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.

I worked in a pub restaurant and a customer once asked me if cheese macaroni was the same as macaroni cheese...managed to sat yes and keep a straight face.

I was also working when a women order chicken piri piri and then complained because she was vegetarian and there was chicken in it. she had actually said the word chicken during her order but had read the description of the item above the chicken piri piri. she was so rude about it, we would usually be quite nice and have offered to replace for free even though was not our mistake but because she was so rude and it was such a stupid mistake we refused to take off her bill as there was nothing actually wrong with the dish(and her girlfriend ate it)

Going to be pedantic here, but 'legal tender' relates to settlement of debts, not paying in shops. So you can refuse payment for any reason (other than protected characteristics, like race), even if someone has the correct amount.

My favourite stupid customer was the one who wanted to claim his £10 winnings on the lottery - even though he had forgotten to buy a ticket that week. He 'always had those numbers and I should trust him'.

I saw a woman returning shoes one day, in a small, local shop, that she had bought for a wedding, claiming they were unworn. They clearly had been worn, and were marked.

How does anyone think that will work, or how would someone even think of doing it!

I used to work for a large car insurance company, think 4th emergency service.

One day I took a call from a customer who said he would like to complain about his insurance certificate. He went on to explain that when he was insured with a previous insurer his certificate was x inches long by x inches wide, and gave me the measurements down to the decimals, but that this certificate was bigger, and again gave me exact measurements. When I asked why this was an issue he said that he couldn't fit our certificate in his wallet and we needed to do something about that. I suggested that perhaps he fold the certificate but he was having none of it.

My mum used to work in the call centre for the company who ran the inovations catalogues. they also did ones for the science museum and natural history museum and some other tat that people clearly have more money than sense when buying. anyway one day she had a call from a man wanting to complain about the startreck alarm clock. Said alarm clock apparently sounded an alarm in clingon, and he wanted to complain that the clingon it spoke wasn't accurate. My mum pointed out that while she would obviously feed this back clingon wasn't, in fact, a real language anyway. the man went on to tell her in detail how he came from a long line of clingon speakers.

My favourite stupid customer was the one who wanted to claim his £10 winnings on the lottery - even though he had forgotten to buy a ticket that week. He 'always had those numbers and I should trust him'.

Haha, that's a classic. Imagine if he had 'won' the jackpot .

It reminds me of a thread I saw on another website, where a guy wanted a refund of government stamp duty on cheques, from his bank. But he didn't have the unused cheques, to return, in order to get the refund.
He still thought they should give it to him though.

I once overhead this in a card shop
Lady came in with her daughter holding a helium balloon and started complaing that she bought it four days before and that it had started to deflate and she wasnt happy and wanted her money back.

I used to work in a West End Theatre and one night during a performance, a man came into our lobby absolutely livid. He'd been thrown out of Chicago next door and wanted to speak to my manager!

It's a totally different theatre!

I got the manager though as I was alone in the lobby with a swearing and angry man....brilliant manager came, listened to his complaint and calmed him down...turned out the man had been pissed and abusive to the usher so they chucked him out (good)

I had a Saturday job in a shop selling antique and hand made teddy bears. I had one guy complain that he wanted a new bear but all their crotches were too pointy. Looking back, he may have been a pervert.

I once had a customer scream in my face because her panini was too flat. It wasn't even me who had served her or made her panini she had just decided to scream at me because I was walking past.

She was being really aggressive too and was really getting in my face and hurling abuse at me an demanding a refund. Every time I tried to walk away to get her the refund she would stand in my way and scream at me again.

Was the shouting really necessary?

Brilliant thread. I particularly loved the ones about measuring the width of an alcove with a piece of elastic and the TV repair engineer 'unable' to magically convert an old black & white telly into a colour one

I used to volunteer in Oxfam. We constantly got slightly confused people (often foreign tourists) who would go ballistic that we didn't have other sizes available. It didn't help that it was one of the poshed-up Oxfams and my manager was a complete and utter wanker who banned us from explaining it was a charity shop.

TBH, I think that's more about the manager not being right, really.

I went to a hardware store to buy paint stripper. I wanted to be sure that it wouldn't attack the metal underneath the paint. The guy in the shop and I read the label over twice but it said nothing about being safe to use on metal. After a bit, the "Saturday boy" in the shop (aged about 16) said "If it attacked metal, they wouldn't sell it in tins!"

This is correct actually. If it was unsafe to use on metal it would be in a glass container.

sneepy, I think the MNer that posted that meant that whilst she and the full time assistant hadn't realised the obvious, it took the '16yo Saturday boy' to point out the logic

Oh. Thanks fru, I couldn't work out what the point of the story was!

Don't worry Sneepy, I missed that too!

I worked at a high street store that likes to hype up it's Boxing Day sales by opening at a god awful time in the morning. I once got physically pushed over by a lady as I was bringing out stock because she wanted to get to the items first. I also sold nearly £2k worth of children's clothes to a lady who was taking them for her nieces in Ireland but wasn't sure of the sizes so had got everything in at least three sizes. I felt very sorry for whoever had to return all that...

I've also worked in a bank who was offering to pay stamp duty on mortgages up to a certain value - I think it was around £250k at the time? Anyway, this guy comes in who wants to buy a £3m house in central London and INSISTS that we have to give him the offer as well, despite the signs clearly saying that it was limited to house of £250k. He was a pretty well known customer in branch because he'd always take out a few grand in cash on a Friday and laugh about how he was gonna spend more than our month's wages on coke and champagne on the weekend. Not a nice guy.

So he started getting really arsey with the manager saying that he paid her wages (I mean he was loaded so probably he kinda did) and that if we weren't going to pay his stamp duty then he was closing his accounts and taking all his money out in cash right now. His stamp duty was worth more than a house - about £200k - so there was no way in hell the bank was paying it for them so the manager had to call her boss, who called his boss, and it went up and up to a pretty high level. In the end the big boss called up and said "he's got about £50k in his current account - if you've got the cash in branch then give it to him and close the acount. I don't want wankers thinking they can bully our staff"

It was fantastic, the manager was really polite about it "Sorry Mr X, we've called bigbossman and we're not allowed to give you that offer so we'll close your account as you asked - there's £50k in there, do you have a suitcase with you to transport it or would you like to come back later when you're prepared?" We were piling it up behind the counter and it was an absurd amount of money and he went puce and started sputtering about "no that won't be necessary now, I'll come back tomorrow"

These stories are making my day!

Knitting I'm curious - did he ever actually withdraw the money the next day?

My mum did this, she charged to the bank just before close to make a mortgage company, the tekker couldn't find her account, my mum ranted and raved for ages about it, until the lady turned the computer screen towards her and offered my dm the opportunity to search herself, when my mum then realised she was in Natwest not Nationwide instead of admitting it said 'oh forget it' and stomped out. We've never let her live it down

If anyone threatened to close their account due to complaining about something that clearly wasn't our fault I used to just reach for the 'Account Closure' form and put it on the desk.
Then they would change their mind.

I have to say working in nursing (as I do now) members of the public can be just as difficult as they are in retail (usually relatives rather than patients themselves oddly enough). I once had an elderly female patient collapse in a communal part of the ward. Myself and a couple of colleagues were trying to attach some monitoring equipment on them when another patients relative came over and starting asking if we could make them a cup of tea, and then got huffy when we said we couldn't at that moment in time.

We rent out a city centre apartment to tourists who usually stay for up to two weeks or as little as 3 nights. We recently had a booking via an agent for a group of 5 adults and a baby - no problem. We arranged for the cot and high chair as we had not been told the age of the baby and both would easily fold away if not required.

The day of arrival there were power cuts in the area of the city - not just our flat but the street and a couple either side. They were sorted by the time the people arrived.

The duly arrived, put their dinner in the oven and the power went out again. Now it was 5pm in Autumn so there was some light coming in through the window but no power to the cooker. As a major city, this problem was unlikely to carry on for long.

I rang her to apologise and to explain that it would be about an hour before it came back on.

Me: Sorry about the power. There is not much we can do but we have reported it and they say about an hour.

Her: But I have a baby.

Me: Yes. That must be difficult. Has the baby eaten yet?

Her: She is a baby.

Me: Do you need to warm up bottles.

Her: She is asleep and why have you given us a high chair? She is a baby.

Me: If you need to warm up bottles, there are lots of friendly cafes 100 yards away that I know will help you out.

Her: But I have a baby.

Me: Well, if she needs warmed milk, that is the only solution at the moment.

Her: We have our dinner in the over.

Me: Yes. I am sorry about that. What about switching the oven off and going out for fish and chips. We recommend....

Her: But I have a baby.

And on..and on...

It turned out that she was not alone (and therefore unable to leave the baby) there were 4 other adults there. They were furious (and complained) that we were not able to offer a replacement gas cooker (WTAF) and were most angry that I had suggested solutions to their food needs that involved walking 100 yards.

I am not sure what she expected me to do really The power came on after 35 minutes. The baby had slept through. Their dinner continued to cook. They complained bitterly because, you know, they have a baby.

Oh gosh the more I sit here the more I remember. We once had a small fire in the supermarket from a freezer unit overheating. We had to evacuate until it was put off and we were permitted by the fire brigade to re-enter. One man actually complained about having to evacuate as he was next in the queue to be served and thought it was unreasonable for him to evacuate as he would have to wait longer to pay for his groceries. I think I actually remember one of the (more amusing) managers say that he was welcome to stay if he wished but the staff would be leaving and there would therefore be no-one to serve him anyway.

Put out not put off!

No KitKat - he never did take his money back or come back to our branch actually. We found out later that he'd gone to the next branch along (central London so a lot of branches to choose from) and tried the same trick there as well and was told the exact same thing!

We were all very glad to be rid of him, but the branch a few roads away weren't happy to have the "tosser who brags about using prostitutes" switch to them!