I work at a rather popular chain retail store. It is more or less a sort of discount store. We have our own generic brands and cheaper prices than a regular big box retailer.

Only a coworker and I are on registers on a normal, slow night. Two elderly ladies come up with a full cart each. My coworker gets [Lady #2] and I get [Lady #1]. I greet her kindly and ask if she has a rewards card. Then, I start ringing her.

The entire time, this lady is extremely passive-aggressive. She’s slightly rude but not enough to be directly rude back. Overall, she’s just basically tossing her soon-to-be purchases my way onto the counter.

The other lady comes over to her once she’s done and they start chatting. It seems as if they are solely complaining about everything. [Lady #2] asks [Lady #1] if they should get this baby play mat sort of thing. She asks me to check the price, so I do.

Me: “It’s $30.”

Lady #2: “Oh, no. No way. That’s too much for this thing. Never mind, I don’t want it.”

So, I put it in our throwback cart and continue to ring.

$50… $60… $70… $80…

Finally, I finish up, and her total comes out to around $135. I am not the best at counting money; I’m very slow when it comes to counting in general.

I promptly ask her if she’s paying with cash or by card.

Lady #1: “Cash.”

This lady pulls out a WAD of singles. And with a quick glance, she has MORE THAN ONE WAD in her purse. She hands me the wad and a chunk of another wad.

Lady #1: “There’s $135.”

With a look of horror on my face and complete dread in my soul, I began to count.

I have no idea if this lady thought I was just supposed to take it and trust her that it was the correct amount or if she just hoarded one-dollar bills.

As I was counting, she just stood there chatting with [Lady #2], and I could tell there was a vibe of impatience with them. Oh, well.

My coworker came over to help me count, thankfully. She is much faster at counting money than me.

Once we finished, I popped the money into the register and gave her the receipt. They both left with a somewhat annoyed attitude.

At least she had exact change.

Customer: “I’d like some tuna.”

Me: “Sure thing!”

Customer: “I want to tell you which ones I want. I make over $100,000; I choose what I buy.”

Me: “That’s usually how this works.”

A lady comes in to cancel an item off her order since the delay is several months. I cancel it for her.

Customer: “Does this mean I lose my discount?”

At my store, we calculate discounts by taking the total amount of the discount and distributing it among all items.

Me: “No. You still get your discount on the other item. Canceling the one won’t affect the other.”

Except that wasn’t the question she was asking. This customer thought that we should give her the discount she received on the canceled item and apply it to the other one. No. Absolutely not. First, the second item was $70.00 (originally $130) and the discount for both items was $100.00 total, so she had already gotten it heavily discounted.

When I explained this, you would have thought I had cussed at her.

Customer: “You are robbing me of my money! You should give me the added discount since the delay was your fault!”

I said no again. She took her things, told me to keep the canceled item on the order since she didn’t want to lose her discount, and yelled that I was robbing her.

Yes… I am robbing you of $50.00 you didn’t pay. To top it off, she had gotten something else entirely free for the delay weeks prior.

Our store lets customers get up to $40 cashback on a check with a customer card.

We have a particular customer who is very loud and usually wrong. One evening, he comes through the line and gets $40 back. I hand him his cashback and his receipt and he leaves. I think it was an unusually smooth transaction for him, but of course, I was wrong.

About half an hour later, he’s back.

Customer: “You didn’t give me my cash or my receipt.”

Me: “I’m pretty sure I did, sir.”

Customer: “Well, I don’t have it. I always wrap the receipt around the cash and put it straight into my wallet, so I go home and enter it in my checkbook. Straight into my wallet.”

Me: “Well, all I can do is call a manager and have her count my drawer.”

Customer: “Call her, then. I need my cash and I’m in a hurry.”

I call the manager, but she is tied up with another customer and will be a few minutes before she gets there. The customer stands there grumbling, in a loud voice, about incompetence and how no one can do their job right.

Finally, the manager gets there and I fill her in.

Customer: “I got cashback and she didn’t give me my money. I can prove it, too.”

He then shoves his hand in his pocket and pulls out the receipt. The receipt he just told me he ALWAYS put back in his wallet and that I hadn’t given him in the first place. He then unfolds the receipt, and what is all wrapped up in it?

Two $20 bills.

He stands there for a moment with his jaw open.

Manager: “I guess I don’t have to count the drawer after all. Good thing, since you’re in such a hurry.”

The customer just shoves the receipt and cash into his pocket and practically runs out of the store. The manager apologizes to the customers who have been waiting to check out this whole time.

Other Customer: “Well, he did wrap the cash in the receipt. He wasn’t wrong about that.”

I got everyone through the line as quickly as I could, apologizing to them. The loud customer came back into the store on other occasions, and of course, he never apologized. But why should he? He was never wrong!

Related:
Cash Back Attack, Part 16
Cash Back Attack, Part 15
Cash Back Attack, Part 14
Cash Back Attack, Part 13
Cash Back Attack, Part 12

I work in a call center for a credit union.

Customer: “I’m trying to figure out how to make a cash deposit on your banking app.”

Me: “That’s not possible.”

Customer: “It works for a check, so why not cash? Bills have serial numbers on them. If I take a picture of the bills, front and back, that cash should be in my account and can’t be used anywhere else.”

I want to say that I don’t know how anyone will ever beat this level of stupid, but that’s just inviting trouble.