Retail Customers from Hell

A true-to-life account of many experiences, had by many people. Feel free to submit your own experiences in retail.

[retailcustomersfromhell-blog]

I work at a french bakery and we have a slicer machine for the breads. Recently the machine started jamming up when we sliced baguettes so our manager told us to stop doing it. So one time I'm serving a couple and they ask for a bunch of stuff including a few baguettes. They wanted them sliced so I explained that we don't do that anymore as well as the reason. The woman said - with an extremely condescending tone - that she's had them sliced before so she knows for a fact that we do that. I explained again that yes, we did do that but we stopped. She started yelling at me that I should do that for her because she was local...

[retailcustomersfromhell-blog]

My mom owns a store that I work at. This rude woman whom I know my mom Hates walks in while she's away at the bank. This woman, we'll call cabrona, asks to see one of the purses we have that we've only had for a month. Note, we are a resale store but we handsort everything to make sure it's the highest quality possible. She then proceeds to demand a discount for it because it has "wear" on the UNDERSIDE of the strap. This "wear" is a single grey mark. I can only give her 10%, she argues with me and a manager gets involved and says the same thing but that the owner (my mom) will return soon and she may stay and talk to her then. So she leaves, comes back, and talks to my mom. She imitates me in a squeaky voice when telling my mom what I said. My mom gives this bitch 15%. I go to exchange cash out of a register nearby, and cabrona goes "See, I told you she'd give me a better deal. I was right." In a rude, snarky voice. I just smiled and glared at the same time. I was so angry not only with her for being such a bitch, and lying about how long the purse had been there (she said 3 months. We showed her the date on the tag and she still insisted it had been there 3 months), but because she was so disrespectful. And I was angry with my mom too for undermining me and not standing up for me. Cabrona saved 2 dollars. I wanted to quit right then and there after having a long day of 80% rude people.

[clientsfromhell]

Client: I need this yesterday.

Me: Perfect! I was free yesterday! 

Client: So you’ll do it? Me: Today I’m busy. 

[retailcustomersfromhell-blog]

[retailcustomersfromhell-blog]

I've been working at a Dollar Tree in a city in Saskatchewan for two years. When I first began working there, I was shy and didn't really know how to deal with customers that were rude. The city I live in is called the "Friendly City", which is far from true when it comes to customer service. Every day, we get customers throwing shit around from displays we just put together, things in different sections, and trying to sneak into the back to use our staff restroom when our restroom is out of order because people shit absolutely everywhere in there. However, one memory sticks out to me. In my Dollar Tree, we have a helium tank and specific foil balloons. We aren't allowed to fill up latex ones, and one lady freaked the fuck out when I refused to blow the latex ones up for her. I accidentally said it was against the law, when I meant to say it was a health code violation. They've given employees lacerations in the past from exploding, so we don't blow them up anymore. This lady then ripped open the package of her smiley face latex balloons and started turning on the helium tank, so I left my post at the register and stood between her and the tank. She proceeded to freak the hell out, throw the balloons at me, and try to push me out of the way. Never lay your hand on a worker, unless it's a polite handshake or solid high five. "MY UNCLE HAS A HELIUM TANK AND HE CAN BLOW THESE UP WHY CANT YOU?!?!" She kept demanding. Bitch if you want those blown up go to your uncle okay bye

[retailcustomersfromhell-blog]

So I work for a franchise in the UK that sells women's occasion wear. I work in a department store, but in a concession for said franchise. If we don't stock what a customer is looking for in our store/concession, we can phone other stores nearby to locate said stock for our customer, and this afternoon I receive a phone call from a nearby shop asking me to put a fascinator aside for a customer, which I do. The customer arrives while I'm on lunch, so another colleague from a different concession gives her the fascinator, as my colleague had seen me put it aside earlier. She's not happy with it, and I get called to come up and speak to her. She claims one of the feathers on the fascinator is "bent", and I know it's not, so to prove my point I run up to the stock room to grab another one for her. It's EXACTLY the same as the one she claims is faulty, yet still insists she wants money off because of this "damage", as she "tried one on in another store and it wasn't like that". In my head I'm screaming; "Here's an idea, maybe the one you tried on, which is different to these two, is actually the faulty one???" But I bite my tongue and smile and apologise. I start to get flustered, as she is still insisting she wants money off, yet as far as I'm concerned there is nothing wrong with the product. I try to phone my area support manager (of course my concession manager was off on holiday) but she doesn't answer, so in a panic I offer her 10% off. But no, this isn't sufficient. She demands I take 20% off, to which I reply that I literally can't or I could get in trouble. She LAUGHS at this. In the end, after much deliberation and attitude, she takes the fascinator with 10% off. Obviously wasn't that faulty.

[somanybadcustomers-deactivated2]

"But I was able to do it last time!" "You guys use to do this!" "Last time I was here, you guys did it" "Why can't you do it? Last time you could" "This must be new because it wasn't like that last time" "Are you new? Because it's allowed" No you lying son of a bitch, we have never done that, we never allowed that, stop trying to trick us into allowing you something when we know for a fact that we can't do that. all you're going to get is us saying "Oh sorry, It must be new policy" it's not.

I always ask who did it for them before and that I need to report that employee. Usually shuts them up.

[somanybadcustomers-deactivated2]

Lately I’ve noticed a lot of customers threatening to CALL CORPORATE, whenever they don’t get their way or don’t like the way we take care of problems. 

Thing is, corporate doesn’t give a fuck. Yeah, they’ll tell us to give you the $1 off that $60 photo order, or do the return on the 3 year old $7 item without the receipt, but they’re not gonna fire us. Hell, they won’t even write us up. It’s too hard to find good workers that will stay with a company, that corporate doesn’t give a fuck what you complain about, as long as there’s no evidence of employees mistreating a customer. 

So the people that want a cashier fired over not knowing what type of cigarettes they want, suck it up. You can call corporate, but they’ll just give you a $5 giftcard to our store only. You’re not getting anyone fired, that would be unrealistic.

[retailcustomersfromhell-blog]

Today a customer spit their chewed up gum onto the carpet of my store and guess who got to clean it. I would have assumed it was common sense to SPIT YOUR FREAKING GUM IN THE BIN AND NOT ON THE FLOOR.

[fuck-customers]

Is it just me or does anyone else hate when customers just throw the cash down on the counter? Especially, if its all coins?

Or when they just expect you to know how they are going to pay? I’m sorry I didn’t know you were paying with credit, since your wallet is not open or even in site, that is why I ask “How would you like to pay?“

Getting real sick of this retail crap.

[retailcustomersfromhell-blog]

Today I had a drug dealer buy two phones off me. At least I think he was a drug dealer. It's the law that we have to ask for ID to sell handsets, and he was swaying all over the place and smelled like cigarettes and weed, and barely understood me. Customer: can I get two of those phones? Me: sure, do you have some ID on you there mate? Customer: umm... Yes.. Do you need it? Me: yeah, it's the law now because people were using prepaid phones for fraudulent and illegal activities. Customer: oh. Customer:.... Customer: does this mean the phones will be under my name or something? Me: yes it does. Customer: *starts casually leaning towards the phones before he's paid* Me: the eftpos machine is actually over this side mate. Customer: oh. He paid for the phones and basically ran out of the store. Too late buddy, I've got your license details and name! BYE!

[pleasefireme]

Please fire me. I work at Guitar Center and people ask me if we sell guitars.

[pleasefireme]

Please fire me. I work at a store that sells books, and a woman came to the cash register asking for a bandage because there “must have been a knife on one of your book shelves because I got stabbed in my finger.” It was a paper cut.

[retailcustomersfromhell-blog]

DEAR LORD I LAUGHED TOO HARD AT THIS

[retailcustomersfromhell-blog]

Retail story #22

*Context - Anything above $50 I have to run for counterfeit*

Customer: *gives me $100 bill*

Me: Okay gimme one second

Customer: *sees I'm about to run it* Oh I just printed it this morning!

Me: *purposely runs it wrong so it comes up as failed* Really?

Customer: WAIT NO I DIDN'T ACTUALLY

Me: *runs it right so it passes* Amazing it worked

[retailcustomersfromhell-blog]

So at work the other day we were incredibly busy, but I'd been working for five hours without a break so I asked my shift coordinator if I could go on break. He was like I JUST have to find someone to REPLACE YOU (dude was stressed, it was busy and we had 40 minute wait times in the queue). So I began walking back to my counter feeling a bit dizzy, and he was caught my arm and was like DO NOT ROLL YOUR EYES AT ME I'M DOING MY BEST. JUST GO BACK OVER THERE AND I'LL FIND SOME ONE TO REPLACE YOU. Like wow dude, you were pretending to be my best friend ten minutes ago, thanks. I certainly didn't intend to roll my eyes and if I did it wasn't directed at him. I was just upset because he flipped out on me in front of customers, and that's so embarrassing for me, as well as being unprofessional. I'm still upset thinking about it and couldn't even sleep that night.

[nobodybetterhavethisoneoriswear]

Things not to say to a retail associate who is leaving work for the day:

* “They let you leave?” * “I thought you lived here!” * “Real quick, let me ask you something.” * “Uh uh, you better turn around. You’re walking the wrong way!”

Whether you realize it or not, you’re implying we don’t deserve to go home and rest or spend time with our families. You’re not funny, you’re extremely rude and you need to stop.

[musingsofasalesmanager]

When a customer throws 20 items on my station and immediately barks, "HOW MUCH!?"