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 used to work for a well known supermarket's customer service, I have several! But one that springs to mind was the lady who was absolutely convinced that an apple had had HIV positive blood injected into it. It was a red apple. When she bit into it, the colour from the skin had bled into the flesh slightly.

Another was the customer who wanted compensation because of an issue that had happened in store. I forget the details of what that was, but the reason she wanted compensation was that she'd got a new car and having to deal with that issue spoiled the first, special trip out she'd had in it. I was just incredulous that she couldn't think of anywhere nicer to go for her first trip in her new car than the supermarket.....I didn't give her anything.

By law, all sales should be provided with a receipt.
The customer was right to request one.
How she requested one is another story.

When I travel for work, I can only claim my food expenses if I have a receipt. Over the course of a week away from home I can easily spend £150. That's a lot of money I can't claim back if a retailer decides they don't want to put paper in the till printer.

I am gobsmacked at the nipple thing.

And why would someone complain about a condolence card? Our vet did that for us with our last cat and I was honestly so touched, it's a beautiful gesture. 🥺

I received one when my first dog died, I could see it was from the vets and expecting the bill but opened it to the card, I cried and had a feeling of "I wasn't expecting that" and felt caught off guard, but, I would never, ever have complained about it!

I didn't feel annoyed or aggrieved and recognised that the emotions I felt were mine to deal with and were there because the dog died.

So many people seem incapable of dealing with their own emotions and lash out at others when they're even the slightest bit disappointed, inconvenienced or feel sad over something. It's always got to be someone's fault, someone else has always got to take the blame. It's a sad state of affairs really.

Might it not be possible, that his prescription changed and the glass was therefor heavier.

Otherwise, think I might have remarked, "don't tell anyone, they'll all want sturdier glass's."

She used a kiosk that had had the printer removed to unjam it, because neither I nor the shift manager could unjam it in situ. There was no way to give her a receipt. It was impossible.

😂😂😂

Had a customer who gave me a scratchcard to cash in. She scratched off the 4 digit ‘PIN’. I couldn’t read it. I said to her that I was not in the position to able to pay out as she completely scratched off the numbers. She wanted to speak to a manager as she expected me to try all 10000 combinations. Manager said that she was unreasonable to me. The lottery phone number does pay out if got a damaged card

I have done it with one number damaged as it’s only 10 chances. I just start with 1 and go through until I entered the right number.

Please tell me this was Waitrose! What had you done or not done, what did the police say? Ex retail worker here.

When I worked at Waitrose we had a couple who weighed everything, from toothpaste to butter. Just so very odd.

Some of John Lewis and Waitrose customers are absolutely ten stops past Barking. And JL Towers does nothing but encourage and reward this behaviour.

I work in retail and am beyond lucky with my customers, as in general, they are a great bunch and I've not had many really awful experiences.

However, we do have a bank ATM in the wall of the supermarket (outside, in the car park) and I've lost count of the number of people who come in to tell me that the machine (owned and run by the bank, and absolutely nothing to do with us other than being in our wall) has eaten their bank card.

I'm always very sympathetic when I tell them that they have to get in touch with their own bank, but I do have to smile when I wonder what, exactly, they think I'm going to do about it? As though a supermarket would let random shop workers have access to people's bank cards...

Worked for an e-cig on line retailer part time, and would do the tech support when I was in the office. Received a package from a customer with a very ratty looking battery in it, and a complaint that it was "only a couple of weeks old" and wouldn't hold a charge. Looking at the condition of this battery - filthy, grubby inside the thread, surface peeling off - I still looked up the customer records to find he's last bought a battery from us 3 years previously. Called the customer to say sorry we couldn't give him a free replacement because the battery was well past it's warranty date at that age. He started ranting & raging, then told me he knew where the offices were and would come down an "see to" me and hoped my medical insurance was up to date. This battery cost about £10 at the time.

I looked round the office at my boss, young but 6'4" gym bunny, and the MD, 6'2" built like a brick shithouse, then at the Alsatian lying on my feet who was guard dog trained and absolutely adored me, just shrugged and said I'll transfer you to the Sales Director (my boss who I'd known since he was 7). All sweetness and pie when the customer heard a man on the end of the phone, what he didn't realise is I'd already alerted my boss at the start of the rant and then put the phone on speaker phone so everyone could hear what he'd said.

I'm a little odd by some people's standards. If I've received really great "over and above" customer service over the phone or in a shop, I'll ask to speak to the supervisor or manager so I can praise the assistant who had helped me to their boss. I actually had a manager almost in tears hearing praise rather than abuse from a customer!

Apologise? To her? I bloody hope not.
I worked on a customer service desk years ago and my colleague got slapped once, can't remember why now 🤔

A couple more.

Worked for a local district council, in a sort of "roaming ambassador" role we'd been given grant funding for, and part of the role was to just be visible to businesses, residents and visitors and answer questions they had. Trouble is, sometimes they asked for things to be done that weren't in the power of the town council but were the responsibility of other bodies.

I've been told I'm a waste of space and completely pointless because I couldn't immediately get on the phone and make the water board do something, or the local police, or deal with something the responsibility of the county council.

Called a stupid F*ing prat because I couldn't tell them what time a shop was going to re-open (been closed for weeks).

Called every name under the sun because I was seen chatting to a resident they were trying to get pushed out of the area and when they told me his dog was a danger to the public (very cute elderly Staffy) I said "what, the one who was just rolling on his back so I could rub his belly?"

I've been verbally abused because I asked someone to keep their dog on the lead in the part of a park that had big black & yellow signs everywhere asking that dogs be kept on leads. Same for asking people not to let their large dogs run around free in the fenced off play area full of toddlers.

Told to "mind you own business you Fing C" when I asked someone not to park blocking a very narrow road (more than once, this).

Called a fat old F*ing Bitch when I asked some teens to stop doing wheelies in the food courtyard (enclosed and gated) outside the cafe.

Someone had been verbally abusing another council employee in front of me because she was his ex, and I'd been asked by my boss to give a statement. He strode up to me in the street a few days later and stood in front of me calling me a "little girl" (fat, almost 60 at the time) and told me nobody likes a snitch and to watch my back.

Mine isn't to do with retail, but many years ago as a child, we went to a beach in Cornwall (Trebarwith Strand, not a huge beach)...dad set up the mat, windbreak,:etc etc.
We settled down. Then a man from further back on the beach complained that we were blocking his view of the sea, and could we move!
My dad's face was a picture....and no, we didn't move.

That would be too outing but it was because Dcustomer needed a very specific product that only we sold (not true) & she would come to serious harm if she had to go without (unlikely)
Police spoke to her for about 20 mins but didn't attend as not actually an emergency.

There's an ongoing complaint which is with customer care.

So many but one that I'll never forget is a woman who complained because I told her her new puppy was a girl. She'd been sold a boy, given it a boy name, been saying 'good boy' for nearly a week, and was most put out that I'd (politely, I should say!) explained to and shown her that the puppy did not have a penis or any signs of testicular development, but did have a vulva.

An elderly lady complained I was "ignorant" after she asked whether the bird she'd seen was a crow, raven, jackdaw or rook. Erm, do I look like Chris Packham? I'm just here to serve your cream tea. 🙄

A cat I can understand, but a dog? 🫣 How exactly did you broach that conversation 😆

I had that too. The supermarket didn't even have keys to the ATM! Customers have no understanding that when cards get swallowed up that they get damaged - unable to use them again. Some ATMs bend the card, some snip off a part of it.

I worked for a bank and know that cards cannot be used again if swallowed - certainly by the ATM at the branch again.

Also some ATMs - from what I have read, especially if its in a 3rd party place (shopping centres, supermarkets, petrol stations etc) - even the cash security people that fill up the machines with money don't have a key to the box where the swallowed up cards end up. Some check the box by shaking it and if hear cards inside - swap with an empty box.

One customer demanded for a manager to ring NCR - manufacturer of ATM to ask to get someone to open the ATM to retrieve their card. Manager said NCR will not come out unless an actual fault with the machine. Customer was moaning that he couldn't get cash out from his card but had another card from the same bank. I said to the manager that the bank would be able to withdraw money from the account of the swallowed card if presents the other card. Or transfer money across.

I remember when doing bar work years ago as a student at a wedding venue and one mother of the bride demanding we kept the bar open late for them which obviously wasn’t happening because of the law for one thing and the staff wanting to get home for another. When we she was told that she started screeching at all of us (all students apart from the venue manager) that we were wasters, imaging bar work being your job how embarrassing we earned so little we were useless to society blah blah blah. Thankfully they threw her out and the bride had the good grace to apologise.

Another time we worked New Years Eve with a late bar, the bar shut at five to midnight for half an hour to give us staff a break and let us have our own mini celebration before getting back to work. This was communicated to all guests but one total arsehole kicked up a giant fuss as he didn’t want to pop his own champagne at midnight as that’s what ‘those plebs’ I.e the bar staff, were for. Well he had to pop his own and mysteriously struggled to get served the rest of the night.

Doing cpr on a child and a man (who stepped over the child) said he’d report me to the police because I hadn’t got his kid a drink. He did complain officially and it was explained that I was a dr who was busy and his kid wasn’t able to drink before surgery anyway. But that was my fault too that his kids surgery was cancelled because he gave them a drink.. he actually tried to sue me until the trusts lawyers explained they wouldn’t be settling because I hadn’t done anything wrong.

Also had a patient’s parents try and feed them a McDonald’s whilst intubated as in shoving bit of burger down past the ventilator tubing, thank god the nurses noticed! I got another formal complaint about that though because I was ‘starving’ the child. No.. he’s in a coma after surgery I’d spent all night doing to save his life!!

Well she came into the consult room holding it in a way that I could see the belly straight away, whilst she was saying 'he' this/that and it had a very definitely male Max/George/Stanley type name. Anyway, I got puppy on the table, did my usual examination, including checking the undercarriage, and said something along the lines of puppy looks healthy but 'he' is actually female, then explained/showed dog anatomy. Cue utter disbelief.

It was a Yorkiechondoodlepoo type that she'd bought from a Gumtree ad and she'd picked it up from some dodgy house, not seem mum or siblings etc. so a typical puppy farm/dealer situation. She'd had it nearly a week though with seemingly no inkling that what it had was not male anatomy!

A colleague and I recently got yelled at by a taxi driver for parking in an ambulance bay outside a hospital.

Which sounds fairly reasonable, except we were actually in an ambulance at the time 🤔