To want to hear your stories from customer facing jobs?

[TillyMint81]

I work in retail. Customers are for the most part lovely but there are some absolute idiots out there.
Like the one who brought back a pack of bacon because it said four slices and it had five. Or the one who complained about the oranges on Bogof because she only wanted one pack not two. and, oh, by the way, could she have the free one?
We also had a bloke who would walk round looking for low stock on the buy one get one free lines. If he found one that was down to one item he would ask if we had any in stock. If we did he would walk away but if we didn't he wanted that one for free..

I used to work in my local shop and for the most part people were lovely to me.
One Saturday I was called in to cover a shift I was not best pleased but put a smile on my face and got on with it anyway.
I was serving a middle aged woman who had two items one was milk and the other was chocolate weetabix the total came too about £4. She looked me dead in the eye and said "what I'm not paying that. The weetabix is only £1.50 it's on offer" I apologised and said "oh well it's not scanned up at that." She gave me a right dirty look and said "I'm going to get the label" and she stomped off leaving me with a que full of people I couldn't serve because her transaction was waiting on the till. After about 5 minutes I went to look for grumpy weetabix lady and asked if she needed help finding the label. She had the chocolate weetabix label and the normal weetabix label which were apparently close together and she read them wrong. I explained that I couldn't override price because it was correct. We went back to the till. In front on my manager, co workers and customers she just lost her temper over the price of the chocolate weetabix called me a stupid bitch and told me she was going to sue me not the store but me personally for false advertising (The shop girl working minimum wage on a Saturday night 😂)
I honestly stood there completely bewildered with a wtf look on my face. I never new that chocolate weetabix had the power to make someone so angry. I see her around town now and again and she will forever be known as crazy weetabix woman

Placemarking for later!

I used to work in Woolworths behind the music counter when i was a student. Hillarious. Same people used to come in pirate cds and try to return them. Shoplifters constantly- eating their way round the pick n mix or stuffing armfuls of kids clothes down their jacket. No wonder the company went bust.

Years ago I used to work in a customer support call centre for a telecoms company. I had an American lady who wanted to pay for a certain service using her US calling card but it was only valid for domestic use. So I explained to her "I'm sorry but that card is for calls within the United States only, you can't use it when you're abroad". Well, she went absolutely batshit crazy, screaming at me that she had never been treated like this before in all her life, wasn't going to stand for it, was going to get me sacked etc etc. The reason became clearer when she ranted something along the lines of "who the hell do you think you are calling me a broad?"

In another job, I had to deal with a customer who wanted a refund on his real christmas tree. Apparently, when I advised him that if it was too tall he could just cut a bit off the end, I should have made it clear I meant the bottom end. The twat had cut the top off it and had quite rightly been called all the muppets under the sun by his wife when she saw it.

In my previous retail job I had a batshit lady try to return a 5 pack of socks because 1 sock had a small hole in the toe. I said that wasn't a problem I'd just need the faulty pair and 4 other pairs, as well as her receipt. (company policy) This was apparently completely unreasonable, as she had worn one pair the day before, had one on now and the rest were in her hotel room, and what was she expected to do?? walk about in no socks all day? because it was my fault she had forgotten to pack socks? (she mentioned she was from a town about 45 minutes away, so y'know, not the end of the world!) I repeatedly told her that in order to get a refund or exchange I would need the entire pack and her receipt, I accept that they are faulty but I had no idea what pack she had bought, and needed something with the number on it. She then demanded to speak to my manager, who repeated what I had said, so demanded to speak to the store manager, who again repeated what I had said. she left in a cloud of bad language and generally batshitty shouty-ness, proclaiming she was never going to shop there again. CHEERIO

Her husband on the other hand was lovely, tried to talk some sense into her and looked terribly embarrassed by his wife's behaviour.

I was on the customer service desk at Tesco when a man brought back a 9 pack of toilet roll because the perforations didn't match up. He'd tried every roll in the pack!

I work in customer service for a large supermarket and had a letter from a customer who'd bought reduced items that were out of date. He'd sent in his receipt which showed the transaction was just after midnight. I have him the benefit of the doubt the first time and refunded him.

He wrote again soon after saying the same thing had happened. Again, he'd bought the items just after midnight. He was asking for £50 and he wouldn't go to the papers.

It was obvious he was going to the store late at night and waiting until after midnight so that the reduced items would be out of date, then writing to us to claim money. The store manager got the security guards to look out for him and when he was caught he admitted it to them. He then wrote to me again saying he'd been wrongfully accused. My boss told me I didn't have to reply and I haven't heard from him since. Cheek of the man!

I volunteer in a charity shop and whilst most of the customers are lovely there are some who make you wonder if it's all worthwhile.

I've had a complaint made via Trading Standards as when I was on my own in the shop I told someone to come back when the manager was there as he wanted a donated item back.

I'd been through the most recent donation bags and couldn't find what he wanted. Apparently when I told him I didn't have time to go through all 70 bags I should have 'shown some initiative'.

The shop received another call later on to say that said item was still at the man's home.

I have been complained about to my manager because of my attitude when a child was playing with a pile of action figures and when asked the price by the mother told her 99p each.

Apparently I put the emphasis on 'each' and that was not acceptable for some reason.
Manager apologised on my behalf (?!)

herotherHalf that made me laugh, many many years ago I had a cross cultural misunderstanding with a Brazilian girl. She came in to work in an insurance company in Dublin, a sea of boring grey and navy suits and she was wearing knee high black boots, short flary black skirt, tight tight black top with a panel of red at the top, long hair. Everybody's head did a full on regan. I said to her *oh my GOD! you look like Uhura!" Well she wasn't as familiar with Star Trek as I had to be growing You can guess what she thought I said.

Another common thing in theatres is people arriving with tickets for the wrong date/show. It's always our website's fault obviously, nothing to do with the customer not checking properly.

After working at a customer service desk for a long time I've come to the conclusion that some people just come into the shop for an argument.

"I want to return this item it's faulty"
"Do you have the receipt?"
"No"
"Ok well if you have a bank statement with the purchase we are able to look up the transaction"
"It was 4 years ago why would I still have that?!"
😂😂😂

I used to work in republic and BHS before that, both have gone bust, both had swathes of shoplifters of all age and racial demographics. I remember an oap complaining because the person in front had gotten 20% student discount but she wasn't eligible. She tried to flash me a bus pass very quickly when I asked if she had a valid NUS card. I said we didn't accept that card as it was an off peak bus pass, she went batshit and stormed out!

When I was a student I worked in a fast food restaurant. There was the woman who brought up her half eaten burger to say there was a spider in the bun. (There wasn't when she brought it up) she screamed at the front counter staff and silenced a busy, crowded Saturday afternoon restaurant.

Then there was the woman who brought back her sandwich saying there was a feather in it (but couldn't produce said feather)

A group of guys putting me up against the wall and threatening me because I asked them politely to stop smearing ketchup on the walls.

The worst was the couple who looked about their late fifties having sex in one of the cubicles again during the day in a Saturday when kids were going in and out the toilets. Yuck.

I worked in a garden centre when I was a teen that had some very expensive Christmas decorations. This lady, her husband and daughter came to the till with 3 trolleys full and i had to enter everything in the till manually as we did not have barcodes and then wrap all the delicate bubles and decorations. It took ages. The price came to £750.98 and she went batshit saying I was a stupid gilt wasting her time and it could not possibly be that much.
She insisted my supervisor come over and put everything through again while she closely watched with my supervisor did through gritted teech.
When she had finished she asked the women if she was satisfied that everything had been put through correctly, the women said yes you know what you are doing unlike her (and pointed at me)
My supervisor took great delight in telling her the cost of her shopping was actually 2 quid more 😆😆
I had made a mistake but in her favour.

I worked in a cafe, one of the ones where you have to add your own milk/sugar. A lady had a cup of tea, added to much milk, she then asked me to sieve the milk out. I ended up giving her a new cup of tea after trying to explain why I couldn't sieve the milk out.

The world is full of actual Lunatics I'm afraid. Back in the day they would all be languishing in an institution somewhere off the beaten track.

The world is full of actual Lunatics I'm afraid. Back in the day they would all be languishing in an institution somewhere off the beaten track.

You mean Little Chef I assume. ☺

Oh Party, I wish I'd seen that! Did she pay up? And did you smile sweetly and call her 'madam'?

We have the people who have a problem we call 'I want it therefore it must exist'
People wanting books with photos of dinosaurs in them.

Someone who wanted a book about sharks. Took them to the shelf, pointed out easily ten books about sharks. Not good enough, they've read all those, they want a new book about sharks (the information within is going to be startlingly similar)

The people who want to do their family history because they've seen it on WDYTYA but don't want to (1) use a computer (2) pay to use any of the websites who specialise in that kind of research or (3) travel to the city/country of their family origin.

The people who want to book a cheap holiday on the internet but have no idea how the internet works, how to use a mouse, how to research information about holidays and definately don't want to learn any of these skills they just want to go to 'the google' and type in 'cheap holidays to florida' and be presented with a myriad choices of wonderful Disney hotels and flights for 2 shillings and sixpence...

Healthcare so sort of customer facing.

Man phoned up really really angry that we had sent him an appointment for the day after his birthday and any idiot could see that.

I had to leave the NHS so went to work in a private hospital. Had a patient refuse to come in for a pacemaker fitting because no single rooms were available.

One patient really angry that there was no parking at the hospital because, "that's what we pay for".

Another one complained that he was sharing a room with a German, sharing the room was fine but not with a German.

I was working in peacocks as a teen, one Friday a woman came in and wanted to buy a dress, card declined, second card declined, third card accepted fine. The next day same woman comes in to the shop brings the dress to the till and demands a refund, only the dress smelt like a pub (this was when you could still smoke indoors) and there were deodorant stains on it, clearly it had been worn. I politely said that I couldn't refund because it had clearly been worn, well she went ape shit, screaming that it was my fault her kids couldn't eat that night because I wasn't refunding.

My manager came to my rescue "madam you cannot talk to my employees like that, this is not the first time you've been caught doing this, you will not be receiving a refund, and please don't come back"

The woman grabbed her worn stinky dress and stormed out shouting at how disgraceful we all were.

Insane.

Used to work in a company who sold electrical appliances through mail order and online. At least once a week we'd get a pensioner who complained bitterly about wanting to return the appliance as 'your plug doesnt fit in my wall socket.' When asked if they'd taken the plastic protective cover off the plug prongs it usually went all very quiet....

Some of these are awful! Shamelessly placemarking.

Oh, just remembered my all-time favourite. A woman came up to me proffering a book, ranting and raving about how terrible it was that we were selling it and that it was in the children's section, totally inappropriate, poisoning the minds of young etc. I was utterly baffled until I realised that unfortunate sticker placement meant that Georgia Nicholson's "Then He Ate My Boy Entrancers" now looked like it was entitled "Then He Ate My Boy Entrance".

In her defence, it really WAS a badly-placed sticker and she also had the good grace to laugh about it!

I woman came into the shop I was working in wanting an refund on some sandals that were faulty, some of the stiching had come undone, and the sole was begging to come away. Only problem was we hadn't sold those shoes for at least three years (store branding had changed so you could tell) and she was fucking wearing them.

Sieve out the milk
These are brilliant. Glad to know it's not just us! Not long back we had an issue with someone drinking the weetabix breakfast drinks and returning them to the shelf empty. One week I removed 15 empty bottles over three days. 15!?!? How did no one see them?
The champagne thieves who threatened a member of staff with an invisible weapon when approached...
The powdered baby milk thieves who had parked in such a way that it took them several little turns of the wheel to make their getaway! They took so long that the member of staff who had seen them had time to get his phone out and record them and their reg plate for the police! Sad now that we have to security tag baby milk