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

[KitKat1985]

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". 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.

My friend used to work in B&Q.

He had a customer come in most indignant that his Disposable BBQ (you know, the sort that has briquettes in a foil tray and a wire rack) had no food in it.

My friend pointed out that it was just a BBQ and it said on the lid "food for illustration purposes only, no food inside".

Oh, said the customer, I'd better go home and take the rest out of the freezer then...

I worked as a bank cashier in my late teens/early twenties. I still remember one day a man coming in asking to take money out and gave me his debit card
Me "sorry sir you've given me your X card" (x being a different bank but similar name)
Man "yes. I'd like £100" or whatever it was
Me "this is an X card I need your card for here? Or do you know your numbers"
Man "you've got my card"
Me "no sir, this is for a different bank"
Man "it's for this bank"
"No sir we are Y this is X"
Carried on for a few minutes

"So you're not giving me my money"
"I can't sir because blah blah..."

Anyway you get the idea. He said he was going to close his account and took my name for a letter of complaint to the manager!

I recently witnessed a customer in a Thai restaurant complain loudly and send back her coconut rice as it tasted of coconut.

I used to work for a secretarial services company. One of our services was providing a telephone answering service - so if your (small) business had no-one available to pick up the phone, it would divert to our office and we would take a message and pass it on. If possible we wouldn't let on that we weren't the actual company, but sometimes it was inevitable which was fine. Someone once rang one of our clients and got me. He didn't want to leave a message, he wanted me to check the drawers for something. No matter how many times I tried to explain that the phone had been diverted and I was not sitting in "Richard"'s office but somewhere else, he just did not get it. "But you picked up the phone! You could just tell me if xyz is on his desk, why are you being so unhelpful?!"

When I was nursing a patient complained that her ice-cream was too cold...

Damn NHS!

When I was student I worked in a bar and a man came up and ordered a pint and a Baileys and lemonade for his date. I asked him several if he was sure that she wanted lemonade in the Baileys as it would curdle it, but he was determined that she did. He got quite irritated with me so I served the glass of yacky, curdled gloop and he was back within seconds to ask for another Baileys on it's own. He didn't apologise though...

I used to work on a software support desk. We took calls from all over the UK but never met customers or went on site.

One day we had a customer call in to with a serious technical problem. In the end the only thing we could advise was for them to go back to backup. They agreed and went to find the data and restore it. We told them to call back with any problems.

About an hour later the same customer calls back to say he has looked everywhere and can't find the backup disk and does anyone on the support desk know where it is

Curly I used to have calls diverted to my phone by my boss if he went out. Every single time his wife called she would ask me to put her through to him. I would explain again that I got his calls because he was out and she should try the mobile.

She would laugh and say 'yes, silly me' then chat away about some nonsense for a while before saying 'anyway I mustn't keep you, can you put me through?' Arrrgggghhhhh

I work in an energy providers call centre. Just today I have had a customer tell me she shouldn't have to pay her bill as she was on benefits and had a child, ok well that's fine you can just have free electric then! Also a lady wanted us to bill the council for her electric rather than her as the spies from the council keep drilling holes in her wall and letting the electric get out then giving it to immigrants!

My fil fav thing to do in the poundshop is to ask the staff how much an item is. He then chuckles and asks about another item. We hid and keep him out of the poundshop if we can... The staff are so patient.

I work for a TV provider. The weather had stopped a woman's TV from working, she got sent a free engineer, we credited her back the cost of the bill between it going off and the engineer going out, but she was kicking off because she wanted compensation because "you've caused suffering to my son. He's had to watch DVDs!" I wanted to say if she thought that was suffering she doesn't know how privileged she really is!

Best question ever.....

'You know your mini dessert menu?'

'Yes Sir'

'Are the desserts mini?'

'Yes Sir'

A friend worked in a supermarket on customer services. Someone wanted to return a half eaten choose your own salad pot as it had too much lettuce in.

My friend works for a large telecom provider and one day a lady called most irate. Her issue was that her engineer hadn't turned up he asked for her postcode and she was in central London, it was the day of the 7/7 bombings. He advised get that due to the bombings there would be a disruption to seevice and she screamed and cursed at him...mind boggles at these people!

A customer had used a £20 off voucher that she had got from a magazine. The item was £40, so she had only actually paid £20 for them. She was returning them and was absolutely insistent to me that she should be given £40 cash back. I explained over and over that she had only paid £20 of her money, the other £20 was a money off voucher and not exchangeable for cash. She is only entitled to the actual money she paid, plus a £20 gift card to cover the voucher, so she could buy another item of the same value. So she wasn't out of pocket at all, she just couldn't have £40 cash! She just refused to accept that she couldn't have it all in cash. She was an absolute cow to me, asked me what it mattered to me anyway as I was a sales assistant, it's not like I had shares in the company.

Eventually she agreed to the £20 cash, £20 gift card. I scanned her receipt, and it was two weeks out of date for a refund. I took great pleasure in telling her, "Sorry, madam, I'm afraid your receipt is passed the last day for a refund. Exchange only"

She stormed out. I was leaving the next week anyway so didn't give a shit.

I have met several unreasonable customers

One threw an iron at me which had quite clearly been damaged by the customer so I refused to take it back -he missed

One threw a punch at me -he didn't miss

One told me he hoped my unborn baby would be born deformed -she wasn't

One smeared human poo all over my car

Oh the life of a retail manager!

I managed a shoe shop and a customer went ballistic when I wouldn't refund her for a pair of faulty shoes. I agreed with her that the shoes were faulty and yes she had a receipt for a pair of our ladies shoes, but she wasn't entitled to a refund because it wasn't a receipt for those shoes. More importantly, I could guarantee without a shadow of a doubt that she hadn't bought them from us. They were Clarks shoes, the Clarks shop was next door, we were another branded shoe shop and we'd never sold Clarks shoes. I told her repeatedly that she was mistaken, that she'd bought them next door and if she took them back in there she'd get her refund. She wouldn't have it.

What was worse was that she then complained to head office who gave her the bloody 'refund'.

When I was nursing a patient complained that her ice-cream was too cold...
I've never had ice cream that was remotely cold (generally a creamy sauce) when I've been an in-patient. I would have been congratulating, not complaining.

Not me but a friend used to be the general manager of a flagship store (expensive clothes shop) in the West End. She'd been given death threats by a group of shoplifters known as the Spice Girls.

I had a summer job working at a photo shop, one customer accused me of digitally modifying her photos and putting wrinkles on her face, they were not even digital photos they were old fashioned negatives. I gently pointed out to her that the photos were a true representation of her face (I had to actually fetch a mirror.)

Another customer dropped her film off to be developed and mentioned her mum would be collecting the photos, her mum turned up without the paper slip to collect so we found the photos by name and as usual we asked the customer (well customer's mum) to check the first photo to make sure it was the right family the first photo was a photo of this woman's son in law in the shower with a large and viable erection, much blushing all round.

One from my grandmother's days working in a furniture shop. Member of the public came in wanting to buy a sofa to fit in an alcove. DGM asked what size the alcove was. Customer was a bit puzzled as to why this was necessary and said they did not know. DGM politely suggested measuring the alcove. Customer said they didn't have a tape measure. DGM suggested using a piece of string, cutting it to the appropriate length, then bringing the string in and she would be able to measure it with a tape measure. Customer nodded and departed for the time being...

Next day the customer returned. They hadn't had any string handy at home so they'd used a ... piece of elastic! (This being the 1950s or 1960s, DGM at this point sent someone from the shop to measure the bloody alcove).

When I worked in retail as a personal shopper, I helped kit someone out with a wedding outfit, hat, shoes, handbag, the lot. The wedding was in a few weeks time.

Fast forward a month. She tries to bring the whole lot back. The jacket which had a white collar was grubby, the shoes were worn, the dress had foodstains down it, the handbag was marked.

Me: Madam, we cannot take back these goods, they have all been worn

Customer: How dare you accuse me of that, get me your Manager!

Me: I'm sorry Madam, but it is obvious. Even the shoes are marked on the bottom and have leather heel grips stuck to them inside, how do you explain that?

Customer: I tried them on at home and I wanted to make sure they would fit but I then decided I didn't like any of the outfit and I want my money back! Now!

Needless to say this went on a while until I could send her packing!

The customer isn't always right

A lady recently phoned the shop to complain that her water bill hadn't been paid. We do the electronic bill payments in store and top up each card as per customers instructions. I offered to find our old receipt copies to check that she hadn't been charged for it going through incorrectly.

After searching through I found the receipt copy, from 3 months previously, which showed that she had topped up 3 of the cards she had told me about correctly but the £10 water payment she was on about had been put on to a different card completely.

Her error as she'd obviously handed over a different card as there was no water card put through.

I'd told her that the £10 payment she thought she'd made to the water was actually put on a gas card.

Her reply was "how can that have happened?! I didn't hand over my gas card, the girl serving must've stopped in the middle of serving me to swipe someone else's card as I definitely didn't have my gas card that day!" I patiently talked her through what our receipt copies showed and that it tallied up with hers. In the background her DH was shouting "I thought our gas was wrong, that explains it love" but she still wouldn't have it and was demanding that I personally should pay her water bill for her as she is a regular customer and the error was mine.

A gentleman at work made a big scene over the fact the jam in his scones was 'off'.

I kindly pointed out he had spread his scones with ketchup.

I used to work at Monsoon as a student and just after finishing uni. There was a woman who regularly came in and bought several things, probably once a month. One day she came in with part of a receipt that she'd found in her purse, told me (on the till at the time) that she couldn't remember spending the money so we must have somehow charged her incorrectly. She wanted a refund for it! I looked up the transaction on the till, found the items she'd bought and realised it was me who had served her (operator number on the receipt). I remembered serving her a couple of weeks before, and better still she was actually wearing one of the cardigans she'd bought. I refused to refund her, and to cut a very long story short, this resulted in her telling me that, 'Ginger McCain is my brother in law and I'm sure the papers would be very interested in how you're treating his family.'

After several hours (yes, hours!) and numerous phone calls to head office, the shop eventually gave her some vouchers for the value of the receipt minus the cost of the cardigan she was wearing.

The next time she came in, she was as nice as anything to me and had completely forgotten the whole incident...

Way back (as will soon be apparent!) a friend of mine worked for a television rental and service company as a repair technician. She got a call-out to a house where the customer had complained bitterly about her TV not delivering a colour picture. Sure enough, it turned out that the customer only had a black and white TV.

Would the customer believe my friend when she pointed out that in order to get colour you had to have a television capable of delivering it? Not a chance! Instead she waved a copy of the Radio Times in my friend's face and said "You're clueless you are! It says here that these programmes are in colour! Well they aren't! So you need to fix my television and stop trying to baffle me with science".

Friend made eventual retreat, still disbelieved by customer who went on to ring her manager and complain that no wonder her television hadn't been fixed if they were going to "send out chits of girls to do a men's job".