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 won't say where I worked but it was a wholesaler so not quite retail but close enough, we had one customer throw products at us, scream we should all die of mad cows disease screaming our faces telling us to f*#k off and our manager instead of looking after his staff made sure his customer was ok never bothered asking if the staff were ok.. all this was over roughly a 50p discrepancy..
Another one was a customer threatening to come after me and my daughter if I packed his trolley wrong.. some of these business owners are a delight....

I worked in the council, and people would come in to pay their rates and dog licence. One terrible year, both fell due at the same time.

People were horrible. I remember one guy swearing at me, 'does it make you feel good you nasty little bitch, taking people's hard earned money?' (And he paid in loose bloody change).

I calmly counted it up, gave him his receipt, bid him have a good day. His girlfriend was telling him off, saying it's not her fault. He turned round and said, well the slag could work somewhere else, couldn't she. . .

Pity he hadn't been nicer. I could have sorted his dog licence stuff out to cost him about $20 less. . .

When I worked in an inbound call centre a customer who has cancelling was told they would have to return their equipment. At that point they advised my colleague 'stick your TV box up your minge'. She replied 'thank you for the suggestion but it's unlikely to fit.'.

I was called incompetent and that I should lose my job, and a useless, rude cow.
Essentially, I’d sold this bloke a pair of glasses the previous week. I told him that the lenses he wanted would NOT fit in the frame he wanted. He argued and argued, I kept telling him that he could argue with me as much as he likes, but nothing in the works would make these lenses fit in that frame. He would not be able to read close up. He insisted I did them anyway. I told him that I would, but he just understand that half of his varifical would be missing - he would not be able to read. He agreed, yes it’s fine, I know best, etc etc.
Came to pick them up, lo and behold, he couldn’t read close up. No surprise there, then. Except, it did seem to be a surprise, and apparently our lengthy conversation last week never happened 🤷🏻‍♀️
So yes, the woman who told you exactly what would happen and was proved correct, was obviously wrong/terrible at her job/knew nothing about glasses/incompetent at best.
No pal, I know my shit and I don’t get paid for patients to talk to me the way you are, so here’s your refund and I suggest you go elsewhere. Arsehole.

Customer called in wanting to speak to an engineer. Got angry when I answered (I'm a woman) and in a nasty tone said "I wanted to talk to an engineer". I replied with "I am an engineer." There was a short bit of silence then he was polite.

I worked in a pub that served food, two women in their 60s came in during the day for a meal. About 20 minutes after they had finished one of them vomited all over the carpet! It then became apparent that they had smuggled in a bottle of vodka and had drank most of it between them with their food!

I had to clean it all up and the pair of cows didn’t even leave me a penny tip! 😡

Worked in retail for a number of years so had many times when customers felt they were entitled to be rude, just because you are unable to reply, although, I have found that staff can also be extremely rude to you, anyway, the worst time was when I worked on the cruise ships about 20 years ago, there were a number of times people were rude but one evening I was helping in the duty free shop where people were buying lots of duty free booze and I wasn't entirely sure how the till worked and one gentleman said "perhaps if she wasn't left-handed, she wouldn't be so slow"!! Even my manager was gob-smacked as to what to say....

Sorry, my previous post wasn't a retail experience but I have an even better one from when I did work retail.

I worked as a cashier and the customer paid with a credit card. I put the merchant copy and pen on the table facing her to sign. I looked away briefly so she could sign it and next thing I hear is her yelling at me telling me that she is the customer and I must put it in her hand. She was really going off on me for putting the paper for her to sign on the table. I was just . After she left my coworker was like "WTF was that!?"

Not retail, but a customer service role on the phone. One particularly vile, entitled customer used to ring very frequently and always abused whoever took the call. When my "turn" came round and, as usual, I was explaining that there was no way we could possibly do what he was demanding.

He told me that he hoped I got cancer and died. Nice. It was my birthday too.

Call centre one. No where near the worst but the one that always sticks in my mind. I told a very sweet sounding old lady we'd sold out of an item. "That's ok dear" she said but then as she put phone down her voice totally changed. All I heard before the line went dead was "fucking cunt". It was my second day on the job. I'm still there and have been told off for rolling out that story for trainees.

Crapette I think he calls our company as well 🙄

Personally I find customer service now in most shops terrible, worst ive ever know it. So well done you if you give good service. I was always taught when someones rude its nothing to do with you its something going on in their own life, I know its no excuse but you dont know the situation, could be serious illness/death anything. So bite your tongue smile sweetly and go out of your way to help them, whatevers going on if you do your best you know its nothing to do with you. My worst and I reported her, was a very well known high street store, central isle 4 ladies standing in middle talking, I had literally 7 mins left on my parking ticket, I coughed , cleared my throat totally ignored, in the end I said excuse me please, sorry to interrupt, am in a huge rush smiled ect I was told we wont be a minute, then turned their back to me, they were discussing a holiday!

@Ponoka7 @Livethebattle was quite clear it was out of character for her brother.
Ageism works both ways and an adult calling a 17 a simpleton because a bar code has been input incorrectly smacks of ageism to me.

Ponoka7 Are you for real. He did what any big brother would have done. Pathetic comment.

One woman told me my outfit was disgusting. A guy in his 20s got right into my face because I wouldn't give him an item free. That was awkward as there was no way I was going to submit my taking a step backwards so we were nose to nose for what felt like forever.

What neither of them realised was it was my business! Thank fuck I closed it. There are a lot of awful people who expect the earth and are completely without appreciation if you go out of your way for them.

I have so many of the usual. But the 2 of the top of my head

1. A regular customer who liked a chat and I was happy to chat. But when I was pregnant she spoke to my bump and said I hope you keep doing what you're doing when you arrive your mummy skin hasn't half cleared up!!!
2. I was standing with a customer and another customer decided I was in her way so she rammed me with her trolley. Then had a go at other customers standing chatting (2 separate lots of customers that knew each other) yes they probably should have went elsewhere for a catch up but I cannot ask customers to leave because they are having a chat. She did not like this and demanded the manager.. when I turned around and told her I was the manager, she shouted up and down the shop calling me all sorts of names.

Barney60 maybe a simple 'excuse me please' would have gotten you further faster.

When I worked in WHSmith a charming man threatened to slit my throat with the scissors he was trying to steal.

When I was working part time in M&S as a youngster, I had a cold sore. I was put on the tills and a woman actually started taking her food back off the conveyor and said to me "it's people like you that spread disease". I was distraught 😩

"@Likethebattle, nice bit of ageism. It does make your Brother threatening to physically assault a woman, worse though i suppose, because she's older. Is male violence against women a thing in your family?"

Oh fuck off.

What is it about these threads that always bring out people falling over themselves to go on about the DREADFUL customer service they've had to suffer, as though that excuses the behaviour of customers towards stuff because they "might be having a hard time" or have had to wait on the phone for 20 minutes?

I`m not in retail but another customer was extremely aggressive to me last week.

On visiting a well known bookstore with my daughter (who has a disability and likes graphic novels). She approached the graphic novel section to find a man sitting on floor reading a graphic novel (i think he was about half way through the book).

She asked me for help and I went up to the man saying "Excuse me". He got up telling me that he was happy to get up and move but there was no need to be rude. Apparently saying "Excuse me" is rude when the polite way is "Excuse me please" . Since it is one of my daughter's favourite shops i didn't feel able to get into an argument with him.

After talking to me he had a conversation with one of the assistants about rude people, how he likes the shop, how he likes to sit on the floor and read the books and occasionally buy a book. When I left the shop he was talking to another assistant.

It annoys me that he probably believes he is a better customer even though we regularly buy books. If I am buying a new book from a bookshop i want to be the first person to read that book.

Seems a bit weak compared to some. I used to work on Oxford Street so we were expected to put up with customers and sell hard. I had customers expect me to take their shoes off and put the new ones on so generally we just got on with whatever. I'll never forget the man who came into the men's department and clicked his fingers, pointing to the space in front of him where he expected me to go immediately. My boss was so shocked he went up to him and explained that if he wished to be served, he would need to treat me with some respect.

Worked in a bar most of my life, rude customers are common. However, they are much preferable to other types who seem more common than you would hope. Those being the customers who will actually physically assault you. Ranging from men who think grabbing your arse is fine (maybe 10 years back mate..not 'fine' but better) to customers physically attacking you. I have been punched twice in my years at work. Once as I refused to serve someone who could barely talk as so drunk, yet managed a fairly good aim when busting my nose (!), other when I tried breaking up a horrendous fight.

Rude customers are nowt compared to that!

When I was 17 I had just left school and was working full time in various cafe/restaurants.
In the cafe a woman ordered a sultana scone. We had sultana scones and plain ones. She stormed up to the front where I was serving, and shouted at me saying I had given her a plain scone instead of a sultana.
I tried to apologise and say I'm sorry, it is a sultana one I gave you but here is another one (so she could directly see I was taking from the cake stand marked 'Sultana scones').
She wasn't having it and stood there giving me a barrel load of abuse and shouted ''you need to get back to school hen''.
By this point a queue had formed behind her and I was nearly in tears she was so nasty to me. The other customers just looked down awkwardly while the other staff members just stood and watched rather than trying to step in.

I've never known someone to be so nasty over such a tiny issue. There's no need for it at all.

Another time in the restaurant I worked in, a man and 2 women came in. They requested I seat them in the conservatory, I replied sorry but they're all booked up. He then argued with me saying there was no one sitting there so why couldn't they sit there. I again tried to explain that we leave a 1.5 hour between bookings so people were due to come in well before he would be finished eating.

He then demanded to see the manager and said he was going to report me for this.
I got the manager to go over who echoed what I had said.
The man then did not speak to me for the entire time he was there, even the women ordered his food for him, he didn't say please or thank you, and when I would go to check if their meals were okay he just stared at his plate and didn't say a word.

Awful, bitter, horrible people. I think the fact that I was clearly a young girl made it worse in a way, almost like they felt entitled to talk to me like that.

I'd never work in hospitality again, I'm now halfway through a degree so a big middle finger to the woman who told me to 'get back to school'! I'm 20 now.
I always try to be extra nice to retail/hospitality workers, need to try and make up for the shitty customers.