Fool Me Once Shame On Me, Fool Me Twice…
“I worked at a grocery store a couple years back. One day, this really fat older woman came to my line, bought only a pack of Reese’s peanut butter cups and pays with a $100. Before I could count her change back to her, she snatched it out of my hand and walked out.
A few minutes later, she came back in and claimed that I shorted her $80. Most of the cashiers in the evening were teenagers (including myself) so she probably just assumed that they would be stupid and give her the money, but I called the manager over and asked him to count my cash drawer. Of course, the woman asked if she could go outside for a smoke in the meantime and didn’t come back.
She actually came in again a few months later and tried the same thing. This time when she grabbed for her change, I kept it out of her reach and slowly counted it back to her. She didn’t come back in.”
I’d Have A Bone To Pick With Him
“I used to be an assistant manager at a pet store. One day when I was responsible for the store for an afternoon, this guy comes in upset. He came in and started to yell at the cashier, who was a very kind high school girl that deserved none of his anger. And when I was manager, you didn’t yell at my co-workers for any reason. So we already started on a bad foot. I pulled him away from the cashier and asked him his problem.
Turns out he bought a Pedigree individually packaged dog bone (about $2). He got it home, left it with the dog on the outside porch over night, then brought it inside. That next day he was shocked to find bugs all over the bone and now inside his house. He came to the pet store angry because, clearly, there were insect eggs inside the bone that hatched when the package was opened, burrowed out of the bone, and infested his home like some kind of tiny trojan horse warfare army.
I couldn’t help but smile slightly, which only upset him more. I said I’d take the bones in the back and stop selling them (he insisted), but I kept trying to tell him that bugs will get on dog food, so he should seal it up when it’s not in use and definitely don’t leave it outside. Nope, this didn’t make sense to him, the bugs had to have been sealed inside the bone.
He wanted a refund for $2. Normally I would have done it just to keep a customer happy, but he nearly brought my cashier to tears, so I wasn’t giving him anything. He left completely furious, and a few minutes later came back in just to yell some more. I had moved the bones back to the store because there was nothing at all wrong with them, but this upset him even more. I told him he will get nothing and that he needs to leave before I call the cops. He left the store and yelled some more in the parking lot.
He later called and tried to complain to the store manager, but I had already explained what had happened to her and she just kind of shrugged him off. So much anger over $2.”
She Had A Knack For Getting Free Food
“This lady used to come into my job and order this huge breakfast all the time. Same one, every time. And every time, about a third of the way into it, she would say something was the matter with it, it was inedible, and didn’t want to pay for it. We complied many times. After personally seeing this happen a few times, I started to wonder how she got a bad breakfast every time? And why did she keep coming in and ordering it, considering what bad luck she kept having.
Come to find out, a regular customer knew her. They told us she had gastric bypass surgery and could no longer eat very much. So this girl would just come in, eat till she was full, which wasn’t much, and then complain that it was bad. Being that she hardly ate it, we always believed her, and didn’t make her pay.
Next time she came in, I refused her service. She freaked out. When I asked her why she continued to come in even though her meal was always bad, her response was: ‘I’m waiting to get a good meal.'”
A Gross Addition To A Meal
“When I was a bartender/drink service waiter, I noticed some middle-aged woman kept coming into our restaurant and ordering meals, then claiming there was something wrong with the meal, getting a refund and leaving. The first occurrence I thought nothing of, but the second and third made me realized she was ripping us off.
But then she got greedy, and to top it off, I caught her. During her meal, I noticed her pulling a hair out of her head and placing it in her meal. She then demanded a refund due to finding a hair in her meal, but while the waitress was getting her refund, she had the gall to come to me and demand a free drink. Initially, I figured it was better off not causing a scene, and said she could have some vino by the glass- through gritted teeth.
No, she didn’t want those, she wanted a glass of the top shelf stuff that we only serve by the bottle. When I told her this was not possible, she began yelling, ‘The customer is always right,’ and ‘I should report your restaurant to health and safety!’ That’s when I lost it.
‘First of all, there’s nothing wrong with our food. You put your own hair in your meal, I was watching you while you did it, so you can forget your refund and your drink. And by the way, if you want to try that scam again somewhere else, make sure the chef isn’t bald first, you stupid jerk!’
She was shocked, but then stormed off to complain to the duty manager about my abusive behavior. Fortunately, I’d warned him about this woman before, so she was promptly told to leave and never return.”
I Guess The Customer Wasn’t Wrong But She Wasn’t Right Either
“I worked at GameStop years ago. A little old lady brought in her grandkids and told them to pick out whatever they wanted from the used PS2 game wall (which at the time was still a third of the store). She asked us for a used PS2, with extra used controllers. These kids must’ve picked out 20 games. She bought and paid for all of them. As she was leaving, we reminded her (as we had to, it was policy) that everything used could be returned within seven days for any reason.
‘Oh, I know. My grandkids are only staying with me for five days. I’m bringing all this stuff back on day six! Cheaper than renting!’
There was absolutely nothing we could do.”
No Regrets Denying This Pretty Girl
“When I was a kid, I worked at this mom and pop deli/grocery store. It was a small town so I knew virtually everyone that walked through the door.
One day, we were really busy and there was actually a line of customers. The store was set up sort of like a bodega, so the cash register was just in front of the store by the door – not like a supermarket check out line. Anyway, there were about six or seven people waiting to get stuff when in walked a teenager that I hadn’t seen before. She was pretty attractive and very smiley. She grabbed a pack of smokes and put it on the counter, very nonchalantly, while I was trying to get everyone settled. I started calling out prices to people based on what they had in their hands: ‘Bill – $4.75, Chris – $5 bucks, You (girl with the cigs) – I need ID.’
‘Oh, I don’t have any. I just need this pack though, is it ok if I don’t show ID this one time?’
‘No, it’s not ok.’ I took back the cigs, like a boss and told her to go get ID and come back.
Three days later, the owner came to me and thanked me, as she’d received a letter from the state licensing board stating that her cashier denied a minor from purchasing an illicit product, and that the girl was part of a sting to try to catch stores violating the law. If I would have let her slide, it would have cost the store thousands in fines and losing their license to sell smokes.
The owner wound up giving me a raise.”
He Showed What Kind Of Man He Was
“I am a waiter and I remember serving this family. I walked up and greeted them politely, but they didn’t acknowledge me. I was sat again, so I told them that I would be right back.
The man lifted his head up and said, ‘You are a waiter, right?’
I said, ‘Yes…’
He responded, ‘Then you wait.'”
This Regular Was Acting Rather Irregular
“‘Steve’ was a trusted regular at my bar – this guy had been coming in for twenty years. He was in his mid-forties and started hanging out late until after I did the cash drop and leaving with me. This meant I’d leave the bar unattended for a minute while I ran to the office. This crafty little jerk used this opportunity to lean over the bar and steal a bottle of Grey Goose, twice. He knew the place so well he did it only when I was off the next day and our one kind of goofy day person would open, correctly guessing she wouldn’t realize it had been stolen and just restock it; and he knew where to stand to be in the blind spot on our security.
My night porter gave me the heads up the third week he was hanging out late, just as I was thinking to myself, ‘Why so late every Wednesday? He usually leaves two hours earlier.’ I was SO MAD. I told him he’d have to leave before I dropped the cash, basically, ‘I know what you’ve been doing. I can’t prove it, but I’ll never leave you alone again in here.’
He correctly guessed that the porter had told me, went straight into the freshly cleaned bathroom and spat gobs of phlegm grossness all over the place. Came out and told my porter in his native language, ‘Clean it up, loser. That’s your job.’
I tried to be nice. ‘Hey, Steve, we’ve all done stupid things when we’ve been drinking. Clean it up yourself, you can come back tomorrow like nothing happened. You don’t, you will never drink in here again.’ Of course, he didn’t clean it despite me and his friends practically begging him to.
‘Whatever lady, I’ve been coming here longer than you’ve been alive. I’ll be here tomorrow, you’ll be looking for a new job if you try to bar me.’
‘I’d rather leave than serve you a drink ever again, but we’ll see.’
My boss made the right decision. A week after I left that bar (three years later), ‘Steve’ wiped out on his motorcycle and died, so to my knowledge, he never did drink in that bar again.”
That’s A Crowd You Don’t Want Back
“I manage a restaurant and deal with the slickest customers ever on a regular basis. Just a few hours ago, I had a large table with split checks that were really treating the server horribly. We were glad to see them go. Instead of waiting at the table to pay for the multiple checks, they all stood around in a group at the front while we worked out the bills.
In the cluster of chaos they caused, one of them (a mother with small child no less), casually walked out the front door without paying. We noticed that the bill was still unpaid as they all left, though the group assured me that she went to the bathroom.
About one minute later, after checking, the entire group was headed down the road. I confronted them and they told me that she wasn’t with them, they didn’t even know who she was.
Where is a cop when I need one?”
Quite A Satisfying Way To Catch Someone In The Act
“I work in customer service for a major cell phone company. ‘I never received the phone I purchased,’ happens all the time. It’s actually very amusing, because then I can do this:
‘Oh, gosh Mr Derp, I’m so sorry that you didn’t receive your phone. The tracking number indicates that it was delivered to the address you requested about three days ago. Have you possibly checked with a neighbor who may have retrieved it for you?’
Mr Derp: ‘Nope, no one has the phone. It must have been stolen. I’m going to need a new one.’
Cue troll face from me: ‘Hmmm okay then, Mr Derp. The reason I’m asking is because I’m pretty concerned; the serial number of the phone we sent you is actually showing as being in use for three days on the same line you’re calling me from right now.’
CLICK.”
What Happens When You Don’t Look Close Enough
“I work for a grooming salon and we are supposed to verify that the customer has paid for the services before we give them the dog. Harsh, I know, but some of these grooms run upwards of $100 and the store doesn’t want to lose that, plus I don’t want to lose my commission!
Anyway, a lady came back from supposedly paying and showed me a receipt; it’s a little crinkled but nothing that I believe is out of the ordinary. I gave her the dog. Turns out, she had shown me the receipt from the previous time the dog had gotten groomed. I didn’t check the dates or anything.
I felt like a total dummy while explaining it to my manager the next day.”
The Fraud Went Deeper Than They Thought
“I had a customer come into the store to buy two 42 inch LG TVs. He tried to pay half cash, half credit with a card that didn’t have a signature on it and was badly damaged on the front. We asked him the name on in it, he said that it was his. We asked to see his ID (as is policy for credit card customers) and he showed us an ID with a different name on it than from what he’d said his name was. When I told him that we couldn’t ring up the transaction, he immediately got angry and told me that I had ‘lost a customer’ and that I ‘should be ashamed of myself’ for following policy. I shrugged and told him he didn’t have to buy the TVs from us. He got even angrier, but paid with cash.
Fast forward a week later: he came in and tried to steal two pre-owned games by taking them into the bathroom and breaking the clamshells on them. He came out and we nailed him for it. Turns out he had warrants out for his arrest and he had stolen four credit cards and used them within the last month.”
“I FEEL LIKE I’VE BEEN SHOT”
“Being a klutzy server, I once dropped a stack of oyster plates on my first day. My table joked oysters came on their own plates anyway. As I was laughing it off with them, we heard a shriek from a few rows of tables over.
A woman insisted some rogue sharp piece had ricocheted over and cut her leg. I see her pinching her cut to ‘drain the blood.’ Her husband had her elevate her leg on to a chair and she started deep breathing. My manager rushed out with a free bottle of vino and to gauge the wound. The woman wasn’t in my section, but when I went to check in on how she’s feeling, she responded, with wide eyes, ‘I FEEL LIKE I’VE BEEN SHOT.’
Shortly after comping her meal and twenty minutes into over apologizing and babying her, my manager realized she was displaying a shard of glass as the culprit. The plates were ceramic.”
She Really Went Bananas
“I used to work as a shift leader at a chocolate shop that served fondue. We’d serve bananas among other things to dip in the chocolate.
One time we had gotten a bad batch of bananas that we had to throw away early because they got so bad so fast. So we were telling customers that they would get extra of everything else but we had no bananas.
Well, a lady came in and wanted a fondue, and we gave her the no banana speech and she was totally okay with it. As soon as we took the fondue out to her, she went completely crazy and freaked out about us not having bananas! Her son even said, ‘They said they didn’t have any!’ to which she just shushed him and continued yelling at me.
I don’t know what happened but the next thing that came out of my mouth was, ‘Well ma’am, I told you we had no bananas; if you want them so bad, we have some spoiled ones in the dumpster out back. Feel free to help yourself.’
My co-workers busted out laughing behind me, however, she wasn’t so happy. She ended up calling into our pushover manager and got a free fondue, not because of what I had said, but because there were no bananas!”
Well He Didn’t Get The Help He Was Looking For
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“I worked at the University IT Helpdesk and someone was annoyed that I wouldn’t break policy and let them back on the network after they were kicked off for a month due to repeated, blatant piracy, which had resulted in DMCA complaints sent to us.
They then asked to go talk to my boss about it and I told them where their office was and continued working.
Five minutes later, he came walking out with an odd grin, with my boss following behind and looking like she’s trying really hard to be serious and not being successful. Boss comes over to me, and says, ‘He says you ignored him to play a computer game, and then were rude and insulting to him.’
Customer has a look on his face like, ‘ha, you’re going to get fired now!’
My boss then goes, ‘Of course, I know you’re one of our best employees, so I figure that he’s either making it up, or he deserves the treatment, which one is it?’ I’ve never seen someone’s face go so quickly from happy to ‘oh no.’
I explain what he’s mad at me for, and then she tells me she’s going to lock his account for the month out of our control to make sure he can’t try to bully any other helpdesk employees into letting him back on.”
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