Bad customers...Bad Bad Bad Customers!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

We had purchased some new sinks for our bathrooms, got them home, and then didn’t fit. No biggie, I just figured I would return them to the hardware store.

As I had only opened one of the sinks, we repackaged it and taped it up and took all three boxes back to the store for a refund/exchange.

The odd thing though was when we got there the lady had to open ALL the boxes, even the ones I hadn’t opened. So I asked why and she said that was the policy because they have had people buy sinks (or whatever) and put the old one into the box and return it! I would NEVER have thought of doing something like that. First off I am too honest, but secondly that takes a lot of balls to try and get away with something that they ‘might’ open up! What do you say then? “oh how did that old crusty sink get in there? I must have put the old one in there by accident” I just couldn’t take that risk even if I was a dishonest mofo.

People constantly amaze and disgust me!

So those of you in customer service–what kinds of crappy things did customers try and pull on you? Amaze and disgust me with their antics!

2

Lesse, the one that always pops into my head is a lady that wanted to return some rotten apples. Hey, no problem, it happens. Here’s your money, have a nice day. A few minutes later one of the other employees commented that we haven’t had that type of apple in the store in at least three weeks.

We’ll get customers trying to return crab legs that are bad. Again, no problem, it happens. But where are they? You ate them? All 5 pounds that you bought? Couldn’t have been that bad then.

A few weeks ago, I had a customer ask if she could get her money back for a bad watermelon. Problem was, she threw it out and had no receipt. I felt bad doing it, but I kept picturing her going back to work saying “Go over there, all you have to do is say you got a bad watermelon and they’ll hand you $5.”
Gotta draw the line somewhere.

I’m sure these will be tame compared to what will follow.
Oh, wait, one more…The cheese lady. To make a long drawn out story short. We had a lady bring 3 blocks of cheese up to the register and eat them. She kept saying something about WEPCO (the utility company) coming in to pay for them. Oh, and when she ate them. She didn’t unwrap them first, she ate about a half of each block, plastic and all.
The cops got a hold of her boyfriend (who works for WEPCO) and he said that she has mental problems (and she had a flask in her pocket as well).

WRT the OP’s story. My brother was at Radio Shack and saw a customer buy something, walk out to his car and then come right back in to return it, claiming it was broken. The clerk, wondering how he managed to find out it was broken that quickly examined it and found that the SN on the box didn’t match the SN on the product. He was trying to return a previously broken one. I don’t remember all the details, but I think he did this a few times on one trip and the police wound up getting involved.

3

You don’t say.

Trying to return old/broken items in the original package (of the replacement item you just purchased) is an age-old scam. Happens all the time.

I’ve never heard of anybody doing it with an old SINK though.

4

I do support for a national company’s subcontracting service, and constantly get people who try scamming us. Because it’s a huge multinational company, we’ll often give them some sort of free service or token gift card just to build relationships or otherwise keep their service, but most recently, a woman called us because she swore up and down that she had an extended parts and labor warranty on her eight year old installation, but she didn’t have any type of corroborating paperwork. She didn’t even have our contract – which is incredibly common. People, keep your fucking contracts, especially on merchandise worth thousands of dollars – let alone her supposed warranty. Her service provider didn’t, either, and after eight years, we sure as hell don’t have it on site, either.

I explained it was her responsibility as the consumer to keep her paperwork, and that I couldn’t force our subcontractor to service her unit for free. I did, however, explain that I would request a copy of her contract from our off-site archive; ask our provider to look for their own copy, which they were already doing, anyway; and that if she could find her paperwork, we would gladly honor the terms, but she wasn’t happy with that, and called in a week later, trying to escalate the issue to my supervisor, claiming I was unprofessional and didn’t show proper customer service.

To top it all off, I got an email from our vendor’s GM stating that the week before, they’d decided to go ahead and give her free service for the next year and a half.

Even after she got what she wanted, she tried getting me in trouble with my supervisor. I was so angry I couldn’t talk for a couple minutes.

5

People are shits.

When I worked as an armed guard at the cellphone store, people who drove $500 cars would regularly come in and pay $300 monthly cellphone bills. Almost every week, we’d have someone whose service had been cut off because they owed $600-$1000 come in and get all angry with the staff because how dare the company cut off their service! “I need my damned phone!” A fairly good percentage of those people would try to get the service restored with the absolutely sterling argument of “I’m not paying you until you turn my cellphone back on!”. No, dumbass, they cut if off because you were NOT paying it.

A few sundays ago at Walmart (where I go for certain foodstuffs that are a LOT cheaper there than the grocery store down the street), there was a guy in the grocery area going from family to family telling this sob story about how he was unemployed and due to the bad times, even his church (one of the largest in town) couldn’t help him anymore, things were so bad. And people actually gave this shit money. When he came up to the register behind me, what did he have? A bag of charcoal, a case of pepsi, some chips, buns and some icecream bars. Motherfucker was planning a barbeque, and sponging off others to pay for it.

6

I had a customer come in with a cell phone, saying she had just bought it, and it suddenly stopped working for no apparent reason.

I took the back off and removed the battery (to check for water damage), and COFFEE came out. She swears she bought it that way.

A customer came in to buy an antenna. She didn’t bring enough money with her, so she asked my co worker to just go ahead and ring it up, and she’d come back with the money and pick up her antenna.

Coworker made the mistake of putting the receipt on the antenna, without telling any of us that it actually HADNT been paid for yet.

She came back in a bit later, and told me we were holding her antenna for her, and she was ready to pick it up. She had two preteen kids with her.

I saw the receipt, assumed that it had been paid for, since there was a receipt, and handed her the antenna. People often leave large items in the store while they shop in the mall, and come pick them up on the way out, so it was not unusual.

She said thanks, and walked away. Her kids remained standing in the store, looking back and forth between she and I, as she walked away.

Just as she got to the door, her son says, “Mom, aren’t you gonna pay for that…???” and she says, “SHUT UP!” and walked out, leaving them in the store.

I stood there for a moment, while it sank in. The kids went running after her. I hurried to the back room and asked my coworker if she had actually paid, he said she had not. By the time I ran out to the parking lot to find her, they were gone.

7

I used to work in a women’s clothing shop, and it was pretty common for women to buy an outfit for a special occasion, wear it once or twice, and then try to return it. My manager finally made a “No returns on special occasion clothes” policy. We also had a woman who was constantly buying things and then returning them after the season was over, that is, she’d buy something for spring, then return it after the 4th of July. Well, of course, it was unlikely to sell at that time, even if she HADN’T worn it, as we suspected that she did. So she was told that all of her sales, even on ordinary clothes, were final. She was not pleased, and vowed to take her business elsewhere. That was fine with us.

I’ve also worked in a convenience store. People were ALWAYS trying to scam us, and we had a lot of shoplifting going on. We also had the “buy something and then return it with the old ones in the package” people, especially with batteries. I’m sure that we would have had people try this with sinks, if we’d sold sinks. One guy, in particular, didn’t believe in paying for envelopes. He’d buy a packet of envelopes, go off with them, and then return the packet later on, saying that he didn’t need them after all. We got into the habit of counting the envelopes and writing the number of them on his receipt, and then counting them when he returned them. He was furious, especially when we pointed out that there were two or three missing from the packet. Again, he decided to take his business elsewhere.

And you gotta read http://notalwaysright.com/ for more stupid and dishonest customers, but mostly it’s stupid customers.

8

I’ve been through the same shit. Demand that I put executives on the phone, I laugh in disbelief and then I’m “disrespecting” them. :rolleyes: Or they do something careless and destroy something, but claim that it is a product defect or a software flaw, and when I say no, they’ve “never been treated so insultingly! He said it was my fault!” (hint: yup, it was. But I didn’t say it directly) Or they demand we compensate them thousands of dollars on a product that cost a couple of hundred, and when I don’t give it to them, they want my boss, his boss, the VP, the CEO on the line RIGHT NOW!!!

Fortunately, my company is pretty good about supporting us and giving us the authority to deal with stuff, but I still get burned every now and then. Like the guy who claimed he’d never been treated that way boo sob wail. My boss actually apologised and gave the asshole something, when a review of what happened would have made it clear that the guy was the source of his own disaster and he was fishing for money from the get-go.

9

I used to sell children’s clothing. Mothers would try to return Easter dresses after Easter claiming they didn’t fit, yet they were covered with chocolate ice cream stains. :rolleyes:

We also would find cheaper brand clothing in the dressing room where someone had come in, changed clothes and left the store wearing our clothing when we were busy during a sale, leaving their old ratty clothing in the dressing room for us to dispose of later. Once someone left leggings behind their child had taken a dump in.

10

I’ve seen a lot of people returning their older stuff in new packages. It’s an old scam. Just imagine if you manage yo get away with it fairly often.

Another one is buy something , come back in with your reciept on some other day, take a new one off the shelf and return that one. THat way you have your item at home, and a full refund.

Rent for free is another one that got so popular it caused several stores to change their return policies. Going on a camping trip? Buy the stuff you need from a store like Sears with liberal return policy. When you get back return it all and make some shit up. Need a laptop for a trip? A digital camera for vacation, a camcorder for a wedding or anniversery. Same thing.

11

American consumers are spoiled rotten. Competition has created an envirorment where companies are som afraid of offending someone their policies encourage crappy behaviour. I’ve seen the “create drama, get something” act too many times.

When I sold home PCs and laptops people would buy them for thier home business and then freak out and blame us when something went wrong.
One guy came in complaining about the laptop he bought a couple of months ago locking up. I told him about the standard warranty and that it would take time to have it checked out and repaired.
“Well what about my business that I run off this laptop?” all indignant as if it’s our responsibility.
“Who’s business is it?” I asked.
“Mine” he said raising his voice." I run my home business off this computer."
“I suppose if it’s your business you need a back up plan in case this happens. You bought a home computer with a home computer warranty. There are repair services that cater to businesses with much better turn around times”
“Yeah but they cost extra”
“I know. That’s the choice you make when you own a business”

12

Working as a manager at Home Depot returns were always a constant battle. Between customers trying to rip us off and managers failing to understand what was the right thing to do it was never easy.

Very common when I started people would steal stuff off the shelves then walk up to returns and attempt to return it, oh no receipt you can still get store credit. The balls some of those people had. They’d just pick up random valuable merchandise and pretend it was theirs. Meanwhile I’d be watching on camera calling the police to grab them at the door.

People returning used stuff was common. Get a cement mixer use it for the weekend then return it caked in cement. Like the OP’s story they’d get the new item and try to return the old one.

In Virgina the fight I had to take on constantly during the winter is people would by snow blowers ignore the 3 warnings on the box, inside the box and around the gas cap, that you must add oil before running it. They’d just put gas in them and run them till the motor seized and come back expecting to return the snow blower for a full refund.

Then there were always plenty of people who felt justified in buying a snow blower then returning it after each snow storm. It’s just like a rental center only it’s free! When it came down to them I just let it happen because at least they weren’t blowing them up and expecting a refund. They could have been legitimately dissatisfied. They few people I recognized doing this a second or third time I’d explain I would not accept a future return from them. They got all defensive and I took a ration of shit for it but I never saw them come back.

At one store we had to open and check every paint can coming back after several times people would buy the paint use or transfer the paint out of the cans then fill them with water and return them.

Power tools and warranties were always a fight. Yes it has a 3 year warranty no that does not mean you get a free replacement after 2 years 11 months. If the tool isn’t working and is under warranty the company gets to analyze and attempt to repair it. Then and only then if they can’t fix it do you get a brand new one. With those people I always wondered how they dealt with car dealerships, my car with 30K mines on it had a bad water pump I’d like to drop it off and pick up a brand new one.

I popular method of theft was to make stickers of UPC’s and put them over another products label so it would scan as a cheaper product. That $400 Hilti Drill is now a $40 Ryobi. And yes some of the cashiers were that oblivious.

13

We got warned to inspect all PCs that were returned before giving the refund because other branches had found out too late that the customer had stripped out all the internals - CPU, mother board, etc.

14

My supervisor was on my side for the whole ordeal, but was still trying to placate her as best she could.

I’ve been in my current position for close to three years, and until this past month, we were allowed to tell customers we had no supervisors. It worked out great because they almost never have legitimate cause for complaining, and are just trying to bypass us when we tell them no, but the corporate office has recently decided we’re supposed to allow them to take over calls, reasoning that *everyone *has a supervisor – bullshit! If we escalated to you, and then they wanted to go above you, would you pass them on to your manager? I think not. Where is the line drawn? – and all of us resent it, even the supervisor we’re escalating the calls to.

She is there to monitor us for quality. She doesn’t actually know our duties, protocol, or process, and after our customers whine, she just comes back to us to ask what is really happening, wasting everyone’s time. I really hope this is one of those policy changes that eventually falls by the wayside. It does nothing but create more work and frustration, and we’re already overworked and frustrated.

15

Holy fuck. What the hell is worng with people? THat seems like a lot of effort for batteries and a few envelopes.
Although we had a regular visitor ex employee who actually stole toilet paper .

16

When I worked at a college bookstore, we had one guy try to get a refund on graduation invitations, after commencement and with his name printed on them. Dude, what would we do with those?

17

I had a guy name-drop me with the general manager of the resort to scam a free room out of me – he said he’d talked to the manager and said manager had said to have us go ahead and put the room on, and the paperwork will come to our office later.

Um…hells no. No comp room without the proper paperwork on my desk first, or somebody with the authority to have one put on telling me to go ahead, and random phone guy doesn’t have it. I like having a job. It’s not like the guy who runs the resort doesn’t know our own procedures for comps. Never heard from that one again.

Nice try.

18

[QUOTE=Hades;12752894but the corporate office has recently decided we’re supposed to allow them to take over calls, reasoning that *everyone *has a supervisor[/QUOTE]

Our supervisor’s job is to supervise, not take calls from people who refuse to accept our decisions or our advice. Our company backs us on that, but my current and last supervisor have had this idea that, in extremis, if the customer refuses to relent, they will take the call. Soo…with my last supervisor, I allowed him to take a call where the guy insisted that if my boss wouldn’t take the call, my bosses boss had damn well better take the call, or his boss, or SOMEONE, but I was going to get someone else on the line RIGHT NOW. My boss took the call, ended up being yelled at for 15 minutes solid without being allowed to get in a word before he lost it and told the customer to “stop right now and allow me to speak or I’m hanging up”. After about 30 seconds, the customer said “I refuse to speak to you any further”, so my boss thanked him for calling and hung up. :smiley: After that, he didn’t ask to take any more of my calls.

My current boss took one of my calls a few weeks ago after giving me the same “I’m willing to take those calls if necessary” spiel. It was someone who just wasn’t going to accept anything unless we gave him a free replacement out of warranty, delivered today to a site 1,500 miles from our warehouse PLUS compensation for the time he spent screaming at us. My boss reiterated our normal out of warranty repair options and when the customer demanded HIS boss, my boss provided the main company phone number and ended the call. Since then, he’s backed off the willingness to take calls from me.

There are people who are going to keep demanding to go further and further up the chain until they get the answer they want. Businesses would be better served if they trained their people properly and then allowed those people to say “No, my supervisor doesn’t take calls. This is the answer, period” and then stuck to that answer. (Burns my ass when they call back and someone else gives them a different answer. I’m always very careful to look at what the previous people said and then stand by that answer.)

19

Damn! So when you opened the can of paint and it was filled with water, what did they say? See that is the part I have a hard time getting my brain around–what if you get called on your bluff? Do they run out of the store? Or claim it was a mistake, seems hard to explain water in a paint can!

20

They try to fuck us up the ass, do you find this surprising?
Case in point, 04 car with 73,000 miles. Way out of warranty, but this model has a known issue with the transmission, and the car company is buying transmissions and new cooling systems if under 100K.
Anyway the this particular customer a young princess came to pick up her car from getting a free transmission.
first she accuses us of stealing her CDs. Umm, no. The technician is Vietnamese and doesn’t listen to your music, and the porters all listen to Mariachi music. Then she says that we broke her CD changer.
Anyway my service adviser listens to her and comes to me. I tell him I will take the car into the shop and see what the fault codes say.
I read the fault code (internal failure in CD changer) and print the details.
I go out and listen to her complain, and then tell her that I want her to look at this print out.
“See right her these are frozen values that are stored the first time a fault is recorded. Your fault was recorded 1,300 miles ago and the outside temp was 89 degrees. He are 13 blocks from the beach, it has not been 89 here yet this summer.”
“But I was listening to it on the way here”
Whether you were or not is immaterial, the fact is this fault occurred long before you ever came in here, so I am sorry but you are on the hook for it."
She was not happy.