The most ridiculous thing you've ever heard from a customer

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

I once had a roommate in college (one of those straight-“A”, perfect phsyical fit test scores, perfect SAT scores, so sure of himself, yadda yadda yadda. . .) who had his private pilot’s license. One day the subject turned to balloos–weather, hot air, those balloons.

Said roommate insisted that all balloons were tethered down to the ground. To include hot air balloons. And this guy had a pilot’s license!

The rest of us knew, but for some reason, he insisted that all balloons were tethered down. Needless to say, voices were raised, but mostly in laughter at him. When we got on the internet to show him a picture of a hot air balloon he replied, “I can see the lines right there!” So we showed him another one. . . “They must have Photoshopped it out!”

It took him better part of six months and a balloon (untethered) flying over the campus convince him. :smack:

Tripler
And this guy is supposedly now flying F-22s. :eek:

42

Dumbest thing ever: “I want to buy this coach (a $250,000 diesel pusher, payments approximately $2,000/mo) so I can deduct the interest from my taxes.”

What a staggeringly stupid reason to buy something.

43

[sense of impending dread]My organization is apparently thinking about switching to SAP[/sense of impending dread]

44

Heh, that’s my name-but I promise you that wasn’t me.

In high school, I was a cashier at a local grocery store. One time, this old couple came up to me with a carton of Breyer’s All Natural vanilla ice cream.

Man: What are bean specks?
Me: Excuse me?
Man: It says bean specks. What are they?
Me: Well, you know, bean, er, specks. Small little pieces of the beans.
Man: I mean, what KIND of beans? Lima beans? Green beans?

:smack: :dubious:

Me: (in my head) It’s VANILLA ice cream, you moronic turd! VANILLA bean!
Me: Uh, no sir. Vanilla bean.

Man: looks at me suspiciously

:rolleyes:

Another time some guy kept buying Smucker’s all natural peanut butter, and kept bringing it back because it was bad-there was a layer of oil on top. Finally, someone explained to him that natural peanut butter doesn’t have the chemicals or whatever that keeps the oil from separating-it’s like salad dressing. You have to mix it back in.

My favorite:

This was around the time that famed fashion designer Gianni Versace was murdered by some nutbar named Andrew Cunanan, who eventually was killed in a shootout on a houseboat, or something like that. This crazy woman swore she saw this guy in our store, dressed in drag, and wanted one of our employee’s phone number so she could get him to give a description, so she could draw a sketch and take it to the police. Then she told us some “Mexicans” were out in a white car in the parking lot and they were asking her to pray with them, and she was all freaked out. She refused to accept, “No, we do NOT give out employee phone numbers!” as an answer. This woman was freaking nuts.

45

I sell concessions at a local theatre. Every so often we get customers with dietary restrictions, so it’s not uncommon to need to carefully read the ingredients of what we’re selling. But last summer, I had a woman come up, tell me she was diabetic and couldn’t have any sugar, spend ten minutes making me analyze the ingredients of a particular candy bar, and finally decide she couldn’t eat the candy bar. Then she proceded to buy a package of peanuts, about the size that airline peanuts used to be. She stood there at the counter, eating her peanuts one by one, then walked four feet down to the next window and purchase the candy bar she’d decided against ten minutes earlier!

46

I just loved the customers who’d call in to Care with minute overage on their wireless phone, and when I’d carefully explain that I could make it all go away with backdating if they’d just change their rate plan to something more realistic for their usage patterns I’d get the immortal line:

“But I don’t want to pay that much!”

Arrgh, you ignorant fucktard–you’re telling me you’d rather pay for two hundred bucks of overage rather than go to a rate plan that’s twenty bucks more than your current one? Are you STUPID?

I so wish I could say this was an isolated incident, but I do not lie… If I had a dollar for every time I’ve gone through this particular exchange I would be able to afford a whole bunch of overage.

On the plus side, these are the same people who will powercycle their phones if you tell them to–and never ask “but won’t that make the call drop?” :rolleyes:

47

I used to work at a Michigan state park. To enter the park in a motor vehicle, you have to buy a motor vehicle permit. Pretty self explanatory.

So a local politician decides to enter the park on his motorcycle to post a few signs. I tell him he can’t post the signs but if he wants to go in, he’ll need a motor vehicle permit.

“Why?” He asks as he stands astride his motorcycle. “I’m not in a motor vehicle.”
:eek: :dubious: :mad:

I explained that he was standing over a motorcycle. He turned and drove away. Needless to say, he did not get my vote.

48

I used to work at a hotel as a front desk clerk. A man called up one evening because he wanted to confirm a reservation he had. (It was for our annual Big Event weekend which pulls nearly fifty thousand visitors into town-- hotels are books a year in advance and there usually aren’t any rooms available in a 70 mile radius.) He gave me a confirmation number which I dutifully typed into the computer, though I knew instantly that it was a bad number. (All of our confirmation numbers started with a certain digit and his didn’t.)

When I told him the reservation didn’t exist, he went ballistic. I don’t know if he thought if he screamed loudly enough I’d cave and cancel someone else’s reservation and give it to him, or what. He swore at me and hung up.

Two minutes later, his wife called and gave me the same number. Same results. Same swearing. She hung up on me in a huff.

Husband calls back and says he KNOWS he has a valid reservation because he made it with the manager himself. I told him our only manager was a woman, so maybe he had the wrong hotel. He asked her name and demanded to speak with her. I replied that she’d return his call in the morning. That wasn’t good enough-- he wanted her home phone number to talk to her NOW. (At around 12:30 at night, no less!) I refused to give it to him, was cursed and hung up on.

Less than five minutes later, he calls back, clumsily disguising his voice. He asks for the manager by name. I’m sure he could hear the smile in my voice as I said in a sorrowful tone that she was not available but would return the call tomorrow.

“Gimme her home phone number,” he demanded.

I turned a laugh into a cough. “May I ask who is calling?”

“Uhh . . . her boss.”

“Well, as her boss, shouldn’t you know it?” I asked sweetly.

He hung up.

49

I have to work with that idiot system. It only makes sense to anyone who is not an end user. :frowning: :mad:

50

Sadly, I didn’t take this call. My buddy across the aisle did. But I got the full story after the caller disconnected–I just had to know why he’d had to put the customer on hold for half a minute to laugh …

We were working customer service for America Online. This was quite a few years back, just after they’d started phasing out the ‘send out millions upon millions of 3.5" floppy diskettes’ marketing strategy in favor of the ‘send out millions upon millions of CD-ROMs’ marketing strategy. The gentleman on the other end of the phone had evidently been the recipient of one of said CD’s, and was a mite puzzled, never having seen one before. He’d inspected his computer carefully & found no appropriate spot for it, so had then removed the casing & started rooting around inside for a place to ‘install’ it …

My friend had verified, after several minutes of careful questioning, that this customer’s computer did not have a CD drive. Not terribly unusual at the time. He explained to the customer that his computer wasn’t equipped to read that kind of disc, and received the response, “Well, why’d you send it to me then?”

I’m not really sure if this is a stupid customer story, or an idiot savant customer story. But I just had to share …

51

I think I would have you all beat except this person wasn’t actually a client…

I work at an animal hospital and one of our nice clients found a cat in the middle of her street. The cat was not moving much, appeared thin and ill, and had no tags so she brought it in to the hospital so we could scan it for a microchip. Happily, the cat had a microchip, which was registered to a local shelter. The shelter had the owners information on file and we contacted her. She picked up her cat and everybody seemed satisfied with how it all turned out. We did advise her that the cat appeared to need medical care and she informed us that she recently adopted the cat from the shelter and was currently having her cared for.

One of my receptionists got a call the next day from the owner of the cat- she asked for the contact information for the person who found her cat. We have a strict confidentiality policy, like most businesses, and the receptionist told her that she could not release any personal information. The lady proceeded to go nuts and said we were “trying to hide something”. She then asked the receptionist to call our client and give her own personal information to her. At this point, the client was being a little too wacky, so again the receptionist declined to do this.

The cat’s owner then asked to speak to the manager- I was off so our head technician took over. The lady asked her what we would have done if the cat didn’t have a microchip- our tech told her that we usually would advertise a found cat and then adopt it out if we couldn’t locate the owner. The lady then WENT OFF and said she had a “neighbor thief” who had stolen her last 5 cats over the last five years. The tech suggested that maybe she should keep her cats inside and reminded her that our client did her a favor by making sure the cat was in safe hands (as opposed to in the middle of a street). The cat’s owner told her "you probably don’t have cats, so you wouldn’t understand letting them be free :eek: ! ". Our tech informed her that she actually had 9 cats (very hard to have less than 5 animals if you work for a vet!) and they were very happy. The conversation denigrated from there and eventually the tech had to hang up on her.

One hour later, we get a 3 page fax letter from this lady full of accusations of hiding the identity of her “neighbor thief”. Apparently, she was under the impression that the only reason we attempted to find her is because we knew “the microchip could be traced” (it really can’t if we choos not to report it). She went off about our “9 cat employee” who didn’t let her kitties breath the “fresh, clean air” and bragged that her kitty was presently enjoying the sunshine outside. She said (I doubt this part is true, but at least they would have gotten a good chuckle out of it) that she reported us to the police for “property theft” and was going to write the “microchip industry” and thank them for keeping “neighbor thiefs and heartless vet employees” honest. She said that she was sure that our “9 cat employee” had some of the cats she was missing and wanted photographic proof that they were not her cats. After reporting us to all the appropriate vet associations and the local better business type tv show, she was going to put flyers up all around her neighborhood to let folks know that we steal cats.
Just goes to show you… no good deed goes unpunished.

52

Customers who want a problem fixed but don’t want to make any changes. This happens too often in software support to need to give any names, dates, or places:

Me: Yes, sir, that’s a known bug in our software. You’ll have to install Patch X, or wait til Service Pack Y is released.

Customer: I saw Patch X on your web site, that’s Beta code. Our IT polices say we can’t use it.

Me: OK then, you’ll have to wait til SP Y is released, as I said. Currently planned to be in Z [a few] months.

C: This problem is urgent! We can’t wait that long, and anyway what happens if that SP causes other problems?

Me: Well again I can only suggest installing Patch X; it’s available now and as it only updates one module it’s unlikely to cause other problems.

C: But we can’t install Beta code. Isn’t there anything else we can do?

Me: [wants to say: “such as?”] Well no, as I said it’s a bug in our code. You must update the faulty code.

… and round and round and round we go …

53

Just one pops to mind, but I’m sure I’ll think of more later.

About 20 years ago, I was a 911 dispatcher in a small town. One day, I took a 911 call (yes, she dialed 911) from a very angry woman. She had just heard that the Sunday School teacher at the Lutheran church was “teaching against Creation” (I’m not sure exactly what that entailed, but I gathered that this horrible teacher might actually be imparting facts to the children). The woman demanded that I call the Chief of Police (the woman attended the local Catholic church with the Chief) at home and have him come out and handle this crisis immediately.

I didn’t, of course, and didn’t dispatch an officer, either. She filed a complaint against me on Monday morning.

54

Looks like a lifo/fifo problem~ :smack:

55

Hoo boy, is this one ever a toss-up. I’m currently a telephone banker, and I used to wait tables and manage at a steakhouse. Off the top of my head, and in no particular order:

1. “Why would I write a check if I had the money in my account?!”

2. “I ordered this steak medium rare! Why the fuck is there pink and red in it?”

3. [as customer holds up bottle of house BBQ sauce and points at label that says TEXAS BBQ SAUCE] “Is this steak sauce?”

4. [after I tell that same customer that, no, it is in fact barbecue sauce] “…is this barbecue sauce?”

5. Customer: “I want to pay my Sprint bill.”

Me: “Certainly; would you like to set that up through your Online Billpay?”

Customer: “…I just want to pay my bill.”

Me: “Did you mean to call Bigass Corporate Bank?”

Customer: “This is the bank, right?” (Ok, at this point I figure this guy is one of those people who think they need to call their bank to pay their bills for some reason. We get a couple of those each day.)

Me: “Yes sir, it sure is. Did you want to pay your bill out of your BCB account?”

Customer: "B-but…I don’t have any accounts with BCB. I just want to pay my Sprint bill.

Me: “All right, sir, I’m afraid I’ll have to refer you to Sprint then. Would you like the telephone number?”

Customer: “You’re the bank, right?”

Me: [imagining myself reincarnated as the physical embodiment of a financial institution] “Yes.”

Customer: “Can’t the bank pay my bill?”
That’s it for now. I’ll post more as they come to me.

56

Fantastic! I have a new one of these stories every day.
Me: “Pharmacy, how can I help you?”
Crazy Old Woman On The Phone: “Your phone lines AREN’T WORKING.”
Me: (Looking confused at the phone) “What?”
COWOTP: “I tried to put my prescription numbers in your phone system and it told me that prescription DOESN’T EXIST but it most certainly DOES EXIST because I am holding it right here in my hand.”
Me: “Okay, well I’m sure we can get this figured out, what’s the prescription number and I’ll look it up on my computer.”
COWOTP: “134XXX”
Me: (Looking up 134XXX on the computer, finding a patient’s profile with a voided prescription in it, Jane Doe) “Okay, I’ll just verify your name and we’ll get this all worked out.”
COWOTP: “My name is Crazy Old Woman On The Phone.” (Not Jane Doe)
Me: (Starting to see the problem here) “Ma’am, where is your prescription from?”
COWOTP: “Well it’s from my local pharmacy in Ohio, but I want to get the prescription transferred down here.”
Me: :smack: “Those are not our prescription numbers. You can’t just call any random pharmacy with those numbers and have them fill your prescription.”
COWOTP: “Oh.”
Me: “So just bring your bottle into the pharmacy and we can transfer it here. But you have to bring the bottle in first.”
COWOTP: “Ugh, okay, fine.” ::click::

This happens a lot during snowbird season.
-foxy

57

My husband used to work tech support for an internet company.

His favourite story was of the customer who thought he had bought a PC from a guy in a pub, but told the guy to keep the “big stupid grey box”, and only took the monitor and keyboard. Yup, this guy was trying to connect to the internet with just a monitor and keyboard.

58

What is snowbird season?

59

As **ladyfoxfyre ** isn’t online right now, I’ll answer.

“Snowbirds” are elderly Northerners who travel to Florida for the winter.

60

Snowbird season used to start on Memorial Day and end promptly on Labor Day. However, as a former native of FL & long-time resident of Fort Lauderdale, “snowbird season” is now damn near all year long.

VCNJ~