Aibu to ask for the most "WTF" complaints

[HouseholdPlantMurderer]

You have ever received?

I will start. Not the most ridiculous one, but in my top 10.
Woman demanding that I check in the back for a certain colour of a dress she wanted otherwise she will have me fired. After 5 minutes of her moaning she can't get it anywhere and me trying to explain that it's because it's not even made in the colour she wants, I went. I needed a toilet anyway 🙈

A customer ordered spicy italian sub. It's on a picture. It has a description there, he watched me to put pepperoni and salami in. Came back few minutes later FUMING that it's not vegetarian.... Sent a complaint to a head office about it too.

There was one lady who brought an item back to our shop because she'd 'got it home, looked at her receipt and realised she could get it cheaper from another shop'.

I didn't actually deal with her, a much more patient colleague did, who explained that she should have checked the prices before she left the shop (actually before she bought!) and we couldn't refund as we'd have to waste the product off as it had left the shop and we couldn't vouch for the storage conditions.

She got her refund, for goodwill purposes, but I still think my colleague was a saint not to burst out laughing in her face.

@DeRigueurMortis that reminds me of my friend who works in a pub. The pub is in a residential street but got a load of complaints from a neighbour who moved in recently. The pub has been there for years.

Doing ovulation bloods for a ladies dog - results showed the dog had already ovulated so it was too late.
Lady tried to sue us because her dog didn’t get pregnant.
(She was offered an appointment within the hour of ringing us - so no delay in sampling or results that would suggest she COULD have got pregnant if seen any quicker)

No offence, but pet owners are so bloody difficult sometimes.

'you shops- you're all just out to make money!' :o

My mum is generally outraged that coffee shops just want to "make money" and charge £2.50 or whatever for a cappuccino when she could make one at home for 20p!!!!! . She still goes, but then sits there grumbling about what a rip off it is.

With the person making her her coffee, bringing it over, taking it away, washing it up for her, and giving her a nice warm cosy room and sofa to sit on, AND having to actually you know, survive and pay their own bills. These arguments make no difference. She considers herself highly intelligent too!

I do also have a WTF one from the customer's POV though. I bought some ankle boots in Hobbs (ages ago to be fair, they may have improved) and the strap fell off THE NEXT DAY. Took them back for a replacement or refund, and the assistant said (in a kind of "duh you moron" way), "These are fashion shoes, they're not supposed to be worn all the time!" WTF!

I live near a ruin of a Roman Fort and Amphitheatre. It’s beautiful and peaceful and the site has lots of history information including an audio tour. There’s the remains of the huge stone walls that enclosed the fortress and the very deep and steep concentric moat defences. Really interesting and nice place to have a peaceful walk with the dogs. There’s no getting away from the fact that it is a ‘ruin’, like a lot of Roman sites obviously. Not apparently obvious to the tripadvisor reviewer who complained that it was ‘boring, there’s nothing here, all the walls are falling down and they’ve just left the bricks lying around. Needs tidying. Oh and the grass hadn’t been cut.’

All of my best/worst ones are from eBay.

• customer buys some darning mushrooms with painted tops (to look like toadstools). Returns them because the dots on the top are the wrong size.
• customer complains that only half of her order arrived. I can't tell you how difficult it was to explain to her that she had placed two separate order with two different sellers and I couldn't send her an item which I do not sell.

-customer moans loudly that their order didn't arrive. Asked him to confirm the address and it turns out that the address he gave was years out of date. This was my fault apparently and I did it on purpose. -customer moans because while she was very pleased with her order, I had failed to find her a "gentleman friend" in my area as requested. I am a haberdasher, not a matchmaker! I did once work in a café and got punched in the face because there was a power cut and we had to close, but I've found that people are much ruder and more aggressive when they don't have to look you in the face.

At the nursery I worked at we had a parent complain about the continuity of staff in their child's room, whoever worked in that room seemed to regularly struck down with d and v. It was something we were really concened about, despite repeated deep cleaning it was still happening apprently striking the adults more than the children. The manager couldn't work out why it was happening, the excluaion period for staff once symptoms had stopped was extended to 72 hours to make sure we weren't passing bugs between ourselves meaning staff from other rooms were covering a lot and our regular bank staff were in more than normal too all whom seemed to get sick too.

One morning I heard one of the youngest members of staff being laided into by this parent. The previous day their child had vomited repeatedly after lunch and was clearly very unwell. She had asked if the parent needed anything of the child's and offered to get it from their room as we couldn't allow the child in after being sick. The parent had come in early and was expecting to leave their child as they had work to make up from the afternoon they had missed at work the day before. I went out and reiterated that we had a 48 hour exclusion policy so we couldn't accept the child until Monday if they were symptom free all weekend. The parent insisted that they always brought their child in as soon as vomiting stopped and that I should phone the manager to clarify as I was clearly wrong. I phoned the manager who was off sick having been covering in the room a couple of days previously. We both agreed that we had found the source of the nursery's staff sickness problem. I spoke to the parent again pointing out their child still looked unwell and was much better off at home, for the parent to respond that it was fine because they knew we gave the child lots of cuddles if they didn't feel right and they would be just as happy with us. Sorry still can't care for your child today see you next week and the manager will phone you as soon as she is well enough to do so.

The original complaint the parent made was eventually followed by a written apology from the parent following a long conversation with the manager and the school nurse. The staff sick leave maricolusly leveled off once we stopped regularly stopped cuddling a child who wasn't feeling quite themselves hours after they stopped vomiting.

My sister used to work for a very small luxury holiday site. They had a couple stay with them who was house hunting in the 'local' area. South West apprently is the local area the house they had booked to veiw were a good three to four hours drive from the holiday site with no direct route to them. They had stayed before and always loved the site so knew what to expect and where it was positioned. They had booked for a week for their house hunt.
The first night of their stay my sister's husband who was on call for mantinece that night got a phone call to say their unit was squeeking. He goes out to investigate. There was a squeeking sound like nothing he had heard before. It happened that a better unit was free for the first part of their stay so he gets the keys to move them. It had a better view, hot tub and more space. But they refused to move and insist he sort out the random sqeeking sound there and then. He does what he can but concludes it is not a problem he can solve in the dark and was disturbing the units on either side too much. Again offers to move all their things for them and to set them up with a complimentary bottle of champagne for the trouble. They refuse to move and say they will make the best of it. He leaves them to it but says to call again if they change their minds and want to be moved to the other unit.
The following morning my sister comes in for her shift to find they've left a furrious not on the reception door demanding a full refund and left to go home. She passes it to head office who authorised the full refund. The unit is throught checked over inside and out and no source for the squeeking is found. Two staff members spend the night to ensure it wasn't something that just happened at night, it's nothing. The unit is let a couple of days after they leave with no further complaints.
A new complaint then lands on my sister's desk from the couple asking for their petrol costs to be refunded as they had had to cancel viewings due to having no sleep and additional compencation for potentially having missed out on their dream house. My sister was glad to be able to pass the request over to the regional manager. The review they eventually left is amusing reading. They didn't get any additional compensation, other than a bottle of bubbles next time they stayed at b one of the sites.

-the interest rates for savings are too small
-the interest rates for loans are too big
-we're not open on Sundays

But unless the interest rate on the account tracks the base rate, surely this IS within the bank’s control? As is its opening hours? Obviously not your personal control, but it’s hardly unreasonable to expect a customer-facing employee to pass on feedback.

IDon;tDrink that reminds me of when a client rang us to say her son had died (we were executors) and I said to her ;I am very sorry for your loss' and then she made multiple complaints (ultimately to the Legal Ombudsman) saying that she did niot know how we knew her son had died (Um- she had told us) and that we had implied he had committed suicide.

It was bonkers but terribly sad, because she had clearly lost her reason.

My old local pub had a complaint put in by an American group after their GAMMON wasn't beef 🙄 there was steak on the menu but they'd ordered gammon, egg and chips?!

I worked for a national bus company and would answer the phone to complaints. I was always polite. One lady rang to harangue me about a recent coach trip to the Trafford Centre. It was because when they got there the shops were too expensive and she wanted her money back.

Yet weeks before we had a particularly useless driver who could not manage to find his way into the said Centre when the passengers had to go to the front of the bus to assist him. Zero complaints.

I also ran a home support business many years ago when a client called me to complain about a support worker who was unsuitable. Apparently her thighs were twice the size of mine. Another complaint about an excellent worker was that she looked like an "escaped prisoner". "Dont send her again" was the most common complaint.

I actually lol'ed at the chips being too potatoey 😁

Oh I've remembered the best complaint submitted against me. Taking a small group of 2 to 3 year old's to the toilets from outside play. One boy was desperate for the toilet so we were going into the primary block to get there ASAP rather than walk a little further back to nursery. Dad comes to pick up, say x is desperate for the toilet, we'll just be a moment, his going in first. Dad picks him up and tells me not to worry they'll be home soon and his already signed him out of nursery. Offer to let him in to use the adult toilets with his son but his already speeding towards to car park.

Toilet the other couple of children and go back out to play. Another member of staff is waiting to relieve me because the manager wants to see me in the office. The poor boy had wet himself in the car and dad had phoned up to complain about it. Apprently he'd been denied access to the toilet because he wasn't ready when dad wanted to leave and he should have been taken to the toilet sooner so not to delay dad. Dad was earlier than normal picking up and we'd headed to the toilet the second the request had been made. All that came of the complaint was all of us carrying a form for parents to sign if they wanted to take their child without them being toileted.

@Zaphodsotherhead I've had that where I work. Apparently the scratch card/lottery ticket is definitely a winner and to check again. And again. After 2 or 3 attempts I tell them to ring Camelot as there's nothing I can do and we can't override the lottery terminal!

I used to have a large holiday let apartment in a city centre (not an AirB&B). Let it out to two large families once, all was going well until I was wakened at 1.30am by a phone call from them. They had run out of hot water for the showers and could I come round right there and then and fix it?

There were 13 of them in a 6 bedroom apartment, which had a massive hot water tank but not a bottomless one and there were 3 showers in total including one electric one which was still working perfectly well. They had all come back at the same time together and started showering and having baths.

To say they got a bit of grumpy response is an under-estimate!

I organised a private event at a royal palace (outing to say which one). A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the attendees.

One of them emailed me afterwards to complain that during the champagne reception he had been lightly splashed by the spray of one of the fountains.

Back in 'Ye olde days' portable cardiac monitors were used in general wards and placed on bedside lockers.
Cue one miserable so and so moaning that 'How come he's allowed his telly and I'm not .
He wouldn't listen to an explanation and got his family to make an official complaint.
This was about 40 years ago but I still think about it when I hear folk ie.Judge Judy, saying that 'You can't argue with stoopid'

I was once given a real dressing down by a customer for not knowing where the newspapers were.

When she finally took a breath I was able to tell her I was a customer too. Which should have been plain, since I wasn't wearing any sort of uniform.

I worked in Brantano when I was 16/17. A customer shouted at me because children's shoes stop at size 6 and her son was a size 7 so she had to buy adult shoes.

I used to work in a supermarket and was sweeping up round the checkouts when a customer walked a little too close so I politely asked her to be mind the broom. She said "What bomb?!" I tried to explain that she must have misheard me but she spent several minutes insisting that I had said there was a bomb and then she insisted that I call the manager. Thankfully he supported me. She was a regular customer, and I had never had any problem with her before, but some months later she came into the store and tried to physically start a fight with one of my colleagues, who had no connection to her whatsoever, so I suspect there were some mental health issues.

I was once asked to refund a 'lucky dip' lottery ticket because 3 of the numbers had come up a week earlier. I declined as the rules prohibited it (at the time, no idea if that still stands), and then tried to explain that last week's numbers had no bearing on this week's, but he was not happy. He didn't get the refund though!

I used to work at McDonalds and someone sent their Big Mac back because the cheese wasn't melted enough.

Women in my hotel the other year complaining loudly that she'd booked 'Majorca' and had been sent to 'Mallorca' instead which she'd 'never heard of'.

We have so many customers on holiday come into the small village ‘supermarket’ where I work. We are classed as a convenience store we are that small. Apparently it’s our fault that we don’t cater for their needs for the week/two weeks they are here, rather than basic foodstuffs that the locals buy regularly. Capers and ‘Green & Blacks’ hot chocolate are what I’ve been shouted at about this summer. Last year apparently we didn’t hold a large enough selection of Gin and their summer holiday was ruined. We normally have four different brands, and had got a couple of local ones in for the summer.
Most bizarre thing happened to my DM though. She was a headteacher and had several written complaints from parents to governors about being seen hanging out the washing on a Saturday morning as it was unbecoming of her role in the community.

A friend of mine worked for John Lewis many moons ago and a customer rang and complained that her John Lewis furniture had not been delivered in a John Lewis branded van (she wanted her neighbours to know where she had got her bookcases from)