I am working as a cashier at a craft store and a lady comes in to return some fabric. I ask her if she has a receipt, and she pulls out a receipt that is ripped in half. For me to pull up the transaction, I need the bar code on the receipt. Of course, that is not the part of the receipt she kept.

Me: “Ma’am, do you have the other half of the receipt?”

Customer: “No, I rip them so that they fit in my wallet.”

Me: “Okay, well, I don’t see the fabric on this half of the receipt, so did you possibly pay with a card? I can look up the transaction that way.”

Customer: “No, I paid cash. I expect cash back since I have the receipt.”

Me: “Ma’am, it doesn’t show me on the receipt how much you purchased this fabric for. I can’t help you.”

Customer: “No, your policy says if I have a receipt I can return it!”

Me: “You have… half of the receipt.”

Customer: “Well, how else would I get it to fit in here?”

She shows me the little wallet slot she puts them in. I see other torn-up receipts.

Me: “Maybe fold them?”

Customer: “Get me your manager.”

She starts whispering under her breath about how useless I am. Of course, like I’m the one that tore her receipt

My manager has been working for over forty years at this location and seems to get a kick out of dumb customers.

Manager: “Sorry, I can’t return the fabric without a receipt or a credit card to look it up with.”

Customer: “Well… how—”

Manager: “Maybe you should fold them instead of ripping them in half.”

Customer: “Excuse me? But your return policy states—”

Manager: “Yeah, and for that to happen, you need the full receipt. We don’t even know you bought the fabric from here.”

The customer starts opening the folded fabric to try and see if there is our logo or something on the seamed edge, which has ANOTHER fabric store’s name on it.

Manager: “See, that’s why we need the full receipt. This isn’t even our fabric. This is [Store].”

Customer: *Scoffs* “Well, hopefully, they will do a better job at returns than you guys!”

Manager: “Not if you only have half the receipt, they won’t.”

I’ve recently taken up crochet as a hobby and want to make animal-ear hats for all of my nieces and nephews for Christmas. I was in a hurry when I stopped by the craft store after work, and in my rush, I grabbed the wrong kind of yarn. It was the right color but two sizes too big for what the pattern called for. I was still in the window to do a return, but to save time, I called the store first to see if they had the size and color combo I needed before I made the trip.

After confirming they had what I needed, the employee said:

Employee: “We can hold the yarn at the front desk if you’re coming in today.”

Me: “That would be great, thank you! I also have some other yarn I’d like to exchange when I come in.”

Employee: *Sounding very wary* “Oh? Is it… still in the packaging?”

Me: “Of course! I realized I bought the wrong sized yarn for my project, so I haven’t even opened them. They’re still in the shopping bag.”

Employee: “Great! We’ll see you this evening!”

Later, when I’m in the store, I happen to meet the same employee at the checkout desk.

Employee: “I realized I must have sounded suspicious of you on the phone earlier. I’m sorry about that. We had a woman come in earlier this week trying to return several half-used balls of expensive yarn. She’d taped the labels back on, but clearly, she’d used most of it.”

Me: “And she thought she’d be able to return them?”

Employee: “Apparently. I’m just glad my manager is strict about that kind of thing because she started to pitch a fit when we said we couldn’t give her money back on supplies she’d clearly used. Then, she tried to claim she hadn’t used them and that we’d sold her balls of yarn that were smaller than the rest on the shelves.”

The employee and I always catch up now when I go into the store, and luckily, the used-yarn lady hasn’t tried that again. I’ve successfully completed one hat: a toddler-sized one with fox ears. Here’s hoping the rest turn out as well!

I work for a rather old-fashioned arts and crafts store. We don’t scan anything, we don’t take payments over the phone, and we don’t take checks without ID.

It’s a Monday, around halfway through my closing shift. I’m walking up front to take over the main register so my coworker can go on a break when a customer makes eye contact and asks me to answer a question. She’s carrying one small item and one larger one.

She gives me what is probably meant to be a sob story about how she’s on her way to work “at the nursing home”. There are like three in town, so I don’t know which one she’s talking about, although she is wearing scrubs and a name tag. One of the residents broke her lap tray, and the customer wants to surprise her with a new one.

Customer: “I don’t have my ID, but I’m in here all the time. Can I still write a check? Can you just trust me?”

First of all, why are you driving around without your ID? Second of all, you’re in here all the time. You should know our policy.

Me: “No, sorry, we have to have an ID with a check.”

Customer: “You guys are the only place in town that does it that way.”

Me: “Sorry, it’s a corporate policy. I have to see a physical ID to take a check.”

Customer: “You don’t have those scanner things like [Chain #1] or [Chain #2]?”

I just shake my head. No, which you should know because you’re here ALL THE TIME.

She follows me toward the registers and asks where she can leave her items, and I indicate a currently unused register. She drops her stuff and then digs through her purse one more time to make sure she hasn’t missed her wallet or whatever. She mumbles one more thing about us being the only place in town that doesn’t just take a check or something, and I turn slightly to address her as I log in to help another customer.

Me: “Yeah, sorry, corporate policy: you have to have an ID with a check.”

I’m not going to bother my boss with the question because he is busy doing a new hire orientation, and he would tell this customer the same thing anyway. I don’t care if you’re the Queen of England or the President of the United States. No ID = no check writing. I am on camera on my register, and we verify every check before we send it off to the bank. If I were to take a check without physically looking at an ID and writing down the necessary info, I’d be in big trouble. It’s not my favorite rule, either, but I follow it.

My boss does notice the items later and asks me about them, and when I tell him the short version of the story, he just scoffs.

Manager: “She’s not coming back. Put them away.”

And she didn’t come back before we closed. We’ll see what happens tomorrow.

Related:
No ID, No Idea, Part 46
No ID, No Idea, Part 45
No ID, No Idea, Part 44
No ID, No Idea, Part 43
No ID, No Idea, Part 42

I work as a personal frame designer. Customers bring us their artwork, and we work with them to select from hundreds of styles and colors to design a custom frame for them that compliments both their art and home. Obviously, it is impossible to carry every possible design or wood variation under the sun, but we have such a large and varied collection that it fills the entire wall behind my counter. It is rare that I am not able to make a satisfactory match.

A customer comes up with a piece of art that she wants framed to match an antique end table. Easy enough, so I pull out four samples of a similar shade of wood for each of the four corners of her art.

Me: “All right, based on the picture of the furniture you showed me, these four frame samples should match fairly closel—”

Customer: “No, none of these is the right kind. I need one exactly like the wood of my end table.”

Me: “I understand, but unless whoever designed your table also designs custom frames, it will be near impossible to have an exact mat—”

Customer: “I know that! Ugh… Hm, what about that one there?”

She points to a sample on the wall that looks nothing like her table and, frankly, doesn’t seem like a good match for her artwork.

Me: “It’s considerably different than the wood of your table, but if you like, I’ll pull it down to show you.”

I put one of the frame samples back on the wall to clear some room for the new one.

Client: “Ugh, no, that’s not it at all! You guys really don’t have much of a selection, do you?”

I look at the hundreds of different samples and designs lining the wall behind me and internally sigh. She stares intently at the four samples in front of her for a moment before looking up and noticing something.

Client: “Wait, ooh! What about that one behind you?!”

She points to the one frame I just put back barely ten seconds ago, which I then silently pull back down and put back down exactly where it was before.

Client: “Ooh, this one looks good! And it looks similar enough to my end table to match!”

I lost some IQ that day, but at least I made a sale.

This story is part of our ‘Clients From Hell’ roundup!

Read the next roundup story!

Read the roundup!

My store has a survey that customers can fill out on their receipt, with a one-to-ten scoring system. Everyone in the store gets punished if we get a score under eight because seven and below is considered a zero.

A customer comes up to the queue with her mask pulled under her chin and gets directly behind the other customer in line. It’s part of my job to enforce social distancing, and I ask her to step back and give the customer space.

Customer: “My God, is this the third f****** Reich?”

Me: “I’m just trying to make sure we stay open safely, ma’am.”

Customer: “The black b**** at the fabric counter was a Nazi; now you’re a f****** Nazi!”

Me: “There are children here, ma’am, so I need you to not shout.”

This includes her child in the cart. She has now arrived at my register, her mask still around her chin.

As I really don’t appreciate her comments, I decide to be as slightly antagonistic as store policy will permit. If I am confident that she’s leaving a negative survey, and a seven and a zero are the same thing, why bother trying to raise the score from zero up to four? I step as far back from the counter as I can.

Me: “Can you please pull up your mask?”

Customer: “No.”

Me: “I can’t ring your items until you pull your mask up.”

Customer: “Get the manager.”

Me: “I’m the manager.”

She pulls it over her mouth. I scan her one item. The fabric counter employee — the black employee who she called a b**** — has given her a hefty discount.

Me: “Okay, with the 75% off that my coworker gave you, your $39.95 item comes out to $10.76 with tax.”

By sheer luck, the phone rings. There is a timer on the phone, and if it’s not picked up before the third ring, it counts as a negative survey. I have to turn around to answer the phone.

Me: “[Craft Store], please hold.”

I radio to my coworkers that whoever is able needs to pick up the hold. This is the standard operating procedure when there’s only one cashier. The entire process takes a few seconds. Before I can turn around, something small and hard hits my back. The customer has taken $10.76 cents out of her wallet, slammed the bills on the table, and thrown the coins at me. She storms out before I can put the money in the till.

Me: *Very cheerfully and loudly* “Have a nice day, ma’am!”

I put the money in the drawer and the next customer comes up as the receipt is printing. I’m genuinely smiling at this point.

Customer: “I’m impressed that you’re not upset by her.”

Me: “The only feedback that the store reads is the receipt survey. I have her receipt, so she can say whatever she wants on Yelp or Google Maps, and my store won’t care. But, when the next cashier comes in half an hour, I’m going to go find her face on the security cameras and send it to all our sister stores, so we can ban her from all the stores in our entire region. Normally, we couldn’t do this, but since she wouldn’t pull up her mask, we have a clear shot of her face. Would you like to buy a reusable bag for 99¢?”