But isn’t the dynamic similar for unpopular views here? The conservative, for example, must battle 10 to 1 odds in a cult of leftism.
Sorry, your analogy won’t wash. Not only that, but this is a very strange hijack. I fail to see how you can compare people debating unpopular views on a message board of their own free will with retail clerks that are enslaved by the Free Market being abused by screeching harpies that are out to work an angle because they are the almighty customer.
Hey, no political hijacks!
Especially because I think you’ve nailed it, Lib.
What we have established in the USA is a culture that values convenience and efficiency over value. Well and dandy…that’s our cultural norm. For whatever reason prices in the USA are fixed (usually).
But by FAR the norm for the rest of the world is to haggle. Haggling as entertainment…haggling as power struggle…what-have-you.
So what we see with this woman is the willingness to go outside the cultural norm to get a ‘bargain’. Me, I factor time and aggravation into my value-gained equations. If she doesn’t…that’s her look out, isn’t it?
As for the clerks…well, I’m sorry. Every job has its crosses to bear. This sort of customer is theirs.
I caught the mother of all stupid battles at the local Hollister store (Abercrombie’s chic store). In front of me a woman was returning a shirt to exchange for another. Because they weren’t identical, but were the same price, the cashier (of all 17 years she looked) had to refund the one and pay for the other. The difference was a penny somehow due to cash register rounding. The debate began, with the woman saying she hadn’t brought any money to the mall (right, cause women go to malls without money, even a penny). The cashier wouldn’t just let it go, and she even remarked"we don’t have a penny jar". This went on for about five minutes, when I went from amusement to sad horror. Time stopped. The world revolved around a penny. I finally gave up a nickel I found, and both of them thanked me. Ergo, they both still thought they were right. I have no idea how badly the manager at Hollister must flip out of the till is a penny short at shutdown.
Oh, I totally understand that some people need a guarantee. I’m talking about samples of items from a factory that we didn’t even need overnighted. But I spent more time on the phone trying to get a credit than it was even worth and he’s told me to lie to say we needed it that 15 minutes or so earlier because we missed a deadline.
In fact, he lies constantly just to get minimal discounts. He’s always trying to abuse the system, no matter what company it is and what their policy is. He’s very shrewd and it’s effective, but sometimes it’s more work than it’s worth.
He may not use the word “jagoffs” (I’d love to hear this late-60s man say that word!), but he can get very abusive on the phone with various companies in the name of getting 25 bucks off something we’re paying a couple of thousand for.
I worked as a hotel clerk (and manager) for several years and I ran into this on a daily basis. For some reason the public has in mind that all hotels will give you a better rate if you argue with the desk clerk for 20 minutes.
For our hotel there were no discounts for anyone. We had a prime location and we would fill up almost every single night. Potential customers would argue with me for several minutes all the time insisting that they knew I could give them a better rate. They would try everything from flirting to intimidation.
I often got the last laugh though. Often all of the hotels in town would fill up and the haggler (who had just spent 2 hours driving around town trying to find a better deal) would end up back in my lobby asking for the set rate that I had offered him in the first place. It was even better when by that time I had already sold out.
P.S. When staying at a hotel you will get much better service from the staff if you are a nice guy rather than an asshole. Even if you have a problem try asking nicely first and the staff will respond much more quickly and efficiently than if you start out yelling at them. If the staff likes you they will go out of their way to serve you, if they hate you they will do everything they can to make you leave and never come back.
Lib, not EVERY thread needs to be about the contempt you feel for liberals. Give the hijacks a rest, wouldja?
Twice this spring, my wife and I have had hostesses at tourist-oriented restaurants gush over how friendly and polite we are. I’m not saying this to brag; we’re NOT especially friendly and polite to customer service folks. I mean, we smile and say thank you, but it’s not like we’re bringing them candy to give to their kids or anything.
Near as I can tell, it’s all about the contrast: there are so many assholes out there haranguing service people over pathetic little issues that simple decency comes across as beatitude. It’s ridiculous.
If I’m cheated out of more than ten bucks, then I’ll complain, very politely, and get it changed. If my polite complaints don’t work, then I might ratchet it up; when the phone company decided to cheat our humane society out of $2,500, I confess I descended into some shaking-voiced cold fury after several weeks of fruitless calls to rectify the situation. But it’s not worth my happiness to fight over a couple of bucks.
Daniel
Scene: a very busy Micky D’s in herdon VA 1994.
I am in line, the lady in front of me orders a burger, small fries, small drink and a toy for her rug rat plus something for hereself. clerk gives her the total. Then she notices that a burger, small fries, and small drink = happy meal and the toy is free. She insists that clerk re-ring meal.
clerk (new) had no clue, had to call and wait for manager. Manager comes and re-rings meal. The difference $.02 less.
Lady “Oh is that all, well then just keep it”
At this point I had visions of the manager having to re-ring the whole damn meal AGAIN
ME (In low menceing tone) “Take the two cents”
Her “What? Why”
Me “because you just wasted 5 minutes of my life and I would hate to think that it was for nothing”
her “I’ll take the 2 cents”
:wally
I worked in a women’s clothing store for several years. Most of our customers simply wanted a good selection at reasonable prices. However, there were always the exceptions…
A lot of women would come in wearing very heavy makeup and try on clothes. And they’d leave their mark. We carried mostly middle of the line clothing, but still, who wants someone else’s makeup on their clothes? We’d also have women who were way overdue for a bath come in and try stuff on. Yuck, yuck, yuck. Before I worked at that store, I’d wear new clothes without washing or drycleaning them first. These days, EVERYTHING gets washed first. We had a lot of women, too, who would try stuff on and then throw their rejects on the floor. We didn’t expect them to neatly arrange stuff on the hanger, but really, I bet that they didn’t throw their own clothes on the floor. Who would want to wear or buy stuff that’s been wadded up and kicked into a corner? We sometimes had to steam clothes after retrieving them from the dressing room.
There were some people who looked for any tiny flaw to get a discount. It’s one thing if we know about a flaw beforehand. I remember one woman who had the knack of “discovering” that the shirt or dress she wanted was missing a button, and she wanted a good portion of the price knocked off because of it. When we noticed that several times she’d come in wearing an item she’d bought at a discount, yet it mysteriously had all its original buttons, we suspected that she was removing the buttons herself. We told her that headquarters was no longer allowing us to make discounts for such things. Amazingly, she didn’t find garments with missing buttons after that. She didn’t shop at our store nearly as often, either. We were glad of that, she was a pain in other ways.
We didn’t offer refunds, but would offer store credit. One woman was constantly buying stuff and then returning it, saying that she’d changed her mind. Sometimes she’d apparently worn stuff a time or two. When she wanted to return a bathrobe that had been stained with menstrual blood, the manager told her that from that time forward, all of her sales were final. The customer said “It’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind.” The manager said that was right, but it was the store’s prerogative to declare sales final. If the customer didn’t like the clothes, she could either not buy them in the first place, or simply eat the loss.
We had a BIG problem with people buying cocktail/after five/formalwear, wearing it to a function, and then returning it. We finally made a rule that all “occasion” wear were final sales. This included stuff that people bought for Halloween costumes. It’s amazing how many people got pissed off that we wouldn’t allow them to take the clothes home, wear them, and then return them for a full refund. I can understand not wanting to drop a couple of hundred bucks on clothing that will only be worn one time, but I guess that they didn’t care if the store lost money. And every time a customer returns a garment for a full refund or credit, the store HAS lost money. It’s just that stores will weigh the short-term money loss against the potential loss of a repeat customer.
We had a drawing for a discount that took place once a month. The first of every month, the first customer would draw the entry which would receive the discount. We had one woman who was ready to draw, but the manager insisted on mixing the entries thoroughly. This woman had placed her entry on the top, ready to draw it out. Amazing. This woman also wanted to put very nice clothes on layaway, and pay a dollar or two every week. Since she was putting stuff that would cost over $100 in layaway, we had to point out to her that she would need to pay for almost two years before it would be paid for. She was fine with that, until we told her that no, we wouldn’t be exchanging layaway items any longer. By the time she finished paying for an item, it was out of style! Not long afterwards, we implemented a new rule…all layaway items would have to be paid for within a month, or else they’d be restocked. We insisted on 25% down, and we charged a 10% restocking fee. Since we’d probably have to mark an outdated item down in order to sell it, I think the restocking fee was more than reasonable.
MOST of our customers were fairly pleasant and reasonable. But the ones who aren’t really made an impression on me. I’m glad I don’t work retail any longer.
I work part time in a ladies consignment store as well.
However, (luckily for me) the owners hate assholes as much as everyone else.
All sales are final. No exchanges, no refunds. No discounts. No haggling.
When someone says “Lower the price or I wont buy it.” there are two responses(from everyone, owners included) is “Fine, I’ll buy it myself. I’ve been looking at this item for a while.” or “Fine, we’ll send it off to charity then.”
99% of the time the person buy’s it at the marked price.
God I love my owners. 
Last year, I was flying somewhere. We get on the plane, then we’re told there’s a problem with the plane, and what’s more we are told what the problem was (a door ding near the seal, where it could possibly be a bit dangerous) and how long it would be until they knew if it was something they could fix right then. It turned out that they couldn’t fix it then and there, so they had to put us on another plane.
I was not happy, but the woman who arranged for me to go on another flight thanked me rather profusely for, apparently, not having a screaming fit at her. In other words, for not being an asshole. I have a friend who is a gate agent for an airline, and he can tell some “interesting” stories.
I’ve always thought of that as theft by fraud. It’s nothing more than a confidence game where the “customer” plays on the good will of the vendor. Too bad it isn’t illegal.
Great lesson here. Always be nice to the person that has the ability to send your luggage to Tahiti when you are going to Cleveland.
I have gotten first class upgrades, free bottles of champane, and my bicycles shipped for free by being nice to airline people.
Yeah, but spending five minutes haggling over a coffee mug whose asking price is a dime is just dumb. And not good-natured haggling, either.
While working at the catalogue company (Victoria’s Secret) I mentioned earlier, I had a battle with a woman like the one you are describing. It was (sadly) my proudest moment while working there.
A woman called and said that she needed me to send out UPS to pickup a package because she got a bra that was defective. The bra was $12 and not worth sending out UPS over. I told her to just keep it and I’d credit her. She said, “Oh, thanks for the bra but I still need you to send UPS out because I got one of your jackets that you sent me with a rip on it.”
I started quickly looking at her account and she was asking us to send UPS out constantly. I refused and said she would need to return it herself and we would reimburse her for shipping. She flipped OUT and said no one had ever refused to do that before and she said “Look at how much I have spent with your company, I am worth far more to them than you are.”
Too bad for her, I DID look. I kid you not, the total of merchandise purchased in a 4 year period was over $30,000. The thing I noticed was a lot of returns. I promised her I would give her account the attention it deserved and she hung up on me.
I printed out the entire history of her account. I spent every spare moment between phone calls and some of my breaks to sort it out. In the end, I found that she was a world class con artist. Since VS had a policy of refunding any purchase you’re not happy with, she would order several hundred dollars worth of clothes, wear them a few months and then return them. Even better, when she’d be placing the order she’d tell the sales representative “Oh, last time I ordered I had a problem so your customer service rep told me to tell you to give me free shipping on this order.” They would because VS marks their shipping up sooo much (and their clothes) they don’t mind giving free shipping if you’re ordering big.
When she was ready to return she’d flip her bitch switch and DEMAND UPS pickup so she wouldn’t have to pay for return shipping. Out of $30K of clothes, I swear to you I found LESS THAN $500 worth of merchandise that she actually paid for and kept. I took this to my supervisor, who sent me to the director. I got a $1000 gift certificate and I got to be privvy to how they handled her.
After that, her orderes would be handpicked and packed and brought to the Director’s office to be examined and photographed before shipping. It took her almost a month to contact us about the first examined order. She claimed that when she opened the box, the dress had mustard stains on it. No, the box wasn’t opened or ripped or torn, etc etc. They sent UPS out and picked it up. She had actually rubbed mustard all over a $200 dress. They let her do one more and then the Director called her and told her what they’d done and what law she was in violation of and that her business was no longer wanted or needed. She tried to argue a little but gave up. I’m sure she’s pulling the same thing with another company today.
Hmm. When I was a young woman first putting together a home (humble as it was), it was common practice for stores like Sears, Penney’s etc. to give discounts on floor models for electronics and stuff. Even cheap stores like walmart did it. It wasn’t something you had to harrass the clerk to death to do. Just ask, and be willing to take a floor/demo model.
As far as clothing, if there is an item with a flaw, why WOULDN’T the store sell it at a discount if a consumer will accept that? After all, most sharp-eyed shoppers aren’t going to buy the shirt. if one did buy such a shirt, and find that the shirt had a flaw that was obviously a manufacturers defect (stitching coming loose, an “irregular”), along those lines, the consumer would bring the item back and get their money back for it.
The consumer is paying for a WHOLE and COMPLETE object, not something shoddy, or as in the case of electronic demo models something that’s been used. (PS, I’m NOT talking the 3.99 tshirt from Kmart, but an item of clothing that can reasonably be expected to NOT have sewing defects etc).
That said, I agree that this sort of advertising is liable to bring the scammers out of the woodwork (the aforementioned springerites snagging things on purpose and so on), and THAT I disagree wtih, for it spoils things for legitimate hagglers.
Haggling is a not a dirty word, it’s been around forever. But I agree with the basic gist of the OP that doing it for petty little things is a bit much, and “ruins” the original concept. That of being willing to buy an item of a lesser value for a lowered price.
Daisy Mae’s story reminded me of another one my sister-in-law told me about, regarding the women’s clothing store she works for now. We were driving along with her in the car on a Saturday night when she got a call on her work cell phone. She answered it, and went into a long conversation with someone who was apparently a worker, having an issue with returns by a customer. Finally she hung up and filled us in on the details.
She had a customer who liked to come into the store late, like a half hour before closing, and have sales clerks help her pick out stuff, bring stuff to the changing room, etc., and pushing their time way past the closing time of the store. But since she was buying so much stuff, most clerks didn’t press the issue at all. Once she stayed an hour and a half past the closing time, and walked out of there with multiple bags of clothing.
Apparently this woman was a compulsive shopper, who would later experience buyer’s remorse and return everything she bought. Most or all of it would be or at least appear unworn, tags all on, often still wrapped in plastic if it was a catalog order. The store allowed customers to return catalog merchandise at their locations, as many stores do. I guess the woman had walked in with thousands of dollars of clothing - not long before closing, of course - and wanted a refund on all of it. I don’t know what time span the clothes had been bought in, but either it was in the allowed return time, the store had a liberal return window, or something like that. The amount of money being shelled out for returns would wipe out the (rather successful) store’s earnings for the week and look bad on their record, even though it wasn’t anything they did.
I believe my SIL’s decision (she was the store manager) was to tell the clerk they’d be writing a "since we obviously have repeatedly failed to meet your standards, we regretfully request you take your business elsewhere’ letter.
It really should be. About 15 years ago, I worked at JCPenney and they had a very loose return policy. It was so bad that we accepted a pair of men’s Levis jeans that had seemingly been worn about 10 times in a row on what had to be a construction job. Not only were they dirty, but they stunk! We gave him full price back.
Oh, and he didn’t have a receipt.
And its that sort of scamming that causes stores to tighten their policies - which end up not impacting the real problems because they continue to be “persistant” enough that the manager ends up overriding the policy.
My problem with this is that it often ends up impacting ME. All operations need to operate at a profit and have profit goals. If Susie Savvy Shopper is so bitchy as to eat into the profit margin, the store raises its prices and I pay for it. Its a low impact, manager approved version of shoplifting and its impact on me.
And sometimes, it impacts me more directly. Lets say I book dinner at a restaurant for our aniversary at 6:00 pm. I get there and we wait around and am finally seated at 7:00. I recently met the reason this happens - someone telling me that they never bothered with reservations, as “if you are just persistant when you show up, and keep being persistant, they will find a table for you. After all, you are the customer and they want to make you happy” Yeah, bitch - my table. That I called three weeks ago to reserve.
People do similar things with appliances. I’ve heard of refrigerators being returned with a non-functional icemaker or completely without the one it supposedly came with. People take the icemaker from the new fridge, switch it for the broken one in the old fridge, then return the new one to get their money back.
For smaller appliances like window air conditioners, the more unscrupulous ones will take the new one out of the box and put the old one in the box then take the box back to the store, saying the new one doesn’t work. By the time the store gets around to opening the box, the customer is long gone with their refund.