(I work in an electronic retail store as a manager. Over the past year, we have been hit by a scammer doing fraudulent returns on items he has stolen. Basically, all of the managers have been tricked by him, including me. I see him come into the store and immediately greet him, and he luckily doesn’t recognize me. It would be easy to simply call him out and refuse his return but it’s a slow day.)

Me: “Hello, how can I help you?”

Customer: *said to the person he is on the phone with* “This girl is standing here looking at me like she doesn’t even want to help me! I’m just a big inconvenience to her!”

(I remain calm, as this is part of what he does: try to fluster the manager.)

Me: “Sir, I don’t believe I have given you any reason to think you are an inconvenience. If you would let me know what I can help you with, I would be more than happy to assist you.”

Customer: “I have a return. I bought these laptops for a summer camp, but we ended up not needing half of them. I already talked to [Store Manager] and she approved it.”

Me: “Great! I can certainly help you with that. Can I see your receipt?”

Customer: “I don’t have it, but as I already said, I met with [Store Manager] and she said that you would take care of me. You’re going to do that, right? I would really hate to have to bother your bosses and let them know you aren’t helping me out.”

(I know he is lying. Our manager would never approve such a large return without a receipt.)

Me: “Sure, let’s go over to the return desk and I’ll get it started.”

(He continues to talk to the person on the phone, again stating that I am giving him attitude and that he is going to have to have a talk with the store manager about how rude I am. I ignore him, start to scan the items, and call the store manager at home. She picks up after a few rings.)

Me: “Hi, sorry to bother you on your vacation, but I have a gentleman here who says that he talked to you about doing a receiptless return on about $3,500 in laptops.”

Store Manager: “I absolutely did not talk to anyone about a return. Is this that same guy that keeps coming in?”

Me: “Yep, it sure is. Just wanted to confirm.”

(The entire time I’m having this conversation, the customer isn’t paying attention and is still bad-mouthing me on the phone, trying to be intimidating.)

Me: “Sir, I just got off the phone with [Store Manager] and she has no idea who you are. Honestly, I’m surprised that you keep coming back and running this same scam. You’ve actually already pulled this same thing with me a year ago, so I know exactly what you are doing.”

(The customer goes pale and starts to back away. He tries to push the cart full of stolen laptops with him. I grab it firmly.)

Me: “You can leave those here, as I know you stole them. I have you on camera and I will be immediately calling the police.”

(He bolted out the door. One of my coworkers who was nearby chased him down and wrote down his license plate. I called the police and gave a report. We later found out that upon searching his house they found close to $50,000 in stolen merchandise from stores all over the city. He had also been flagged by numerous loss prevention teams in other stores.)

(I work in a small camera store where basic terminology can be lost on some customers. This morning I get a confusing phone call from a customer.)

Me: “Good morning; this is [Camera Store]!”

Customer: “Do you have any PRO BACKS?”

Me: “Sorry, could you please explain what you mean by a ‘PRO BACK’?”

Customer: “Yeah, those things that go on the back of a lens.”

Me: “Oh, so, are you after a back cap to protect the back of the lens? Those are—“

Customer: “NO! Not one of those! I mean the part that fits the back of the whole thing.”

Me: “Oh, a screen protector for the screen on the back of the camera?”

Customer: “NO! I mean the back! I need a back!”

Me: “I’m sorry, but I still don’t understand what you mean by, ‘back.’”

Customer: “Well, I used to have a Nikon 800 back. The part that goes on the back of the lens.”

(All becomes a lot more clear when I realize that she means a Nikon D800 DSLR camera.)

Me: “Oh, you’re after a camera body? An actual DSLR camera?”

Customer: “Yeah! That’s it! The part that takes the photos! I need a PRO ONE!”

Me: “…”

(In the end, it wasn’t a model we stocked, anyway, in our particular store, but I got a good chuckle out of the whole exchange with my colleague afterward.)

(I work at an electronics repair shop — a highly-regarded one that deals with some pretty advanced repairs. A customer has a tablet that he keeps breaking the charge port on. He has broken it repeatedly and this is our fourth time fixing it. He has left the tablet with another tech for us to order the part. As soon as it arrives, I have it installed and call the guy. The wholesale cost of the part is $18, so we do have a tangible minimum cost to maintain.)

Me: “Hey, [Customer], this is [My Name] at [Shop]. I’ve got your tablet here. It’s all put together, fully charged, and working perfectly. You can—“

(I’m updating the work order and see the dates. He had picked it up three days before he dropped it back off again. It was an easy fix, and repeat customers and word of mouth are invaluable in this field.)

Me: “—oh, wow. You were just here. Let me drop that $20 labour charge for you real quick… And that totals out to $21.70 after tax now.”

Customer: “I’m not f****** paying that. You people gave me a bad part! All I did was plug it in once and it didn’t work! You’re going to warranty this, a**hole!”

(If he had worded this like a decent person, he could have easily gotten it for half of our cost. We don’t bend to abusive customers.)

Me: “The plug looks like the cable was put in upside down. The warranty covers defects in the parts and workmanship. If it didn’t work and was in good physical condition, it would definitely be under warranty, but this is physical damage. I’m already pulling the labour cost as a show of good faith.”

Customer: “No! You put some kind of ching-chong China part from some ‘tee-uh-wani’ place! Just admit it! I want an American-made part this time!”

Me: “It’s an original equipment manufacturer Samsung part. It’s all made in Taiwan, Korea, and Vietnam. You’re already getting the repair at half of what you agreed on when you dropped it off. I’m not charging you extra or anything like that.”

Customer: “F*** you! Who’s the manager there?”

Me: *fire and joyful demons cackling fill the background of the shop as I say my favourite words* “I am the manager.”

Customer: “Who else is there, then? Who’s in charge?”

Me: “I’m in charge here. I’ve got my assistant manager here.”

Customer: *now huffing in anger, effectively, over saving $20* “Yeah, well, we’ll see about that. When I get there, I’LL SHOW YOU WHO’S IN CHARGE!” *hangs up*

(Ten or fifteen minutes go by. I spend the time updating the notes with the interaction, make paper copies of everything we did, and dig out the old part to show him. I mention to my other tech that I think this guy might be the type to do something violent.)

Customer: *storms in the front door* “Are you [My Name]?! You think you’re tough? Want to say it to my face that I broke that f****** thing?”

(I’m not the stereotypical nerd. I deadlift three times my body weight, bench almost double, and keep my core and reflexes tight by trail riding dirt bikes. I look like a meathead, until I open my mouth and start talking about how cool it is that we’re at twelve-nanometer silicon microprocessors already. This guy is the peaked-in-high-school, overweight forty-something who tries to dress like a Harley biker, but doesn’t ride.)

Me: “Yeah, I’ve got the old part here. You can see how it’s stretched out on the bottom from the wider top edge of the plug being put in upside down.”

Customer: *leaning across the counter, trying to intimidate me* “That doesn’t prove anything.” *smacks part out of my hand* “You faked that. Or it was like that when I got it.”

(Around this time, one of our regulars comes in — a sweet old lady who usually just needs basic tech support. She’s a time waster, but always nice. This is also the point when I stop being polite. As soon as he smacks that part out of my hand, I decide he is going to pay for his repair and be blacklisted.)

Me: “No, we did not. That’s the exact condition it was in when it came in here. It got like that after you broke it, again. And it takes a lot of nerve to come in here and make that claim when this is your fourth repair for this exact problem.”

Customer: “What did you say to me? Give me a refund, now! All those parts broke, too, and you’re going to pay for it now!”

Me: *quite firmly, hitting the sale button on the register* “The total is $21.70 after tax.”

Customer: “You know what?” *grabs the tablet off the counter, walks halfway across the room, and turns back* “Sue me.”

Me: “Oh, we will.”

(I point to one of the security cameras that got a clear shot of his face, and then I read off his license plate number out loud and write it down. He sort of runs out of the door.)

Old Lady: *in the most stereotypical, sweet, old lady voice* “Well, that man was just a f****** c***, wasn’t he? I had my hand on my pepper spray the whole time. You say the word and I’ll run out there and get him while his window is down.”

(The poor assistant manager is a pacifist and is shaking from how stressed even listening to the whole thing made him. The owner comes by after being called and filled in. Shortly after he gets there, we get a call from corporate saying they’ve got an angry man on the phone demanding I be fired.)

Owner: “Oh, you’ve got him on the phone? Great. Let him know I haven’t finished filling out the police report just yet, so if he wants to be an adult he can call me and we can settle this.”

(The customer calls back a few minutes later and screams at the owner. I can’t hear the whole conversation, but at one point I hear the owner say, “Yeah. And if you’d talked to me like that you’d have got a h*** of a lot more than rude. I went back to jail for less than that.” The customer hangs up. Maybe three minutes later, he calls back. This time he is put on speaker phone.)

Customer: “My lawyer just advised me to pay you. Do you want a credit card over the phone?”

Owner: “Lawyer, huh? That’s pretty cool your wife is a lawyer. Yeah, a credit card will work.”

(He paid, contested the payment, lost the claim, and took a hit off his credit score, plus the fee. He called back weeks later threatening to protest the store. Over $20. Pepper Spray Grandma never paid full price again.)

(I am standing at the counter at work when a man approaches with a cable in his hand, an Apple-branded Thunderbolt cable. I scan the barcode, and read him the price from the screen.)

Me: “That’ll be £29, please, sir.”

Customer: “Yeah, I know it says that, but just so you know, that must be a typo.”

(I’m a little confused.)

Me: “Well, it comes up at that price on the till, so looks like it must be a good reduction right now.”

Customer: “Well, it’s £49.99 everywhere else, so your price is obviously wrong.”

Me: “Well, it just means we’re cheaper than everywhere else at the moment, sir.”

Customer: “I doubt that very much. You should pass this information on to your head office. Apple doesn’t let companies discount their cables this much.”

(I decided he obviously just wanted to be right, although he wasn’t. Deciding not to get involved in that part of the conversation, he left, telling me I’d better feed it back to someone. Turns out he was a former company director, who liked to feel like he still knew how the company he hadn’t worked at for years operated. I almost feel like I should have, after he continued to mention the higher price elsewhere, tell him I’d be happy to give him it at that price if it would make him feel better.)

(A middle-aged customer has been standing with her mouth open in the middle of the store, staring off into space, for a little while now, about two minutes. Since I’ve finished the job I was doing for the moment. I go and ask her what would she like help with. I already know this is going to be a mistake.)

Me: “Morning. Need any help with anything?”

Customer: “Dustbuster.”

(She has a peculiar way of speaking.)

Me: “Pardon?”

Customer: “Dustbuster.”

Me: “You want a Dustbuster?”

(I heard it this time, but I’m wracking my brains to try and remember what a Dustbuster is. Is it a new duster?)

Customer: “Yes, where are your Dustbusters?”

Me: “Sorry, I’m drawing a blank here; what is a Dustbuster?”

Customer: “You know, it’s a Dustbuster!”

Me: *sighs internally* “I don’t know; that’s why I’m asking.”

(I’m not losing my patience, but it’s the beginning of the day and I’m barely awake.)

Customer: “You know.” *turns 180 degrees and points straight away* “That’s a Dustbuster.”

(She points in amongst our section of vacuum cleaners to a specific model; it’s a small, handheld one that is impossible to see where we are standing. So, did she find it beforehand and wait for someone to help her so she could test them? Why didn’t she just say it was a vacuum cleaner? Nobody knows! The next time I walk by, she grabs my attention for help. I keep a smile on my face.)

Me: “Hello again. Need anything?”

Customer: “Does this come with a charger?”

Me: “I’d expect so; we don’t sell them separately.”

(I take the box and start looking over it to check, just to be sure.)

Customer: “Well, does it or not?”

Me: “I’m just checking the box to be sure.”

Customer: “Well, does it?”

Me: “Yep.”

(I find it pretty quickly, no thanks to her demanding. There’s a big picture on the side saying as much. I wish more customers would actually use their eyes and brain before getting Mummy to read for them like children.)

Me: “See? It’s got a charging stand included.”

Customer: “Oh, okay. So, I don’t need to buy it separately, then?”

Me: “Nope, not at all.”

Customer: “So, why did you say I did?”

Me: “I said, we don’t sell them separately.”

Customer: “So, why would you say I needed to buy it if you don’t sell it?”

(Every retail assistant has had the moment where they pause, and have to think about the best way to say something — something that covers all the bases and answers all the questions so we can move on.)

Me: “No, I said we don’t sell them if you needed it, but since it’s already included in the box, you don’t need to buy one from us, since it’s already in the box.”

Customer: “Okay. So, does it come with any attachments?”

Me: *points to the next picture down* “Yep, it comes with a window cleaning attachment, too, as well as replacement nozzles.”

Customer: “And how powerful is it?”

Me: *points to the next picture down, showing her specifically that if she has a question, she should probably read these pictures first* “It says here 800w.”

Customer: “Ah, right, I see.” *praise Mary* “So, does it take bags?”

Me: *points to the next d***ed picture* “Nope, it’s got its own filter so you can just empty that out.”

Customer: “Okay, I want to see it.”

(I open it up and show her, and she prods it a few times, as customers are wont to do, while I explain its mechanisms and how it works. I’ve never seen the d*** thing before in my life, and as a customer assistant you get very good at improv and how things work.)

Customer: “I’ll think about it. Goodbye.”

(This roughly means, “I’m off to buy it from somewhere else; they’re cheaper but they’re not as helpful as you! Bye bye, suckers!” I spend the next five minutes wondering how to get the d*** thing back in the box; it’s already been twenty minutes at this stage.)

Manager: “Why haven’t you done [thing] yet?”

Me: “There was an annoying customer.”

(My manager sympathised and completely understood.)