP, which featured David Hasselhoff in its TV ads.

One day he got a call from some irate customer demanding to speak to David Hasselhoff about their broadband issues. 😳

I had to phone an insurance policy holder to request something, a signature needed on a form or something administrative like that. She answered and it was a very brief call, I just passed on the information. She then sent a letter to management to complain about my call because she was waiting on a phone call with medical test results and was very anxious. My call at that time had really distressed her and she wanted an apology from the company. She didn't get one thankfully. We had a good laugh at her, what a moron.

I work on a deli counter and a man with a toddler daughter wanted me to cut a baguette in half and only use half for her sandwich, I said I couldn’t do this as there was no price for a half baguette I would have to charge him full price. He went mad shouting I’ve been coming here for years and I know Linda! I said who is Linda and he says she worked here 5 years ago! He then told his daughter she couldn’t have any dinner as the nasty lady wouldn’t make her a sandwich! The child then started to cry, the man picked the child up and ran out of the shop still screaming about how he was going to tell Linda!

@Maverickess staff are leaving retail due to rude, impatient, abusive customers.
People looking for work are avoiding looking in retail as they don’t want to work with rude, impatient and abusive customers.

At my last job, customers asked us why don’t we get more staff? I said, people don’t want to be paid dealing like likes of you plus who wants to work for a bully? I said that in a more pleasant way. The store manager at the time - the one that made me leave due to his bullying. He made 11 staff leave in 7 months. I was the 8th one in 4.5 months.

I had witnessed before he was manager that a customer’s vile behaviour was the straw that broke the camel’s back for some colleagues. Some worked their notice- handed it in the next day or quit on the spot.

Customers need to understand that they are one of the main causes of staff leaving. If more pleasant etc - many staff would have lasted longer or still working

We get them all the time in McDonald's. A girl screaming at me that she wanted a receipt after I'd told her that that kiosk didn't have a printer. A woman screaming at me, threatening to piss on the floor and unblock the toilet (yes please) after I told her it was blocked.

Please bear in mind that if you are in a customer serving role your job is to do just that. There have been some horrible examples of vile, deluded and downright mad customers here but please don't forget that many customers have genuinely received lacklustre and poor service and are left feeling helpless and aggrieved - looking at you insurance companies in the main. Customer care is just low down of the list of priorities and making as much money as possible is the priority. Keeping a customer used to be a matter of pride but no longer.

please don't forget that many customers have genuinely received lacklustre and poor service and are left feeling helpless and aggrieved

But that's not what this thread is about. It's about ridiculous complaints, ie where either the complaint is totally unfounded or the customer reaction disproportionate. And even if someone has received poor service, that's not an excuse for abusing the company's staff.

used to work for phone company remember a customer wanted to leave because he had home internet a phone and a tablet by the same company but they would not work after further enquirers it transpired that the home internet wasn't linking up to phone or tablet think he had tv package also when asked did he put wifi code into devices he argued he didn't need to because they where all with same company and it was false advertising funny enough when friends and family entered wifi code it worked on their devices

I’m a freelancer and charge both hourly and fixed fee rates. This is always clearly laid out in the contract. I had a client who agreed a fixed fee complain that I didn’t put how long it took me in the invoice. I explained the fee was fixed, this was in the contract, so did not track my time. She still wanted the number of hours so I added
it, to match the fee with my normal rate. She then complained I’d taken too long.

not to mention the customers who rang us on Xmas Eve to order a device for their little darling and then go mad when told it would be delivered in the new year lol they had promised the device would be delivered by Santa unfortunately we were unable to add this to Santa sleigh on Xmas Eve due to his busy schedule was hilarious could never understand parents who did this but certainly made our day better

How very condescending and patronising.

Sounds like you're trying to justify the way some people behave, exactly as I described in an earlier post

""The customer is always right" which translates to "The staff are always wrong" there's always an assumption that the staff have been unreasonable, not the customer, because they are elevated to a place of not doing wrong, or even if it's recognised they have, that they were provoked beyond measure to behave that way"

The vast majority of the incidents on this thread are nothing more than bullying, ego boosting power trips.

Please bear in mind that in order for you to get service at all, there needs to be people who work in those roles, and your attitude is one of the reasons that many don't want to and therefore don't.

It's a job, not a calling from God.

I work in a paediatric intensive care unit. One parent complained that he didn’t like the view of the city from the window and requested a room change. Unfortunately the H on the building stands for Hospital not Hotel….