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

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
101

Ah, yes, the wonderful world of finance and real estate.

seller: (looking at his settlement statement) I don’t think the property taxes are right on here!

me: sir, here is a copy of the tax certificate, as well as a print out from the assessors office that show the amount.

seller: wait a minute…my house is only assessed at xxxx? It’s worth more than that!

me: yes sir, it is…the assessed value is what the county TAXES you on and has nothing to do with what your house would sell for. It includes discounts you get for it being a primary home, etc. The APPRAISAL gives you a better idea of what the property is worth.

seller: I think my house should be assessed higher!!!

me: Sir, that would only mean that you owed more taxes.

seller: The assessor is wrong! This should be higher!

me: :dubious: :rolleyes: I somehow think the buyer might take offense to that. If you like, here’s my cell phone. Please call the assessor and have them explain it to you.

seller: I just might do that! I’m sure I can convince them that this should be more!

Um yeah…call 'em up and tell them you want to send them a check. Sure that happens all the time.

102

If you have an account there, certainly. It’s a little more difficult if you havent entrusted the bank with any of your money.

103

Ok, this one I don’t get regarding its stupidity. The Getty in L.A. is supposedly secretly hated in the museum world for having almost all of J.Paul’s fortune to use to outbid other museums.

104

Most museum funds, from what I understand, go towards taking care of the collection, rather than acquiring. They can always count on donations, and such. But it costs a lot for storage, preservation, restoration, care, upkeep, etc. Most of a collection is kept in storage, in special, fireproof cabinets, and those things are fucking expensive.

105

Those were considered very ordinary and boring questions on the America Online customer service switchboard. Two or three a day, usually-I didn’t even notice them after a while. Which is kind of scary, now that I think about it …

106

The stupidity lies in the fact that overage is almost never a one time occurrence. These people would have overage month after month and escalating–twenty bucks one month, fifty the next, hundred twenty after that, then they’ll finally call in screaming like raped apes about how we’re screwing them over and they’re gonna cancel and how dare we do this to them. Never mind that they flatly refuse to use the fifty methods we provide to check usage, they tell us that they “just know” they haven’t really used all those minutes, blah blah blah. I suspect these are the same people who postulate that god put fossils all around to mess with people’s heads–we make up these phone calls out of whole cloth in order to get extra money out of them. So the initial stupidity is that they’re unwilling to spend $240 to save paying about $600-1500 over a year, compounded by the stupidity which makes them incapable of reading their bills every month to get an accurate summation of the number of minutes they actually use, versus what they “know” they use.

However, the really amazing stupidity is in the fact that backdating the rate plan to the beginning of the bill cycle makes the current overage GO AWAY. The billing software retroactively rerates minute usage to the new rate plan as though they’d been on it from the beginning of the month. The rate plan can be changed again at the end of the bill cycle. So these stupid morons are refusing to pay $20 for ONE MONTH in lieu of paying $200 in overage for that month.

See, I told you they were stupid fucktards! :smack:

107

Yeah, as everyone else has already answered for me, the Snowbirds are the retired folks that spend the winter 6 months down here in sunny Flor-ee-duh.
You’d think that if they come down here for 6 months out of the year, they’d know how the system worked by now.
-foxy

108

The thing I find hilarious about THIS argument is that it’s usually proposed by people who’ve had our service for years. We’re hands down the least money for the most minutes of any carrier, so going to another company just means paying more for less and you’re STILL going to have a contract.

Wireless phone companies do what their customers want, no matter how dumb it is. In Europe you don’t see cheap subsidized phones–you buy your phone for full price, then get service with a carrier. Americans demand subsidized handsets, and if I had a dollar for every time a customer has said “You mean I have to PAY for a phone?!” I’d have the time to post a lot more than I do now. We’re the last company to adopt two year contracts and the customers are going for it like crazy people–never mind that with 22 month tenure requirements they’re saddling themselves with a warranty free phone for ten months before they’re eligible for another discount, nope, these smarties just KNOW it’s a better deal to pay seventy bucks less for the phone up front, then have to get equipment insurance for six bucks a month in order to protect themselves from loss and to cover the phone for the ten months after the warranty expires. The insurance company insists that they add the feature when they buy the new phone, so just in insurance costs alone they’re ponying up 132.00 to cover the insurance (let’s just forget possible deductibles for now.) I go with one year contracts only, and I get a neat new phone every year–it’s great. Try to tell the customers this? Nope, not listening.

Yeah, companies do take advantage of gullibility to make money, but in many cases the customers proactively line up to fleece themselves and force the wool into our hands… :smack:

109

From your post earlier I gathered you were working there in the early days of home internet access (Just making the switch from floppies to CDs, people with no CD rom drives in their computers)? I could overlook it if the internet was a new invention or had only just been released in Australia. But I’ve taken calls like this last week, and sometimes those questions have come up in the course of troubleshooting an account that a customer has had for at least four years (one great one “My home phone was cut off, but I still want to use the internet. Can you make my dialup wireless?”) and sometimes it just boggles the mind :slight_smile:

110

Exactly. Our board squeezes every penny 'til Abe screams. We actually debate whether to buy vaccuum cleaner bags or Windex.

99.99% of our artifacts are donated. We do have a small fund (and some willing donors) should we see something we *must * have in our collection, but it has to be super-duper special for us to even consider it, and a reasonable price.

I once was asked to send a fax for a sweet old lady who asked me if she needed to type the document, or if the machine would be able to transmit if she printed clearly.

111

me: (restaurant name) how may I help you?
Customer: Hi, this is (identifies self- he’s a regular customer.) I just got my food.
me: is there a problem with it?
him: it’s only two appetizers! where’s my main dish?
me: You got the eggplant puffs and the fired shrimp, right?
him: Yes.
me: That’s what you ordered, isn’t it?
him: yes, but I didn’t get a main dish.
me: you didn’t order a main dish. (I know he didn’t. I took his order.)
him: but it’s not enough food! I can’t live on this!
me: Okay, well I can get you something else if you like.
him: no! I didn’t get a main dish!
me: Sir, you didn’t ORDER a main dish and you din’t pay for a main dish. You asked for two appetizers.
him: this is ridiculous!
me: I can get you something else if you like.
him: I want to talk to (manager’s name)!

I gave her the phone and she came to me totally steamed. “he says you didn’t give him his food!” I tried explaining that I gave him what he ordered, but she would have none of it. She ended up giving him a main dish and not charging for it. It makes me wonder if I’d be able to get free stuff just by yelling a lot and being unreasonable.
Also, at my last job there were an awful lot of scenarios like this:

me: would you like paper bags or plastic?
little old lady: paper, and don’t make them too heavy

“not too heavy” when it comes to little old ladies usually doesn’t mean “light enough that the bag won’t break.” it means each bag should have one item in it. maybe two if they’re very light. It usually means the person is somehow handicaped and can’t lift a bag with more than a box of granola bars in it.

About half the time, there would be something like a turkey or a ham or a gallon of milk. Something that’s heavy by itself and can’t be split up. and the little old ladies would argue and argue with me that i needed to make the bag lighter becuase they couldn’t lift it, like I had some magical powers that would make milk fly. crazy people.

112

Hamish provides us with a list of hints for the public:

113

I feel for you. Being treated like an idiot is bad enough. When it’s being done BY an idiot, the danger of homocide rears its head.

114

A few from my support helpdesk days:

Caller: Hi, I have a problem sending my orders with your software.
Me: OK, what’s happening when you try to send them?
Caller: The modem dials, but doesn’t connect, so I can’t send.
Me: Right… (talks dealer through checking settings, finds a fault and corrects it)
Caller: It still won’t connect…
Me: (Having taken my headset off while her modem tries to get a response from my ear) Is the modem connected to the same phone line we’re talking on?
Caller: Oh… yes… sorry… (hangs up)

Doesn’t look so stupid now I come to write it down.

Caller: I need someone to update your software for me.
Me: Did you get the CD we sent out?
Caller: Yes
Me: Well, I can talk you through how to do it, it’s very simple.
Caller: No, I can’t be doing with all of that - I need someone to come out and see me.
Me: I’m afraid we can’t send people out to do a routine upgrade - there’s a waiting list of a week or so in any case, and it’s for problems that can’t be solved over the phone.
Caller: What, a week? That’s no good.
Me: Well no, but I can tell you how to do it, it will take 10 minutes.
Caller: Well, alright then… how do I start?
Me: Right, if you’ve got the software open, exit out of it… then put the CD into the drive, it should start automatically.
Caller: Which way up does it go in?
Me: Shiny side down. (I’m still proud of how calmly I was able to say this without guffawing down the phone, and without a pause to compose myself.)

115

Speaking of manners of death.

In most of the jurisdictions where I have worked as a medical examiner, elderly dead people are examined, but not autopsied, and a reasonable cause of death is put down on the death certificate. Part of the examination is drawing blood.

One fellow of 63 or so had the look of heart disease, so we put him down as hypertensive and atherosclerotic, etc, etc.

Days later, the tox comes back as positive for cocaine.

Whoa! Foxy Grandpa!
Cocaine is a bad, bad, bad idea on a dicky heart, so we change the cause of death to acute cocaine toxicity, and contribute the heart disease.

The widow calls a week later. She wants to get the death certificate.

We can’t do that for you, ma’am. Vital Records maintains and issues the death certificate. We only generate the information (makes no sense to me, but try to argue with a state government about bureaucratic principles). We’ll be happy to give you their number.

But no, the widow says, I already spoke to them, and they keep giving me the new death certificate. I want the old one.

Ma’am?

I want a copy of the old one, where you put hypertension.

Ma’am, we amended that, you can get the amended copy.

But I want the old one.

(round and round three times)

She explains: I can’t get the insurance money with the new one. They would pay on the old one, but they won’t on the new one.

Ma’am, that’s because your husband was doing cocaine, which is an illegal drug, on top of his heart disease, and that’s why he died. We can’t do anything about the fact that he was doing cocaine.

Yes you can, she says, you can give me the old death certificate.

Let me get this straight. You want us to connive with you at insurance fraud so you can conceal the fact your husband was doing cocaine?

You have to give me the old certificate! She starts to get mad and difficult. My daughter needs that money!

Ma’am, I would lose my license if I did what you asked.

Long pause.

She is so furious with me she can’t think of anything mean enough to say. She finally lets loose with “I hope this happens to YOU someday! I hope this happens to YOU and you know how it feels!”

Well, aside from the fact that the man I’m married to doesn’t do cocaine, in fact draws the line at two beers and a Claritin, I don’t think I would attempt insurance fraud…

But here’s hoping, for your sake, I do.

Gabriela

116

Hijack:

What the heck do you do with all your old phones? I’ve only switched cell phones once, somewhat recently, and I have no idea what to do with my old phone. I just threw it in a drawer somewhere where it’ll probably sit until the end of time …

117

Unless you’re familiar with how museums work, I don’t think it proves that someone is stupid to not know this.

It was a major news story a few years back when the National Art Gallery paid over $2 million for this painting. So museums do pay top dollar for things, at least some of the time. Why would someone be an idiot for mistakenly thinking that this is usually the case?

118

Donate it to a battered women’s shelter. They’ll rig it so it only calls emergency numbers and give it to a person in crisis for free.

119

Donate your old phone to a battered woman’s shelter.

120

Way back in my high school days I worked at a Radio Shack in a mall. Two doors down from this RS was one of those cutlery companies where they sold knives, swords, and the like; also operating a sharpening business in the back.

It was the height of the Christmas rush, and I had customers in full Christmas shopping mode three deep in front of the counter. I was slammed. And I was loving it because I was on commission.

In walks this little old lady who must have been at least 115 years old. She butts in front of all my customers, who immediately get this “WTF” look on their faces, digs in her clear plastic dollar store purse and pulls out this 6" lock-blade knife.

She literally opens the thing up and sticks the blade a few inches in front of my face. At this point, I’m thinking she is actually going to rob the store, and my finger is on the security buttton under the counter.

Then she asks, “Can you sharpen this for me, young man?”

Here I am, standing in a Radio Shack with all kinds of electronic equipment literally falling off the countertops, and this woman is pointing a deadly weapon in my face with a truckload of customers (who were actually shopping for electronics) in stunned amazement.

I calmly took the knife from her and closed it and directed her two doors down.