Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to ask for your best examples of times when the customer most definitely hasn't been right? (Lighthearted).

200 replies

KitKat1985 · 04/12/2014 13:03

Just that really. During my student days I did a number of crappy customer service jobs to enable me to afford to study (supermarkets, cafes, that type of thing). Now although most members of public are fine, there were definitely some who were ridiculously difficult, or would come up with the most stupid complaints. I was recently reminded of a incident when I was working in a café and we had a special of the day of four cheese pasta, which was under display under the hotplate. A customer ordered a portion which was served to her and she went to eat it at a table. A couple of minutes later she came back to the counter to complain about it. When asked by the manager what was wrong with it she said it was "too cheesy". Confused What would you expect from a four cheese pasta?

Anyway, since it's cold and I can't be bothered to go out, I thought I'd ask the good people of Mumsnet if you had any more funny examples of times when the customer most definitely hasn't been right to help cheer up my cold afternoon with a slightly grumpy teething baby. Grin

OP posts:
SusanIvanova · 04/12/2014 13:14

'45 is not half of 90. Your till must be wrong.'

AshesOfRoses · 04/12/2014 13:18

When I was a teenager I worked at Homebase. Customer was so infuriated with having to wait for a staff member to find a bar code for his piece of wood that he entered the price into my till, thoroughly confusing it and ended up having to wait longer.

It was the late eighties. I spent a lot of time explaining to people that we used bar codes for stock control and that just ringing up a price wouldn't work.

IPeeInTheShowerOhYes · 04/12/2014 13:20

Posh looking woman in Peter Jones, Sloane Square, on being informed that her preferred lipstick had been discontinued, "Well, what am I to do now?" Stood there a good five minutes demanding something be done about it while I waited in the queue behind her.
When I finally got my turn at the till I said the poor assistant "Why on earth didn't you offer to make it for her!"

LongDistanceLove · 04/12/2014 13:21

Trying to bring stuff back that was from a completely different store. And screaming and shouting when we wouldn't allow the refund.

CrystalQueen · 04/12/2014 13:25

I worked in the cafe at Edinburgh Castle and was asked at least once a day "At what time do they fire the one o'clock gun?"

ALittleFaith · 04/12/2014 13:26

I was in a restaurant and the lady on the table went ballistic at the waitress because her 'Caesar salad' had no chicken in it. Never mind that it wasn't a 'Chicken Caesar salad' and was labelled as suitable for veggies!

EllaJayne123 · 04/12/2014 13:26

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

D0oinMeCleanin · 04/12/2014 13:28

We once had someone ring up to complain that her chicken chow mein tasted of chow mein Confused

When I asked her to explain she said everything tasted of chicken chow mein, even the chicken and the mushrooms tasted of chicken chow mein.

We never did get to the bottom of what she was expecting it to taste of. "different flavours" was the most she could offer as an explanation.

We've also had someone complaining that the spare ribs are boney and could he order some without bones, apparently sliced pork in BBQ sauce, that I offered him is not the same as pork spare ribs in bbq sauce without the bones Confused

I decided not long after starting there that I live in a town populated by an overwhelming amount of stupid people Grin

redexpat · 04/12/2014 13:29

Google notalwaysright for some absolute corkers.

vanillabird · 04/12/2014 13:40

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

badgerknowsbest · 04/12/2014 13:45

Coming back from holidays, an elderly woman on the plane complained that the engines were too loud and could they please turn them down for her to sleep Shock Give me a new found respect for some of the shit flight attendants have to put up with.

thatniceperson · 04/12/2014 13:48

Customer: ' I'll have the steak tartar'
Me: ' just to let you know, steak tartar is served raw'
Customer: ' yes yes'
.... Brings out expensive steak tartar...
Customer: ' this is too rare, can you please have the chef cook it a bit more?'
Me: 'ermmm....'

(repeat same situation several times even when on the menu it states that steak tartar is served RAW!!!!!) Angry

thatniceperson · 04/12/2014 13:51

My friend had a proper heated, politely worded, discussion with a customer who refused to accept that a cafe au lait was indeed the same thing as a latte.... Just one was French and one was Italian.

MillionToOneChances · 04/12/2014 13:59

Cafe au lait isn't the same as a latte, though!

MillionToOneChances · 04/12/2014 14:03

Latte contains a shot of expresso topped up with steamed milk, café au lait is half brewed coffee, half hot/steamed milk.

farewellfigure · 04/12/2014 14:11

I used to work in a chippy when I was about 20. One evening a boy of around 10 came in, paid with a fiver, then when I gave him his change, he said he'd given me a tenner. I said I would count up the till after my shift and could he come back the next day with an adult when the boss was around. I said she'd be in at 11.30am.

The next day the boy came back at 11.30 IN THE EVENING - right slap bang in the middle of the rush we always got when the pubs closed, and he brought his 6'4" brick outhouse of a Father. It was just me and the fryer on at that time of night. I said (very politely) that we'd counted the till and that everything tallied, so his son must have given me £5, not £10. The father proceeded to shout very loudly that I was calling his son a liar. Then he said that if the money wasn't in the till, it must be in my pocket. He stood at the front door, shouting for the whole town to hear, that the girl who works in the chippy is a liar and a thief. It was mortifying and absolutely terrifying. I don't think I've ever been so upset or scared. I've never been called a liar in my life, and I hope never to be again.

TimelyNameChangey · 04/12/2014 14:16

I heard about a woman who was absolutely disgusted to find that the pack of beef she was about to buy in the supermarket, was bloody.

"Look at that! That's absolutely disgusting and shouldn't be allowed!"

The butcher explained that meat is generally bloody and she insisted it was not and that the shop was rank for selling it like that.

thatniceperson · 04/12/2014 14:25

Lol I thought they were the same! glad I wasn't the one arguing it! Blush but to be fair to my friend we were working in cafe rouge where a cafe au lait is a shot of espresso with flat steamed milk, so my friend was right on that English version of French things occasion!

Shetland · 04/12/2014 14:32

Similar to the OP - a customer complained that the fish pie was 'quite fishy'

And my favourite question - 'which is bigger, a pint or a half pint?'

AlmaMartyr · 04/12/2014 14:32

When I worked in a supermarket, I had a guy that complained that his icecream was faulty because it wasn't staying frozen in his freezer Xmas Confused He then went on to say that actually, none of the food in his freezer was properly frozen and it was all from us so what were we going to do about it? He would not have it that maybe his freezer was faulty. My manager gave him a full refund in the end to make him go away Xmas Hmm

We also had a lady confused about her till receipt for a BOGOF item - "here are two here on my receipt so I should get another two free" "no, we've scanned both items and then refunded the cost of one of them so you've paid for one and got one free" "no, because there are two on the receipt and so you owe me two more". This one went for ages, and got quite heated in the end. We weren't prepared to give her free items because she was so dim but she would not accept it (the refund was on the receipt and everything, very clear!). She did eventually leave but promising not to come back.

krasnayaplats · 04/12/2014 14:36

I had a Christmas job in a discount jewellers. People would come in and suck their fingers to get their own rings off and then want to try on the ones in the shop. It was totally rank.

Andrewofgg · 04/12/2014 15:20

badgerknowsbest PMSL - that is a gem among gems!

Original poster
KitKat1985 · 04/12/2014 15:21

Some of these are brilliant.

I've been thinking of a couple more from my days working in supermarket part-time whilst doing my A-levels. On more than one occasion a customer would approach me with a random item and ask me how much it was. I would politely reply I'd take it to the tills for them and get it price-scanned for them and get an indignant response of something along the lines of 'what you mean you don't know'? I had to bite my tongue quite a few times from pointing out that surprisingly no, I hadn't memorised the exact price of all the thousands of items the store sold.

Also like farewellfigure I once had a customer pay for an item at the tills via debit card. So she paid and I gave her the card back. She faffed about for a bit with her groceries and then said 'where's my card'. I replied that I had already given it back to her. She said I didn't. The whole thing got quite heated and went on for several minutes and resulted in me being stared at by a whole queue of customers and the supervisor coming over. Then she found the card. In her purse. And invariably it didn't occur to her to apologise to me for accusing me of taking her card in front a bunch of people.

OP posts:
Wibblypiglikesbananas · 04/12/2014 15:23

I used to work at Heathrow. The number of passengers who would turn up with out of date passports/invalid passports/no visas for the countries they were travelling to but then blame me when they couldn't travel was astonishing.

HazleNutt · 04/12/2014 15:27

I was working on a cruise ship. You would be surprised how many people came up to the information desk to complain that it was windy. I am still not entirely sure what action they expected me to take, I did apologise though for not being able to control the weather.