Rude customers!!

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I'm just wondering if any of you have ever been unnecessarily rude to a staff member in a shop or if you've intentionally loudly complained about a price or if you've been the staff member in a situation like that?

I work at a charity shop as an assistant manager and the amount of rude customers we have/customers asking for money off/people saying we're a rip off is crazy!!

Also people coming in 5mins before close and then ignoring us when we say we're closing, is my town just full of rude people or are there people everyone that are so ignorant and rude!!!!!

Rant over lmao

I'd never be so rude. But I have worked in a shop that closed at 10pm and had customers come to the till with a fully laden trolley at 9.50pm.

I’ve worked in a shop and volunteered in a charity shop, and in my experience you get more customers in the charity shops who are motivated by a bargain, and enjoy haggling and complaining to get money off.

Ten years in a customer service role including as manager. I very quickly lost count of how many rude people I had to deal with. I was called all names under the sun and was even punched by a drunk pregnant woman once because I refused a refund for the earrings I had just watched her steal . I remember one particular chap who called me Hitler amongst other things, when I refused to let him withdraw money from his girlfriend's bank account.
I run my own online retail business now and was recently threatened to be reported to trading standards, the police, a solicitor, Ebay, PayPal, another retailer and his bank, all because he didn't read any aspect of the item title or description or look at the photos and I said he would have to pay for his own return costs.
I never have, and never will, believe that the customer is always right.

Absolutely never, and I can say that honestly. I used to work in retail myself and I absolutely hate people being rude to anyone in retail, waiting staff, bar staff etc.

There's absolutely no need for it.

I’ve worked in retail and had people be hideously rude.

I’ve been less than polite, but with cause.

YANBU, The general public can be utter pricks.

Getting off at shouting at youngsters on minimum wage makes me so annoyed. Like they set pricing and offer policy.

I quit my retail job because of a rude customer and the manager siding with them (even though what they wanted was outside of our policy).
I have been rude to a member of medical staff before (twice if you count when I was in labour - although that was just swearing in general and then apologising to the MW who heard it rather than it being directed at her). The other HCP wasn’t listening to me and was blocking me from getting the treatment I needed for my illness - I was on the point of suicide through depression relating to the pain of my condition. It’s not something I am proud of but I just needed help, I was crying and begging them to help me or get me someone who could help me as the prior appointment I had wasn’t what I needed and they weren’t listening to me (they were fully qualified as a general nurse but were in training to be qualified in the field of my illness and completely ignoring the specialists notes)

Yep! I had one this morning - came in with a faulty item - wanted a refund and to keep his jacket that he paid £100 for! Uh, no. You either keep the jacket or take the refund, not both!

He looked decidedly pissed off when I gave him his money back and apologised

I'm never rude as there is just no excuse but I have to say some of the charity shops around here do try and charge silly amounts for what is mostly tat so I can imagine some people will come out and say this, however they do not need to buy it!

I believe everyone should spend a year working in customer service like national service.

I worked retail for many years and the number of people who are rude is ridiculous. However those who are just rude are easy to deal with. It was the nasty, disgusting and even violent ones who I hated. There are types, you can spot them walking in, whats interesting is that I've seen this topic hundreds of times across numerous places and yet every single person claims to be nothing but polite, however I'd estimate around 80% of customers are far from polite.

It's terrible the sense of entitlement customers have over staff. Sadly it just seems to be gerttingwors, leading to undertandibly disgruntled staff who are not always very pleasant to respectful customers.

Nope, have never been rude, nor to HCPs (although I have sworn in pain but not at them).

I've had a few public-facing jobs (retail and catering) and yes, there was both rudeness and once or twice I was punched in the face. As a result I am always very polite even if I am complaining. Nobody deserves abuse when they are just trying to make a living.

I volunteered in a charity shop and we got a lot of angry hagglers. I tried to explain that our prices are set by charity guidelines and aren’t open to haggling but it doesn’t matter.

One person suggested I chuck in an item for her for free as nobody else would buy it.

Another person deliberately threw a handful of coins to pay for her item so that some fell down the cracks in our display case. She then insisted the coins that had fallen were all £2 ones, so they could more than pay for the item and I also owed her lots of change. I managed to move the case to retrieve the coins and mysteriously they were all coppers, no £2 coins in sight..

Also we once had a generous donation of boxes of underwear from a large retailer, it was all new and sealed in packages. In the fitting room I found one of the packs had been opened and the new undies stolen, and they’d left their own dirty underwear on the floor instead! Although I suppose you need to be very hard up to steal underwear so I let it go.

Overall most customers are very pleasant and lovely, but you do get the occasional horrible one. I know a lot of people feel charity shops have become too expensive for what they are and I understand that, but we had guidelines set by head office based on brand/product, so it’s not fair to yell at the store staff for it.

I was horribly rude to a sales person in my youth, basically cos I was having a bad day. Then I got a job at John Lewis and karma well and truly came for me with a vengeance..........

My sister was a charity shop a manager, they regularly had people trying to knock money of the price of goods, it’s unbelievable. People would also use the changing rooms as a toilet. Some people are disgusting.
I used to work in a well know opticians and I left after 8 years because people just pissed me off, they would treat you like shit, some were down right rude for no reason, I hated it when people came in 10 minutes before closing and then spend half an hour slowly deciding which frames to chose, like they (and us staff) had all the bloody time in the world!!

Who the hell haggles in a charity shop!!!!!

I once walked past a charity shop (possibly age concern) and in the window saw a very desirable game for a ludicrous £12. (It was hero quest, I'm a geek )
I went in and told the lady behind the desk that asking £12 for that was not right.
She said I'm very sorry, but our prices are what they are.
I then informed her I'll pay £70 for it.
Her face was a picture, and she was very grateful.

I don't get being rude full stop anymore
I used to get a bit worked up in many aspects of life.
But now I just don't see the point.
So many people just seem very angry all the time, and want to accuse or argue etc.
Just be happy. Why do people want to be difficult?

I say this often, but you will never know just how astonishingly rude the general public can be until you've worked in a customer facing role. The lack of manners was the main thing that used to piss me off. I remember one time helping a customer carry a really heavy item to their car in the pouring rain and they didn't even bother to say thank you.

I couldn't imagine not thanking someone profusely if the roles were reversed. We teach children from babyhood to always say 'please' and 'thank you' but you'd be amazed at how many adults don't use these words.

Many people are unpleasant.

I worked retail as a student in a naice shop and then as cabin crew. Not something I want to do again. I’ve been spoilt by office work! Even then you get the occasional difficult person on the phone but at least you don’t have to serve them.

I’ve worked in retail and hospitality. The general public are idiots.

I did speak rather sharply to my midwife mid contraction at about 9cm dilated because she tried to rub my back. I immediately apologised once the contraction finished she told me not to be silly and she’d rather I told her.

I'd be ashamed to haggle in a charity shop.

I think times have actually changed since I worked in retail. I was treated really well for the most part by customers.

When I see the rudeness, often it’s the type of people, who decide them and theirs are superior to others in some way, whether it’s those, working in shops or as customers. For example the woman (and parent at dds school), who works at my local co op. She is so rude and dismissive to the customers.... unless she’s talking to her friends or blokes she likes to banter / flirt with.

Bet she’s rude af to shop staff when she’s a customer.

I've never been rude as a customer but I was once on the other side - sort of - of the 'laden trolley ten minutes before closing' scenario, except it wasn't a trolley full, it was four or five items of clothing in a clothes shop, that I'd dashed in to buy after flying to the other end of the country to stay with a friend and my checked bag had gone missing somewhere between one airport and the other so I was temporarily stuck for something to wear. As I approached the till with my hastily-grabbed, taken-on-trust-they'll-fit items, the assistant sighed loudly, rolled her eyes, pointedly looked at her watch and muttered something that I didn't catch to her colleague. I admit I did say something sarcastic like "if it's too much trouble for you, I can put it all back?" but I'd had a shitty, stressful day, had no idea if I was going to see my belongings again and didn't make her late as it took less time to ring the clothes through than the shop was still open for IYSWIM - and her and her mate had both been lounging against the back of the bit behind the counter chatting as I approached so I clearly hadn't interrupted their closing-up tasks.

Generally though I agree customer service is a thankless task, I worked in a pub for years and that had its moments - and we were much less likely to get people trying to haggle and try it on than shop assistants do.

The saying 'The customer is always right' has an awful lot to answer for imo!
For some it seems to translate to the right to belittle, humiliate and abuse service staff. I think the basic problem is that society as a whole doesn't value or respect low wage jobs, and jobs that provide a service to others. You see it all the time on threads on here, comments like cleaners shouldn't expect a wage they can live on, shop assistants are idiots and lacking common sense, bar staff IDing people are on a power trip, Anyone struggling in a min wage job should just get a better one..... But don't think through what would happen tomorrow if all those jobs suddenly weren't filled, society would collapse. Despite when threads like this come up and 99% of people say they're never rude to staff, you can find those comments on threads on here recently and it's a truer picture of wider society.
And this is going to sound just as bad as some of those comments, but people expect those in service jobs to not be educated, and have low self worth, and should accept it as part of the job. Nowadays that's not really the case, and service staff are educated and believe in themselves, and refuse to be treated like a second class citizen, which seems to irrationally annoy some customers and antagonise them into being rude, to put service staff back in their place, so to speak.