To ask retail staff your worst customer stories?

[JaneTheVirgin]

There's been an influx lately of people complaining about the most minor perceived slight from customer service staff when in reality what they deal with on a daily basis is 99% of the time worse than not kissing your backside for buying a £5 chicken or £2 nail polish.

So, current and former retail staff - who was your worst customer? What shit do you put up with daily?

*Disclaimer for the whiny and chronically offended, I'm not talking about ACTUAL terrible service, which does happen but at a much lesser rate than terrible customers treat staff on minimum wage.

You poor posters on here, you must despair of humanity.

@difficultspaghetti I don't miss doing 12 hours in the bookies it amazes me the utter stupidity of some customers think up to get a payout do they not realise we get told all kinds of bullshit all day 🙄

The ones who pissed me off the most were thieving colleagues and the perverts the disgusting things that have been said to me were horrible! I had one colleague nick money out of my till she was so stupid about it she returned the money to the safe and the manager told me she doesn't have the code I soon worked out how she got it and the manager was the interfering one she said I can't accuse without proof and accused me and someone else of ganging up on her the she worked a shift with her and a few hundred quid was missing of course 🙄 good luck on your shift me and colleague used to play spot the tosser where we'd guess by a customers behaviour and attitude and whoever lost bought dinner or snacks 🤣🤣🤣

Worked in a Spar and this customer would come in, say nothing, point at a scratch card then throw his money on till. Then walked out. Billy the Cunt we used to call him. Nothing wrong with him, just an ignorant old bastard.

Worked in Tesco. Over the space of several years I had a flasher in a beige Mac coming up to my till. I was only 17!

I also worked in the clothing and we had a large round revolving rack and one day we discovered someone had taken a shit under it!

we had one lady who ripped the lid off 75 boxes of L’Oréal hair dye because it had a coupon that would scan without having bought hair products!

One person brought in poo in an ice cream tub for us to “test” as he thought a product he bought in the store had made him unwell.

And finally a lady who was at least a size 20 bringing back a pair of size 10 gusset leggings with a shredded gusset because they were “faulty”

I'm gobsmacked by this thread!
It's seems that the majority of people are absolute scum and far outnumber the nice ones 😩

Too many to count. Most recently, got called "fucking pathetic" for being out of stock of a particular pasta salad.

I had a customer who not only used the changing room as a toilet, she also wiped her bum with a £40 jumper she hadn’t paid for. This was about 20 years ago.

Oh Lord, reading these posts made me feel sick. Some people can be such scum. 🌹

I’m shocked too, especially the bookie
ones.

Once this thread runs dry, another one for NHS employees would be an eye opener. Patient confidentiality permitting.

people dumping trolleys of food at the tills due to having to que

Many many moons ago I had a part time job whilst a student abroad working in a clothing shop.

One day a lady took in a large amount of clothing into the fitting room with her. Ten minutes later she left fairly hastily but left behind an awful lingering smell.

In the corner of the fitting room she had unceremoniously dumped all the items on clothing in a pile on the floor. So we picked them up and we're in the process of sorting and refolding them when we noticed that a couple of the t shirts were covered in large brown smears. It didn't take long to work out that she had had some kind of accident and wiped her arse with them. However, due to the texture we deduced that this was most likely a solid job and not a sudden attack of the runs, which left us wondering where she had dumped (scuse the pun) the offending product.

A search commenced. It was a bit like a rather hideous nose led game of hunt the thimble.

My friend found it wrapped in a t shirt stuffed behind another stack of t shirts near the changing room exit.

In fairness that day was one of the funniest and most memorable during an otherwise highly boring job.

Unfortunately the scumbags do seem to outnumber the lovely customers at least in the bookies it feels like it when it comes to money they are some very selfish people out there. But I did have some lovely customers one tipped me £50 when he a nice win he waited for me to go outside for a cigarette then gave it to me and said don't share it with those lazy mares go and treat myself he was a lovely guy he used to step in and defend me if a customer went too far he actually threatened to knock one out once if he carried being a twat lol

@rasellagirl I'm extremely cynical about people now after the scumbags I've had to deal with. I always feel sorry for their families if they treat strangers like that what they must they be like at home behind closed doors.

I’ve been physically assaulted at work, the perpetrator was given a police caution and barred by head office.

Customer service. Refused to refund an item as per company policy. Customer tried dragged me over the counter by my front of my shirt. Police were called and my parents came and got me as they had threatened to have me jumped on the way home. I was 18.

I used to work in a small building society branch where we had an armed robbery which obviously was not pleasant to experience. A few weeks later a woman was trying to withdraw a large amount in cash from her account. Large withdrawals needed advance notice to ensure we had enough cash on hand and also ID to make the withdrawal, this lady hadn't requested it in advance and also hadn't brought ID so we couldn't do it that day and we explained as much to her. To be fair she was perfectly understanding about it but her husband/partner who was with her (he wasn't named on the account) started raging and got quite aggressive. I stayed calm until he said 'maybe I should go home and get my shotgun, I bet you'd give us it then'. I pretty much shoved him out of the branch and told him he was banned from coming back (not sure if I could actually do that but I said it anyway). When I walked back in the little old lady who had been patiently waiting behind them (one of our regulars) gave me a hug, said I'd done well and then called him a tw*t which I'll be honest I definitely never would have expected her to say 🤣

I've a thousand stories to tell, but since covid the level of abuse and attitude has become worse., I can't believe we are at the point where we now wear bodycams at work. The majority of our customers are amazing people, that's what keeps me there, but I've heard about some stories from other colleagues or witnessed tears after incidents. I'd like to see tougher laws against abuse of retail workers.

Loving reading peoples experiences working customer service. Most of you must of had the patience of a saint because I know my words would have gotten me into big trouble.

@WickedWitchOfTheEast87
Lovely to hear about your nice customer 😍

I genuinely think everyone should have to do a year's 'National Service' in a retail or other customer-facing role.

In my experience, the worst people seem to be those who have clearly never done this kind of work either because they've glided from education into a Very Big Important Job, or they've married someone with one; or because they've never done any kind of work in their life.

During the pandemic, when l was working on my checkout, l had a couple come to my till. I had to ask them twice to stand on the social distancing lines at the front of the checkout while l dealt with the customer in front of them, and the man was clearly not happy.
Then as l was scanning his shopping, he kept moving too close to me again, and l had to say, politely, "Please can you stand on the lines at the back?"
He had a face like thunder. As l leaned across to push their shopping to the back of the till so they could reach it, he swatted the card reader straight at me.
Fortunately my reflexes are still decent (in my sixties) and l moved back quickly or it would have hit me in the face.
It takes a lot to upset me (I'm ex police) but that did. What kind of person would do that?

What I am at a loss to understand is why screens that were put up during Covid are being removed. Yes our local Boots does look bigger and airier but I think they protect the staff from the "customers" that have been mentioned on this thread

And all else I can say is a big thank you to all those who work in retail

Bookies are the best arent they!

Hello fellow staff..yes the aggression and entitlement if the customers is beyond comprehension at times.

I had a customer a while ago (who is notoriously difficult, l found out later) who bought a steak and a sauce to go with it.
Apparently it was on offer with the loyalty card, but my till didn't process the offer, and she didn't mention it at the time.
But then went to customer services to complain, saying "That gormless cow on the till didn't put my offer on."
We gormless cows don't process offers or discounts. The till does. And we can't be expected to know every one in store. If she'd mentioned it to me before she paid, l could have queried it.
But no, entirely my fault.
I had another one on an evening shift who literally screamed at me because l put a greeting card to one side to scan last (she had a lot of frozen stuff, and the till tends to get wet from condensation), so loudly that one of the girls from self scan came to investigate. She was beyond rude and nasty, I was mortified and upset at the way she behaved while l scanned her shopping, and after she'd paid, my friend commented "how rude!" to me as she walked away.
She demanded to speak to a manager, so we tannoyed for one.

She spoke to the manager for a while, then when she left, the manager came to my till. And announced "She was fucking batshit!"
Then came back ten minutes later for my friend and l "for putting up with that shit."

I worked years ago in a large furniture store. There were too many incidents to recount them all. A couple having sex in one of the roomsets, and discovered by one of the very young Saturday staff. Dirty underpants left in the beds in the roomsets (a regular occurrence). Pee and shite in the roomsets (again, a regular occurrence, horrible if you got your hand in it). Much abuse of staff if something was out of stock - a screaming, swearing woman demanded my colleagues name and made a grab for her identity lanyard, instead grabbing a large and painful handful of her breast. A man shouted in my face, backed me into a corner and threatened me because his order was delayed. It was a horrible place to work at times.