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Original poster

Aibu to ask for the most "WTF" complaints

532 replies

HouseholdPlantMurderer · 17/08/2019 10:49

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.

Aibu to ask for the most "WTF" complaints
OP posts:
Weepingwillows12 · 18/08/2019 08:16

I inadvertently was once one of these people. Opened a tub of supermarket own brand ice cream whilst staying at my mums. It was all brown but not past its expiry so I took it back and politely asked for an exchange and or refund. Supermarket obliged. Got home and mum asked if I had seen her tub of frozen stew she was going to reheat for dinner.....

madcatladyforever · 18/08/2019 08:27

Worked in a couple of Brighton clinics so no specific complaint but Brighton people are without doubt the most whiny entitled miserable people on earth and it actually affects your mental health working there. I'm moving hundreds of miles away in a couple of weeks time to get away from the horror of it.

Fluffycloudland77 · 18/08/2019 08:31

God I hope your not moving to Leicester then.

Cannyhandleit · 18/08/2019 08:41
  • there was salad dressing on the salad garnish!
  • there was a pink hair on her plate. None of the staff had pink hair but the customer did!
  • there was children in the restaurant!
  • that we only accept GBP and not USD as cash payment because when he was in Mexico they accepted his dollars.
  • the chef didn't make the sauce the exact way he makes the sauce when he's at home and then that the chef wouldn't come over to the table so he could explain to him how to make it the way he likes it.
  • their fav dish had been taken off the menu, how dare we do that when they are regular customers........ dish had been taken of the menu 2 years ago!

Oh I could go on!!

NeverSayFreelance · 18/08/2019 08:53

Oh another time, it was my personal fault that someone hadn't received their postal vote in the mail. I explained that they had all been sent out and it should be on route. "But I go on holiday tomorrow and I need to vote!" Sorry but there's literally zero I can do about that. Goodbye.

ilovewelshrarebit123 · 18/08/2019 08:55

Another M&S one, this complaint really got to me and I had a moment after I'd hung up. ☹️

Old lady used call the store in the morning and staff would kindly get her shopping together for her and a taxi would go and collect it and pay. M&S do not offer this service, but staff did it as she was a regular customer.

That morning a member of staff had dropped dead on the shop floor and the staff were rightly devastated and left the shop floor. Staff from another store had been called in to man the shop and politely told her on the phone they couldn't help her that day and explained why.

She called me in customer services and absolutely blasted me, she was so vile and hateful and said she'd starve to death! I'd tried to calmly explain it was just that day they couldn't help her but she wasn't having any of it.

pinkstripeycat · 18/08/2019 08:56

Customer bought a travel insurance policy online excluding Spain amongst other countries. When he claimed he found he wasn’t insured as he’d gone to Spain. He asked what excl. on his policy meant. I said excluding. He went mad saying how was he to know that, it could have meant exclusive! Yep! Still the same thing

Cannyhandleit · 18/08/2019 08:58

Oh once while working in a restaurant in the NW of England a customer complained to me that I wasn't serving him in and English accent...... I'm Scottish.
Another time in same restaurant a customer complained about the way my name was spelt..... he decided it was because I'm Scottish and Scottish people can't spell 👍
I have since moved back to Scotland!

SaskiaRembrandt · 18/08/2019 09:07

When I was 15 I had a summer job working for a boat hire company - one rather bonkers customer complained that the river didn't smell how they expected it to and this had spoilt their holiday.

DH had a client whose computer wasn't working. Except, the machine was fine, the problem was that they were typing the password incorrectly. They thought they shouldn't have to pay him for the call out because this wasn't their fault and the system should have realised what they meant to type.

scarecrowhead · 18/08/2019 09:11

A parent complained that school hadn't come round to get her ds out of bed and she was too busy.

Mamagin · 18/08/2019 09:48

In the old days I used to work selling tickets for the underground. Many people couldn't understand that if you bought a weekly ticket it was for 7 days, and thought it should include two Mondays....
Had someone shrieking at the head biking clerk that they wanted to speak to his superior. His answer was 'well, God's not available, so you'll have to make do with me'
He was a lovely man, and unfortunately collapsed and died in the ticket office at Victoria station, with a queue of passengers banging on the window for tickets while his colleagues desperately tried to resuscitate him.
On a lighter note, also used to work for the police, and had a phone call complaining that they had bought a house next to Brands Hatch, it was incredibly noisy and the police should go and stop the cars racing.

MrsKittyFane1 · 18/08/2019 09:52

I have a WTF retail service one too.
New boots for DH bought by me in the sale. The one on display clearly tried on by many people and was marked. The one in the box was pristine.

Asked at checkout - can I return if they're not the right size? Yes
Please could you make a note on the receipt that the display one was marked/scratched? Yes

Boots did not fit. I returned them the next day and was told no refund because we'd scratched one of the boots (the display one) and they wouldn't be able to resell it.

I showed the receipt where colleague had written and were told 'anyone could have written that, you've clearly worn/scratched/marked them'. Long conversation followed. Manager is busy, nothing I can do....

The manager appeared, looked at boots and refunded. Hmm

ErrolTheDragon · 18/08/2019 09:52

Customer service role - customer had a load of minor complaints. Told him how I would resolve them. Got a complaint to the big boss as apparently he wanted to complain to me and all I did was was “have an answer of everything and fix them”

ConfusedGrinsounds like an idea for a Monty Python sketch.

Zaphodsotherhead · 18/08/2019 09:54

I am hugely reassured reading this thread. I'd been thinking that it was just me, but now I realise that my customers are a mild mannered lot on the whole; that I am just doing my best, and everyone in retail or similar services has the same issues!

Cannyhandleit · 18/08/2019 09:58

Customer - I want to speak to the manager
Me - I am the manager how can I help?
Customer - you can't be the manager. Get me the manager.
Me - I am the manager sir, how can I help?
Customer - you can't be the manager, he must be the manager! (Points at the supervising male member of staff)
Me - he is not the manager, I am. Clearly you would like to speak to male member of staff, carry on.
Customer (to my male member of staff) - I am not happy with my meal I would like a refund.
Male supervisor - no problem sir, I'll just get my manager for you.

Animum2 · 18/08/2019 10:25

I work in the settlement part of share dealing and the majority of complaints are that we've taken too long to complete the trade and when we've checked it's because their documents haven't arrived by post and we have had instances where the post has arrived over a week after they have been sent and that's our fault apparently

yellowsun · 18/08/2019 11:04

We were in a restaurant whilst on holiday this summer. We’d ordered calamari for our starters. It wasn’t great to be honest- a bit over cooked and small portions. We could hear a couple complaining on a nearby table and assumed this was why. No. They were telling the waitress that the dish was clearly not calamari as there were tentacles in in. I shit you not. I was so close to finding a picture of the squid and showing them. I’ve no idea what they thought calamari was. They looked so smug when the manager refunded them.

HeyMonkey · 18/08/2019 11:34

Just out of uni I worked at a call centre.

Very angry male customer on the phone wanting to speak to a supervisor, both of whom were female. Customer insisted that they can't be the most senior staff members there, isn't there a man they can speak to?

Female supervisor says to him that the cleaner is a man, would he like to speak to him? 🙌

iklboo · 18/08/2019 11:46

There's someone on another thread wanting to complain that the optician receptionist was chewing gum.

QueenOfTheKibble · 18/08/2019 11:59

A parent complained that she had missed a performance of a show her child was in because she hadn't known about it, and wanted us to re-run the show for her benefit.

I explained that the show had been advertised in at least six newsletters and an email out to parents.

She said "I haven't got time to read those."

timshelthechoice · 18/08/2019 12:10

This thread is classic. People suck.

riotlady · 18/08/2019 12:12

I used to work at Past Times which, if you don’t remember it, sold mostly faux vintage crap, lots of “keep calm and carry on” cushions and the like.

Anyway we sold a copy of a vintage advert for fudge printed on a metal plaque that you could hang up on your wall or whatever, it was clearly from the 1930s or thereabouts with a cute little boy on it.

This lady would not believe me that we did not sell the fudge itself, no matter how many times I explained that the advert itself was the item for sale, showed her the price tag on it, etc. She was bloody CONVINCED that I was maliciously hiding this fudge from her. I tried to suggest that she went to the Thornton’s opposite and she threatened to sue me for breaching trading standards.

riotlady · 18/08/2019 12:26

I also had an eBay buyer once who bought my old MP3 player. I had planned to send it by one of the parcel companies, tracked, as it was more expensive than the clothes I usually send. He insisted that he wanted Royal Mail, signed for. I said that was no bother, but it meant that he wouldn’t be able to track it in transit, it would just tell me when he signed for it.

So I sent it and he sent me an angry message saying he couldn’t track it. I explained again that you can’t track those deliveries. I linked to the information on the Royal Mail website. He accused me of lying about sending it, so I sent him my proof of postage. He then started insisting I ring Royal Mail because they’d obviously lost it and that’s why he couldn’t track it. I suggested he ring Royal Mail and they would explain the situation to him and got a torrent of abuse back, accusing me of being a scam artist and deliberately unhelpful.

The item arrived the next day and I didn’t hear from him again.

Lostandinsane · 18/08/2019 13:15

@EverTheConundrum
Sorry, I didn't explain properly. The customer had stipulated they wanted X salad but without x,y and z ingredients or similar. The order was queried/double checked and they were adamant Confused

PP who said someone complained they had fixed all their issues - MIL had this once. Apparently she was a smartarse know it all because she "just had an answer for everything"

Cocolapew · 18/08/2019 13:59

I could never work with the public I'd be in jail for GBH, you all must have the patience of a saint Halo

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