abusive customers

[Clo]

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

[Slothy]

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.

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.

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.

[~*~Celes~*~]

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.

[Peegee]

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.

[escobert]

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"!?

[Chris]

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.