Customers Suck

This is stolen from the LiveJournal community, Customers Suck.

So, have you ever worked at a job when you've encountered a horrible customer? Now, you can vent about it here!

But before you do, there should be some rules to follow, just so we're all on the same page (and so this thread doesn't get locked)

1. A customer is someone who somehow comes in contact with your business (via telephone, e-mail, or in-person) and who buys/considers buying your product. A customer is not a job-seeker, a vendor, or another employee. Basically: stay on topic.!

2. Try to remain on topic. Your entire post should be about one or more customers who sucked toward employees (no customer-on-customer suck). WTFs (inexplicable customer behavior) and witnessed sucks/WTFs are fine, but you should be sure to tell us about it.

3. Don't be vulgar. Really, just follow all of the Mibba's rules.

4. Customers suck because of what they do, not because of what they are or how they look.

5. Don't mention specific places or names.

Now, that that's out of the way, here's a quick WTF? from me!

So, I work in a grocery department. A few days ago, I had a customer approach me and ask about taco seasoning. He wanted to know if we had McCormick's Taco Seasoning. Since we were in the taco aisle, we both just strolled over to the seasoning section, and found out that no, we don't carry McCormick's. I apologize and start straightening up the area next to the seasonings, because it looks like he might need something else.

He picks up the store's brand of taco seasoning, looks at the ingredients, and starts talking (rather loudly at that) about all the unhealthy stuff in the generic brand. I'm just like, "Ooookay...." and move back to where I originally was. I mean, I'm pretty sure that taco seasoning doesn't vary that much.

I work with Customer Service, answering phone calls about Bank accounts all day.

We get extremely rude customers. The unfortunate part is that we have to not only sit and listen, we also get monitored and have to use lots of empathy and SOUND sorry.
I get being polite to customers but after 30 minutes of being called an idiot it's hard to sound sympathetic.

I get threats all the time too. It's ridiculous. I've had people call me every name in the book.
The worst was a customer with an OD fee. I refused to return the fee because when I submitted the request (And yes, we have to submit a request and then we are told whether or not we can return the fee.. We do NOT get to choose to) It told me no. Customer called me many names then proceeding to tell me what a terrible person I was, how I was ruining their lives by this one 35 dollar fee.
Then she asked to speak with a supervisor so that she could make sure I was fired, those were her words.
After getting her to a supervisor she made up a bunch of lies, saying I was disrespectful and threatened her because of the fact that she had overdrawn...
blahblah.
Luckily we are monitored.
Some people are just crazy.

I work fast food, which seems to attract all manners of customers. I have the sweet ones that come by regularly, know my name and converse with me when they see me then there's everyone else.

I had a customer try to scam me for money out of my drawer because he claimed that I gave him the wrong change. Luckily, the manager backed me up and didn't give him the money but he held up the drive-thru line for a ridiculous bit arguing with my boss.

I work in the canteen at a bingo hall.

This one man kept asking me for Cheetos, and when I offered him the three different kinds he got mad at me. Then told me he wanted the Cheetos next to to the ones I just offered him.

It's more Cheetos of exact same kind that I just offered him. I offered the one out of the three I thought he was referring to. Then he asked for the ones beside those ones. At this point I'm just confused, the whole shelf is Cheetos and there is no more different kinds than three that I had just offered him.

I asked him the clarify which ones and he just said those ones beside those ones.

He was not impressed with me when I took one of each of the three and put the bags in front of him. He just huffed and walked off saying he'd go to the downstairs bar and see if they have any.

Instead he stayed at the end of my counter and watched as I served everyone. And when I was done he came back over and surprise, surprise he asked for Cheetos.

When I offered him the three kinds again, he yelled at me.

"Don't you know what Cheetos are? C-H-E-E-T-O-S!"

He literally spelled out Cheetos at me and when he noticed that a customer had been standing behind him the whole time and was staring at him like he was crazy. He just mumbled something about me ripping him off with prices and walked off.

He comes to bingo every Saturday. I went through this about four more times.

I've seriously considered throwing multiple Cheeto bags at him during bingo.
And then yelling at him how he likes those C - H - E - E - T - O - S.

^ Whoa. That guy sounds so ridiculous.
I wouldn't blame you for wanting to react that way at all.

---

I work as a sales assistant at a department store in the gourmet food/confectionery section. I've only been working there just over a month, but in that time I've had my share of sucky customers.

One day a few weeks ago this elderly couple came in looking to purchase some Christmas food hampers. They were telling me about how they'd bought the cheese one the previous year, sent it to friends, and the cheeses had gone bad before the hampers arrived at the house of their friends.

Long story short, they were basically asking me if it was possible to buy a hamper from a store closer to their friends (who lived in another state) rather than buying it from us and having it shipped straight to their house and risk the food going bad again. But they weren't explaining it that way, they were doing it so it completely confused me. In the end, the old guy just started yelling to his wife (about me), "The young girl doesn't understand! She doesn't understand!"

I'm just like thinking, are you fucking serious? I am standing RIGHT here. Then his wife looks me dead in the eye and says in a loud, slow voice. "Do. You. Understand. What. I'm. Saying?" As if I'm deaf or something. In the end, I had to politely explain that I wasn't sure if we could do that, but that I could ask my manager if it was possible. Instead they got pissy and the woman was like, "I wouldn't want you to go to THAT much trouble." Then they both walked away.

I was left standing there, stunned. I couldn't believe the way I'd been talked to (having not ever worked in customer service before, I didn't know what it was like). And as I also found out, what they were asking for we couldn't do anyway.

I honestly can't believe the amount of people who talk to you like working in retail automatically makes you an idiot.

I'm getting really sick of those customers who forget to give me their coupons. By the time that they're digging through their purse and stumbling upon them, I can no longer ring the coupons up. But they insist on using them, anyways. So I have to call a manager up and then my line gets backed up and the other two registers have to be opened.

There was this one guy who I rang up and he left and then like three hours later he came back and said "I forgot to give you my coupons, here's my receipt. Can you do anything?" and I said, "I don't know, uhhh," and he was like "Call your manager up here."

So then it took my manager an hour and a half to get it all sorted and then my drawer ended up being off by $6.00 at the end of the day. I didn't get a write up for it because she knew why it was off but still.

I work in clothing retail and I'm either in the front greeting customers or I'm in the fitting room. I'm not racist but minorities' treatment of me is making it easier and easier to go there. >.> Basically all the minorities (black/Asian/Hispanic) try on the clothes and then they give me a big pile of the clothes all jumbled up and off of hangers and stuff. I get that I'm supposed to attend to the customers but it does get annoying having to constantly rehang everything, etc. all the time while I'm also attending to EVERYONE ELSE in the fitting room. They need to understand they're not the only ones. :/

Also one time there was this lady that came in, stood around for a second trying to figure out which room she was going into, and then got this horrified face and plugged her nose. She started shouting about how bad it smelled in the fitting room. Now sometimes it smells like sweat but that's to be expected considering that PEOPLE CHANGE IN THERE. I probably get two hundred people a day coming in to try on clothes. It's not going to smell like peaches.

But that day it didn't even smell bad. I asked my coworker when she came back to take some clothes back to the floor if she could smell anything and she said no. That was after the lady had left, though.

She even had her kids plugging their noses and complaining about this imaginary smell.

It made me feel bad even though I didn't do nothin'. D:

I wasn't an employee because I was like, 10 or 11 at the time but there was once this Indian lady at a Fedex Kinko's by my old house. She shows up, waits like 5-10 minutes (we were waiting for about 20 minutes at the time), throws a fit about how no one's offered her service when all of the available employees were busy with other customers and there was a line that she hella cut.

She starts arguing with one of the employees, then demands to see the manager. When the employee tells her she needs to be more patient and that there are other customers that are waiting too but they're not acting as obnoxiously. She storms out of there saying she's going to this one shop that's about an hour away from her current location, and the other customers in the store is just like "WHAT THE HELL?" The employees were sort of all "You've got to be kidding me..." but then went back to work.

It bugs me how disrespectful people get with employees at shops & restaurants. Get real, they're paid to help you. Not be your slave.

the worst customers i get don't understand that our product is not always just an item. i work at a petstore, so when we get a bad customer, it can come down to a case of animal abuse.

worst case i think i've heard of yet was when this lady got two hamsters from us at like 1pm in the after noon. she comes back at 4pm the same day asking for an exchange or refund because they both died. of course she spoke to a manager and it turned out that she had driven 35-45 min with no ac in her car on a day it was 105+ degrees outside. (she tried to play it off like it wasn't so bad 'cause all her windows were rolled down and 'it wasn't so long of a drive' - while covered in sweat and beat red)

you really have to try to be a good judge of character so that people like that don't walk out of the store with an animal, without taking away the opportunity to get a pet from someone who actually cares.

^ those poor hamsters! I hate people like that.

---

I had a customer come into our store, I work for UPS, so obviously we are like a office and shipping type of store. Well this customer came in with a huge amp. And he asked us to pack it up and ship it for him.

No problems right that is what we do. So I let him know before anything that it will be pricey because of the size and weight of the item as well as it was going to the opposite side of the country!

Anyways he was like "it's fine just do it."

So I get the amp on the scale and it was like 35 pounds and then with the box and packing it would be like 41 pounds. Well I gave him a. Estimate of the packing which would cost him like 28 bucks and he got mad.

Then I gave him an estimated cost of shipping and delivery date and it was gonna be like 60 bucks so basically a total estimate of like 90 dollars and the. He wanted to ensure it and that was another 8 dollars so he was just under 100 dollars.

He heard that and went off on me. He was like this is a waste of time and money your way over priced and blah blah blah like right in the middle of the store while other customers were in the building. He ranted and raved and pointed at me and was going crazy. And I just stood there like WTF I told you it would be expensive.

He then grabs his amp and says "you wasted my time this is terrible customer service" and I just smiled and said, "you have a good day too."

Some people eesh...

I gave the man his sandwich, fries, and drink on the tray and told him "Have a good day" just as I do with everyone else. The man looks at the tray and asks for the sauce for the sandwich. When I told him the sauce was already on the sandwich, he looked at me like he couldn't believe it, like this was a brand new concept.

I recently had a woman tell me that I "looked a little lost" and "in need of help".

It was during one of those huge rushes we get around about lunch time each Saturday, and it was right before one of the girls came to help me like a minute or so after I'd called for assistance. I could not have been more pissed off at being talked to like that, especially in front of customers - two of which, not long after, reassured me that I was doing a fine job.

I work in a convience store, and the state law where I live says that if the person doesn't look over thirty years of age, we have to ask to see an ID before we can sell them any type of tabacco products. I had a girl tell me that I was a "rude bitch" because she asked for a pack of cigarettes, and she didn't have her ID on her, so I told her that I was sorry, that I wasn't allowed to sell them without seeing her ID first.

.

I hate when customers tell me to 'cheer up' or 'smile' I'm sure they mean well but they don't realise how annoying it actually is to have people say that to you when nothing is wrong in the first place.

I work in the billing/ dispute department of a credit card company.
Sometimes we accidentally give one too many credits when we credit the account and we have to re bill the amount to zero it out right. Looking on the bill it'll show like
4/30/12 whatever company name 50.00
5/1/12 adjustment whatever company name -50.00
5/1/12 adjustment whatever company name -50.00
clearly they got too much money back. They'll then get another charge of
5/5/12 adjustment whatever company name 50.00
If you passed the first grade you can tell that it equals zero.
No.
On average I will have to argue with a customer for 20+ minutes because they think that they are still paying the charge. I actually use the "if farmer John has 5 apples and gives 5 away how many does he have left?"
line. On a regular basis because they don't understand 1+1-1-1=0.
I once had an hour and a half long call over this.
Do note I get in trouble if I have a call longer then 7 minutes and I can't hang up on them.
>.<

I've encountered a plethora of horrible customers. One lady tried to get me fired because I wouldn't let her have any free food, meaning she wanted me to give her the "upgraded" meal but charge her for the cheaper one. She lit a fire under my bosses ass, too. Crazy lady.

And another time some man asked me "are you even old enough to have a job?" -__-

I got a customer the other day that I offered 15% off on her order if she orders 500 or 1000 copies. She came in and ordered just 100 copies (twice) and got 15% off each time. She also threw a fit the last time we created a document for her and received over 30 dollars of design work (and several hours) completely free.

They're not precisely costumers, since they're the guys from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and I work there as a Graduate assistant.

Anyways, there are certain holds that we all (as students) get when trying to register for classes. In case of a student gets a hold, they have to come to the office with their advising slip signed by their adviser and we'd take off the hold for them.

Well, this one kid called on the phone demanding that I should take his hold off. He asked me why were there holds and I told him everybody had them. Then he asked me whether we were all that incompetent because I asked what his hold was. I do not know what the holds for each student is. They need to write down the name of the hold and the CRN in order for me to take it off.

After that I told him he had to come to the office so I could remove it, because I would not do it via the phone. He then proceeded to insult me and the other people at the office, and then ask whether all Texan Universities were as incompetent and bureaucratic as UTEP is. As if it was my fault that the banner system and Records' office works this way.

Needles to say, my boss put the idiot in his place and didn't remove the holds because those were only taken off by Records

Carpe diem;:

I hate when customers tell me to 'cheer up' or 'smile' I'm sure they mean well but they don't realise how annoying it actually is to have people say that to you when nothing is wrong in the first place.

I really, truly hate that. I had one guy who came in (drunk as anything) and said "How about giving me a smile?!" in a really demanding voice after I'd said hello to his friend who I was busy serving at the time. I just gave him a dirty look and he walked away. In any normal circumstance I would oblige them, but this guy was drunk and had been mouthing off elsewhere in the store before I served his friend, so I wasn't about to give him anything. He was too drunk to care anyhow.