A customer comes in with some family members in tow and starts yelling about how her phone is broken and she’s on vacation and needs a new one. The phone is older and still has a removable battery. The phone isn’t actually broken; the battery just doesn’t last as long as the customer wants it to.

Me: “Do you use all of these apps? It looks like some of them take up a lot of battery and constantly run in the background. If you are able to remove any of them or just close them when not in use, that may help save your battery life.”

Customer: “Absolutely not! I use all these apps. I can’t get rid of any of them. The battery is just garbage. You need to give me a new phone!”

Me: “Well, the good news is that it looks like it’s just the battery that’s bad, and there’s a battery store across the parking lot. I know they stock this type of battery and it will only cost you about $20!”

Customer: “You’re just trying to palm me off on someone else! You just don’t want to help me! You think I’m a problem and want me to be someone else’s problem! You have to give me a new battery!”

Me: “Ma’am, I’m not trying to palm you off on anyone. We don’t carry batteries, but the store right across the parking lot, about thirty feet away, will be able to help you with a replacement.”

Customer: “You have to fix this now!“

My manager comes out to see what all the shouting is and the customer continues demanding a battery. My manager goes to the back to see if we have anything that would work with the phone, but we don’t.

Me: “Well, you also have the protection plan. If you don’t want to replace the battery, I can overnight you a new phone for free. It will be shipped directly to you!”

Customer: “No, that is absolutely unacceptable. I cannot wait that long. I need a new phone now! You have to give me a battery or a new phone. You are just trying to send me away!”

Me: “Well, if you don’t want to pick up a new battery across the lot or have a new phone shipped overnight to you, the other option would be to pay this phone off and purchase a new one. We can get you the same type of phone or a newer one, whichever you’d prefer.”

Customer: “Fine! Just go get me a new phone!”

I go back and grab the new phone and see that she has just purchased her current phone, which is $350, and she hasn’t made any payments. I brace myself for what’s coming.

Me: “Here’s the new phone. In order to purchase this today, you will have to pay off your current phone, and there is an upgrade fee of $40 plus taxes, so your total today for the new phone will be $420.”

She throws her debit card at me.

Customer: “You’re crooks! You’re just trying to take all my d*** money! All you want is my money! You should just give me a phone! I can’t believe you’re actually charging me for this!”

I quickly process the payment and hand her the new phone.

Me: “It should activate on its own when you turn it on. Let us know if you have any problems with it!”

The customer’s family just stood in the back, quiet, the whole time. One of them tried briefly to calm her down but gave up pretty fast. I’m still shocked she decided to pay $400 for a new phone on the spot rather than spend $20 on a new battery or even get a replacement phone for FREE. Luckily, she came in right at close and we were able to lock the doors so she couldn’t come back in. I never saw her again.

Related:
About To Get Charged With Battery, Part 8
About To Get Charged With Battery, Part 7
About To Get Charged With Battery, Part 6
About To Get Charged With Battery, Part 5

I work at a mobile phone store in a mall. While it has its fair share of snippy customers, this job doesn’t require us to bend over backward for them. I was told from day one that we don’t have to take abuse and can shut everything down, kick them out, and/or call security.

A guy comes in to pick up his phone that was sent off to be repaired. I give him his phone, he gives back the loaner phone, and he leaves. I factory wipe the phone, as policy, and then put it back out in the cupboards.

About thirty minutes later, he calls, flipping out because his contacts were erased from his phone.

Customer: “My contacts aren’t in my phone. Where the h*** are they?”

Me: “Well, when your phone is sent out for repair, the service centre wipes your phone, which is why we tell people to back up their contacts.”

Customer: “I didn’t agree to have my phone wiped, and no one told me that!”

Me: “Actually, when you give us the phone to be sent away, you’re agreeing to just that. It’s even on the paper you signed before we ever sent it to repairs. In fact…”

I dig up the store copy.

Me: “…I am looking at your signature and date acknowledging that you know that backing up your contacts is your responsibility.”

Customer: “I had hundreds of contacts on that phone! Are they still on the loaner?”

Me: “No, I factory cleared it, as policy. Sorry.”

Customer: “I didn’t agree to that, either! Get me a manager. You just lost me millions of dollars!”

I give the phone to my coworker, since the manager isn’t here. She basically reiterates what I said. The customer then screams that someone’s getting fired over this, and my coworker slams the phone down.

About thirty minutes later, the customer comes in, throws a phone across the counter at me — it doesn’t hit me, but it’s done in a hostile type of way — and demands that I transfer his contacts over.

I can’t do it because the phone he wants me to do the transfer from is ancient.

He starts flipping out and screaming, calling us all sorts of names, and causing a scene.

Coworker: “Mister, you either calm the h*** down, or I’ll have you removed by security.”

Customer: “Don’t f****** bulls*** me! Do it. Do it! Call security, c***! And while you’re at it, get me the motherf****** manager, because you’re both losing your jobs now!”

I pick up the phone and dial. The other end is barely picked up with “Mall Secur—” when the man spews forth a long stream of (often repeated) swear words and verbal abuse at top volume.

Me: “[Store], please.”

I will admit, I’ve never seen three linebacker-sized security officers sprint into our store at that speed before.

The man was eventually removed and even banned from the mall entirely! They had to threaten to get the cops over before he would leave, but he’s banned nonetheless. As they were walking out of the mall, he was still screaming about his lost millions.

He called about four more times that day, pretending to be other people who “witnessed” this event, and every time he did it, he was told to basically f*** off and don’t call back. There had been only one other guy in store at the time, and I know it wasn’t him.

A woman started actually screaming — like the screams in horror movies — because we told her we couldn’t access her cellphone account for her without her giving us a social security number, even after I told her she could punch it in herself so I couldn’t see it. I preferred it that way, anyway, because I didn’t want to be accidentally memorizing socials for people who were buying four or five phones from us. Because we were third-party, the carriers required us to get at least the last four digits to even access the account, and then the full number to upgrade or add a line, for security purposes.

At one point, we thought she’d finally given in, but she just punched in four random numbers. Then, she screamed at us again because her account got locked for fraud protection and she was going to have to wait a minimum of twenty-four hours, or she was going to have to call her carrier to get it unlocked.

It’s a slow Sunday shift in 2011. I’m working alone with the other recent hire, and we’ve been taking it in turns to deal with the few customers that walk in the door.

About half an hour before our shift ends, we hear a commotion outside. There’s a man pacing up and down in the parking lot, shouting angrily into his phone. My finely-honed Retail Sense begins to tingle, and sure enough, he comes barging in about five minutes later.

It turns out, he’s looking for a phone for his daughter, who’s eligible to upgrade.

Me: “Great! What can I show you?”

To avoid my typing in all caps, just imagine a red-faced drill sergeant who spotted a recruit who is just goofing off. His method of communication is of the same pitch and volume throughout our entire exchange.

Shouty Customer: “I want to get my daughter a smartphone, but I don’t want to pay for a data package!”

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, but the inclusion of a data package is mandatory. Without it, the phone will just run up data overage charges.”

Shouty Customer: “I have been a [Carrier] customer for thirty years! I deserve to get the Internet on the upgraded phone for free!”

[Carrier] has only been in business for about twelve years, so not only is he lying, but he’s lying poorly. Furthermore, cell phones before now have been about the same size and weight as a brick. The likelihood of getting the brand-new tech for free is somewhere between “no” and “hahaha, NO.”

Me: *As sweetly and politely as I can* “Sir, it’s impossible for anyone to provide that for you.”

[Shouty Customer] growls like a bear, paces back and forth a few times, and then begrudgingly says:

Shouty Customer: “Well, maybe my daughter doesn’t need a smartphone. Show me ones where she can at least text easily!” 

I promptly show him our line-up of QWERTY-style keyboard phones.

Shouty Customer: “And these are all free, right?!”

Me: “No, but after rebate, some of these are only going to be—”

Shouty Customer: “That’s not good enough!”

Cue a long-winded rant while he snarls at me that he has been getting free phones, including free smartphones, for the past thirty years from [Carrier], that I am trying to scam him, that I don’t know anything about this industry, and that he can get a free phone right now with no contract online, etc.

Me: *As calmly as I can* “Sir, the phones [Carrier] offers for ‘free’ online are only free with the establishment or renewal of a contract, and even then, they’re usually only free after the rebates.”

They’re also usually pre-owned, but hey, you get what you pay for. Cue [Shouty Customer] repeating that I don’t know anything and storming out the door in a huff.

I breathed a sigh of relief and then started to smirk a little and shake my head at his ridiculous lies.

[Shouty Customer] thankfully never came back, and all I heard about it afterward was from my manager laughing his a** off about “some lying dips*** claiming thirty years of loyal business with [Carrier].”

A few years ago, I worked as a sales rep for one of the larger phone carriers in the US. It was a slow night and the store was empty when this guy came in. He wanted to upgrade his [Phone #1], which he had just gotten two months ago on monthly payments. He was not on our upgrade program. He had already decided he wanted [Phone #2].

At this point, he owed about $550 on [Phone #1] and the trade-in value was only about $100. I told him about this and he said he didn’t care. He then went on for ten minutes bragging about how he had just gotten a raise and was making crazy money and could afford to buy five [Phone #2]s.

I just sat there listening to him. I then told him that I wouldn’t recommend trading in [Phone #1] because he would still have to make monthly payments on the remaining balance, plus another monthly payment for [Phone #2], which was a more expensive phone. He wasn’t the primary on the account — his wife was — but he was authorized. I asked if his wife would be okay with it and he said that he didn’t need her permission to do what he wanted. He ended up trading in [Phone #1] and getting [Phone #2] and he spent over $400 on accessories. All along, I continued to recommend that he not do this.

Before making the sale or trade-in, I got my manager involved so he could talk to the customer and make sure the customer understood what he was doing. In all, I told him seven times not to do it, and my manager did twice. He still did it. So, after the sale, following the cover-your-a** procedure, I made notes in the account detailing everything that had happened.

Fast forward two days. The store gets a call and they ask for me. It is customer service; they have the wife on the phone and she wants to talk to me.

Me: “What can I do for you, [Customer’s Wife]?”

Customer’s Wife: “Do you think what you did was okay?”

Me: “I’m sorry, what was that?”

Customer’s Wife: “Do you think what you did was okay? Taking advantage of my husband?”

Me: “I’m not sure what you mean.”

Customer’s Wife: “You convinced my husband to buy a new phone and you took his two-month-old phone and gave him basically nothing for it.”

Me: “I understand. Ma’am, I informed your husband many times about what would happen and recommended multiple times that he should not do that.”

Customer’s Wife: *Raising her voice* “That is bad business and it’s unethical. You should not have sold him anything! I am a business owner, and I would never take advantage of a customer the way you did. If you knew it was a bad idea, it’s your job not to sell it.”

Me: “Ma’am, I made—”

She cuts me off.

Customer’s Wife: “Seriously, what you did is just unethical and wrong. Do you understand that? What you did is illegal. You can’t sell it to him if you think it’s wrong.”

Me: “I know—”

She cuts me off again.

Customer’s Wife: “You should not have sold it to him. We want the phone he traded in back! We are also returning all the accessories you sold him on. This is so messed up.”

I’m getting annoyed for being blamed for this; it’s clear the husband told her a different story. I don’t mention to her. People do things like this at least once a month.

Me: “Okay. I made every effort to help your husband. He came into our store bragging about how much money he’s making and how he can buy whatever he wants, even five of these phones. That said, I even got my manager involved so he could hear it from someone else. You—”

She cuts me off yet again.

Customer’s Wife: “Oh, even your manager was in on it. Wait until I talk to corporate about your store’s unethical tactics!”

Me: “Okay, ma’am. At this point, there’s nothing I can do for you on the phone. You can return the accessories, and if you’d like, you can talk to my manager about what happened when you get here. Anything else I can do for you?”

Customer’s Wife: “Tell me why you sold the phone to him and thought was okay to do?”

Me: “Ma’am, as I told you, you can discuss this with my manager when you get here. Anything else I can do for you?”

Customer’s Wife: “Yeah, answer my last question. This is just bad business.”

Me: “Once again, ma’am, there’s nothing on the phone I can do for you. We will gladly help you in the store when you get here. Have a good day.”

I hung up.

The one thing I was not going to tell her over the phone was that once her husband had traded in the phone, there was no way to get it back, as all trade-ins are final. His trade-in phone was already shipped out.

The couple came in later that day and the wife was pissed. The husband, however, didn’t say a word. My manager backed me up the entire time he helped them return the accessories. I couldn’t help myself; I went over there and started repeating everything that the husband had bragged to me about, and I even added the line about how he didn’t need his wife’s permission. The look she gave him when I said that was the best redemption I could ever have. He tried blaming everything on me and now I was able to bury him for it. After that, she lightened up a little. She then returned the new phone, removed his name as an authorized user, and bought him a flip phone.