Unfiltered Story #67006

(A fairly new member of staff is confused by a voucher presented by a customer, but I recognise the description as a voucher we no longer accept, so I go to look, sure enough, it is the vouchers we don’t take)

Me: (to manager, over the radio) It’s a [voucher name] Boss.

Manager: All right, we don’t take those.

Me: I’m very sorry ma’am, but head office scrapped this voucher for our site four years ago.

Customer: Well, it’s your chain, and you should honour it!

Me: I understand ma’am, but these vouchers do say ‘participating cinemas’ to which we are not. As a result of not being a participating cinema, we have no option to make the reduction on the tills.

Customer: Can you not just take the [discount] off?

Me: No ma’am, no such option is on our tills. That is a head office decision, not even our general manager can change that.

Colleague: Besides, you’re already using our [bigger discount promotion] so you can’t use this even if we did take it.

Me: Plus, when we did take it, it was considered void without the expiry date stamped, because they’re meant to be valid for two weeks from receipt from buying a ticket.

Customer: Fine then, I want your name for a follow up!

Me: It’s [name].

(the customer makes a note on the smart phone)

Me: I’m sorry ma’am, but we have our hands tied by head office on this matter, they do not give us a lot of power over these things.

Customer: Well, when I’m done they will.

(I have since double checked the legal section of my company’s website, not only is a full list of sites that use these vouchers, but it reiterates that they are void without a stamped date. Furthermore, the general manager stated they’re not transferable between sites!)