Hilariously stupid customer stories

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Setup: the debit pads where I used to work had a little slot in the bottom where you could insert your credit card and pay if you had a chip on it–sort of a pre-PayPass thing.
Kythereia: stands behind the counter, doing nothing in particular

Customer: comes up with a lottery ticket in hand

Kythereia: Oh, hi! I can check your–

Customer: vaguely absent yet mulishly determined look, picks up our debit pad and starts jamming her ticket inside

Kythereia: …miss, that’s our debit pad…

Customer: It’s not working!

Kythereia: I can help you over here–

Customer: Why isn’t it working?!?

22

I dunno about you folks, but if I were that angry, that stupid, and then found out they were selling T shirts about me, I’d be on my way over there with an AR-15!

23

:eek:
So they’re willing to risk high medical bills, abnormalities major or minor, and long-term health problems for their child so that they can have ‘cute’? Cripes.

24

These are some great stories. I’m so glad I don’t have customers anymore - not that I never had to deal with a crazy source or subscriber at my last newspaper, but nothing quite like this.

My most memorable customer was the last one I ever had: it was closing time at my last shift at a copy place in Illinois, around 11 pm. A music grad student had been in the store for hours, making about 400 copies in the process. By the time he finished, it was probably 15 or 20 minutes after closing time. He came to the register and pulled out a stuffed coin purse. He was about to leave town and wanted to dump all his loose change on me.

The bright fellow hadn’t counted the change before coming to the store, though. So he poured all the change out on the counter (I should have made him count it all himself), and it turned out he had about $19 worth - which wasn’t enough. :smack: I took most of his change after he came back from the ATM but refused his offer of 2 or 3 singles and insisted he use bills to pay for most the order. I couldn’t have fit that much change in the register to begin with.

25

Me, as a bank teller: Good afternoon, sir, how may I help you?

Moron: I want to take money out of my savings account.

Me: OK, I just need to see your account number.

Moron: It’s 1234 5678.

Me: OK, that’s not coming up on my computer.

Moron: 1234 5678!

Me: Nope, nothing. What is your name?

Moron: I. B. A. Moron.

Me: Huh, that’s not coming up either.

Moron: What the fuck?!? Give me my money! I have a fuckin’ account here, asshole, give me my fuckin’ money!

Me: Let me try your phone number.

Moron: It’s 55 fuckin’ 5-12 fuckin’ 34! Give me my mother fuckin’ money!

Me: That’s not coming up either. Are you sure you have an account with us?

Moron: Yeah I have a mother fuckin’ account with you! You’re stupid! Give me my money! See, here’s my AT mother fuckin’ M card! Here’s my name, I. B. A. Moron! And this is you, Bank of Boston! See that? Bank of Boston! Bank of mother fuckin’ Boston, mother fucker!

Me: Um, sir, did you notice the sign on this bank before you walked in? The one where it says Mutual Bank?

Moron: Oh. Um… Stupid mother fucker! storms out

26

My mother used to work at a department store. Back in the 70’s or 80’s a Japanese man came in to buy a pair of pants, well instead of going to the dressing room to try them on he just dropped his pants right there in the aisle to try the new pants on! I’m sure a lot of frantic redirection ensued.

Also, I used to work at a toy store, an older Japanese couple came in buy a doll for a relative. It was some sort of doll that would talk or move. But before they would buy it, they wanted it taken out of the box and demonstrated. I checked with the manager, he said go ahead and do it. So I probably spent 30 minutes on them, had to find batteries for it, get it out of the packaging, all that. I don’t even remember if they bought it, I think they did.

27

I’ve got to assume they don’t actually know anything about premature births, besides, “They’re really tiny.”

28

I know I’ve told this one before, here:
I worked in the gourmet cheese section of a nice deli. We carried a grating cheese called Sap Sago. It’s green due to an infusion of herbs. A (blonde) customer wanted to know why it was green. “Because it comes from the moon,” says I, the kindly (snotty) nineteen-year-old.

Her jaw drops.

“REALLY!?!”

:eek: :rolleyes: :smack: <-- me, not her.

29

A number of years ago, I worked in a grocery store. One afternoon a man comes in and demands to talk to the meat department manager. I got the manager for him. He begins to spout off about how he had gotten some spoiled meat the night before. So the manager asked him where it was and/or if he had brought the soiled meat back. The man said “no, we ate it anyway”. :rolleyes: Well, of course the manager told the man that he wouldn’t refund money without the “bad” meat being returned, especially since it was eaten anyway. The man goes off on a tirade about how he was going to call the consumer frauds division of the better business bureau and issue a complaint. The manager looked him straight in the eye and as calmly as possible said “Would you like their phone number?” The guys whole attitude changed instantly and he walked off with his tail tucked firmly between his legs. :stuck_out_tongue:

30

'Nother one that’s been posted here before, here’s the very short version:

I had a guy come in asking how to connect his fax to his computer.

Much back-and-forth with me explaining that his little consumer fax didn’t have that functionality. He was so insistent, I got out the service manual and spent quite a bit of time confirming that there was no RS232 upgrade available for it, etc.

“I know it’s computer compatible!”

“Sir, did the salesman who sold it to you imply that it was?”

“No, but most faxes are black or white, right? This one is computer coloured.”

“Excuse me?”

Turns out that I had spent twenty minutes going in circles with this bozo because he chose a facsimile machine based on the idea that it had PC connectivity because it was beige.

31

That happened to me too! But, it was even better… he photographed the screen, printed it out, looked up our fax number on our website, and faxed it to us! The end result was so poor between his crap camera and crap fax machine as to make it entirely illegible. (The original issue was that he claimed our software activation wasn’t working right… he was typing it wrong. In several places. Even though we went over it about ten times.) The look on the person’s face delivering the fax was priceless.

One typical stupid call is this:

“Good afternoon, [name of software company]”

“Hi, I need help with [some other product that we don’t make or have any relation to], it won’t work right!”

“Okay… which product of ours is involved?”

“None of them, but they take too long to answer their phone.”

“Uh…”

<cue whining about how we’re technical and we should be able to fix it and why won’t you help me etc etc>

32

Makes me wonder who he was, and what he knew about the house! :eek:

33

Wow! That’s a satisfying story to read, though. The good guy wins and stuff.

34

Hey, this one happened today:

Me: “Good morning, [name of software company]”

Him: “Hi. I have a client that hired me as a technical consultant. I’m setting up a new computer for her, but your software won’t activate. It says it can’t be installed on another computer.”

Me: “Okay, what’s the serial?”

<checks>

Me: “Has she uninstalled it from the old computer?”

Him: “I have no idea.”

Me: “Well, we’d need to find out if she needs to move the installation or if she’s looking for an additional license. She could give us a call back, or I can hang on the line if she’s there.”

Him: <confused> “Um, ok. What if she wants to move it?”

Me: “Well, she’d first need to uninstall it from the old computer.”

Him: “How does she do that?”

Me: “Just like most other programs, through Add and Remove Programs.”

Him: <confused> “Is that under File?”

Me: “It’s in the Control Panel.”

Him: “And she’ll know what that is?”

You’re a technical consultant?!

35

Sure. Because healthy, full-term babies just aren’t cute enough. :rolleyes:

36

Tales from the paint desk…

I used to work at Home Depot, in their paint dept. I was really really good at matching paint colours (this was before digital , automatic paint matching systems were common).

Lots of funny stories about that, but a couple spring to mind:

  1. It was springtime, and people were restaining their decks like mad. A woman comes in and asks for a redish shage of green for her deck. I honestly though she was joking and said … "You mean brown? "(red+green=brown). She blew up and started yelling about being ina hurry, and how we should just get our asses in gear and make her reddish green deck stain. Finannly a manager had to get involved, and we asked her to bring a sample in, advising her to unscrew or remove a board with the colour she wanted (She couldn’t find anything close on our colour charts). Fuming she left, and came back a few hours later, triumphantly wielding a plank. It was pressure treated wood (green) with worn red stain on it. The green hard grains showed through in patches through the worn red stain (on the soft grain). Even when we explained to her what the situation was, she had a very hard time understanding it.

  2. A person brought ina photocopy of a rose petal (black and white) and was amazed to find out that we couldn’t reproduce the original pink tones.

  3. We sold an upscale designer brand of paint that cost about $50/gallon. One night I was working the desk and a woman came in, picked a colour and had 2 gallons of the designer paint mixed up. She looked me square in the eye and asked “Can I return these right now as mistints (they were perfect matches), so I can get them off the mistint desk (at $7.50/gallon)”. I walked with her to the returns desk, where she returned them, then Itook them back to the paint desk, opened them up and put a random squirt of blue into one, and red into the other. She FREAKEd and started yeling for a manager. When the manager came by, she claimed I PURPOSELY mistinted her painst. I looked the manager square in the eye saying “That’s right, I did - she returned them as mistints, and now they are.”

The manager got the whole story from the woman, the returns clerk, and myself. He luaghed and said. “Ma-am, you are welcome to those mistints if your want them, but if you want custom matching services, you will pay full price.” She left SO angry.

Regards
FML

37

Congratulations! You are my new Doper crush… :smiley:

38

I have no idea why, but this one gives me the giggles. It reminds me a bit of Grandpa Simpson.

39

Wow, that’s exactly like the old joke about the drunk on his hands and knees under the lamp-post, looking for his pocket-watch. Except that it actually happened and can’t be excused by alcoholic befuddlement.

40

Another time, I was working as a service writer at a Chevrolet dealership in the service department. We did a lot of work on the county vehicles, especially if they were still under warranty. One day, a guy brings in a Chevrolet Caprice police car with the complaint that the air conditioning didn’t work. On the work order that he brought from their shop, one of the COUNTY mechanics had written “Does not work in the O-F-F position”. :smack: