abusive customers

For the last 9 or so months I've been working at Blockbuster at my student town. It's quite possibly the perfect job for myself; I get paid to talk endlessly about games and films and these people pay me for it. In that time, I've gone through loads of training to basically become a reserve manager on duty, so basically I have to sort stuff out myself and can't rely on anyone else.

This evening, I had my first ever nasty customer. I've been incredibly lucky up until this point, with other members of staff getting abuse off customers on the phone or being swore at over the counters (always over late fees, people always refuse to pay and try anything to get past it). That's what the customer disputed over with me today, a measly £3 balance from 3 films they'd rented in April and kept an extra night, resulting in a £1 charge per film. I even was able to tell them the film titles and the exact time they were checked into our system, but they still disputed. They decided to continue the sale and pay the balance so they could rent again (as they seemed to think that talking to the manager would result ina refund of their late fees, ha), but with them being such nasty buggars I didn't feel like being nice, so I made a point of putting their 2 99p (keep for 1 night) films through for just that, 1 night, when they also rented 3 new release rentals, so I could of been nice and put them all through for 3.

When they found out that they'd have to return the 99p ones the next day, and the other 3 after 3 nights, they point blank refused sale, called me all sorts, were being really dismissive with her husband just saying 'just leave it. let's go. If they're going to mess us around then just don't even bother'. She's now returning tomorrow to speak to the manager, which I cannot wait to see as I'm working aswell, my manager's even meaner over this than myself.

tl;dr. Ever had abusive/nasty customers whilst at work? and how did you handle it?

I have had many people call me a bitch every now and then, Because they don't like the prices we (McDonald's) charge for things. Couldn't even tell you the thoughts that run in my mind when this happens but i just end up laughing at them for being real stupid.

wait

wait

they still have blockbuster in the UK?

This is why I'm glad I don't work in retail. I don't have the personality to deal with people's tit; at least not in person. I guess the most similar thing I had to deal with is when I had to tell students they had fines for late, missing, or broken production equipment. Most of them instead, of just saying okay would launch into a tirade about how they didn't actually have the equipment despite it being clearly checked out twice by staff and themselves. Listen, I don't care, I'm just letting you know so that when you cannot get your diploma because of a $50+ fine, you'll know why.

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Originally Posted by Jowy

wait

wait

they still have blockbuster in the UK?

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yep yep

I haven't worked retail in years, and I was lucky enough to never have the legendary nasty customer.

However, I worked in the pro shop in an ice arena a number of years ago. One day I came in and my manager cryptically asked me if there were any problems the last time I worked. I said that nothing stuck out and she said something like, "Okay."

After five minutes or so of awkwardness, she calls a meeting with everyone that was there that day. I find out in the meeting that a customer called to report me for trying to swindle him in terms of something like identity theft. Why? Because we had a system where if you pay by credit card, we would ask for your address as some sort of household record keeping. Sounds fishy when I put it like that, but our intent was to help the customer. We didn't sell info, or call and harass people. If anything, the number one reason we did stuff like that is so when customers wanted to return something, the process would be smoother and you wouldn't even need your receipt because--hey--there's a record of what you bought, and it wouldn't take long to look up! One last note on this before I continue this story: We didn't get crazy about it like GameStop or something. We didn't require customers to pay for stuff via credit card that way if they didn't want to. Long story short, it was all optional, and we made that clear during transactions.

Anyway, because I asked this customer his address via standard procedure, he took that as me trying to id theft him. During the actual sale, he put up no fuss and politely left after his transaction. What got me is that he tried to tell my manager that I was ignoring black customers. There was just him in the pro shop when this happened.

To this day I have no clue what that guy's motivation was, but I am glad I had a manager that was level headed and realized that the customer was completely full of **** and had some sort of hidden agenda.

This thread feels like a time machine. You would think that, with the way rental places are dropping like flies, you would bend over backwards for these people. Don't get me wrong, I'm totally glad you're not, I'm just surprised.

I haven't dealt with any nasty customers at Disneyland. Once, when I just arrived at my location, and angry lady asked "Are you the manager??" and I just said no and kept walking, since someone else was already with her waiting for the manager to show up. There's always the occasional complaint about how expensive everything is, but I just smile and say "Welcome to Disneyland!" Some of the merch is over priced, but a lot of it isn't--you just have to pay attention to what you're buying.

Working in child care and education I dealt with pissy parents on a regular basis, but those stories just make me cranky.

I work in a retail store but, I do inventory so I just call other people over to deal with customers :p

Seeing as I'm going on ten years in retail I've had quite a few terrible customers in my day. The worst are when you're working the return desk because everyone will universally hate your return policy.

One of the angriest customers I had I actually felt for because he had a legitimate reason to be upset. This was when I was working for a one hour photo lab (back when people still used film in their cameras) and some guy came in with a roll of special black and white film to be developed; it was full of pictures he'd just taken of his newborn baby. Well he just so HAPPENED to come in when I was on break and had a less knowledgable coworker covering for me, and it just so happened that this coworker didn't know we weren't equipped to process that type of film. Queue the guy's film getting completely destroyed and losing those pictures forever when my coworker put it through our machine. I felt bad when I was telling the customer there was nothing we could do, but, well... there was nothing we could do. Bad timing.

Anyways I now work at 4am specifically to avoid customers because they are terrible. I'd rather work a ridiculous shift than deal with people.

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Originally Posted by Tifa's Boobs

I was a reasonably attractive waitress in a down home country cookin' restaurant. Yes, I've had nasty customers. Of several different varieties.

I've been called quite a few names in the book.

Sometimes I'd handle it by refusing service to that customer, giving them little to no service, or actually talking back to them and tell them I wouldn't accept the way they were treating me.

One time I was actually fearful of one customer. He was a 6'7" 400lbs guy that came in all the time and would harass the waitress. Through a lot of hearsay I got on his bad side which resulted to him calling me a bitch to my face, and telling me I needed to get a new job. He would also make fun of me after that. Did I mention he was 40 and I was 19? I was actually afraid he'd try to hurt me or something, because of how he was acting. Whenever he'd come in it was always very negative for me.

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6'7 400 lbs?

knock him on one leg. he'll topple over or his leg will snap like a twig. you're female so just make up some flimsy story about furtive gestures or attempted assault - society and the law will back you up

i am simultaneously being facetious and giving you legitimate advice. that's the state of society.


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as for the topic itself i don't usually deal with unruly customer...wait i do every day. i just don't give a crap about it and follow protocol. as long as we follow protocol we don't get in trouble. We've actually escalated back to the company and once got a person fired. (was being abusive and datsracis)

now that's justice. wait is that the word i was looking for?

Finally dealing with reps all day instead of clients... No one ever bothered me - over the phone job - but then I do have an unsettling loud deep serial killerish voice.

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Originally Posted by Sephex

Anyway, because I asked this customer his address via standard procedure, he took that as me trying to id theft him. During the actual sale, he put up no fuss and politely left after his transaction. What got me is that he tried to tell my manager that I was ignoring black customers. There was just him in the pro shop when this happened.

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Wait wait waiiiiiiit a minute. Your story doesn't add up, bud.

Black people don't play hockey.

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Originally Posted by I Took the Red Pill

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Originally Posted by Sephex

Anyway, because I asked this customer his address via standard procedure, he took that as me trying to id theft him. During the actual sale, he put up no fuss and politely left after his transaction. What got me is that he tried to tell my manager that I was ignoring black customers. There was just him in the pro shop when this happened.

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Wait wait waiiiiiiit a minute. Your story doesn't add up, bud.

Black people don't play hockey.

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I don't know... It's a violent sport, so you think they'd be naturals.

...I'll see myself out.

I couldn't work in retail again. I just have no time for idiot customers. This example is more stupid than abusive.

I remember re-setting a password for a customer when I was at the bank...

Me: "OK. Here is your new password."
Customer: "Yes?"
Me: "Capital 'N', small 'c'"
Customer: "Yes?"
Me: "Six"
Customer: "Is that a capital six?"
Me: "...yeah......why not?"

Working in a grocery store, I got all sorts of people. Personally I've had a few "Well what if I just come around the counter and serve myself" (SPOILER)that sounds wrong out of context... which I see as a threat because there were knives and other things that could be used as weapons on my side of the counter. Aside from a few of those, unless I suppressed it, I've only had non-personal rude comments thrown at me.

Even though it wasn't too bad, I will never go back.

I became such a valuable member at one retail job that I could be a total bastard to some customers. It was great. I love smurfing people like that over.

At a different job, I had a guy threaten to beat up the staff then, when a customer asked him to calm down, threaten to beat up the other customer too. I threw him out and told him to smurf off. While he was in the store, he kept going on about how he owned three hair salons in Oldham, as if it somehow entitled him to act like a :bou::bou::bou::bou:. It's always nice telling those "the customer is always right!" sorts to shut the hell up or get out.

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Originally Posted by Shlup

This thread feels like a time machine. You would think that, with the way rental places are dropping like flies, you would bend over backwards for these people. Don't get me wrong, I'm totally glad you're not, I'm just surprised.

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To be honest, you'd be suprised; we do okay actually. Most days we take over a grand. We don't just rent, it's quite a big store in comparison to the normal Blockbusters. We have new and preowned games and DVD's, so we get most of our profits through retail. It also goes in our favour that we're the only place in the town that really sells games or films. I've always been a really nice member of staff and usually show digression with fines, If the customer seems genuine then quite often I'll wipe off a balance as long as they rent again. But I got advised not to do it anymore, so I have to be mean! Every balance has to be paid, no matter what.

I worked for a cable company. It was absolutely terrible and thankless.

We would get phone calls of people screeching that they couldn't see every goddamn blade of grass on their HD service. We would get people calling to scream about their cable going out and not showing whatever game was on (it's called network blocking because they want you to pay to see the game). A lot of sports-related anger.

Nobody is ever happy with their cable.

I worked at Walgreens for a little while, and customers were rude to me on a daily basis.

Although, I would comfort myself by thinking, "You're mean to me, but at least I don't trout in my pants."

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Originally Posted by Shorty

Nobody is ever happy with their cable.

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I'm happy with mine. :bigsmile:

You're the only one, Juliebird.

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Originally Posted by Clo

I worked at Walgreens for a little while, and customers were rude to me on a daily basis.

Although, I would comfort myself by thinking, "You're mean to me, but at least I don't trout in my pants."

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I don't know what Walgreens is, but it sounds terrible. :/

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Originally Posted by Flambard D'Quinceteth

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Clo

I worked at Walgreens for a little while, and customers were rude to me on a daily basis.

Although, I would comfort myself by thinking, "You're mean to me, but at least I don't tit in my pants."

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I don't know what Walgreens is, but it sounds terrible. :/

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It sounds to me like it's a nappy retailer.

If it's a nappy retailer for babies, then Clo is a horrible, horrible person.

Walgreens is a drug store, guys.

Ohhhhhhh...

I don't really get that many legit nasty customers, but like the general ignorance and impoliteness of customers really gets to me now.

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Originally Posted by Shorty

You're the only one, Juliebird.

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Make that two happy people with their cable. Mine is fine. Verizon is all good, except when I call them about my internet network. The bastards.

Walgreens is where all the old people buy their drugs and all the poor people buy their cans of corn.

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Originally Posted by Clo

Walgreens is where all the old people buy their drugs and all the poor people buy their cans of corn.

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Uh uh. Dollar General is where poor people by their corn.

Unless there's a Walgreens and there's a coupon for canned corn.

I used to work customer service for a cell phone company, so there were some good ones. Strangely, I've forgotten most of them (probably to protect my sanity). Some of the more annoying ones were a result of the iPhone 4 coming out shortly after I started. We had a ton of people calling to find out if they could upgrade their phone who weren't eligible because they'd just taken a contract, then threatened to cancel and were given everything they wanted. A bunch more who wanted it without a contract and would get quite irate when you said it was impossible (Apple's rules, not ours).

One of the few times I had a call where the issue was legitimately the customers fault yet they were unreasonably pissed anyway was when one guy had agreed to a one or two year contract to get a $5 discount when our outbound assholes called him. Then he couldn't get a new phone without cancelling the contract (would have cost a couple hundred bucks) and insisted for more than an hour that he didn't accept a contract and wanted me to listen to the call to confirm it (we didn't have the ability to do that). Sometimes those calls were kind of cathartic though because when there's nothing you can do you can just ignore them and keep saying the same thing over and over.

On my last day I had a guy calling to complain because he was texting his son in some eastern European country I can't remember the name of now and was getting charged some extra charges by the company who's towers they were being relayed through in the UK I believe of all places, and his number wasn't showing up as the sender (it was the other companies sms center number). He kept me on the phone for an hour or two despite there being nothing we could do, and you can imagine how much of a smurf I gave that day.

I have to say though, I'm disappointed that I can't remember any of the better calls I had. I know there were some far worse ones than those.

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Originally Posted by Shorty

I worked for a cable company. It was absolutely terrible and thankless.

We would get phone calls of people screeching that they couldn't see every goddamn blade of grass on their HD service. We would get people calling to scream about their cable going out and not showing whatever game was on (it's called network blocking because they want you to pay to see the game). A lot of sports-related anger.

Nobody is ever happy with their cable.

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One of the best calls I had in my time at that god awful call center was from someone who worked for another telecomm handling home phone, internet, cell phone, and cable. We basically just shot the tit for half an hour while I helped her with what she needed and had some good laughs as we passed stories back and forth. Other people who worked in call centers could be some of the best callers because they knew how crappy the job was a lot of the time and weren't there to make your day any harder. Mind you, if they didn't like what you had to say I suppose they could be the worst callers to some extent too.

every day i have to deal with the good, the bad, the ugly, and the strange. one customer called me a lazy ass because we had been closed for 15 minutes when he showed up and wanted chocolate mousse. I said "we're closed, but I'll check and see if we have some anyway." we were out, and i told him, so he came back a few days later accusing me of being lazy and not wanting to sell it to him -_- another guy screamed at my in front of several other customers and his kid because i didn't know he wanted our meal deal, i thought he just wanted the bucket of chicken. he didn't specify.

I don't deal with a lot of bad customers..though.. /ctrl f to find my name

oh yeah I already told you about the racist idiot we got fired. That's always a fun story.

I will add this since we are talking about CS people calling into HD. I try to provide the information you need to streamline calls. At first I might not know so I will always ask 'do you need anything from me first?' and then I'll explain my issue.

But if you can't do something for me, and I know I'm right, you are going to get hell from me. I tried to cancel pre-authorized debits from a non-profit one time. The person who entered me into the system fubared the contact info (or I had produced invalid contact info years ago) so they were not able to find me. I did not know what to provide to them as the person only was able to search by name and phone # (do you know your phone # from years ago? I get a new phone # every few years - land lines, cell, etc), address, etc.


>WTF you can't find me by name?? But you are debiting ME! What if I gave you the acct #

"I can't search by acct # sir"

>ugh blah blah abusive tone indicating that they have to have me somewhere on file if they are debiting me

"can you fax us your bank statement"

>fine

Here you go. My bank statement showing your debit out of my acct. Sent to their accounting dept. No contact. Oh NO YOU DIDN'T. I WORK FOR A BANK NOW YOU ARE DEAD

Yo colleagues. This company ID be taking funds from me what can I do to find myself?

Then I tried to find myself by acct # - it was not coming up (I still don't know if I can find myself - I don't even remember what year this occurred). So I had no choice but to go to the branch to reverse the payments.

Branch person: I can do the reversal for you but it will happen again and again. Hold on let me call my old mgr.

Old manager has access to the reporting system that we (bank) have on file and was able to find me....under a misspelled name. GREAT THAT'S WHY THEY CAN'T FIND ME. That mgr called the company and was able to obtain the cancellation of further PADs. Then I asked for reversal for the past 3 months of donations. Screw you!

And that's my abusive customer story. When in doubt go get your bank involved.

I had the biggest idiot come in today. He was looking for a shallow outdoor electrical box with a cover. He showed me the style he wanted and asked if we carried a shallow one. I said we didn't on the shelves but I'd check online and therefore check other stores. I told him it was a product we no longer carry after checking for a few minutes online. He said "well I guess you aren't gonna try very hard then.." so I called the electrical department head to come deal with him since I work as electrical and plumbings inventory person. The department head told him the same thing I did and even went at far as to show the man every item we carry in store and online by that brand. He still didn't believe us! So after he got mad and yelled about going to another store. About 5 minutes after, I see him right there in the isle with our Pro Desk worker asking him about them! Seriously guy, you just talked to the two people who do all of the ordering, price changing and direct the stocking in the department! It's not here! how many people must tell you "WE DO NOT SELL THAT"!?

I worked the night shift at a gas station for about six months, and I've had my share of encounters with the weird and nasty. I have a disturbingly calm personality, and I never raise my voice. I am, however, a master at being passive-aggressive, which seem to piss people off even more because they don't know how to deal with that.