Strangest complaint you've ever received

[bdbfan]

Following on from the thread about ridiculous tourist complaints, what's the strangest complaint you've ever received?

I'll start, I run a small cafe, a lady ordered a toasted sandwich then asked for a refund because it was toasted. She said she didn't realise it would be heated in a new fangled thing and wanted something from the 90's.

I still have absolutely no clue about what she was after.

I worked in a coffee shop, there have probably been hundreds!

A woman brought back an empty plate saying she wanted a refund on her chocolate velvet cake as it was not velvet cake as the display sign said. She's said velvet cake was red, she enjoyed the cake but wanted a refund. Myself and the other member of staff were . She's had queues in a huge Saturday queue with an empty plate for a refund?!

Many, many, many people asking for their cappuccino to be re made without the foam .

An irate woman asking for a drink for a competitor coffee shop. I explained that wasn't us that sold it. She told me shed had it before. I told her it wasn't from us. She was adamant. I showed her out selection of syrups and she still didn't believe me. Told me just to make what she wanted!

A woman accused the staff of stealing her car keys. She knew they were in her hand at the till but after that they had dissapered. She was getting very angry. In the end we showed her the CCTV. There were no keys in her hand. Only her purse and her sandwich. Turned out they were in the lock of her car door....

A woman complained it was too cold in the store. She was sat by the door and it was snowing outside. I'm not sure how she expected people to get in and out without using the door.

I was moving into a new house, and while I unlocked the front door, the removal guy put a box down on the path with maybe 1 cm over onto the grass next to the path.
Neighbour comes ranting, screaming and swearing about us ruining her grass, and started throwing my stuff around which was being unloaded onto the road.
She did not stop even when I showed her the title deeds which said the grass under discussion was MY property. Apparently the title deeds were WRONG!
Surprisingly we never spoke after that (she was always a cow about everything)

A work one:

My husband returned home from work- he was installing some Ikea wardrobes. The wardrobes were 0.5cm taller than the ceiling height.
Client was annoyed that he could not (would not) install because it was only half a centimetre too small a space.

An OT rang up my work and said:

'listen Ive got a client who needs to sleep in his sling because it's better for the carers. The district nurse has said no absolutely not but I know you can so I want you to tell her that he can'.

I replied that no-one should be sleeping all night in a bed in a sling, to which she 1. wanted to complain about my attitude and 2. wanted to complain about the quality of the slings.

Our slings are excellent, but no child should be stuck having to sleep in a sling just because it's easier for the carers. I really thought she'd have known better.

I also used to work in a bike shop.

I'd packed someones wheel, and inside the wheel box put a jiffy with their other items in, I think it was some brake pads.

Got a phonecall 'you haven't included all my items, send the others'

to which I replied 'oh they're in the wheel box, if you open it up you'll see them'.

she went ballistic saying 'WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO OPEN THE BOX, I WANT A NEW PAIR SENDING NOW'

One had a customer bring back a box if matches it's said "approximately 200 matches". He had counted them and there was only 199 to wanted an exchange. He then got all the matches off the shelf and counted them till he found one with exactly 200 in.
He wanted us to send them all off the the supplier to be recounted and that the person that counted them should be sacked.
We tried to explain that it was a machine and it did say approximately 200 but he wasn't happy

My fella is a customer service manager and every year he gets the 'you have ruined my childs christmas, how dare you not deliver bikes on christmas day'

A friend of mine used to work on a farm, which was open to the public to come and see and feed all of the animals. She said she used to get complaints from people saying that they should not have pigs, and demanding that she move them somewhere else out of sight of the public. I know that in certain religions, pigs are not tolerated, but if you visit a working farm, would you not expect to see pigs?!

I work in a restaurant/coffee shop, once I was asked if I could not be so loud whilst making coffees (heating milk etc) as she had a headache...coffee shop probably not the best place for someone with a headache!
On another occasion, a lady requested another cappuccino as the one she had been given was cold. I made her another 'extra hot' one (as requested), she called me over as this one was 'too hot she couldn't possibly drink it' (obviously didn't get the memo that hot drinks cool down) so I made her ANOTHER one! And she left half of it!!

The general public are stupid.

I used to work in a shop selling handmade teddy bears (ugh). I had a man complain that the modern bears had a lump where their genitals would be. Ugh. I was 15 and looking back he may have been a pervert.

I once spent some time explaining how a bill was worked out, and in the end the woman I was talking to said she'd report me for being patronising! I said that was absolutley her choice, and if she wished to report me because she was unable to understand how things added up then I didn't have a problem with that. She never did. Another time I'd had to break down a bill and got the customer to write it down and add it up themselves. That "Eureka" moment came when they cried out - "now I see it - what a fool I am" and I replied - "what can I say - the customer is always right" There was a guffaw of laughter - and customer came back with "I deserved that! Thanks for your patience". But it's sad reading this thread just how many idiots are out there, and how nasty there are for no reason.

As I said I used to work in customer services for a mobile network, I once answered the phone to have a man loudly proclaim "I have my equipment in my hand and I can get get it to work, what are you going to do abou it?" I couldn't speak, I had to put him on hold!

I once had a parent complain that we always sent the text messages from school to her DH's mobile number and not to hers. I explained that the system automatically sends the message to the number noted as 'first contact' on the Data Collection sheet they filled in. I showed her the sheet (which SHE had completed) putting her DH as first contact and said I would amend the system changing her to first contact.

She said 'But surely you would have known DH is often in meetings and can't always use his phone?'

Of course, silly me

I worked in a cafe, there was a huge fire in basement so I had to evacuate all the customers quickly, smoke was quickly filling the dining area. One couple were very annoyed they were having to leave before they had finished and demanded to speak to the manager as they weren't going to leave on the say so of just a waitress. To cut a long story they took that long to leave, we all ended up being treated for smoke inhalation.

From royal correspondent Jennie bond that she wasn't getting special treatment in....... Primark!

We ran a product demonstration day (demoing slings, shower chairs etc) and invite a lot of occupational therapists. We often have guest speakers.

We have feedback forms and one woman said 'good course but why on earth did the guest speaker have high heels and makeup on'

Oh and when I was about 5 I hit the next door neighbours fence with a little plastic spade, the type that come with a bucket.

They rang the police, police came round and were gobsmacked. Ended up giving them a telling off for wasting police time.

First one was when I was working in a store, and they did free gift wrapping (box, tissue paper, ribbon. Pretty standard and the same at every store ). I was wrapping someone's gifts for free and she complained that my gift wrapping wasn't "magical enough" and that she'd go to another branch of the store (the other side of town) because their gift wrapping would be better. I did explain it would be exactly the same but she didn't get it. Oh well ... she was wasting her own time.

Second is - a friend organises a big dinner on Friday night, which is free (but you can donate), you just have to tell them in advance that you're coming so they know how many people to prepare for. One Friday, dozens of people turned up without having given notice, so the food had to be spread out quite thinly. One person (who hadn't booked, or donated), emailed to complain that he hadn't had enough food. RUDE.

also, we had a bunch of really rude customers in in a store I worked in (e.g. they were mucking around for about an hour, then suddenly decided that everything had to be done NOW and their purchases put through STRAIGHT AWAY - they threw money at a colleague and said "that should make you work faster"). A customer I was serving was in the changing room, trying on some clothes. Rude customer demanded that I get my customer out of the changing room, so she could try on some clothes (my customer hadn't been in their long). I politely told rude customer to get lost.

I used to work in a well known video rental shop. One evening a very cross bloke brought back a video he claimed was faulty. We checked it on the shop telly....nothing wrong with it.

He was getting very irate and insisted it was faulty and he wanted a refund. When asked what the actual problem was he looked at us as if we were mad. 'Its the picture....it's not working properly. It's in black and white. Only old films are in black and white so it must be faulty.'

Yes ladies, it was 'Schindlers List'. I think we have him a refund just for giving us a good laugh. And stupid-person anecdote.

I work for an insurance company and a few years ago I had a complaint from someone regarding our rules on No Claims Discount not being clear online. He had a very valid point so after a fair few calls with various departments I managed to get the website updated so that everything was x

Stupid phone!

Completely transparent. All good, made both ours and the customers lives easier. Fast forward about five years, and I dealt with a complaint from someone saying that the website wasn't clear enough with regards to NCD. Because I'd had it updated I knew it was and was always able to direct people to where the info was. During the course of the call I checked the notes on this customers policy and there were notes from me from years before, it was the same bloke! I took great satisfaction in telling him that not only was the

Third time lucky!

Info there but it was there as a direct result of his complaint years earlier. He denied all knowledge.

Not sure my story was worthy of three posts though, sorry!

Working in woolworths as a teenager I was approached by an absolutely irate man. He was FURIOUS and dragged me over to the pic and mix jabbering and pointing at the container with quality streets in. There were no purple caramel ones left and he was fuming at this. He was that minute going to go home and call trading standards unless I opened a box of quality street and let him pick out the purple ones. I was 16 and therefore just stared at him in a teenagery way as he threatened me with the police for false advertising. Thankfully I was rescued by an older colleague so just backed slowly away and watched from behind the umbrella stand as he reaching a shouting crescendo and then flounced out the store.

I have always thought since that the introduction of boxes filled with just purple quality street some years later must have been like all his Christmases coming at once.

Oh so many. There was the customer who ranted and raved for half an hour then accused my manager of abusing him and being threatening (his wife even called to complain about his treatment. This stopped when said manager said that several customers had said they felt intimidated by the man) our crime? Not being able to get his watch back from the watchmaker any faster. Said watch company is based in Japan.

Then there was the one who knocked me to the floor when I was pregnant as I tried to get through the massive queue to the counter to serve someone and, you know, reduce the queue.

Then the woman who sent us a letter, hand delivered, calling us a bunch of cunty bitches and accusing us of swearing at her (never happened) and insisting she would never come back. Obviously it being an anonymous letter we'll never know if she did!

The one who swore up and down that we hadn't told her earrings are non returnable and when we pointed to the massive sign on the wall stating this and the back of the receipt where it also explained the returns policy, claimed we hadn't given her a receipt and the signs hadn't been there last week.