The worst complaint you have ever received

[planetclom]

I’ll start.
Someone complained they when they arrived early for an appointment I saw them early, they did not want to be seen early ...
Someone complained that I was only interested in box ticking and in the next sentence complained I spend to long trying to sort out their issue...

Work in the NHS if that is relevant, I suspect it is.

One of my employees raised a formal grievance against me. Because I gave him a pay rise.

This wins the thread, no contest, MuseumOfIdiots. Dare I ask - what was the outcome?

I used to work for a mail order e-cigarette company, and take most of the customer service and technical enquiry calls. A regular occurrence would be people complaining that their battery had broken when on charge e.g. leaking during or after charging.

First question would always be what charger had they used, 9 times out of 10 it would be that they had plugged it in to an iPhone charger directly into the mains - something that was expressly noted as a thing NOT to do in the instructions as the mains plug for iPhones charged at a faster rate than the e-cig batteries could cope with at the time. The instructions stated in bold and capitals that only the charger supplied should be used for safety reasons. The number of people who screamed at me down the phone & verbally abused me because they hadn't bothered to read the instructions...

I was also threatened that someone would come down to the office and "sort me out" because when they had returned a "brand new" faulty battery we had apparently supplied very recently, I checked both their order history and the battery itself and declined to replace it. They hadn't ordered anything from us for well over 6 months, and the battery clearly showed signs of extensive wear and use. Would have been amusing if he'd tried though, because not only were the owner and his son both well over 6 feet tall and well built, but the family pet Alsatian who adored me would spend her days at my feet in the office area

I haven't read the whole thread it was making me

But I just remembered my first job in a small private girls school. I was gently helping one child (age 10) to write more than 3 words, during an hour long class). I suggested to the HT that as she was so anxious she needed referring for help.

The HT told me the mother had complained about me and I was to mind my own business!!! (she was friends with the girl's mother).

Customer support for dating app - complained that I cancelled his membership when asked, and didn't try to convince him to stay. Terrible customer service apparently, and he would be complaining to my manager.

Also too many to count entitled males complaining that their inbox wasn't bursting with hot females gagging for sex. After being a member for one day.

Good god, CharlieSierra, of course babysitters are allowed to eat! They aren't automatons, and it won't scar the children in their care to see them chew.

littlemiss if you'd ever looked after mine, I'd have left you snacks.

I think 2017 needs to calm the f down, you're starting to sound like one of the bad customers.

I wasn't het up. And how am I sounding like a "bad customer" because I want to make sure all my customers get great customer service?

I want them to leave feeling we've done everything we can for them, and if they prefer a thinner milkshake than we offer, it's much better for them to know that than to think our machine is wrong and that we aren't offering to help (and of course to avoid the same situation the next time they come in).

NaughtToThreeSadOnions My entire point was that if a customer complains the milkshake is too thick, there is something you can do about it - check the machine's calibrations are correct. If they are, our milkshakes simply aren't to their preference.

But it's better for them to know that than to get a perplexed look off a crew member.

That I wouldn't transfer him to the banks call centre - he'd dialled our helpdesk. Which might be OK if I worked for a bank, or indeed, anything connected with it. But I worked for a medical device company, not in a call centre 'But you lot all work in one giant place in India'. I was in an office in Crawley.

ShatnersBassoon Thu 23-Nov-17 07:47:13
"Sorry but hate it when ' no problem' is said."

"Really?! It means that your request for assistance is not a problem for them, that they're happy to help you. They're not trying to convince you that there isn't a problem at all "

Isn't the point that the assistant is there to help so of course there shouldn't be a problem. It doesn't need referencing. I dislike it too.

I once had a complaint made about me when I was working in a forensic mental health unit, as I had suggested to a patient that some of our work might focus on his history of sexual offensives. He didn't feel he had a history of sexual offences as he had only raped people a couple of times.

He later made a complaint about me being evil, after I wrote a report for a tribunal suggesting that due to his total refusal to consider his offence history he was probably a bit dangerous to discharge. He did not accept the response from the investigator that I was not evil, and insisted that the independent ombudsmen consider the complaint. They also thought I was not evil.

NHS here

Very very long complaint letter from one patient with regards to the walls in the waiting room they weren’t the right colour, the magazines were not up to date enough, the flooring wasn’t right etc etc

I have dozens...

I've lost count of the number of clients who complain about having to pay the out of hours consultation fee when their pet requires treatment at night or on a Sunday afternoon. We are not the NHS!

Complaints about referring animals for specialist treatment, apparently we should be able to do it all ourselves. Sadly I haven't been alive long enough to do the 6-7 years of extra training required to qualify as a specialist in all the required fields -
neurology, orthopaedics, oncology, dermatology, opthalmics, cardiology etc. etc. We do do a lot of diagnostics and often very complex surgery ourselves but sometimes we have to refer. I sometimes ask if they'd expect their GP to whip out a scalpel and crack on with their hip replacement or brain surgery.

In my first practice we had a woman accuse us of giving her back the wrong cat. The animal had been in overnight but we were obviously aware exactly who she was and who her owner was, and also she was microchipped so there was absolutely no shadow of a doubt whatsoever that it was her cat, but she was utterly convinced that we'd switched it. She kicked off massively and was threatening all sorts, from actual violence to reporting us to the police. She eventually left with her cat and never came back to the practice. She obviously had other issues but to this day I really hope she didn't dump the cat or worse because she 'wasn't hers'.

My favourite one was a refractive surgery patient who'd previous been short-sighted complaining that his vision was now "too clear".

I did consider that ti may have been very clear distance vision now made his near vision more blurred....but no he could read the bottom line of the distance chart and the smallest near print we had.

Eventually we gave him contact lenses to make his vision slightly more blurred and he was really happy!

I did have a customer complain once hat their milkshake was too milky.

Hubbys bf is a postie. He needed to deliver a parcel one day to a customer. He must’ve been anticipating trouble as he filmed himself walking up the path and noting that their car wasn’t there. Knocked on the door. No answer. Left a card as appropriate. Customer later phoned delivery office to complain that he hadn’t knocked, and was most put out to be shown footage of postie attempting to deliver.

Back when I worked in a very well known clothes store we had a customer bring back shoes that were 5 years old. He was demanding a refund because the sole had worn hmm

I can beat that, I worked for a clothes store and someone brought back a 14 year old cardigan expecting a full refund because the button had come off

Oh the return ones always make me laugh because I always think of this picture

Lostflipflop

What a spineless shit manager! - I am just off to Sainsbury's, wonder of I can take a two week old Morrison's cauli back and complain its gone brown?

How did the Gap employee even do that return? surely their till has been updated in the last 17 years!

I love the fact that every now and again a poster pops up who is clearly a semi-pro nuisance complainer you know who you are!!

I do agree with whoever suggested that everyone should be made to do customer facing work for 6 months - people that have never done it can't get over some of the stuff I tell them about

@MrsWooster

Who, MrsWooster?

I have ruined Christmas so many times I should change my name to the Grinch
1 - wouldn't refund a hat - the hat was from Debenhams I worked in Accessorize - nope not a good enough reason. a hat is a hat. I ruined Christmas.
2 - The same shop I ruined the same Christmas when the whole shopping centre had a power cut and I couldn't put things through the till (lack of electric when you have an electric till can be a small issue). The fact that we could only see by the dim light of emergency escape lighting and 400 fire alarms were going off all around us was not going to stop that customer buying an £8.99 scarf.
3 - I ruined a different Christmas by asking a customer to leave half an hour after the shop had closed on Christmas eve. We sold jeans & obviously you can't have christmas without a new pair of jeans!
4 - my best Christmas ruining was the year we had a small fire in the shop - not a drill but an actual fire with smoke and alarms - I ruined loads of christmases all at once that day by asking people to leave instead of leaving them to burn

I'd forgotten about this one. Years ago I worked at a small charity which provided information to volunteers going to a war-torn country, where there was starvation, etc. There was a particular aid convoy going once, where people met up in a particular city then travelled together. I got a two-page written complaint from one of the volunteers about the price of the sandwiches on the train she took travelling to this city.

Nancy 75 when I worked in retail it was a relatively new shopping centre. We found out there was a problem with air conditioning and ventilation when the perfume shop overheated and bottles of perfume started exploding everywhere sounding like a shooting.. didn’t stop people shopping though

user1467976192 nothing stops people shopping