Retail workers- Whays the rudest thing a customer has done or said to you ?

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I work in retail and provide good customer service and always help customers.

Last week I had one go in to a full blown rage as we did not have any hand sanitizer and it was apparently all my fault. So I said dont speak to me in that manner and turned around and walked away from her.

Therr are many other moments I could mention but we would be here all day
So what is the rudest thing a customer has done or said to you?

I used to work in a supermarket on the customer service desk as a teenager. I remember we had a man in - around early 20's and 2 younger girls about 13-14. It appeared he was buying alcohol for them and look very suspicious, so I refused to serve him (even back then if you were caught you would get the fine, not the shop). He started shouting at me saying it was his birthday and I was ruining it by refusing to serve him. He picked up the alchopops he was trying to buy and chucked them at me over the desk with them all smashing at my feet. I was pretty shaken after that one. Also had an empty milk carton chucked at me because apparently it was my fault it leaked over a ladies car. Luckily most of the people were nice and there the only 2 incidents I remember.

In 1973 a boy of 8 told me to shove some sweets up my arse when I refused to sell him cigarettes in a shop in West Kirkby.
I was shocked!

I feel a bit guilty as my customers are all pretty lovely really. But you do get the odd one...

I was asked about all the different brands of cigarettes we had on sale (which were the best, which had the most flavour, were the 'click' ones menthol or something else'. I had to answer that I had no idea as I don't smoke, have never smoked and the packets didn't say.

He told me that I wasn't much use then, was I? And I replied that, if they were going to make us sample the stock in order to sell them, then I was off to go and work in the cake shop up the road.

I'm really generally very lucky with my customers!

Not me but dd1 works for a popular budget fashion shop. She was serving on the tills when she asked the elderly lady if she would like a bag. The lady launched into a tirade of abuse on my poor dd, how plastic pollution was all the fault of dds generation and how dd didn't care about global warming and the environment. She went to great lengths to berate my dd and point out all the shortcomings of her generation all over being asked if she would like a bag. Dd was polite and courteous and just nodded and smiled remembering the customer is always right, except this particular store dont supply plastic bags, they are all paper. So her rant was completely unfounded in this instance.

I should have said dd1 is only 17, completely unnecessary behaviour.

I had a man standing metres from where I worked and mouthing the word bitch over and over because I worked in a fair ground and had asked to measure his son to see if he was tall enough. Also on dodgems, had a woman who I didn't let her son on and she said I'd let her son on before and the reason she knew was because she remembered my rank yellow hair (I was blonde)

When I worked in a shop as a teen (a looooong time ago) a middle aged man in a suit (commuter type, it was a shop at a station) called me a stupid fat cunt because we were out of his preferred brand of fags.

I’ve never really forgotten it, I mean he probably had kids. I was 16. Just such a bizarrely unpleasant thing to do. Even at the time I thought oh his poor wife.

Large supermarket years ago. So, so many:

Being told I was stupid because I worked at a supermarket. My supermarket job was supporting me through my masters (and actually there’s nothing wrong with working at a supermarket, and not one of my colleagues was stupid!).

In the northern town in which I live it rains. A lot. One afternoon there had been a lot of rain and there was a fair bit of surface water on the car park. A lady I was serving told me it was my fault and it was disgraceful that I wasn’t doing anything about it. In a northern town. In February.

The lady who had found a pair of rubber gloves sold by another retailer that she wanted to buy. I couldn’t sell them to her as they wouldn’t go through the till (with hindsight I should have just given them to her but I was very young). My till was just by the aisle selling that sort of stuff so I called a colleague over to grab a different pair. She started ranting and raving that this was the only acceptable pair, who did I think I was to say she had to have a different pair and she would be taking it further. Bizarre.

The supermarket sold cosmetics that were those mini concession stands. One had run out of a particular eyeshadow. A woman started blazing at me that she NEEDED it NOW and I was to supply it IMMEDIATELY. It was 3pm on a Sunday and the concession wasn’t going to be restocked that afternoon. Luckily - or so I thought - the supermarket had a large Boots adjoining it and they carried full ranges. I suggested to the woman that she might be able to find what she needed next door. She went berserk at me and complained to customer services that I’d suggested going elsewhere. Customer services then told me off!

People are so disappointing sometimes.

I don’t work in retail anymore. and ,to all those that do!

I worked in retail for about ten years and I hated every minute of it. Customers would shout at and berate staff for the most ridiculous reasons. I was always polite and helpful but towards the end I started being rude back to customers and have told more than a few to fuck off and walked away from them. That's when I knew I needed to get out! I'd never ever go back into retail.

Got called a stupid wee chav by a customer . She was charming .

I was restocking a freezer and bending down, I am a big girl. A regular customer came in and said " that's not a very very welcoming sight is it?" I ignored him but I was upset. If I have to serve him now I am just barely civil. He is known as a twat by all the staff and regularly rings our head office with complaints and our manager has told him to bring any concerns directly to him and not tell tales. If our manager had been in when he upset me he would have asked him to leave. Luckily most of our customers are lovely.

I once had a gentleman swear at me because I wouldn't give him a new waterproof after the one he'd had for 15 years started to leak

In a former job, we took orders directly from the customer and they would leave items with us. Once we had discussed their options, we would fill in an form with all the details and take a deposit. I was serving quite a refined looking woman and, once she had made her choice, I started to write it up. I asked her name, then her address. She hesitated a little before she answered, but gave it to me (she lived in a very posh area). Then I asked for her phone number as we always called to tell customers when their order was ready to be collected. She took a step back, looked me up and down, then reached into her handbag and threw a bundle of keys on the desk and said, “I suppose I might as well just give you these so you can come to my house and steal all my valuables!” I know it’s not the worst story on this thread and I had dealt with many other rude customers, but this exchange really got to me - probably because it was so unexpected (and unnecessary). After she had gone, I told my boss what had happened. He didn’t say a word, just picked up the item she had left with us and drove to her house. When she answered the door, he very politely introduced himself, handed back her item and deposit and told her he wasn’t prepared to do the work as he couldn’t allow customers to treat his staff in such a rude manner. He invited her to take her business elsewhere in the future. He said she looked quite stunned! In retrospect, I wonder if she had absolutely no idea what she’d said to cause such a reaction, because that was the way she spoke to all people beneath her retail staff.

I last worked retail as a teenager in a book store, 14 years ago, I couldn’t do it again! I did work as airline cabin crew just after I finished university though. I can confirm that there are loads of weird/rude people in the world!

More recently I was temping as an office manager for a professional body with people of that profession paying to be members. Think architects but not. The regional office where I worked had organised a dinner and awards evening at a posh hotel for the members. The office staff, including myself were in long evening dresses.

We had to meet and greet guests and also man a stand selling the institution’s branded goods. Some of the guests presumed we were hotel staff and were really rude to us. No please or thank you. One drunk man started swearing at us when we had sold out of the business card holders!

Yet when we sat down to dinner the guests were as nice as pie once they realised we worked for the institution and not customer service/ event management staff from the hotel 🤷🏻‍♀️

At 16 I worked in a hotel restaurant, during breakfast service I had a middle aged man grab my arm hard as I was passing him and yanked me close to him. He hissed at me with such venom “get my wife a chair with no arms (she was a pretty big lady so I guess couldn’t fit in the chair with arms), and don’t you dare make a fuss about it or you’ll be sorry”.

It was just so unnecessarily aggressive, no way he would have behaved that way towards a man his own age. There’s something especially nasty to me around middle aged men who bully and threaten teenage girls.

Recently a phone customer told me to “stick it up my arse” she was a manager from a company we do work for. I’ve had to tell a customer that we couldn’t do what they were asking and got a mouthful of abuse they then rang the director to say that I had told them to fuck off. My director said. I don’t think she did because she is sitting next to me. They slammed the phone down. When someone new took over the company I worked for the first thing I told them was “ customers lie all the time when they can’t get what they want” He laughed and said he didn’t think so. Took about 2 weeks before he said to me. “ I thought you were joking when you said that but you are right they do lie all the time”. I’ve been in a customer facing job for 22 years now and it’s like water off a ducks back no one can say anything I haven’t heard before.

When I was a young looking 17, so I think obviously very young (not that you should be rude to anyone, but shouting at a child is extra)...

I worked weekends in Homebase and a customer wanted to return a bespoke order kitchen part. Not allowed. Clear when she ordered.

However, I offered to take her number, and check all the orders over the coming weeks and if someone ordered it - very likely - I’d call her and then she could bring it in for a full refund. I explained it wasn’t normal practice, but I’d leave a note for the weekday staff and check it myself next Saturday.

No, I couldn’t take it now in the warehouse in case, as it was her property and there’s be no way to trace it was hers.

She got right into my face, ranted and ended with, “I will have your fucking job over this, you fucking cunt.”

Nice.

Then she wanted me to still take her number. I did. Then binned it.

A couple of Germans being rude. in German, about me, the shop, the country, everything. As I smilingly gave them their change I delivered a long, long sentence in German, ending in when were they returning to their Vaterland. They had the good grace to look like they wanted the ground to open up under them.

Also, not quite as rude but 10x as entitled...

Wallpaper has a batch code that you should match - so always but extra in case. Loads of people didn’t. The only way to get that batch was from another store. We had a paperwork transfer process, but there was no transport between stores - you had to pick up.

We found some in a store 40 miles away. Which was my university town (I came back on weekends). I explained this to the customer, all about being at uni but I’d collect it if she wanted, and bring it in next Saturday.

I’d done this a few times and customers were SO grateful. Totally above and beyond, and about an hour of my time, unpaid.

This woman lost her shit that I would do it during the week - and then wanted the manager to complain to him. Thank fuck that day’s manager was the tough one... who gave her a proper dressing down to a crowd, “so she’s offered to give up an hour of her time unpaid to do this for you - OK, got that - not sure what your complaint is?”

A very drunk man threatened to punch me because I refused to serve him alcohol.
He told me that I was nothing and that I deserved to be spoken to like shit because I was shit. He said that my family probably hated me and that I would be better off dead.
He said that I had no prospects and wished I could be like him.
The police were called due to threats of violence and I left soon after when I completed my degree.
Retail turned out to be great training for MH nursing (both the good and not so good parts).

I once had a glass bottle thrown at me and one of my members of staff because the customer bought the wrong product, despite us making him aware at the time of him purchasing it, that it wouldn't work and I wouldn't refund it because it has been used.

Where has OP gone??

We have to wear a name badge at work - first day we started wearing them a really sleazy customer sneered : "Boss labelling the merchandise now is he".

My colleague just turned to him and said - "you couldn't afford any of us darlin'" and carried on. Wish I was that quick!

I used to have a Saturday job in Woolies in my teens (mid 80s). It was in a part of London which had a lot of Arabic people, both living there and visiting.

I used to work on sweets, so would be covering Pic n Mix.

I don't want people to scream 'racist!' at me, but many of the Arabic customers could be seen as rude, in that they didn't understand queuing, and seemed to think that because they were spending £5 on sweets (remember this was some years back!) that they could be served in front of the kid patiently waiting to pay for his 50p bag of sweets. If the child in that scenario was clearly there first, I'd serve them first, before smiling sweetly at the pusher-in, serving them and saying politely 'we have a quaint custom here in England. It's called queuing.' Although they generally didn't speak English, as I was smiling and being polite, they didn't realise the underlying message.

Once when I worked in Gregg's, I was on the till with a massive queue of customers and no other staff. A man queued up and asked me to leave the till to get him a sandwich that was on the shelf, which customers were meant to take themselves and carry to the till. I told him he could help himself and he loudly shouted " no thank you, if you're not going to hand it to me I don't want it!" and stormed out. I had no idea that people would go out their way to be this awkward and rude but sadly a few years in retail later proved me wrong.