Jackass customer stories

The BBQ Pit
1

I’ve seen a few threads about horrible customer service. I’ve experienced that myself as a customer, and I regret to say that over the years I’ve spent in retail I’ve given some bad customer service a time or two.
Like others I see part of the problem as the message being sent out to companies is that price is all. We want better customer service but we won’t spend a dime for it. I also see an increasing number of youthful employees that aren’t being taught to be responsible and do a good job, by their parents or by management.

In this thread I’d like those who deal with customers to share their stories of crappy customers. Not the 75 or 85 percent of customers who are good to great. I’m talking about the increasing percentage who abused the system and began to expect that it was their entitlement as consumers to continue to do so.

Ever since someone decided “satisfaction gaurenteed or your maney back” was a great slogan customers have gradually come to expect more and more from retailers.

On with the stories.
The rent for free scam. Have you noticed that return policies are changing. Last time I looked stores like Best Buy had started a restocking fee on certain items. This is not because they are greedy bastards. Its because of the increasing practice of people buying something they have no intention of keeping and then returning it for a full refund when they are done “useing it” Prime candidates.
Camcorders for special events. Camping equipment for the summer vacation. LAptops for a buisness trip or during term paper time. Big screens for superbowl or world series. Lawn and garden equipment for a special project. Of course all these things can be rented but why rent if you can use them for free buy abuseing return policies for your own benifit. Well because it’s unethical, and dishonest come to mind. IMHO it’s a form of theft, but since it can’t be prosecuted , people don’t see it that way.

Other more specific stories,

  1. A customer calls and wants help setting up his home network. The problem is that the equipment he is having trouble with is stuff he didn’t buy from us. I would still be willing to help but the problem is I’m not familar with the items and just don’t know the answer to his question. When I explain that to me he gets really irrate and threatens to bring all his purchases back and tell my manager that it’s all my fault. When I try to explain again that he didn’t buy those items from us and I truly don’t know the answer to his questions he screams at me. “Okay sir, bring it all back if you think that will help.”

  2. I have a number of stories of people wanting to return things that are months old. A customer who wanted to bring back a computer that was four months old and exchange it for a better one, got nasty and lied trying to get employees in trouble when he and his girlfriend were told they couldn’t do it.
    My favorite was a woman who brought in a cordless phone she had bought just about a year ago and wanted to return it because she wasn’t really happy with it.
    I explained to her that a year was to long and she couldn’t return it. She looked surprised and said “But I live about an hour away and I don’t get here very often.” I explained that when she decided an hour was too far to drive to return it she had decided to keep it. She was sincerely dumbfounded at what I was telling her. Not nasty or belligerent. Just really surprised. " Are you saying I can’t return this phone?"
    “Yes maam that’s when I’m saying”
    She; “I can’t believe you’re telling me that”
    Me; “I don’t know how else to explain it to you”
    She asked if she could speak to a manager and when the manager came to explain it to her they opened her box only to find she didn’t even have all of the phone parts in there. Poor little bonehead.

  3. Another fave is the guy whose computer wasn’t working right. He hadn’t bought any in home service so I asked if he had called the manufacturer’s help line. I even offered our own help line although he had declined the service. He got a little impatient and said, he had spent his $700{top of the line right} there in our store and expected us to take care of it and didn’t want to call anyone else.
    He; “Tell you what Dan, I’m going to be home this afternoon and I expect somebody to come out here and fix this computer today.”
    There was a slight pause as I evaluated his statement.
    “Sir”, I said, “No one is coming out to your house today to fix your computer and there is nobody in this store you can talk to that will make anyone come out to your house today”
    Another pause.
    He; “No one is coming out huh Dan?”
    Me; “Thats right sir”
    He; “Okay, what should I do?”

Alright all you retail angels of customer service. Share your stories.

2

These abuses will persist as long as the stores do nothing to combat them. I used to work at Wal-Mart, and our policy was that we would take literally anything back at any time for a full exchange.

This unwavering rule led to some absolutely absurd situations, like a repeat offender who would bring items that we did not and had never carried and exchange them for brand new items. We lost thousands after thousands of dollars to this one woman, and the manager went up there and authorized it every time. Abso-fucking-lutely absurd.

Old people seem to be particularly bad about exchanging “faulty” items - half of the time it’s because they just can’t figure out how to use them. That’s fine, but another big trend was old people returning things that they had bought years and years beforehand and exchanging them. I distinctly remember one guy that brought in an old tape-based answering machine that looked like it was from the late eighties - it had that fake wood paneling and everything that was fashionable at the time, and it was a brand that we hadn’t carried for years. He claimed (senility or just plain mendacity?) that he had just bought it a few months ago, and that it had stopped working. It was obvious that it had just broken down with age, but he walked with a brand new answering machine for free.

3

“I’d like to return this Commodore 64…”

4

Unbelieveable. I had heard WalMArt was changing their policies because of abuse, especially in home electronics. I bought a small CD player there as a gift and the clerk made a point to tell me what the return ppolicy and warrenty were which I assumed was a way of avoiding that kind of abuse. How long ago did you work for them?

5

I have symathy for anyone who works in these stores and has to deal with some of the clueless customers you get. And i think the people in stories 1 and 2 in the OP are obviously morons.

Story 3 is a little different. I only moved to the US about five years ago, so i don’t know whether it’s always been the way it is now. But when i was younger, back in Australia, if you bought an appliance from a big-box store (you know, the Aussie equivalent of Best Buy, or whatever), and if something went wrong with it, you could take it back to the store to be replaced or repaired. The store accepted its role as an agent of the product manufacturer, and took responsibility for fixing the problem if something went wrong within the warranty period.

Now it seems that stores literally renounce all responsibilty for the quality of the merchandise once it’s out the door. The customer is left either having to actually pay the store extra money at purchase time to get some sort of extra coverage, or having to ship the product back to the manufacturer in order to have the terms of the warranty fulfilled.

Was there ever a time in the US when these retail stores actually accepted some responsibility as agents of the manufacturers, or has it always been like this?

And, for the Aussies, is the situation in Australia still like the one i described above, or have they followed the American example?

6

The biggest customer problem’s I have deal with email as thats my secondary job. Its simple no frills just a C&P from our database. Its usually based on an order, which we clearly say in email the time frame when they will receive the tracking # via email. And it never fails at least two times a day, someone will email and ask for a tracking number the day after they placed the order.
But I have to say the worst are the people who have no subject on the email and then everything is in caps and rainbow colored with fonts so large I have to maximize my email client to read the damn thing. I have to admit on a few of those I just trash it and blame it on the spam catcher :wink:

When I am stuck answering the phone, what really kind of bothers me are the people who try to tell me thier life story, and we try to keep all calls under five minutes, which is damn near impossible when someone explains why they need the purchase starting from the year 1945 when they where born. Only one thing worse then those people though, the one’s who talk your ear off then say “Well thanks for the help but I need to look around some more before I make a purchase”

7

LOL, thats a good one. I’ve had more than one customer who screwed up his computer or let his kids screw it up and then just wanted to exchange it. The problem began when years ago Packard Bell decided to take back computers returned by customers as defective. Most of the time it was user error and there was nothing wrong. I talked to the district manager of Canon printers and he said over 95% of all the printers returned had nothing wrong with them. Consumers and stores treated computers like they were a big boom box and when they turned out to be more complicated than that customers would just bring em on back.

The guy in my story was just a liar and a crook. We had another customer who would buy computers and use them for a few weeks and return them just inside the return period or argue with a manager until they relented and gave him his money back. He did this several times at several stores in town until everyone refused to sell him another computer.

Another one of my favs is the lady who was trying to return some lawn and garden item she hadn’t purchased from us. She was talking to a very nice salesman who was trying to explain to her that we didn’t carry that brand. She finally said “I don’t care where I bought it. I just want someone to give me my dam money back” Some loser manager gave her a refund on something she never bought from us. The problem was the home office had a ppolicy that if any customer complained to them that customer got whatever they asked for no matter how unreasonable it was. Managers knew this and would just cave rather than have a customer go over their heads.

8

You raise a good point. Yes there was a time when that kind of customer service was built into the price and people expected it. Gradually the wholesale clubs gained popularity and people began to shop based more on price only. Stores in order to compete were forced to drop prices and drop services in order to maintain profit margins. Customers were happy to get lower prices but didn’t always make the connection to less service.That brought in the extended warrenties and in home service packages. I’m happy to say that the independent store I work at now has two on site techs who are authorized for warrenty repair for several major brands that we sell. Our problem now is that too many regulars will stop in or call for free tech advice and take up time they should be spending actually repairing.
Computers are different animals because most of the time the problem is software not hardware so it isn’t a matter of replaceing a defective part. In story three the problem was that he insisted on same day in home service. Pretty unrealsitic. If he had brought the unit in we probably could have fixed it no problem and often did that as part of good customer service even though we were sales not tech support.

9

That happened to me all the time. Instead of just telling me the problem they would give me their history of computer use and a day by day history of this particular computer. Several times I would cut them off and tell them I couldn’t answer their questions if they kept talking, or that I didn’t need all that info.
We also had people who would come in and look at our merchandise and try it out, take up our time, and ask a lot of questions, so they could then look for a cheaper price elsewhere. In other words they wanted the customer service but didn’t want to pay a dime for it.
Hey, didn’t someone say that before?

10

Monday night, June 18, 2005, nearly 10 p.m. I am living out my last hours in Evanston, Illinois, and concluding my final shift at the copy shop where I have spent the last two months, trying desperately to keep myself from starving. I have little in the world beyond the clothes on my back, all of my possessions having been shipped to New York, to whence I will return in less than 48 hours. A regular customer of the shop - a graduate music student - has spent the bulk of my eight-hour shift in the side room, using the self-service copier. He’s made hundreds and hundreds of copies and has been impressed by my ability to mentally calculate the price of his work (number of copies * 6 cents with a 10% discount). No one else has been in the store for hours.

As 10 p.m. and the end of my last shift approaches, the student at last completes his labors and approaches the counter. He’s made 518 copies for a total of $29.97.

“I hope you don’t mind if I give you a lot of change,” he says.

He’s not the first person to say this to me today, so I indicate that I don’t mind. Customers often say this, and usually they mean they’ll give me a dollar or two of change for a small purchase. I think nothing of it. I’m still thinking nothing of it when he pulls out a small, black change purse which, as you’ll see, must have had the density of a neutron star. He unzips two zippers and turns the wallet over, unleashing a gushing torrent of change. Within a few moments, before I even had time to process what I was seeing and hearing, hundreds of nickels and dimes festoon the cerise-colored countertop. I am staring down at King Solomon’s mines, but Thomas Jefferson and Franklin Roosevelt have beaten me to the spot.

“I’m going out of town,” the King of Understatement explains, “and I have a lot of change to get rid of.”

Does he know how much change was in his purse? No. We have to count it.

Why I didn’t tell him “YOU count it, I’m going to surf the Internet,” I simply can’t say. I think my brain was so traumatized by this man’s thoughtlessness that a number of synapses exploded, rendering me incapable of being nasty to the human being who had given me the best reason to be nasty I had seen in my entire life. I began grouping the dimes and nickles into separate dollar bundles. With a little help from Change Purse, I found that he had about ten dollars in dimes and nine in nickels. He did not have nearly enough to pay for his copies.

The snap that this produced on my part was far, far smaller than what he deserved. I told him to go to an ATM and get the money, and that I would only accept a few dollars in change. His plan, I explained, was deeply inconsiderate. There was not room in the cash register drawer for nineteen dollars in change. Not only had he made me count all this change, but when I went through the register in the process of locking up the store, I was going to have to count it all over again. I told him that many supermarkets have machines that will convert change into whole dollars, and he should investigate these in the future instead of burdening unsuspecting counter jockies with pounds of loose change.

Leaving his copies behind per my instructions, he went to an ATM and came back with a $20 bill. I took a few fistsfull of nickels to cover the rest of his bill. They filled the nickel basin to the brim, and I had to close the drawer gently to avoid a disaster. Pitying the guy who would find this in the morning, I decided that I was not going to count the change again - I surreptitiously counted the rest of the money while he was away - and hoped against hope that, if he ever became a huge and famous success in the world of classical music, perhaps rising to first chair violin at the Met, that his first gigantic paycheck, and every one after that, would be paid to him in dumptrucks of loose nickels and dimes.

The following Monday, having moved back to New York and immediately had a successful interview at a local paper, I returned to my chosen profession and became a full-time reporter. The Change Man was the last customer I ever had.

11

There are plenty of them here.

12

My dad once returned a 3 year old pair of shoes to walmart. He had worn them every day, and claimed that he had bought them a few months ago and they just fell apart.

I thought it was pretty cool at the time :wink:

13

There’s a point when hyperbole goes from just making the story better to making you look kind of petty, and you flew right past it so fast with that statement that you probably never even saw it.

14

So you’re saying that I look petty for being very patient with someone who I realized, in retrospect, didn’t deserve it?

15

I’m saying that claiming that those inconsiderate but not all that heinous actions were the things in your entire life that most justified you being nasty to someone, you’re either just being extremely sloppy with your hyperbole or have had such a pampered life that you look ridiculous complaining about anything.

The guy was clueless and you wanted to strangle him at that moment? Sure. Worst thing anyone ever did to you? Most likely not, but if so, congratulations and shut up.

16

I didn’t say it was the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life, you dipshit. It’s not close. As a personal and inexcusable inconvenience to me and me alone - the justification for nastiness, as opposed to undying hatred or murderous revenge, which are completely separate - yes, it’s what I said. Why? Because he had no excuse. I let people off the hook when I know that circumstances force them to pass a problem on to me, and I try to give people a break whenever it’s possible if they’re stressed or picky or what have you.
This guy didn’t have a shred of an excuse. He could’ve dealt with his change gradually over a long period of time. Most people on Earth manage to do that, I bet. I know I did. He could’ve gone to a supermarket with a CoinStar machine, or perhaps even a bank. Did he? No. Instead, like an asshole, he unloaded it on whoever was going to be behind the counter at this store, and that happened to be me. If he’d done it to one of my fellow employees, I’d have been angrier. In general I get more upset on other people’s behalf than I do on my own.
It’s not that it was a huge problem in my life. It’s that it was so utterly thoughtless on his part, and there’s no excuse for that degree of moronism. It just wasn’t going to be his problem, to such an extent that he didn’t even count the change he’d accumulated. He left it to me, a.k.a. Whoever Was There, to count it and learn he was far, far short of the amount he needed. If I can judge from his reaction that night, I think he was hoping I’d say “you’re $10 short, but it’s close enough” and let him go.

Perhaps you could hurry along to piss on your next parade? I wouldn’t want to keep you.

17

I work for the Audio-Visual department of my tiny liberal arts college. This involves providing various services and equipment for people, and sadly, being a secretary.

One evening, just before I’m about to close the office, a trendy and utterly vacant girl chewing an enormous wad of gum shows up at the door.

Her: Hi…? chew chew
Me: Yes?
Her: I was told that, like…I can get a video camera? chew chew Can I get a video camera?
Me: Yes, but only for 24 hours.
Her: Oh, cool. chew Well…I don’t really want one now. Like, somebody else is in charge, ya know? chew chew
Me: Okay.
Her: (Peering around) Hey…Do you guys have other stuff? Besides, ya know, video cameras? chew
Me: Yes.
Her: Oh, cool.
Her: chew chew
Her: Umm…I guess I’ll be going now…
Me: Goodbye.

Some people should not be allowed to breathe.

18

Yes, yes - but was she hot?! :smiley:

19

I work at a store where we buy used music gear. Occasionally it’s stolen and there’s a procedure that involves a police report which allows people to get their property back.

A man calls up looking for an amp his loser friend says he stole and sold to us. At first we tell him we don’t have it because we have about a hundred amps and miss it the first walkthrough. Now the man is convinced we are lieing thieves like his so called friend. When we locate it we tell him the procedure for recovering his amp. The next day this young man comes in with his surly Dad and demands we give him his amp. We get the amp from the back, and bring it out, trying to explain to thise duo what we need in order to release it. Just giving out amps to anyone who makes a claim opens us to all kinds of scams.
Dad gets nasty and decides he’s just taking it. He picks up the amp and starts to walk out when a worker blocks his path. Now there’s several workers in the area and the guy putsd down the amp and draws back as if he’s going to punch the worker blocking his path. Now we have a potential fist fight in the store. The owner say to call the police and congenial Dad says “That’s right you’d better call 911” Eventually these two produce a police report and are sent on their way grumbling about what crooks we are. Sigh! The need to be all macho and get in a fist fight over an amp really amazes me.

20

I see. I missed this thread. Sorry for the repeat so soon. Some good stories there.