We have had a stream of customers asking us to open packages to see the item, then arguing that they should get a discount on the item in question because the box is open. As such, management has implemented a rule that no box will be opened until it is purchased.

A woman tried to get the cashier to “bend” the rule, but when he did not, she came to me at customer service.

Me: “Hi, how—”

Customer: “—I want to see this blender, but your idiot on register wouldn’t do it.”

Me: “Yeah, unfortunately, management noticed that people would want to see products and then demand an open box discount so we can’t do that anymore. I’m really sorry for the inconvenience.”

Customer: “So are you going to open it?”

Me: “I can ring you up and we can open it after, but I can’t—”

Customer: “—No! I want to see if this blender is red!”

Me: “I understand. The box does show a red blender, and the description beside the UPC says red blender, so I think it’s safe to say that this is a red blender in this box.”

Customer: “And if it’s not?”

Me: “You can return it.”

Customer: “I am not buying a blender, taking it home, opening the box, and coming back if it’s black or grey or white or whatever!”

Me: “No problem. I can ring you up right here and open it for you after.”

Customer: “Finally.”

Me: “Okay, so your total—”

Customer: “—You didn’t open it.”

Me: “Correct, we cannot open the box until the blender is purchased.”

Customer: “Well, why would I buy it if it’s not what I want?”

Me: *Firmly.* “Ma’am. I understand that not being able to open the box is an inconvenience for you, but this is store policy. You can pay for it and open it right here and if it’s not what you want—”

Customer: “—Oh my god!”

The woman rips the box down the side (which, honestly, I still don’t know how), revealing… a red blender.

Customer: “Was that so hard?”

Me: “Your total is [amount].”

Customer: “This box is destroyed! I’m not paying full price.”

Me: “You are.”

Customer: “Get your manager!”

Me: “No.”

Customer: “Then I won’t buy it!”

Me: “Okay.” 

I take the box and remove it from her reach.

Me: “Next!”

Customer: “That’s mine!”

Me: “Not if you won’t pay for it. Next!”

Customer: “But I want it!”

Me: “Then you pay [amount].”

Customer: “But the box—”

Me: “Security!”

She swiftly exited the store, security following closely. We put the blender out at 10% off for having a damaged box and another woman happily bought it that same day.

Related:
We Can’t Believe They Thought That Would Work, Part 12
We Can’t Believe They Thought That Would Work, Part 11
We Can’t Believe They Thought That Would Work, Part 10
We Can’t Believe They Thought That Would Work, Part 9
We Can’t Believe They Thought That Would Work, Part 8

We repair a car; it’s a simple fix, so we only charge £20.

Two weeks later, the customer phones back.

Customer: “I want a refund on my repair.”

Me: “Has the car broken again?”

Customer: “No, but I just found out that the garage where I got the car from to begin with would have fixed it for free!”

Me: “That doesn’t change the fact that we put in the time and labour to fix your car, sir. We won’t be refunding that.”

The customer left a negative review on Google as a result of this conversation. We left a reply, explaining the situation in full, and also letting them know that we couldn’t issue a refund as our time machine was broken.

Anyone who knows how creative the English and Scottish can be about their insults should have a good idea how little mercy this cheapskate received in the comments section after that.

The review was taken down within a day.

We got a new customer from that bad review a week later:

New Customer: “You those guys with the broken time machine?”

Early 2025, I took a job that required travel almost exclusively, so I decided to try to sell my house. After I got some crazy lowball offers in the first two months (a third of market value at most), I switched to trying to rent. A woman reached out immediately via WhatsApp.

Woman: “I’d like to rent your residency for the year.”

Me: “Hi, thank you for reaching out. The house is a two-bedroom, one-point-five bath with a quarter acre of attached, fenced land in [Town]. The rent is $1000 per month, and you would be responsible for lawn care and utilities. When would you like to get together?”

Woman: “For social distancing purposes, I prefer not to meet.”

Me: “No problem, we can set up a video call, and I can show you around.”

Woman: “I do not use social media and would not like to be on camera.”

Me: “Okay… I’m not comfortable just agreeing to rent to someone who hasn’t even seen the place. How will you know you like it?”

Woman: “I can pay $800 a month for everything. Send me the lease.”

Me: “Unfortunately, that is not an offer I can entertain. I don’t think this is the place for you. I’m sorry.”

Woman: “This is discrimination! Do you dislike black, disabled women? I will report you to the news and my lawyer!”

Me: “You do that, ma’am. Have a nice day.”

Obviously, I’ve never seen her; she had no profile picture on WhatsApp, and even though I did search for her name all over the internet, nothing came up. And, what a surprise, I never heard from the news stations or her lawyer!

Related:
Unreal Estate

I work at an upscale steakhouse that has an all-you-can-eat dinner package. It’s pretty spendy, but it’s all you can eat steak. Our salad bar has enough charcuterie, composed salads, and soup to be a meal in itself, so we offer just that. Understandably, it’s a lot cheaper. (It’s popular with vegetarians and little old ladies who can’t eat their weight in ribeye.)

I had a table of four. One lady ordered just the salad bar. I take away her table marker for steak (so the chefs know she’s not getting meat) and go about my business. When I bring drinks, I notice she’s gotten an extra plate from another server. When the steak comes by, her husband gets a huge portion and gives half to his wife. 

I check back and try to be casual.

Me: “Are you enjoying your meal, ma’am?”

Customer: “There’s so much to choose from; it all looks delicious!”

Me: “Ma’am, would you like to switch to our dinner?”

Customer: “No, I only want salad.”

Over an hour, the table burns through four plates of our most expensive cuts. It’s screwing up the chefs because half of what they think they need is going to the “only salad” lady, who is plowing through filet mignon and sides. I give my manager a heads up, and he says to charge her for dinner.

I drop the check, and she is irate.

Customer: “I was just trying one bite of my husband’s steak! You’re going to charge me dinner for one bite?!”

My managers are excellent, so he steps in and lets her know:

Manager: “Ma’am, I saw you eating multiple plates of steak.”

Luckily, she doesn’t put up a fight, just sulks and says:

Customer: “I’m never coming back to somewhere that doesn’t even let me share with my husband!”

I feel bad for the other couple; they were total peaches and looked visibly embarrassed. She stiffed; they left 30% on their check.

But seriously, why be cheap at an expensive restaurant? There are hundreds of other places in this city. It’s my a** that gets chewed out if everyone notices and I don’t say anything. And you’re doing it in front of everyone. Please don’t make my night more difficult because you think you can outsmart the menu.

This happened a few weeks ago when my hotel was sold out. It was a Sunday, which meant that about 90% of the hotel was departing and heading towards the airport.

Around 10 AM, one of the housekeepers calls down from the room she’s cleaning on the seventh floor and says we need to send someone up because she can hear screaming and what sounds like things being thrown against the walls in the room next to her.

Now, we aren’t a resort hotel, despite being near a hot vacation spot, so we don’t have a dedicated security team. Usually, it’s one of the bellhops, engineers, or supervisors who deals with security issues like this.

I call it in, and the chief engineer volunteers to check it out. However, before he can even get up there, I get three other calls from nearby rooms, all complaining that they’ve been woken up by what sounds like domestic violence. A minute later, the chief engineer calls for backup over the radio and tells me to call 911. 

So now we have three other people, two bellmen and the housekeeping supervisor, rushing up to the seventh floor while the general manager calls 911. I’m getting more calls from the seventh floor, and I have no clue what’s going on right now. Every now and then, someone’s walkie is pushed, but I can’t make out any words, just static and noise. I tell anyone who calls that we have security dealing with the issue and will be evicting the guests who are causing the noise shortly.

About ten minutes pass, and the lovely image of three police cars pulls up to the front entrance (every supervisor’s dream). They go up to the seventh floor and then escort the two men who were fighting off the property. There was a woman with them, too, and the police remained with her in the room as she gathered up their things and then left in her own car. Apparently, they were brothers and got into a fist fight over money. The one thing I did notice when they left was that one of the brothers had a cut on his forehead, and it was bleeding pretty badly. Neither of them was pressing charges, so neither was arrested, just removed because we were now refusing service to them. 

For the rest of the morning, curiosity got the better of everyone who heard the incident, and they stopped by the desk asking what happened. We give the usual, ‘business smart’ answers of:

Me: “Oh, there was a conflict between two guests, but they’ve been removed from the property.”

Most people were understanding since the whole incident was resolved within approximately fifteen minutes. However, there was one grumpy lady who wasn’t very understanding.

This happened about four hours after the incident:

Grumpy Lady: *Approaches the desk.* “Excuse me, I’d like to check out of my room, 713.”

Me: “Sure, was everything fine with your stay?”

Grumpy Lady: “I guess.”

Me: “Alright then, would you like a paper copy or email of your receipt today?”

Grumpy Lady: “So you’re not going to compensate me?”

Me: *Visibly confused.* “Um, I’m sorry. Was there something wrong with your stay? I don’t see anything on your reservation.”

Grumpy Lady: “That fight! I was woken up and scared for my life. What if they had guns? I could have died.”

Me: “I’m so sorry about the racket that woke you up, ma’am. I can assure you that everyone is safe, and the two men who got into the fight were removed from the property as soon as police arrived.”

Grumpy Lady: “As soon as they arrived? That’s ridiculous, I could hear them fighting and screaming for fifteen minutes!”

Me: “Well, yes. As soon as we verified what was happening, we called the police right away.”

Grumpy Lady: “I called the desk several times while it was happening! All you told me was that you were handling it. Obviously, you weren’t because it went on for so long! When I looked outside my room, you bellhops were just standing by the elevator doing nothing while those men brawled in the hallway.”

Me: “Ma’am, we are unfortunately at the mercy of however long it takes the police to arrive. My bellmen aren’t trained to safely get between brawling guests, so we waited for the police.”

Grumpy Lady: “So you’re saying you have no control over your own guests?”

Me: “We can’t know what someone is going to do when they check in. We assume that everyone is here to relax or here for business.”

Grumpy Lady: “I want to speak to a manager. I want compensation.”

Me: “I am the manager on duty. We handled the situation as quickly and safely as we could, ma’am. Again, I’m sorry they woke you up, but I won’t be compensating you since the situation was not the hotel’s fault. I will not ask my coworkers to put themselves in harm’s way.”

Grumpy Lady: “Fine, I’m contacting corporate.”

Grumpy Lady walked away after that, and about an hour later, a customer care case hit our system. I told the GM about the incident right away, and she agreed it wasn’t our fault, so we’re not refunding her anything.

To top it off, Grumpy Lady was staying with us on an employee rate, so we double checked her form and called the property she worked for, only to find out she’d been fired two months ago. So technically, we were giving her compensation! She was supposed to pay full price, but we decided to leave her at the employee rate since we knew she’d be a bigger headache if we tried to charge her double the price.

Bonus event: One of the guys we kicked out came back to the hotel around 6 PM that night, trying to get into his old room. He was higher than a kite and couldn’t understand why he’d been evicted.