To those who worked on sales or retail, share your abusive customer stories

[JaeDee884]

10 minutes ago, hey_yo_ said:

Man that’s terrible! I guess I’m lucky I only have to deal with bouncing checks, greedy clients and complains why their orders are delayed when our company policy explicitly states that orders arrive at least between five working days excluding Saturday, Sunday and non-working holidays from the day the order was placed. 

 

I hope you’re safe and know basic self defense and can quickly call 911. 

we always have two people on minimum, 3 on Fridays. we call Thursday nights fight night as its the day everyone on wealth-fare gets paid. I get my counter-hand to call the cops and stay behind the counter during any encounter if I can. I'm lucky in being a big fella so with most situations just presence can be enough to defuse a situation, and the ones who aren't defused can usually just be restrained.

[captain_to_fire]

Just now, JaeDee884 said:

I'm lucky in being a big fella so with most situations just presence can be enough to defuse a situation, and the ones who aren't defused can usually just be restrained.

Sucks for me then I have the same height as Linus ?

[Automobili3XF]

I'm quite possibly one of the only persons that had no issues with customers when working on retail, for 2 years i worked at country shop and all of the customers were very polite, most of them knew exactly what they wanted, it wasn't rare to drink chimarrão and chat with the customers when we had the time. 

My boss was one of the nicest persons ever to me, every now and then he would throw parties after our turns and pay for the whole beer.

The money wasn't bad either, but my current job pays me more.

[Crossbred]

I worked at a mulch retail/wholesaler.

Guy calls:

”Hey, this mulch I got the other day is supposed to be black but it’s turning white.”

”Well did you make sure the conditions were right when you laid it?”

”Yes, and it’s turning white. Are you guys gonna come replace it for me or what?” 

“I’m fairly sure we can’t do that, but-“

”Well it’s your product, so you have to back it up, right?”

”We don’t make the mulch sir, we’re just a distributor. Contact the company who made the mulch.”

”No, it’s your product and your problem! I want you to come to my house and replace my mulch that you sold me!”

”Yeah, I’ll tell my manager, sir.”

”And what’s he gonna do?”

”I don’t know, I’ve been working here less than a week.”

”Well whatever.”

Turns out he had put the mulch down right before a rain came, which made white fungus grow on it that disappeared the next day.

[SlipperyPete]

I work in a bestbuy computers department. this means we deal with people who are prepared and willing to spend lots of money and expect good service. The issue is that some customers feel very entitled because of the money they are spending and treat people like shit. this story is not about me, but something i witnessed firsthand. 

 

one of my co-workers is a very sweet 30yr old~ish women. she is a bit on the shorter side and is a very sweet lady, but typically doesnt take shit from anyone. there was a male customer this day who was very very rude. if you have ever shopped at a bestbuy you would know there are counters with registers that we stand behind when checking out cutomers. this man spent the entire time she was helping him talking down to her and commenting that he hoped he was getting good service because "women are not good at this stuff" during the checkout process there was something he didnt understand. so she was attempting to explain in to her. normally having a customer step around the counter is a regular thing that happened to show them our screen to better explain something. this customer forces his way around the counter and is being very aggressive and yelling because he was confused about the way that products bundle.(rather than one sku showing all the items for a price it shows all the items separately and then discounts them all to show savings for buying a bundle) so he forces his way behind the counter and pushes her out of the way (it wasnt a shove but more of a forcing his body behind pushing her out of the way in the process). this is when i stepped in and offered ti finish the transaction. (trying to kick him out could have made him lash out violently) so i stepped in the girl stepped away and the man treated me much better than my fellow employee and we got him out the door very quickly. he was asked on his way out to not return to the store by the general manager and after some yelling he left the building.

 

TLDR: sexist man verbally assaults a coworker and ends up forcing his way behind the counter in a very aggressive manner

[SlipperyPete]

1 hour ago, hey_yo_ said:

Sucks for me then I have the same height as Linus ?

same

[JaeDee884]

20 hours ago, SlipperyPete said:

I work in a bestbuy computers department. this means we deal with people who are prepared and willing to spend lots of money and expect good service. The issue is that some customers feel very entitled because of the money they are spending and treat people like shit. this story is not about me, but something i witnessed firsthand. 

 

one of my co-workers is a very sweet 30yr old~ish women. she is a bit on the shorter side and is a very sweet lady, but typically doesnt take shit from anyone. there was a male customer this day who was very very rude. if you have ever shopped at a bestbuy you would know there are counters with registers that we stand behind when checking out cutomers. this man spent the entire time she was helping him talking down to her and commenting that he hoped he was getting good service because "women are not good at this stuff" during the checkout process there was something he didnt understand. so she was attempting to explain in to her. normally having a customer step around the counter is a regular thing that happened to show them our screen to better explain something. this customer forces his way around the counter and is being very aggressive and yelling because he was confused about the way that products bundle.(rather than one sku showing all the items for a price it shows all the items separately and then discounts them all to show savings for buying a bundle) so he forces his way behind the counter and pushes her out of the way (it wasnt a shove but more of a forcing his body behind pushing her out of the way in the process). this is when i stepped in and offered ti finish the transaction. (trying to kick him out could have made him lash out violently) so i stepped in the girl stepped away and the man treated me much better than my fellow employee and we got him out the door very quickly. he was asked on his way out to not return to the store by the general manager and after some yelling he left the building.

 

TLDR: sexist man verbally assaults a coworker and ends up forcing his way behind the counter in a very aggressive manner

I’d have just kicked the guy out. All trying to resolve it for him does it enforce that he can use this kind of behaviour. And yes I’m not just saying that as I do regularly kick people out for aggressive behaviour at my place of work, kicked a ringer (fella working on stations) out last night who was carrying on because we were sold out of Bluetooth speakers (petrol station) then when told we had none out back became very violent and shit. So I call over my other staff member to work counter as I removed him myself

fuck assholes they get nothing from me. 

[Real_PhillBert]

Ten years or so ago, I worked at a local hardware store. About 5 min to close this couple walked in and we asked if there was anything we could help them find, they responded that they were just browsing and not looking for anything in particular. Then proceeded to simply wander around the store for about 20 min. At 15 min past close we all started asking the couple again if they needed any help with anything, still nope. At around 30min past close they finally walked out the door.

 

The manager was a bit upset and made a snarky comment something to the effect of "if you're going to hold us all 30 min after closing you might as well buy something." This lit off the guy who traded stupid remarks with the manager for a couple rounds before threatening to kick his ass. 

 

At this point, we called the police, who arrived just as he was getting into his car. They stopped him and took statements from everyone. We were going to have him trespassed from the property so he could not legally return, but somewhere along the line one of the officers ran the plates on the car he was getting into, stolen car. 

 

At this point the couple both got arrested for being in possession of a stolen car, and we decided not to press any charges for trespassing as he was going to jail anyway and this way we could all avoid the headache of filing charges.

 

Long story short; if you're going to be an asshole, don't do it with a stolen car.

[SlipperyPete]

4 hours ago, JaeDee884 said:

I’d have just kicked the guy out. All trying to resolve it for him does it enforce that he can use this kind of behaviour. And yes I’m not just saying that as I do regularly kick people out for aggressive behaviour at my place of work, kicked a ringer (fella working on stations) out last night who was carrying on because we were sold out of Bluetooth speakers (petrol station) then when told we had none out back became very violent and shit. So I call over my other staff member to work counter as I removed him myself

fuck assholes they get nothing from me. 

so i understand your point completely. i wanted to very badly. but i was afraid to leave her alone with him. i couldnt do it myself because i am not a manager and even if i tried i am a relatively small guy. this man was being physically aggressive so i was considering the safety of my co-worker first

[Misanthrope]

Customer abuse I can more or less deal with. What I couldn't deal with was with managers not having my back and understanding I was trying to do a shit job: Sometimes you just flat out don't want a customer's business. The famous motto of "Customer is always right" assumes the customer is also a reasonable person able to deal with difficult situations as an emotionally developed adult.

 

Once you start screaming, talking in circles, making rude remarks, etc. Then no I don't tolerate you and I will tell you to get the fuck out, I will hang up your call, I will fucking charge you full early termination fees, whatever.

 

Most managers understand this and know that you just can't win all fights and that a loyal employee shouldn't be penalized but many of them pretend they would have been perfect and wanted to hit you up on performance metrics, give you warnings and reprimands, etc. Just for dealing with assholes. To me that's the bigger asshole and the one I would just walk the fuck away from. I don't care if it looks bad, I don't care if it's bad PR you don't take the side of the irrational child trying to grind out all of their frustrations on a random, minimum wage fucking employee.

[Volbet]

5 hours ago, JayKay3000 said:

I always found it funny when people left these notes, at least if people came to the counter hating the food and asking for their money back I could accept their complaint, do my job and let them be on their way while suggesting other places I knew. When they left notes and ate the food it was more funny than abusive.

I had similar experiences when I worked as a waiter.

people would eat half of their meal and then complain about the food being too bad to eat and demand a different dish, a free dessert or free drinks.

 

In the end the restaurant made it policy to make customer a different dish and then charge half if the first dish and full price for the second dish.

[PhantomJaguarr]

A customer that went through my line dropped all kinds of F-bombs toward a certain ethnic group in my area. They like to buy tons of items on sale and illegally re-sell them in their stupid liquor stores for profit. If I had chuckled and a customer of that mentioned ethnic group was in earshot, RIP my job. I agreed with everything the cussing customer said though. 100%

[captain_to_fire]

Are there anyone in the forum who worked as customer care representatives of wireless carriers? 

[Mutoh]

I think the funniest experience I had wasn't really with a customer of our own but he thought he was so maybe that counts? I worked at a storage place and I was basically tech support/front of house/groundskeeper/accountant and whatever else they throw at me so I dealt with hilarity on the regular. 

 

Once we had a 'customer' call and ask what locker he had and what he owed use because he forgot his number and hadn't paid his bill in a few months because of whatever the heck he was claiming. So I let him tell his story, tell him 'No Problem' and start looking up his name in our system. Went through the list, couldn't find anything. I asked him if maybe he had it under a different name so he gives me his wife's name. Look that up as well, zilch. Looked them up under former tenants as well and I literally had nothing. At this point I realized he probably called the wrong storage place so I went through the spiel and told him that I couldn't find him in the system and asked him if he had the right place.

 

This apparently was lingua non grata for this man who's demeanor changed from pleasant and friendly to HAVEN'T SEEN MY FINAL FORM in an instant. First he starts yelling and accusing us of stealing his stuff and wouldn't accept that he might've called the wrong place. I explained to him multiple times that he wasn't in the system, we don't delete things from the system and we have multiple backups on site as well as in the cloud so there wasn't a single chance that he had an account with us. I even offered to call my boss (who was on vacation at the time) to see if he had any idea of what was going on but he just wasn't having it. Finally he decides he had enough and that I'm some lying scumbag thief and he said he would pop by our shop with a baseball bat to sort things out if that was better. 

 

At that point, I literally had enough. Well I had enough beforehand but at this point I wasn't having it so I told him that he was an idiot, had the wrong place and if he thought he was such a tough guy, then by all means drive up here and then hung up. Definitely wasn't in a great mood after that but I forgot about it and continued with my day.

 

What makes matters better is 20 minutes later, I get a call from the same number. Picked up the phone and lo and behold, the guy had the wrong place and said he was sorry for all the trouble. I told him to fuck off, I wasn't having it. 

[PhantomJaguarr]

A customer kept trying to take advantage of me with a rain check, trying to get 20 packs of pork loin ribs that were on sale when the limit was 10 (was actually 4 at other stores.) She said her daughter who was with her could get a separate rain check because "she lives with her grandmother." Nope, BS. And then she said she could just go to her car and then come back in the store to get a second rain check. Nope. Wanted to make a second purchase to get it. Nope. 3 strikes you're out. I got my manager to shut her down further.

[terrytek]

Not exactly horrible, and it didn't really exactly happen to me but I was working at Journeys' (shoe store) and this guy came in full blown stoned to the fucking max. like i hope he didn't drive to the mall this stoned. He tried on so many pairs of shoes its fucking crazy. And he ended up like just trying to do shoe flips with the pairs he tried on and made huge screeching noises all over the entire store. I was in the stockroom, cleaning it up, but I heard the entire ordeal. 

 

Also I had to deal with a customer who came out flat out drunk, wanting to return a pair of Doc Martens. He didn't even have the original box (he had a reusable walmart bag instead), he didn't have an email receipt on file, and it was past return policy (60 days without an email receipt), and hell, he didn't even have his Fucking CREDIT CARD, which he used to pay for the shoes in the first place. And when I was helping him, his breath smelled so heavily of booze, mainly whiskey. I hope the fuck he didn't drive, he was like 3 times over the limit. And this was 2 in the fucking afternoon, who gets this wasted so early? Thank god I got fired before the Thanksgiving rush/ Black Friday ordeal, because I was not willing to deal with such shitty customers (and ps i got fired for the stupidest reason. i didn't show up to work one day even though I didn't know, but that's a story for another day).

[funkeemunkee]

I work as a fuel attendant in the state of Oregon, and for those of you that are unaware it is illegal to pump your own gas in Oregon or New Jersey. This means people like me and get to do it for you all day dealing with BS all the time such as getting a gun pulled on you. That's right getting a gun pulled on you. This happened sometime in November and since I work at a 24/7 gas station and I was doing the 6AM - 2PM shift 5 hours of which I'm alone I get a lot of rude people. Such as one morning where around 7 someone came in and asked for propane and I said no as I was the only one there and told them to come back at 11. He then comes back EVERY SINGLE HOUR and at 11:30 he comes so I walk over to help him where he said "oh look who came off of their lazy fucking ass to finally help me" where I replied with something along the lines of " fuck off I am not serving you propane and I recommend you get the fuck off of this property before we call the cops" at this point a 2nd gentleman showed up (thankfully) to get propane so that he can go hunting. It is here when the (1st) guy goes to his car puts his propane in and pulls out a handgun and says something along the lines off "you ain't so fucking tough now are you now that I have a fucking gun are you now pump my fucking propane before you get a bullet put through you" this is where the 2nd guy grabs his rifle out of the back and points it at the first where the first proceeds to get in his car and run.

 

TLDR; couldn't pump someone's propane for 5 hours when I can he gets pissed I tell him to fuck off he "leaves" pulls out a gun gets a gun pulled out on him and he runs like a bitch

 

I have a lot of other stories as something happens almost weekly it seems like...

[captain_to_fire]

This didn’t happened to me but my friend who is working as a customer care rep for a wireless carrier said that she received the worst insults ever in her entire life. Granted, wireless carriers are one of the most hated business entities in many countries for data overages, unbilled charges, flaky reception and pathetic coverage and hidden charges. So I kinda understand why many people are raising voices when calling CS reps but I don’t think personal insults is the way to go to solve customer pain points. 

[Gareth rico]

Hi there im from south africa and we have the exact same problem with customers its basically the same no matter were we are i guess, i worked in retail for about 2 1/2 years i had 4 different retail jobs and in all of them i had customer complaints in most them, but the worst was i worked in a electronic store the customer told me that i sold him a him a faulty product and that it was a Chinese piece of crap and that he will never buy from the shop again. But what most people dont realize that most things are outsourced to china. In my opinion i think people that are in retail should be treated fairly and because at the end of the day we are the people that make the sales at the end of the day we are the ones that make the money for the big bosses. Thats why i left my job recently about 4 days ago because i had enough of people making me feel small in life. You guys probably feel the same as i do.

[funkeemunkee]

On 12/5/2017 at 9:48 AM, Gareth rico said:

Hi there im from south africa and we have the exact same problem with customers its basically the same no matter were we are i guess, i worked in retail for about 2 1/2 years i had 4 different retail jobs and in all of them i had customer complaints in most them, but the worst was i worked in a electronic store the customer told me that i sold him a him a faulty product and that it was a Chinese piece of crap and that he will never buy from the shop again. But what most people dont realize that most things are outsourced to china. In my opinion i think people that are in retail should be treated fairly and because at the end of the day we are the people that make the sales at the end of the day we are the ones that make the money for the big bosses. Thats why i left my job recently about 4 days ago because i had enough of people making me feel small in life. You guys probably feel the same as i do.

Nice! Hope your next job is good