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 took calls for a supermarket & had a man screaming down the phone at me because his wine bottle had smashed.. in his car.. after he drove home. He couldn't understand why no I wouldn't be arranging for a full valet & compensating for his 'injuries' on cleaning up said spillage. When I tried to explain myself he called me a "snakey little bitch" and told me he hopes I die of cancer. I also had numerous funny but very genuine complaints from the public who are undoubtedly bonkers. Some people weigh packets of crisps, complain if they are broken upon opening, the biscuits aren't golden enough, the recipe has been changed and I'm not telling anyone. So strange.

I used to work in a department store while I was a student and had a customer click her fingers at me to get me to attend her. I’ve never moved so slowly...

I got called a filthy dyke. I told her she was 50% right - I’d showered before work.

@SandwhichGenerationGal and ignore the point of the thread.... bored and disinterested staff, how awful for you!

You've on here had death threats, being shouted at, items thrown at them and you thing bored and disinterested staff are a comparison? Really??

"It’s not all one sided. I am never rude to retail staff but they are often rude/bored/disinterested/indifferent. I have been know to ask them if ‘they hate their job’ which totally throws them and caught unawares they say ‘yes’ 😂. Well it’s obvious you do but your job is to pretend I am the best customer you have ever served."

Yeh that's totally up there with people being spat on, swore at, and physically assaulted. Poor you.

I used to work on customer services at a well known supermarket, when I had a customer throw a pack of biscuits at me shouting “these are broken I’m getting some more” I picked them up off the floor, and noticed that they were in fact from a rival shop. The lady was fuming when she got back as I had apparently moved them somewhere. She was not a happy bunny when I handed the pack back to her and informed her where she could take them back to. (Perhaps the evil smirk on my face wasn’t helping much!)

A decade in customer service. I’ve had food/drink thrown at me, been told “you’re only a phleb” but possibly the most insulting, when looking at my badge which had the year I started working there, said in a derisive tone “god, you’ve worked here all those years? Couldn’t you get a proper job?”! Clearly working in retail was beneath her. I told the stuck up cow that I actually had an honours degree but the hours I worked here suited looking after disabled DH.
Customers lie ALL the time and, unfortunately, those that shouted loudest and told the biggest lies were rewarded with a refund and a gift voucher ‘as a gesture of goodwill’ by the limp lettuce managers. No wonder they were so vile to staff, the rewards were bigger. I even had one woman lie and say she had given a £20 but I’d only given change for £10. They actually counted my till and it was spot on, but the woman stood there telling every other customer I’d stolen her money so the manager actually gave her £10 out of my, perfectly correct, till to get rid of her!

Asked me to direct him to the solicitors because I wouldnt refund for a (food) product he no longer had, had no receipt for no proof of purchase neither called or returned the same day. I think he thought I was a timid woman so tried it on, it didnt end well for him.

I spent 18 years in retail management. There are far too many to mention. I've had my bum smacked, been called every name you can imagine, stalked (turned up outside my home, my local train station and horribly my late grandmothers house - I was 17). All pales into insignificance when I chased a shoplifter (stupid yes but I was young) and they pulled a bag of needles out of their jacket and tried to stab me with one.

Also a well known female "journalist" threw a newspaper in my face and called me a stupid little bitch because we'd run out of smoked almonds. True story. No names, sorry!

My husband works for a very well known electrical retailer who don’t sell curry...

He has been run over (trying to get goods back off a thief) sworn at most days, shouted at most days. Hit with knuckle dusters two weeks before our wedding leaving him covered in bruises. Assaulted by a woman who wasn’t happy with the customer service this week. Threatened regularly to the point he is worried leaving work some days. Big shop with no security in a bad area.

He also helps lost children find parents, offers their staff room to breastfeeding mothers, goes above and beyond to help people, loads cars up even though he’s not paid to, helps colleagues move out of their home when they’re suffering domestic violence. Even has been to help elderly customers set up WiFi etc unpaid. Last week he met a little autistic boy who was really excited by the tills so he let him behind the counter to put his parents purchase through.

Makes me sick to my stomach how he is treated when he’s the nicest man you could meet.

I massively respect retail staff the absolute crap they put up with daily. The general public can be entitled arseholes!

Popular fast food outlet was my first job. The amount of people who assumed I was unintelligent when their order took too long to take out to their car and screamed 'are you fuckjng stupid? ' at me .... for taking their order out to their car was stupid ....no sir, I'm not fucking stupid and am probably more intelligent than you , went to grammar school , and got a degree in the end , bit thanks for your feedback , you ugly , bald bastard , who clearly doesn't realise how to be polite to a teenager.

Sorry fucking*

I had a shoe thrown at me once because I refused to refund them. They weren’t faulty the customer just changed their mind about them, which would have been fine, had the soles not been caked in mud!

The worse though was when a customer said they hoped I had something really horrible to me, I was in early pregnancy and on the day in between blood tests at the epu to see if the bleeding I was experiencing was yet another pregnancy loss (it was so I guess she got her wish!) I told her that was a really horrible thing to say to someone and that I wasn’t prepared to serve her further and walked away. I’ve dealt with customers who have been every kind of shouty or belittling and let it just wash over me but that one went deep and properly made me cry (not in front of her though thankfully!)

On the plus side though, those horrid cunty customers are actually in my experience are far far outnumbered by the polite and lovely ones.

I ran a post office for a few years. My goodness the things you have to put up... Very difficult to bar people from collecting their benefits but I wanted to on more than one occasion. The worst story would really out me, but resulted in the customer and her fellow drug taking friends waiting outside for me after work.. Bloody awful 😡.
As I teen I worked in a call centre. One customer told me he would find out where I lived because he didn't get the service he was demanding (not through any fault of my own). I was also told in that job I personally would be sued.. alright then 🤣.
I had particularly bad service in a Post Office one time (after I had quit). I asked for a certificate of posting, the guy refused! I reiterated I needed it. He said 'we don't do that and can you leave now'. I told them they were rude. He said 'you started it' 🤣🤣 twat.
People are crazy!!

@BatShite - I feel your pain, posted about my experience working in a bar up thread. So many perfectly normal people turn into utter jerks when they've had a bit of alcohol.

The one advantage of working behind the bar was the barrier it created between me and the customers. No one ever managed to grab my arse, but someone did lean over a take a bottle out of my speed rack when I was looking. He walked back to his booth with it as if he'd just bought the whole thing!

I worked in Our Price records when I was 17, one Sunday we were getting ready to shut up for 5pm. Some guy had been stood at the counter listening to CDs on headphones for an hour and when we said we'd have to turn the stereo off and shut up shop, he got irate, he vaulted the counter, threatened us with a screwdriver and demanded we put another CD on for him to listen to, brandishing the screwdriver at each of us. Someone discreetly called the shopping centre security and they and the police carted him off.

A few years ago I witnessed disgusting behaviour. I was waiting at the bar of the Radio 2 festival in a day. They had this thing where you paid £2 for your hard plastic souvenir glass for each drink, to save on wastage, great! At the end, you could return the glasses for full refund, or keep them a memento.

Anyway, some big bloke stood next to me at the bar orders six pints (which were overpriced like this sort of events usually are, but you expect that) the young girl serving him was about 18, tiny, lovely, shy girl.

When she told the bloke next to me the price, it was £12 more than he expected (he'd not read the multiple signs about the deposit scheme littered throughout the huge queue) and took umbrage to the £12. The girl politely tried to explain what the £12 was for, but he wouldn't let her finish. Was literally screaming in her face, ranting about the £12. All the bar staff were equally young and looked petrified, not one colleague, or customer stepped in. Security were too absorbed in queue control.

So, I tapped him on the arm, smiling to try and placate him, and said, "C'mon mate. Give the girl a break, she doesn't make the rules. You can get your £12 back at the end... "

He turned to me, loomed over me and said, "What the fuck had it got to do with you, you fucking nosey bitch? Keep your fucking nose out of it!"

The girl started stammering and said to me, "It's okay, don't worry... " she looked so scared, I'm ashamed to say that I actually lost it and yelled at the bullying twat, "Yes it is my fucking business, this young girl does not get paid enough to be spoken to and treated like this, so why don't you pay for drinks and just fuck off, you nasty fucking cunt!"

He muttered some sexist insult at me, slammed his money down and walked off with the carrier of drinks. The girl was shaking like a leaf.

The adrenaline kicked in and I started shaking too. I'm short and he was huge, but he made me see red. I got my drinks and as I left, he was waiting for me near the exit with his wife / GF and was telling, "There's the mouthy cunt, she better watch her fucking back the rest of today!" she was smirking, she didn't look scared, but proud. I couldn't believe it, I gave her a look of pity and told him to fuck off and pick on someone his own size and walked off as fast and confidently as my shaking kegs would allow.

I think the crowd that the yelling attracted helped me. I was so shaken up after though.

I also worked PT as a waitress in a pub while doing my A' Levels. Crappy chain pub, food was edible, nothing fancy.

I was assigned a table of 10 one lunchtime, the older guy of the group was holding court a bit and his fellow diners lapping it up. He was really demanding of me, almost to the point of clicking his fingers at me (waving me over like a lackey), wanted dishes changing, ordering a few drinks then immediately ordering others when I brought them over, literally I was running around like a headless chicken at their beck and call. Way more demanding than other large groups. Just had this air of entitlement. Was rude, arrogant and looked down on me.

I sucked it up, remained professional. They paid up at the end and fucked off. Left an absolute mess on the table and all over the floor, no tip. Whatever, I cleaned it all up.

Two little old ladies finish their meal and pay up, it was pensioner special on that day of the week, they loved their weekly lunch out, it was also pension day. They'd always pay and then place a pound each into my hand and close my fingers over it, say thank you sweetheart. Such adorable ladies, not very well off, but full of appreciation and grace.

This time, as they are paying, they are in awe that I've been waiting on someone famous. I had no idea who they were on about. The older guy on the big table was apparently a famous, former, Scottish racing car driver. Was very well known and rich apparently. I'd never heard of him. Looked him up after. It was him. Fame and money doesn't mean you've manners, or class.

I worked in customer service for an online retailer of mobile phones. As standard, we offered free Royal Mail next day delivery. However, it was at a time when there was a spate of Royal Mail strikes going on - well publicised by the media.

I took a call from a very irate man whose phone had been due to arrive the previous day. While pulling up the tracking details, I apologised for the delay and said that in all likelihood it was due to the strike (now over), in which case his phone should arrive that morning - i.e. within the next few hours.

"Well then that's not next day, is it? You fucking stupid bitch!"

I warned him that if he continued his abuse, I'd have to terminate the call - and did. He phoned straight back and got through to my colleague a few seats away to continue his tirade - she hung up too. In the mean time, the tracking information had shown us that Royal Mail had actually attempted delivery the previous day despite the strike and the only reason the customer didn't have his phone was that he hadn't been home to accept the parcel!

I worked in a bookshop in central London in my early 20s. It was by a famous landmark so we got a lot of tourists in. The American tourists could be appallingly rude and condescending.

One American guy - middle-aged, overweight, seemed used to ordering people around, said to me, “Do you have a copy of that book with the apple on the cover?” At the time I’d noticed a couple of books with apples on so I showed them to him. Neither was right. He couldn’t remember the name, the authir or the subject-matter but was getting increasingly irate that I didn’t know the book he was talking about. I remained calm and polite but he was so loud, obnoxious and insulting that everyone in the shop could hear him saying things like, “What’s wrong with this country? Can’t they hire people who know about books in a book store?” Etc. Etc. Eventually he asked to speak to my manager in the shop in front of everyone. My manager whispered to me to go and take my break and managed to get rid of him.

Still haven’t got a clue what the book was.

When I was 17, I was a skinny little thing and, no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t put on much weight. I used to feel self conscious about the fact I had no boobs or bum whatsoever.

I was on the fitting rooms, working at a department store, when a lady who had been sitting outside the cubicle, waiting for her daughter, looked me up and down and said, “Urgh. Don’t you ever eat? You look anorexic.” I was mortified!

I often wish I could go back to that moment and call her out on such a horrible, unnecessary comment to a very young girl.

I worked in retail while in uni, this idiot used to come in and was extremely rude regularly treating everyone like something he had trod in.. My dad was very high up in his company, I went once to an event with my dad as my mum couldn’t. It turned out this tosser worked for my dad and when he was introduced to me he went all shades of red and looked visibly shaken. I just smiled sweetly and let him swirm. Needless to say he didn’t get on at work 😂😂

Rudest thing a customer did to me was grab my arm and ask quite abruptly if I got eczema. I was so shocked by this random stranger touching me that I said yes (rather than "mind your own business "), and she proceeded to lecture me about the benefits of an entirely banana based diet. All while still clutching my arm.
I just pretended I was interested, and didn't tell her that I am allergic to bananas.

I can handle people being rude verbally but don't ever touch me.

I worked in Customer Services for 5 years. I was damn good at it, polite, calm and a problem solver. But I had limits, like everyone.

I was passed a call by someone else who couldn’t get a concept through to the caller. We battled for a while, but the conversation was deteriorating (customer’s mood) so I suggested I call back later in the day (give me some creative thinking time!). She called me a name. I told her I’d call back, and hung up. Then said ‘twat’, with some vitriol.

Except my phone hadn’t hung up properly.

She called back and spoke to the depot manager, and then a few days later a complaint letter arrived (the shame!) - addressed to ‘The Manager. NOT SHAK1RA1’

Ah well. I deserved it.