# Why are idiot customers allowed to get away with it? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 13, 2015, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-idiot-customers-allowed-to-get-away-with-it/719929 "2015-05-13T11:01:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![boytyperanma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4491bb/32.png) [@boytyperanma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boytyperanma)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-idiot-customers-allowed-to-get-away-with-it/719929/41 "2015-05-14T20:14:29Z")
> [@bb49](#): > > Hampton Inns have a 100% guarantee, that if you are not happy, then you don’t pay. A very close friend of mine worked at a Hampton for 2 or 3 years, and finally quit out of frustration because of the number of people abusing this policy: > The blow drier didn’t work. > There were kids running in the hall all night. > The A/C was noisy. > etc, etc, etc. > > She knew these people were simply taking advantage to the policy, but she had to smile, apologize on behalf of Hampton, and otherwise, keep her mouth shut. And she’s not the kind of person to keep her mouth shut! How’s Hampton Inn make any money? I’ve never known anyone to be happy about staying there. It’s a sacrifice people are willing to accept for the lower cost. ---
**Author:** ![It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/it_s_not_rocket_surgery/32/312_2.png) [@It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/It_s_Not_Rocket_Surgery)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-idiot-customers-allowed-to-get-away-with-it/719929/42 "2015-05-14T21:58:12Z")
> [@boytyperanma](#): > > How’s Hampton Inn make any money? I’ve never known anyone to be happy about staying there. It’s a sacrifice people are willing to accept for the lower cost. I like Hampton Inn. They (as well as Holiday Inn Express) are near the top of the mid-range hotels for me. Stay in a few EconoLodge hotels and then try Hampton again. You’ll feel like you’re staying in a Four Seasons. ---
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-idiot-customers-allowed-to-get-away-with-it/719929/43 "2015-05-14T22:26:43Z")
I work in a 911 center. We routinely deal with people who are intoxicated, under the influence of drugs, aggressive, or otherwise abusive. However we cannot “fire” any of our customers. There is no other option for them. And so we sit and take it, to a point. But always remembering that 1) the calls are recorded and 2) the police, paramedics, and/or fire officers have to deal with this sort of abuse in person. Not surprisingly, some of the worst manage to get themselves arrested for their behavior. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-idiot-customers-allowed-to-get-away-with-it/719929/44 "2015-05-14T23:06:44Z")
> [@boytyperanma](#): > > How’s Hampton Inn make any money? I’ve never known anyone to be happy about staying there. It’s a sacrifice people are willing to accept for the lower cost. I’ve stayed in one across the street from the Austin Convention Center which was awesome. I preferred it to the Hilton and some further but fancier hotels. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-idiot-customers-allowed-to-get-away-with-it/719929/45 "2015-05-14T23:12:54Z")
> [@Snnipe\_70E](#): > > I blame it on the corporate office. They believe that you can give the customer what ever they want and still make a profit. But when you let a customer use merchandise and then return their money time after time and the customer seldom makes a purchase and keeps it, the truth is they are costing the company more money than they are leaving. But upper management wants no complaints. > > I worked for a department store where women would order and use $200 to $500 dresses. Wear the dress to a function spill wine on them and on Monday return the dress to the store for a refund. And get it. The dress could not be resold because of the condition it was returned. The customers reason for returning the dress, “my husband didn’t like the dress”. > > My son was a store manager and he had to accept bogus returns or face a chewing out by his DM because he got a complaint. He got chewed out one time for not refunding the customer’s money for an item that he did not carry in his store. And the complaints count against his bonus. > > As a honest customer this make me mad because the stores have to raise their prices to cover the losses from the rip off customers. I can understand why this is infuriating, but it isn’t the money of the employees that is being wasted. Accepting everything back is an indicator of a quality store (rightly or wrongly) and allows the store to jack up the prices on everything. And while some people abuse the return privilege, for others with stuff that is really defective can have a no-hassle policy turn a negative experience into a positive one. My wife always buys Coach precisely because of their good return policy. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-idiot-customers-allowed-to-get-away-with-it/719929/46 "2015-05-14T23:14:11Z")
> [@boytyperanma](#): > > How’s Hampton Inn make any money? I’ve never known anyone to be happy about staying there. It’s a sacrifice people are willing to accept for the lower cost. You’re right they have some real dumps in the crappy parts of some towns. But most of their properties are cheap, clean, and the staff is more helpful and cheerful than you expect for what little you’re paying. To be sure, it’s not a 4-star experience. But it also doesn’t cost $250 a night. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-idiot-customers-allowed-to-get-away-with-it/719929/47 "2015-05-14T23:15:16Z")
A lot of the stories on NotAlwaysRight seem unbelievable to me. Like, literally unbelievable. As in, someone made them up out of whole cloth. I’m sure some of the stories there are legit, but these days there is just so much overdramatic dialogue and perfect comebacks and stuff that honestly just does not happen in real life. ---
**Author:** ![boytyperanma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4491bb/32.png) [@boytyperanma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boytyperanma)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2015, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-idiot-customers-allowed-to-get-away-with-it/719929/48 "2015-05-15T01:03:39Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > A lot of the stories on NotAlwaysRight seem unbelievable to me. Like, literally unbelievable. As in, someone made them up out of whole cloth. I’m sure some of the stories there are legit, but these days there is just so much overdramatic dialogue and perfect comebacks and stuff that honestly just does not happen in real life. I agree with you. I think it’s what happens when people get competitive, they are trying to one up each other’s shitty customer stories. Still plenty of ridiculous customers out there. I’m glad I’m out of retail and happy to be successful enough I can turn away any customer I suspect will be a problem. ---
**Author:** ![Fair\_Rarity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fair_rarity/32/153_2.png) [@Fair\_Rarity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fair_Rarity)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2015, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-idiot-customers-allowed-to-get-away-with-it/719929/49 "2015-05-15T01:29:36Z")
I have never seen or even heard of a boss in one of my jobs ever sticking up for an employee. “Grin and bear it” should be all my jobs’ corporate slogans. I sometimes did the math at various jobs. Like we had some customers in an artistic field ask for revisions and revisions, furious that we didn’t do more than one for free, and it would take hours of employees’ time for us to take in $100 gross. Suggesting we fire the customer was somehow like suggesting we just walk up and slap them in the face. Some day my goal is to work some place where employees and common sense are valued at least equal to the small percent of truly terrible people who frequent that place of business. Or run my own business so I can be more discerning. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2015, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-idiot-customers-allowed-to-get-away-with-it/719929/50 "2015-05-15T02:55:15Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > A lot of the stories on NotAlwaysRight seem unbelievable to me. Like, literally unbelievable. As in, someone made them up out of whole cloth. I’m sure some of the stories there are legit, but these days there is just so much overdramatic dialogue and perfect comebacks and stuff that honestly just does not happen in real life. Yep. Also on “overheard at Whole Foods” and so forth. People make things up. :eek::eek: I know there are bad customers (and bad employees) but almost no one thinks of- _and says_- the right snappy comeback- _and_ gets away with it. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-idiot-customers-allowed-to-get-away-with-it/719929/51 "2015-05-18T15:30:57Z")
There are definitely people out there who try and game the system in whatever way they can, and there are people out there (these were the ones who really used to annoy me) who feel like they haven’t got their money’s worth out of a purchase unless they’ve somehow managed to get more than what they paid for, by hook or by crook. Cases in point: While working at a retail sporting goods job in college, I had more than one person come in and demand that since we didn’t always have stock on hand in whatever a sale price item was, that we were required to give them the better version for the sale price. I haven’t a clue how these people did this with a straight face; the ads clearly said “while supply lasts” or something like that, (which was usually like 2 of the item; that’s a different thread all its own though). I had a guy get really angry- spittingly mad, because we’d advertised a standard queen sized air mattress for some price, and we had run out, and he demanded(!) that we give him the deluxe king sized mattress for the same price. Never mind that the sale price was literally half the regular price of the king-sized deluxe air mattress; he was convinced that we owed it to him. The others were people who’d come in and want to say… buy a shotgun, and then try and get me to “sell” it to them by offering them free cleaning kits, or ammo or something. Like I gave a shit. I didn’t have the authority to sweeten the pot, even if I had been so inclined, and I frankly found it obnoxious and kind of low-rent that they’d come in and basically beg for free shit in the guise of “If you throw in $5 item X and $10 item Y, I’ll buy that $350 shotgun.” ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-idiot-customers-allowed-to-get-away-with-it/719929/52 "2015-05-18T15:50:04Z")
The scammer customers on ebay used to drive me batty. “Someone must have hacked my PC, I know nothing of this purchase I want my paypal account refunded.” For an item that shipped to the same physical address on their paypal account. Assuming a kid or spouse ordered it thats not my damn problem. “I didn’t receive my item!”(even though tracking# shows it was delivered to their address)“I demand not only a refund or replacement, but also compensation for the inconvenience!” Yes that was a real demand from a customer, they wanted more than their money back on an item that tracking showed delivered. “I ordered this item four months ago, and I just opened the box and found nothing inside I want my payment refunded” I’m guessing the long wait was so the tracking# would no longer be available. “I know I got my items, but I did chargebacks because I’ going through a rough divorce right now and need money please hold off and I will pay you back within six months” I had multiple orders,multiple tracking#, and even satisfied emails and feedback from this fool. I won the dispute, customer went on to send emails saying I was a horrible person and why couldn’t I just wait and due to me their kids were going without power etc. “Hey money is real tight right now and that item I ordered 9 months ago? I never got it so could you just please refund me maybe half or a third of the cost please? I don’t want to do a dispute so please give me a little bit.” :rolleyes: I’d say about 5% of customers are fussy or unpleaseable or just don’t even know what they are doing, like picking media mail slow shipping and then complaining. 1% are just scammers who don’t give a shit and will do whatever they can get away with. ---
**Author:** ![Phedre\_no\_Delaunay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/839c29/32.png) [@Phedre\_no\_Delaunay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phedre_no_Delaunay)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-idiot-customers-allowed-to-get-away-with-it/719929/53 "2015-05-18T17:57:18Z")
> [@grude](#): > > “I didn’t receive my item!”(even though tracking# shows it was delivered to their address) I’ve had orders show “delivered” and yet I didn’t not receive the item. I don’t know where it was delivered, but it wasn’t to my house. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-idiot-customers-allowed-to-get-away-with-it/719929/54 "2015-05-18T18:01:38Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Cases in point: While working at a retail sporting goods job in college, I had more than one person come in and demand that since we didn’t always have stock on hand in whatever a sale price item was, that we were required to give them the better version for the sale price. I haven’t a clue how these people did this with a straight face; the ads clearly said “while supply lasts” or something like that, (which was usually like 2 of the item; that’s a different thread all its own though). There are some legal issues about what a reasonable number of “on hand” is, or you get hit with a 'bait & switch" charge or lawsuit. Two would likely not be enuf. Thus, the customer here is right to be irate. Your company was scamming. ---
**Author:** ![Tzigone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Tzigone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tzigone)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-idiot-customers-allowed-to-get-away-with-it/719929/55 "2015-05-18T18:03:51Z")
> [@Phedre\_no\_Delaunay](#): > > I’ve had orders show “delivered” and yet I didn’t not receive the item. I don’t know where it was delivered, but it wasn’t to my house. That’s happened to me many times. It’s nice when there’s a place for delivery instructions so that I can give them, because my house is not visible from the road and not in an intuitive location based on the mailbox. But it’s happened to my parents, too, and their house is very visible and right where you’d expect it to be. And sometimes they know it was misdelivered - tracking notes say it was left in the carport, and they don’t have a carport. ---
**Author:** ![JcWoman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jcwoman/32/2889_2.png) [@JcWoman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JcWoman)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-idiot-customers-allowed-to-get-away-with-it/719929/56 "2015-05-18T18:10:38Z")
> [@grude](#): > > “I ordered this item four months ago, and I just opened the box and found nothing inside I want my payment refunded” This reminds me of a similar situation I had in a previous job, non retail. I was a software developer in an environment where I was external customer facing, so doing my own analysis, project management and testing. On one project, the customer was hard on my case to deliver a new program, HARD on my case, like a small child “is it done yet? is it done yet? is it done yet?” I finished it and delivered on the promised day, told him to check it out and let me know if there were any issues. We were very customer friendly, I could modify the design and fix bugs in minutes, so I could tell him that comfortably. Six months later, he emails to say he finally got around to testing the program and there were some issues… Sooo, yeah… it urgently had to get done in November even though you didn’t have time to try it until March? Great, thanks asshole. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-idiot-customers-allowed-to-get-away-with-it/719929/57 "2015-05-18T18:13:18Z")
> [@Phedre\_no\_Delaunay](#): > > I’ve had orders show “delivered” and yet I didn’t not receive the item. I don’t know where it was delivered, but it wasn’t to my house. Sure, and I had no problem sending them a replacement(it was a cheap item I had more stock of). The problem there was that they wanted not only a refund but also extra money for inconvenience, that was the crazy part. ---
**Author:** ![yellowjacketcoder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/4bbf92/32.png) [@yellowjacketcoder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowjacketcoder)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-idiot-customers-allowed-to-get-away-with-it/719929/58 "2015-05-18T18:23:03Z")
> [@JcWoman](#): > > This reminds me of a similar situation I had in a previous job, non retail. I was a software developer in an environment where I was external customer facing, so doing my own analysis, project management and testing. On one project, the customer was hard on my case to deliver a new program, HARD on my case, like a small child “is it done yet? is it done yet? is it done yet?” I finished it and delivered on the promised day, told him to check it out and let me know if there were any issues. We were very customer friendly, I could modify the design and fix bugs in minutes, so I could tell him that comfortably. Six months later, he emails to say he finally got around to testing the program and there were some issues… Sooo, yeah… it urgently had to get done in November even though you didn’t have time to try it until March? Great, thanks asshole. Oh man, this happens all the time in my office. New customer signs a contract, and then need to go live now Now NOW! So we drop everything to rush them a test file, and then… crickets. So we follow up the next day. And the next week. And the next month. And then 3 months later after even sales has forgotten who they are, they call to ask why the system isn’t live yet. Well, if you had looked at that test file you demanded so urgently… ---
**Author:** ![JcWoman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jcwoman/32/2889_2.png) [@JcWoman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JcWoman)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-idiot-customers-allowed-to-get-away-with-it/719929/59 "2015-05-18T18:26:43Z")
Following up my rant to answer “why are idiot customers allowed to get away with it?”, in my case at least I think we were unable to quantify that this particular customer cost us more than we were recieving from him. He was nice as candy, always calling up to ask me to do something for him. Enter data or fix a configuration. Because he was so nice, I would do it. Until I got sick of him calling me to do his work for him, so I wrote him nice step by step instructions for all the things he’d call me about. He still called and I’d have to walk him through the instruction sheet. Or he’d lose the instructions and I’d have to walk him through it. He never remembered the simplest two-step process. After several years of it, I started to think he was actually a superlative master manipulator because he was always so sweet but gosh darn, so forgetful, where would he be without me? When I found out he did that to our customer service team also, I (half) jokingly told the CS manager that he should bill the customer extra for all of the above and beyond support calls. I was surprised later on to find out that he did and got in deep trouble for it. At one point I did build a spreadsheet showing how much time I was spending on this customer. It was fairly significant but not enough for management to do anything but shrug and tell me to get back to work. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-idiot-customers-allowed-to-get-away-with-it/719929/60 "2015-05-18T18:28:04Z")
Oh yea I had a customer who was angry he was charged import duty by his country, and demanded I pay it because my listing nowhere said he would be charged this. He really could not understand how this wasn’t my problem. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-idiot-customers-allowed-to-get-away-with-it/719929.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-idiot-customers-allowed-to-get-away-with-it/719929.md?page=4)