I’m helping my elderly mother sell some of her old — but now vintage and desirable — clothing and furniture on eBay, and I’m finding that some of retail’s most-loathed customers are there, too.

From not realising that a 1970s “size twelve” is very different from a 2020s “size twelve”, to asking for some garden chairs — listed as “collection only” — to be shipped from the UK to Switzerland, to simply, “Will those shoes fit me?”, the variety and inanity of inquiry have been astounding.

However, I have to share the best yet, which we have just received: a question about a listing for a small “worn once” denim dress.

Customer: “Do you have this in an eighteen?”

I’m torn between replying, “Let me just check in back,” or, “I’m selling things from my wardrobe, not my warehouse.”

This is an actual conversation with a client over email. Because they are on the other side of the world, we have a twelve-hour delay for each response. The file in question is a 75MB .WAV file.

Me: “Thanks for your order. Because the file size is too big, please follow the link below to access your product. If you have any problems, please let me know.”

Client: “Hey! Thanks for the email. There wasn’t anything attached, though. Can you please send it again?”

Me: “Yep, the file is too big to attach. There was a link at the bottom of the email. Here it is again.”

Client: “You forgot to attach the file again.”

Me: “I didn’t forget. I provided a link to where you can download it.”

Client: “YOU STILL HAVEN’T ATTACHED IT!”

Me: “I can’t attach the file; it is too big. You can download it here. Click this link, and you will get it.”

Client: “You’re so incompetent. How can you not attach a file to an email? What the f*** are you doing in this business? Attach the f****** file or give me a refund.”

Me: “The file is TOO BIG TO ATTACH. Click THIS LINK. FROM THERE, YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THE FILE.”

The client then logged a dispute on PayPal. They never clicked the link or accessed the file.

A cat showed up on my front porch one day and invited itself in, going right for the sunny spot on the top of my couch. I set it up in my bathroom with what I had on hand and reached out to my township through Facebook. 

Me: “Hi, neighbors. Does anyone recognize this cat? I think it’s a fixed male, but I didn’t get a long look. He invited himself into my house today and is currently in my bathroom. I will take him for a microchip scan when the vet opens on Monday and go from there if no one can provide proof of ownership.”

The comments are the same replies people seem to put on every post. “Prayers it finds its way home!” “So sad!” “I hope the family sees this!” But there’s nothing that gives me any real answers. Then, this neighbor chimes in, sending me a private message. 

Neighbor: “Why are you trying to rehome that cat?”

Me: “Oh, sorry, I’m not trying to rehome him. He actually showed up today. Someone may be missing him, and I would hate to be the person standing in the way of reuniting a pet with their family.”

Neighbor: “Okay, no need to get an attitude about it. I’m just asking a question.”

Me: “I wasn’t.”

Neighbor: “Yeah, you were. All I did was ask why you’re trying to rehome your cat, and you act like this.”

Me: “It’s not my cat. It showed up today, and I am trying to find out where it came from.”

Neighbor: “You can stop being rude to me.”

Me: “I wasn’t, but I can stop talking to you.”

I put my phone down and walked away. He kept going in this vein for several more messages before blocking me. I could have blocked him, but I decided to just let him talk to himself and burn out whatever was bothering him. I never did find the cat’s family, so he now lives with me.

I make and sell cloth items in my small online store, including reusable cloth diapers. I have a phone number on my site, so I get business calls.

Customer: “I’m having triplets, so I want [large number] of diapers!”

Me: “That’s over $650 worth of diapers!”

Customer: “It’s triplets!”

The credit card went through without a problem, so I shipped the order.

Six months later, [Credit Card Company] took the money back. They said the card holder denied having placed the order.

I called the number back, and someone claiming to be the customer’s brother-in-law answered.

Me: “Why is [Customer] denying making the order? Did his triplets not use the diapers?”

Customer’s Brother-In-Law: “My brother is in a mental institution, and he doesn’t have a wife or babies.”

Me: *Swallowing my shock* “I… I still sent him $650 worth of cloth diapers.”

Customer’s Brother-In-Law: “I could send them back, but you don’t want to know what he did to them.”

I did not take them back. I was able to get a refund using the site’s insurance, though.

I work in accounting for a dealership. One of my main job duties is to make payoffs for trade-in vehicles. Getting a payoff quote is usually an easy and straightforward process. Almost all of the major banks have the option to do the payoff online, but only about half of the credit unions and various car brand financing companies have the online option. When that happens, I have to call and get a quote. The nice companies have an option for a payoff quote in their automated menus and will have the robot give me the quote and mailing address, and I don’t have to speak to a person at all. Then, there’s [Electric Car Brand].

A customer traded in their [Electric Car] to us with a payoff. I checked online first just in case, but it wasn’t an option, so I went to the brand’s website and clicked on the “Contact Us” option. It wanted me to sign into an account! I thought, “No way am I creating an account just to get a phone number,” so I poked around on their website a little bit, but I didn’t see anything useful. I then went to Google and typed in something like “number to call [Electric Car Brand]” and miraculously found a page with their 800 number. 

Their automated menu had no options for a payoff or to actually speak with a live person. I even tried pressing zero (a trick to bypass the menus at a lot of places) to get to an operator, but that didn’t work. It felt like this company thought there was no way anyone who bought one of their cars would ever trade it into a different brand dealership, especially before the customer had fully paid it off.

After a few layers of menus, each one starting with, “Log into your app in the car for the answer,” I eventually found the option for their financing department and got this from their robot: “Email us at [unintelligible] or press two to leave a message. Press one to repeat.” I listened to that message a couple of times until I understood the email address, but I also left a voice message.

A few hours later, [Electric Car Brand] actually called me back. I honestly didn’t think they would. I confirmed the customer and vehicle information with the representative. Then, things took a turn.

Representative: “Okay, so the payoff amount is [amount], and that’s good until [date ten days away]. Will you be wiring us the money?”

Me: “No, we’ll be writing a check. Do you have a good overnight address where I can mail it?”

Representative: “Oh, you’re mailing a check? Um, okay.”

This is actually standard for most dealerships when they can’t do a payoff online.

Representative: “I can email you the payoff quote and the address.”

My work email is fairly long. It’s my first and last name at the company site, and my parents gave me a long first name to go with a long last name. Let’s pretend my name is Solomon Zimmerman, and the name of the dealership is “Johnson [Car Brand]”. My first name really does begin with an S, which is relevant. Also, the connection was not bad at all and the woman had zero accent, so I really don’t understand what happened.

Me: “Sure. My email is kind of long, so you know. It’s Solomon, S-O-L-O-M-O-N—”

Representative: “Hold on! What was it?”

Me: “Solomon, S-O-L-O-M-O-N, and then Z like ‘zebra’, I, M like ‘Mary’, M like ‘Mary’, E—”

Representative: “Hold on! What was the first part?”

Me: “Solomon, S-O-L-O-M-O-N, then Zimmerman — Z, I, M like ‘Mary’, M like ‘Mary’, E, R like ‘Rick’, M like ‘Mary’, A, N like ‘Nancy’, at Johnson Cars dot com. That’s J, O, H, N like ‘Nancy’, S like ‘Sam’, O, N like ‘Nancy’, C-A-R-S dot com.”

Representative: “I have S-O-L-O-M-O-N-Z-I-M-M-E-R-M-A-N at J-O-H-N-S-O-N-C-A-R-S dot com. Is that correct?”

Me: “Yes.”

Representative: “Okay… And I sent the email. Let me know when you get it.”

I waited a minute and… nothing.

Representative: “Hmm… I have F like ‘Frank’, O like ‘octopus’—”

Me: “No. Not F. S like ‘Solomon’.”

Representative: “Oh, okay. Let me fix that, and please verify when you get it.”

After another minute, there was still no email. The representative read back the whole email, verifying each letter. She came up with “solomonzimmerman at johnfoncarf dot com”. And this was after she had changed the first S already, so the first email address she typed in was “folomonzimmerman at johnfoncarf dot com”. I had told her my first name several times, and my voicemail message had my name in it, so how did she get F? And how did she misspell “cars”?

Usually, people misspell my last name, but somehow, that was the only part of the whole email address she didn’t mess up. I felt a little bad for the customer, who was CC’d on all three emails and probably didn’t know what was going on.

I hope I never have to make another payoff for that company again.