Unfiltered Story #201272

I work in a kid’s clothing store well known for the various “lines” of matching clothes for the kiddos. I’ve been promoted as the holiday sales lead, and in this story I’m assisting at our location in another city.

In our store, our return policy is sixty days with the receipt the way you paid for it. Of course, not all customers grasp the fact that we can’t give what they paid for the item back without said receipt.

This one day in particular, we had an elderly lady come up to the desk to do a return.

Customer: I’d like to return this, but I don’t have the receipt.

Coworker: Okay, well we can do it, but you’re only getting back what it’s ringing for now. Do you have an I.D.?

Customer: Yes, I do. Let me look around.

The customer looks around a bit. I, meanwhile, am busy working the floor and helping customers, so I miss this. I little while later, I’m ringing out another customer when the elderly lady returns to exchange the sweater for a pair of rather pricey boots. Keep in mind, she has no receipt and the sweater is on sale for around eleven dollars.

Coworker: Okay, that’ll be [price around $30].

Customer: Wait, I don’t understand. How is it this much?

Coworker: well-

Customer: I just don’t understand the receipt.

At this moment, I can tell the customer is getting upset, so I intervene.

Me: Well, Ma’am, when you don’t have a receipt, we have to return it for what it’s currently ringing for, and today it’s ringing [price around $11].

Customer: But I paid thirty dollars for this! At that, I might as well keep it! [Snatches sweater and angrily shoves it in bag.] That’s just too big a loss. I’ll just shove [granddaughter] into it or something.

The customer stalks off, the two of us shaking our heads. The worst part, is that if I weren’t busy, I would have offered to look up her credit card and maybe would have found her transaction in the system. But, alas, the customer was angry and I was trying to do too many thing sat once.