It is in the early 90s and I am a teenager working at a retail chemist. I am working on the customer service/returns/photo processing counter.

Customer: “Hi, I would like to return this CD rack for a refund, unfortunately, I can’t find the receipt.”

We allowed this on store-branded products but only for an exchange, not a refund, and I explain this to the customer, who is okay with that. After attempting to scan the box:

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, but this isn’t our product, we can’t exchange this or refund.”

Customer: “No, I definitely bought it here.”

Me: *Pointing to a well-known brand name on the box.* “It says [Other Brand]. We’re [Our Brand].”

Customer: “Erm… oops?”

I still don’t know whether he was trying it on, but I don’t think so as he turned pink, apologised, and I heard a muffled “for f*** sake!” as he left.

My triumphant feeling lasted at least an hour, got to savour those small victories when working in retail!

It’s a very busy Friday evening, and there’s a long queue for the ticket office at my local station.

The woman in front of me keeps up a long monologue for the entire time we’re queuing, declaiming loudly about how appalling it is that we’re all waiting.

Customer: “This is so unacceptable! It’s just a train ticket! Why is it taking so long? What’s wrong with people? Why can’t you hurry up? Why don’t people buy complicated tickets online? I’ve got a train to catch! Why am I waiting so long? What’s the hold-up? Why is this taking so much time? Hurry up! Some of us have places to be! Why should I have to wait? I just want a ticket! Can’t this go any quicker? How long do I have to be here? What’s the hold-up? For crying out loud! What’s the problem? What are people doing? I just want a ticket! My train’s due any minute! Hurry up!”

After several minutes of this, she finally reaches the ticket window.

Customer: *Slowly* “Yeah, I’d like a ticket to [City]… for, oh, tomorrow afternoon? A return ticket, I think, but I need to come back by [Town in the opposite direction], and I want to stop off at [City on a different line]… The website said it would be £150, but I only want to pay £10. Don’t worry, I’ve got all day.”

I missed my train.

Seriously, do some of these customers even hear themselves? Then again, if they did then we would have stories like these 11 Incredibly Ironic Encounters With Customers!

Anyone who has worked as a cashier knows that some customers can react adversely when their card payment doesn’t go through. Some people just take their card declining as a personal attack for some reason. I’m going to tell you about the worst customer like this that I ever had.

At first, everything was normal. I put their groceries through. We exchanged small talk. No problems. Until their card declined. Suddenly, it was like a switch flipped and the customer went from being pleasant to outright nasty in an instant.

Customer: “Why have you rejected my card? I have money! I have thousands of pounds in my bank! Why won’t you take my card?!”

When a card declines, we usually get a code that tells us why. The code I got was a generic network error code, which usually just means something along the chain of different systems timed out. It happens.

Me: “I’m sorry, sir. Sometimes the system glitches out. You can put your card in and try—”

Customer: “How dare you?! F****** idiot! I make more money than you can imagine. How dare you refuse my card?!”

Me: “The card machine rejected it, not me, and it was because of a system error. It has nothing to do with how much money was in the bank—”

Customer: “I have plenty of money!”

Me: “I understand. But it was just a network error. If you put your card back in and try again, it should go through—”

The customer started screaming, going on and on about how he’d never been so insulted, how much money he had, and how it was more than an idiot like me could ever hope to make, as well as calling me a stream of names.

I called a manager over and started to explain the error code, but the customer interrupted and yelled that I accused him of having no money. The manager explained exactly what I explained to him: that it was just a network issue. Nobody was accusing him of anything.

My manager tried to convince him to put his card in and try again, but the customer paid in cash instead and stormed out.

A few minutes later, the customer stormed back into the store, marched up to me, and shoved a slip of paper in my face. It was a printed balance slip. The customer had gone out to the cash point (ATM) attached to our store and printed out a balance statement just so he could shove it in my face.

Customer: “See! F****** b****! F*** you!”

Then, he stormed back out grinning smugly.

I work in a supermarket café. We have a system where [Colleague #1] will be on the till and taking orders, and [Colleague #2] will make the drinks.

One afternoon, [Male Customer] and [Female Customer] walk in and come to the till. They ask for two teas and two slices of cake. [Colleague #1] hits the buttons on the till. [Colleague #2] is just finishing off the previous order.

Colleague #2: “The cakes are self-service, so please help yourself whilst I get your drinks ready.”

The customers just stare. [Colleague #2] has to tell them three times before they go to the cakes.

Male Customer: “We want these.”

Colleague #2: “Please help yourself.”

Female Customer: “Excuse me! Excuse me! I need to show you something!”

[Colleague #1] goes over, thinking there might be something wrong with the cakes.

Female Customer: “We want two slices!”

Colleague #1: “…that is two slices, madam. The last two slices, so you came at just the right time!”

In the end, [Colleague #1] just gets the cake himself and brings everything to the till. [Colleague #2] has finished their drinks, so all they need to do is pay.

Colleague #1: “That will be [total].”

[Male Customer] gets his card out and puts it into the machine. He enters the four digits of his PIN and then presses the green “Enter” button.

Female Customer: *To [Male Customer]* “What are you doing? You shouldn’t hit the green button!”

Male Customer: “Well, what was I supposed to do?”

They argue amongst themselves for a few moments.

Female Customer: “I am very angry with you! I am so upset, we can’t eat here anymore! Get a refund!”

So, [Colleague #1] gets the refund ready. At our store, if you paid by card, the refund goes back into your card, and you need to put the card into the machine to get the money back onto it. [Male Customer] just stands there.

Male Customer: “Where’s my refund?”

Colleague #1: “You need to put the card back into the machine.”

Male Customer: “You’ll charge me again! I’m not paying again!”

Eventually, he does put the card in and gets his refund. As the cakes have been touched, we can’t resell them to any other customers, so [Colleague #2] takes them out the back ready to record and dispose of them. But thirty seconds later…

Male Customer: “Actually, we do want those cakes.”

Colleague #1: “Okay, let me just check…”

Male Customer: *Interrupting* “You don’t need to check with your manager! Just get me the cakes!”

Colleague #1: “Actually, I was going to check that they hadn’t been thrown out.”

Luckily, they haven’t, so the cakes are brought back out and [Colleague #1] puts them through the till again.

Colleague #1: “That’ll be [total].”

Male Customer: “I’ve already paid for them!”

Colleague #1: “Yes, you did, but then we refunded you. If you want them again, you’ll have to pay for them again.”

They started arguing again, both amongst themselves and at [Colleague #1], who simply reiterated that they needed to pay for the cakes. Eventually, they did… and [Female Customer] once again moaned at [Male Customer] that he “can’t hit the green button!”, but they took their cakes and stomped over to their table, still arguing.

“Green button” became the running joke amongst the staff for the rest of the evening.

My parents are divorced. As such, they set up separate savings accounts for me when I was younger. (They didn’t really speak to each other.) As I got older, they came under my control, and as I couldn’t be bothered, I never shut one or the other.

Finally, one account goes dormant as I don’t use it, and it takes me a while to go and close it. I decide go to a branch as I want to close it and am not sure if I can do that over the phone.

Teller: “How can I help you today?”

Me: “I want to close this account, which has become dormant. I have the letter telling me about the dormancy, ID, and proof of address, which is what this letter tells me to bring.”

The teller looks up the account and looks at my ID. She starts typing away before turning and disappearing into an office to ask someone something.

Teller: “We can’t close this account as there is still an active card on it. You need to wait until that arrives in about five to six business days, and then you can come in here with that card and close it.”

This is a problem for me as I am currently a foreign student visiting home. I’m not going to be here in a few days, so I want to get this sorted ASAP.

Me: “Is there anything I can do to get this account closed more quickly?”

Teller: “You can try on the phone.”

She then dismisses me and turns to help the next person.

I turn to my aunt who came to keep me company. She offers her phone for me to use — my foreign number would cost a bomb to use — and we sit down in the bank and try to get this thing settled.

We ring the line on the letter to find out it has been changed since the letter was sent. (I did say I hadn’t used this account for a while.) We ring the new number and start to go through the security questions. This is a problem as my aunt doesn’t have an account with this bank and, as such, there should be no security questions to answer. I hang up and am about to get back in line when she suggests we ring again and just punch in random numbers until we get a human.

Success! We are now talking to a flesh-and-blood human who is a lot more sensible than his counterpart at the bank. After a bit of confusion as to why I am using this number, I get through the security questions and identify myself, my account is found, and he starts to close it. I tell him why I am ringing as there is apparently an active card on the account.

Call Centre Guy: “Yeah, I’m looking and there is no active card here. The account is dormant. I have no idea why my colleague there couldn’t close this for you in the branch.”

My aunt and I agreed later that it was probably something the first worker didn’t know and couldn’t be bothered to find out.