CONTENT WARNING: Child Neglect/Abuse

As assistant manager, I am running to the customer service desk because a customer is flipping out.

Customer: “Your house brand diapers are super poor quality!”

Me: “Sir, please calm down. What is your complaint about the diapers?”

Customer: “Your diapers start leaking after only five hours on my baby! [Competitor]’s lasts nearly seven!”

Me: “Five… hours?”

Customer: “You’re gonna give me my money back, plus $40 compensation because my time is worth $20 an hour, and I figure I’ve wasted two hours coming to the store to fix this.”

I quickly showed him the door, despite overly loud threats of “never stepping foot in this store again”.

Luckily, we thought fast enough to get his license plate from the parking lot so we could call CPS on his a**.

I work at a university textbook store. Our return policy on textbooks is super strict; we take returns on books for the first week of class only. The second Tuesday of class, no more, with the exception of a student dropping a class or exchanging a wrong book for the correct one.

A student comes in over a month after classes have started and slams a textbook on the counter.

Student: “I want to return this.”

Me: “Have you dropped the class, or is it the wrong book?”

Student: “No and no.”

Me: “Our return policy means that you can’t return it.”

Student: “But I got a cheaper copy online!”

Me: “That’s the exact reason why we have our return policy in place.”

Student: “But a week isn’t enough time to get books in from Amazon!”

Me: “We’re not a library. It’s not our responsibility to lend you books.”

Student: “You will do a return!”

Me: “No.”

Student: “You will be receiving a call from my mother.”

Me: “Best call her immediately then, so that she can explain why her nineteen-year-old son needs her to fight his battles.”

We never got the call.

I do online customer service for a few shoe companies. An older gentleman calls in:

Caller: “I want to return some shoes. I just realized they were made in Vietnam. I thought they were made in America!”

Fine and dandy, you’re trying to make a statement or whatever.

Me: “Okay, sir, looking at your order I can see that…” *pauses, double-checks* “…you bought these shoes four years ago.”

Caller: “That’s right.”

Me: “It took you four years to realize they were made in Vietnam?”

Caller: “Well, I was just sliding them on this morning, and I casually glanced down at the tongue, and then I noticed they were made in Vietnam. It’s a shame, as I wore them every day and they’re super reliable.”

He did not get his refund. The entire time, he kept saying, “Such a shame,” and, “So reliable.”

I’m handling customer service calls for a shoe company that offers a three-month warranty on all shoes against manufacturing defects.

Caller: “I went to my branch, and they wouldn’t replace my boots under the warranty even though I had my receipt!”

Me: “What was the reason for the return?”

Caller: “My boots were advertised as waterproof but now they’re leaking!”

If that is the case, we normally replace them with no questions asked. I talk with him some more to get more details.

Caller: “Yeah, so after the shoes leaked, I put them on the stove to dry them out, but they burned down.”

Me: “So, that was the state you brought them in to exchange for a new pair?”

Caller: “Yeah.”

Me: “Sir, while we do sympathize with your misfortune—” *AKA stupidity* “—we cannot replace your shoes because although they are advertised as waterproof, they are not advertised as fireproof, and therefore, since you deliberately put them on an open flame and burned them, our company cannot be held liable.”

Caller: “But I always put all my shoes on the fire to dry, and this is the first time the shoes have burnt!”

I suggested that he call the company that makes the stove that burned his shoes and complain to them.

A friend of mine is an apprentice at a tattoo shop. A client came in recently and got a sentence tattooed on their back. The customer called the store a few hours after returning home, demanding a refund.

Client: “You did my tattoo backward!”

Tattoo Artist: “It’s backward?”

Client: “Yes! I’m looking at it in the mirror right now!”