My (now extinct) bookstore had a policy of thirty days for a return with receipt. A woman comes into the store carrying a bag from our competitor and plops the bag down on the counter in front of me, saying she wants to do a return.
I already have a bad feeling, but I pull the books out. To be fair, it’s pretty clear that the books were put into a closet and forgotten, as they look as pristine as the day they were taken off the shelf. However, the receipt is most definitely from our competitor and dated five years ago.
Me: “Ma’am, I can’t take these books back.”
Customer: “Why not?!”
I explain the above.
Customer: *Snappily.* “I would like to speak to a manager then because I don’t want to drive all the way [two miles down the road] to [Competitor]!”
I sigh and take the books with me to the phone, call over the PA system for a manager, and begin trying to look the books up in our database. I know that the managers have taken books purchased from our competitor, and simply do the Return Without Receipt workaround. I can kind of understand this, as the credit we give out can be paid back when someone else buys the book, but I loathe letting a customer ‘win’ like this.
I can see the woman working herself up into a state out of the corner of my eye; she’s huffing and puffing, shifting from one foot to the other and making a variety of angry faces in practice of the arrival of the manager.
I type in the first title of the first book. The database comes back with zero results. I give a tiny smile to myself. This means we don’t sell the book. We’ve never sold the book. It is exclusive to our competitor. There is no possible way we can give her money for this book, no matter how the managers try. The management is notoriously slow at responding to calls to the registers so while the woman mentally practices her dissatisfied customer spiel, I go through the whole bag. I put the book aside and look up the second book. Then the third. Five books, none of which our store has EVER carried.
I head back to the register she’s standing at the same time a manager arrives. The woman bursts out with:
Customer: “Yes, hi, I want to return these books but your employee won’t return them.”
Me: “According to her receipt, she bought them from [Competitor], five years ago.”
Manager: “Well we can try to return them without a receipt but you’ll only get store credit for it, and the lowest possible price they’ve been sold at in the past.”
Customer: “That’s not acceptable!”
Manager: *Growing a bit of spine unexpectedly.* “Well that’s the only option you have. I suggest you take it.”
The woman gapes like a fish for a moment.
Me: “Actually, we can’t do that either. These books are also [Competitor] exclusive.”
Customer: “And just what does that mean?!”
Me: “It means we don’t even carry these books. We never have. Our computers won’t even recognize their existence. It is literally impossible for you to return them to us and get anything at all for them. Your only chance is to take them to [competitor] and hope they’ll take them there.”
I start putting the books back in her bag as the woman argues that the price of the book is literally on the cover, so just give her the cash for each of them that way. The manager calmly but politely refuses.
I place the bag on the register counter for her to take.
Customer: *Snatching up the bag in a fury.* “You’re only doing this because I’m white!”
Me, manager, and a nearby coworker who has been shamelessly eavesdropping are all white. In a feat of perfect synchronization:
The Three Of Us: “Ma’am? You’re black.”
The woman experiences what I can only guess is the brain version of a Blue Screen of Death that lasts a full four seconds. Then she just screeches and charges for the front doors, slamming through them and out of the building.
I lose the last dregs of restraint and just put my head down on the desk and laugh. Dumbest attempt at pulling the race card, ever.
