So, I work in a bookstore.
A couple of weeks ago, a guy came in and asked if he could return a couple of books. We asked for his receipt and told him it was our policy to only give store credit. He didn’t have his receipt and wanted cash for it. Well, he managed to get it, with an admonishment to save his receipt next time.
Today. He comes in around 5:30 (meaning I’m off in a half hour after a long day of work). Opens his pack and pulls out two hardcover (read expensive) books. Says he bought them for his mother but she doesn’t want them or something. That he bought them that morning from another employee who he described. I asked him for his receipt. He searches a while and doesn’t come up with it. I told him out policy was only store credit, so he asked for a manager. I was more than happy to pass it off.
So I call someone else over to deal with it (who can be a hard ass at times). “B” looks in the computer to find out whether we sold those books this morning. Turns out: 1) the first book we hadn’t sold any copies of in three weeks 2) the second book we had NEVER sold any copies of.
Now, these books had our tags on them, so “B” says “I’m sorry sir, but our computer says we haven’t EVER sold this book, what’d you do, take it off the shelf” (and FYI, our price tags have a special system and don’t look like other bookstore’s tags). The guy gets really defensive, starts screaming about how we’re accusing him of stealing, that he has money, he doesn’t need to steal, etc etc.
So “B” calls one of the owners up to handle it. Now the owner is a really nice guy, but he looks at the situation and comes to the same conclusion “B” did. Fact is, we never sold the book. We can’t physically ring the sale without it going into the computer. Yet it had our tag on it. So the guy, in fact, had picked it up off the shelf and tried to “return” it, which makes my job a living hell because I’m the one who has to return books to publishers…if the computer tells me we have a book which in fact we don’t, then I’m going to go nuts looking for it, which it was just this screwball fucking with our inventory to get a couple of bucks (and this is an independent bookstore, not a chain, so we don’t have a lot of cash to throw around, very little at all in fact).
So, the end result is that the owner gave the guy the money for the cheaper book, basically to get him to go away (the whole time the guy kept saying he would never ever come back and owner was saying "yes well maybe that’s a good thing). At least now we’re on to him, but goddamn! If they’re going to rip someone off (not that I’m saying they should)…can’t they pick the stores that can afford it!!! And what gives him the right to yell and kick and scream and thoroughly make a scene? A customer even came up after that and told me she knew (or felt, she didn’t actually know for a fact…) that he was full of shit. I mean, it was pretty obvious to everyone around that he was lying, but just couldn’t let it go and walk out before it go ugly.
I had the damn shakes for a half hour afterwards, and I wasn’t even dealing with the guy most of the time!