The common saying is that the customer is always right. Well, these customer's felt like they had been wronged with such severity that they will never step foot in these establishments ever again.
That’s One Terrible Sales Tactic
“There was a pet store/vet that opened close to my house, and I went there to buy my cat’s food. They oddly didn’t have the prices displayed, so I asked the cashier how much the bag cost. She scanned it and told me one price, so I went to grab an additional two bags, and when she went to scan, she gasped and said, ‘Oh, sorry, I told you the wrong price; it’s actually DOUBLE what I just told you.’
I was already at the register, so I just sighed and told her I’d only be buying one bag then and went on my way.
A few months later, I went in again with my mom and the same thing happened. I asked her the price, she scanned it, told me the price, and the second I pulled out my card, she said, ‘Oh, sorry! It’s actually more than double what I just told you!’ I put my card away and left. It just didn’t sit well with me. It struck me as a tactic to get people to go, ‘That’s cheap, let me grab more items’ and then at the till have them feel pressured to buy the items they selected with the now ‘corrected’ price, since I imagine a lot of people would feel like it’s just better to fork over the money, especially in my town where people love appearing well off and shying away from a bill is usually seen as embarrassing.
That’s just my conspiracy. Either way, I’m not going back to that store.”
Not So Friendly Skies
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“Spirit Airlines is the worst. I live in south Florida, and last year after Hurricane Irma, I booked the first flight out to Colorado after the airport reopened (I had a previously planned trip). Apparently, Spirit started booking passengers on this flight without first confirming that they had the necessary cabin crew to actually go through with it.
All the other assembled passengers and I were waiting at the gate and all we were told was that there was an unspecified delay. This was for a flight departing at 9 pm. Over the next two hours, the gate agents continued to give us changing and mostly inaccurate information until the flight was ultimately canceled. We were then also told that because there was not a mechanical issue that caused the cancellation that they wouldn’t offer anybody meal or hotel vouchers.
I booked the next available Southwest flight (for the following morning), retrieved my luggage from Spirit, and spent the next two hours on the phone with Spirit getting a refund while finding a spot to cozy up in the terminal until morning.”
Gross, Just Gross
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“There is a Mexican restaurant near me that I refuse to go to.
I met my brother and his wife there, they were already going to town on chips and dip, and we quickly finished the basket. The server went to refill our basket, and when he returned, my brother’s chewed up gum was in the wax paper, and they put it on my side.
Well, I assumed it was his because I noticed it when I got there, on his side of the basket. I said, ‘Eww, I don’t want your gum,’ and turned it around. My brother’s face went white, he spat out some partially chewed chips into the basket and said, ‘That’s not mine!’
We told the waiter. He took our chips back and dumped them into the top of the chip warmer. The chips my brother had partially chewed! We asked to talk to the manager, but suddenly no one speaks English. Blah!”
Aren’t You Supposed To Be An Expert At This Type Of Thing
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“The vet I used to take my dog to didn’t have their stuff together.
A few years ago she got really sick, was having accidents all over the house (which never, ever happened with her even as a puppy), seemed to not know when she actually had to pee or not and then started peeing blood. We made an appointment to get her checked out before she started peeing blood, called and let them know when it started, and they said she’d be fine to wait to a couple of days until the appointment.
I finally took her in, and the vet said she probably had bladder stones and that they were going to run a catheter to find out what kind and the treatment. Apparently, there were two kinds of stones, and they were treated very differently. The vet technician went to take my dog back and she was so afraid of the tech, she actually bit my mom. She is NOT an aggressive dog, far from it, and had never ever lashed out like that before. They got her into the back, and she wasn’t back there for more than a minute or two. From the time they got her into the back and when they brought her out, my mom hadn’t even enough time to wash out her bite. They charged us for the three or four tests, told us to put her on a diet of boiled chicken and cranberry juice and that the stones would dissolve on their own.
My dog gradually got sicker and sicker. Three days later she was not walking, woke up in the middle of the night shaking violently, puking, and crying in pain. She wouldn’t lay on the bed, wouldn’t do anything. My mom and I set up blankets on the floor in the living room and stayed up all night holding her; we genuinely thought she wasn’t going to make it through the night. We called the vet the moment they opened and they feed us some junk of that was just the stones breaking up, and that was the last straw. We called a different vet, they took her in that same day, and by the next morning, she was having emergency surgery to remove them. They said if we would have been even another day or two later she probably wouldn’t have made it.
Then the kicker – the stones were larger than the size of her bladder. Her treatment was entirely wrong. In fact, she is now on a prescription diet for life and the number one rule is no (extra) protein at all, like boiled chicken for example. We explained to our new vet what the last vet said and they blatantly told us there was no way they could have performed the tests they said they did in that short of a time, and then treated her so improperly. They also let us know when we got our dog’s record transferred that there was absolutely no record of the tests, despite us clearly having a receipt for hundreds of dollars of tests. Over the years, I’ve learned of more and more cases of the previous vet killing animals from leaving them under anesthesia for too long, and even had a friend take her dog there for a small hematoma and they forgot stitches when they went back to have them removed. I tell everyone I can to avoid them like the plague.
My dog is doing great now! She’s spoiled and chubby, despite no longer getting any table scraps. The stones were caused by her dog food, Beneful, which we found out has had loads of recalls for severe bladder stones and kidney/liver failure.”
Who Thought Something So Simple Would Be So Complicated?
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“I ordered an IKEA bed online to be delivered. They give us a delivery date with a 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. delivery window. My wife took the day off to wait for them but they never turned up. I called them at 1 p.m. to ask where they are and they haven’t loaded the item onto the truck. Ok, annoying, but that’s life.
For the second attempt three days later, we rearranged our Saturday plans with friends so we could wait in for the delivery. We were given a 1 to 5 p.m. delivery window but noticed they hadn’t texted on the morning of the delivery, so I give them a call to see if they were definitely coming. The wise guy on the customer support line was all ‘Well, the delivery time IS between 1 and 5 and currently it’s 1:15, so they’ll be there between 1:15 and 5.’Ok, prick, thanks for your help. They didn’t come.
I tweeted IKEA asking what was going on. They ignored this tweet. I spent more of my Saturday on hold listening to ABBA hits and being told I was a valued customer. I did not feel like a valued customer.
The girl I finally spoke to was helpful and rearranged it to the next earliest date (a Tuesday which I had to take off work as we needed the bed for guests the following weekend) and said she was sending a voucher to apologize.
Tuesday rolled around and I waited and I waited and I waited and IKEA stood me up again. I called again, but not wanting to take it out on some random girl who I suppose was as jaded as I was by IKEA’s incompetence, I asked them to cancel the order.
The following day, I got a call at work and it was IKEA. ‘Hi, I’m calling as I tried to hand deliver your voucher to apologize for our mistake, but unfortunately, we couldn’t find your house so we’ve taken it back with us. Is your house on a new road?’ My house is literally on THE main road and has existed for over 100 years. At this point, I couldn’t help but laugh and laugh much to Sven’s confusion.
They only issued us a partial refund and I had to chase this up as well. Although happy, they ended refunding us the wrong amount (£100 more).”
Turning On Your Customers Seems Like A Wonderful Idea
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“The gas station closest to my house is the cheapest gas in town. I will never go there again.
It’s owned by a family of East Indian or Pakistani folks, and they are constantly screaming at each other and even throwing things at their customers or each other. Occasionally, they even get into serious verbal battles with customers or even shoving matches.
They cheat people. If something is a dollar, they will randomly say: ‘That is $1.99.’ Some folks don’t pay attention and pay the $1.99. Others, if they object, will be screamed at, called names, etc. They threaten to call the police on their customers or to sue them.
They are quite the group of people.
Not only that, but a few years back, they were illegally charging a fee to use a debit card to pay for gas. The state sued them and won. They put up a huge sign outside calling all their customers idiots for ‘turning them in,’ so they were going to raise their gas prices. Except the company (ARCO if you are wondering) wouldn’t let them. The station became a ghost town and the sign came down after a few days.
Since they are a block from the interstate, they get enough business to keep them going, but the locals will never go. When someone moves into the neighborhood, it’s one of the first things we all warn them about. Usually, they will attempt it at least once, because of the cheap gas.
Nope. Not ever.”
When You’ve Had Enough Of The Fees
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“In about 2008, I signed up for a Chase ‘student account’ in college with no fees.
This went well for about two years until they decided it was cool to charge $80 a month for not maintaining a $1,000 balance in my checking account. I didn’t have $1,000, to begin with, let alone to keep in a checking account, so I closed out my entire account, got all my money, and went home.
About a month later, I got a note from them stating I somehow owed $75 in fees. What fees? I closed my accounts and made sure I had no outstanding payments.
They insisted, so I had my dad take me to the bank because I was aware I was a dumb 19-year-old and needed some backup.
The entire time I was going through my paper statements and showing ‘Idiot In A Bad Suit’ that I had no outstanding payments and under no circumstances would be paying their fees, he kept saying, ‘Well when you return to Chase Bank-‘ No. I will keep my money under my bed in a shoebox before you see it.
My dad was in the chair outside the cubicle, listening to this, and after I finally got through the idiot’s head that I was not paying a fee that had no reason to exist, he walked in.
Now, I am dirt poor, because my parents are doing that ‘Build yourself up!’ thing (yes they’ll cover me if I get hit by a car or end up homeless, but they aren’t going to fund my life, because they’re responsible adults), but my parents are reasonably well off.
Dad closed out a $500,000 savings account and transferred to Bank of America. My dad specifically told the branch manager that it was the idiot’s fault that he was closing his account, told the branch manager something in that terrifying low dad rumble, and then we hauled out of the bank and went to DuPar’s for pie and to explain to my mom why we no longer had Chase accounts.”
All It Takes Is One Mistake
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“I fix motorbikes/mopeds in my free time; it’s a hobby. I buy them cheap, usually not running, fix them, ride them, get bored of them, and sell them. Repeat. A while ago I had too many projects on my hand and I brought one moped to a nearby moped shop. It needed a new coil. I told them it needed a new coil and that I wanted them to ONLY install a new coil. I told them which one I wanted, which brand, which specs, and where they could order it. I made sure they knew I knew what I was talking about. No problem, or so it seemed. The total cost should have been around 40 or 50 bucks. I just didn’t have the time to order and install the coil and I needed the moped done two days later.
I went back two days later. They claimed to have replaced many more parts, including but not limited to the spark plug, capacitator, contact points, and some wiring, because, according to them, those were all not functioning. I called them out on their scam, telling them I only asked for a new coil and that’s what we agreed on. They now claimed to have done nearly $300 worth of repairs. I lost my cool and asked them to show me the new parts in the moped; they took the covers off and I could see the parts they claimed to have replaced were, in fact, the old parts, just the coil was new. I told them I wasn’t paying them, not even the money for the coil, because the tried to rip me off.
Eventually, I got on the phone with the owner, explained what had happened and he got livid. Not at me, at his staff, for trying to pull a fast one on me. I walked out of there, not paying a dime, but I refuse to ever set foot in that shop again.”
“Never Again, Lowe’s, Never Again”
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“My hot water heater went bust a few days before New Years. We were desperate to find someone to install another one and went to Lowe’s. We paid for the new water heater and extra for emergency installation. We were told it’d be installed the next day and they’d call us when the contractor was coming.
Next day, not a peep from Lowe’s or the contractor. We called the store where I bought it and they assured me that they’d get it dealt with. No call back the next day or the day after. So we called the customer support line on our contract. The next day (three days after we were promised install that we’d paid extra for) the contractor showed up. But he was not installing, just taking measurements. He said he would be back the next day to do install.
The next day, no call from Lowe’s or the contractor and he didn’t show up. I’d been taking freezing cold showers in the middle of winter for a week now, and I also had a renter who I obviously wasn’t going to make pay full rent when we had no hot water in 20-degree weather, so I was losing money on that too. I was kind of peeved now so I called the store and demanded to talk to someone who could help.
After being jerked around between three different departments on the phone, I had them tell me that I was going to have to fork out another $1,000 because the way my old water heater had been installed wasn’t up to code. At this point, I had a contract for the price I had paid. I asked for a refund at least and they told me they couldn’t do that because we’d signed a contract. When I countered that they had signed it too, they put me through to corporate.
After spending hours on the phone with corporate, they agreed to refund me most of what I had paid. At this point, New Years had passed so I called a regular plumber who gave us a better water heater for the same price we’d been paying Lowe’s and installed two days later. They also told me the not up to code thing was bull, and even if it wasn’t, fixing a problem like that wouldn’t have cost anything because it would involve putting in two more inches of piping.
Never again Lowe’s. Never again.”
The Principle Of The Matter
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“I went to a new restaurant with my family. It was right near the house, so we thought it could be a new commonplace for us. Plus, I’d heard the wings were fantastic.
So we went in. Took a while for us to have someone come take our drink orders. So, oh well.
My dad ordered a sandwich and a cup of soup. Now, if you order soup, do you not expect it to come before the entree? Well, we got our entrees, but my dad didn’t get his soup, so he told the waitress and she said she would go get it, but he said nevermind because he had his entree.
So, we ate. The food was okay. Nothing to rave about.
We got the check and noticed the soup was on it. We asked the waitress why it was on there, and she said because we ordered it. Well, we didn’t eat it, so no reason we should pay for it. Ask to speak to the manager. Now, a $3 cup of soup isn’t a big deal, but it’s the principle of it.
The manager spoke to us. We said we shouldn’t have to pay for it because we didn’t eat it. He disagreed. We ordered it, and therefore we should pay for it.
Long story short, we ended up telling him to get lost, and he said he didn’t want ‘our type’ eating there anyway. Still not sure in what way he meant that. Jewish? New Yorkers?
A month or two later they shut down.”
“I’ll Never Sign Up For That Program”
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“A cashier at Kohls once asked if I wanted to sign up for the store’s rewards card. She made it sound simple and easy and showed how much I could potentially save on a purchase like the one I was making, so I said, ‘Sure, why not?’ Then I heard somebody at the next register state that they had had the card before and it ‘messed up their credit,’ so I started to ask more questions and decided I did not want this thing. ‘But your name is already in the system,’ she said, ‘You can just cancel when they mail it to you.’
That would be great, except I was about to leave the country for two weeks the following day. I figured it was no big deal, I’d just cancel in a couple of weeks without ever having activated it or touching my account.
I got home and tried to cancel the card. But then I found out there was an outstanding balance I needed to take care of. What? I called customer support and they appeared to take care of it. Until a few weeks later when I received a bill in the mail. This was now well over a month since I had been in the store, and close to a month since I was made to believe my account was canceled and the ordeal was done with. But now this bill was saying I owed them over $100 in interest for a payment I had never been aware I was supposed to pay. I called customer service again and had it explained to me in unhelpful terms that I owed interest on a payment. To this day I am unclear on why I owed them this. I paid for my items like an honest citizen on the day that I ‘agreed’ to sign up for the card and it was never remotely implied that I’d have any further payments to make. But after speaking with somewhere between three and five different representatives and getting absolutely nowhere, I decided that paying $100+ to rid myself of this headache was the best course of action.”
“I’ll Starve Before I Give Them Another Penny”
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“I had an outstanding balance on my Chase credit card due to financial challenges at the time, so I started paying the credit card off. I finally got to my final payment. I sent it in and I got the statement the next month where I had some something thing like $0.15 on it. This ended up causing me to have a late fee of $25 since I thought I had paid it off.
The next time I used the credit card, the same thing happened. This time I watched the statements. I got down, made the last payment. Ended up with a $0.15 bill. I sent in the $0.15 and next month I had a bill of $0.03. I gave up and sent in $1. Now it said I had a credit of $0.95. I tried to cancel.
Then I couldn’t cancel it because it had a credit. I argued on the phone for 30 minutes and finally got them to close the account and they send me a check for $0.95.
Never again. I’ll starve before I give them another penny.”
You’re A Glutton For Punishment At This Point
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“There is a small diner in our town that opened about the same time we moved here. We went there three times within a two-week period, and the waitress and other staff were rude, cold, couldn’t get our order right, didn’t refill coffee, spent most of their time visiting with other tables and other inhospitable behavior.
When our hash browns arrived barely cooked on top and watery on the bottom, we called it quits. Hey, we were just looking for a small diner we could be loyal to and maybe feel welcome. So we switched to the best breakfast venue a small town could have…breakfast served in a pizza restaurant. A pizza chain bought this local restaurant with one proviso….that they continue the former owner’s breakfast menu every morning.
It is always full and the food is good and there’s no extra charge for coffee.”