I’m responsible for taking customer complaints at a call center as well as handling correspondence. The first one of the day:

Customer: “I appeared for a tour at [Location], and the tour guide told me to get lost! Then when I contacted the hotline and asked for help, the agent told me it wasn’t her problem and to leave her the f*** alone and stop bothering her! What kind of business is this?! What are you going to do to fix this situation? This is totally unacceptable!”

I can always smell these “give me a free product” scams a mile away. The alleged correspondence in which the customer was cussed out by an agent (who happened to be one of our senior agents because of her stellar work) was a Whatsapp chat stretched out nearly an hour, which went like:

Customer: “Hey, I’m here for the tour at [Location], but I don’t see anyone.”

Agent: “The tour group isn’t meeting directly at that location; you have to meet them at [Meeting Place] and the tour guide will drive you all there. You’re in luck, though, because the meeting place is actually three blocks away, and the tour doesn’t start for another thirty minutes.”

The agent gives directions.

Agent: “Walking time is ten minutes max.”

Customer: “That’s stupid. Why can’t I meet them here?”

Agent: “There are several different other tour groups that will be meeting at that place, and you will not know which one is yours. Go to the meeting place; it’s only ten minutes away. Hurry up, though! You don’t want them to take off without you!”

Customer: “Call the tour guide and tell him to come get me!”

Agent: “I’m not going to do that. He has to wait for everyone at the meeting place that was clearly stated on your ticket. Please go to the meeting place while you have time.”

Customer: “Give me his mobile number!”

Agent: “I’m not authorized to do that. Go to the meeting place!”

Customer: *Minutes later* “Never mind. I want to cancel.”

Agent: “It’s a non-refundable ticket. Just go to the meeting place; it’s only ten minutes away. Hurry! They are leaving in fifteen minutes!”

Customer: *Minutes later* “I just showed my ticket to the lady in the booth out front. She said she had no idea what it was!”

Agent: “Sir! Go to the meeting place! You are running out of time!”

Customer: *Minutes later* “Okay, about a dozen vans have pulled up. There are a whole bunch of people getting out. Which group is mine?”

Agent: “I suppose you can try to ask around, but I can’t make any guarantees.”

Customer: “No one is giving me any answers! You’re completely useless!”

Agent: “I tried to tell you to go to the meeting place, but you wouldn’t listen!”

Customer: “THEY WON’T LET ME IN! THEY SAY I HAVE TO HAVE AN ARMBAND!”

Agent: “Would you like for me to put in a request to reschedule you for another date?”

Customer: “F*** you!”

Agent: “Thank you for contacting [Company]. Have a great day!”

Imagine the field day I had answering THIS complaint. And for the record, NO, the customer did not get any free product and was only offered a very undeserved reschedule, which he refused.

I’m a cashier at a dealership. I’m brought a customer who will be making a down payment on a car. She hands me a check. When we get checks, we run the check through a system right then and there that tells us if the check is good or not. The entire time I’m running the check, the customer is nothing but polite. Her check is approved, I print out the approval form, and I make her a receipt.

Me: “Okay, I just need a signature here saying your check was approved.”

The customer signs. I start handing her her things. One of the service advisors brings up a customer to pay for their service ticket.

Me: “Okay. Here is your copy of the check approval, here is your receipt, here is your driver’s license back, and we processed the check electronically, so you may have that back.”

The customer switches from polite to furious in seconds.

Customer: “Hmph. You should’ve told me.”

Me: “Pardon?”

Customer: “You should’ve told me I was going to get my check back before you ran it! Now I’ve wasted a check! I would’ve used my debit card if I had known!”

Some snarky comments start running through my head, but I don’t dare say them out loud, so I end up letting out a nervous chuckle.

Customer: “You think this is funny? I just wasted a check! You need to tell people they’re going to get checks back!”

Me: “I’m sorry?”

Customer: “Hmph!” *Grabs her things*

Me: “Have a good day.”

The customer dashes off. I look around. The service advisor, the other customer, and the loaner agent — whose station is right next to mine and has heard everything — all look horrified.

Me: “That came out of absolute nowhere, right?”

Loaner Agent: “Yeah.”

Service Advisor: “What was her problem?”

Me: “I don’t know. Has she never gotten a check back before?”

Service Advisor: “I don’t know.” *Gesturing to [Customer #2]* “He owes $20 for the state inspection.”

Customer #2: “I’m paying in cash. You can do whatever you want with it.”

We saw the first customer head off in the direction of the sales manager’s office, but no one ever came to talk to me about it, so she either didn’t talk to them or they calmed her down somehow.

I work in the automotive department of a store, and I know absolutely nothing about cars. The only reason I got the job was because I applied for the wrong one.

A guy comes up to me holding a bottle of chainsaw oil.

Customer: “Is this the same as automotive oil?”

Me: “I don’t think so, but I’m not 100% sure. May I get a coworker who would know? He used to own his own car shop.”

Customer: *Ranting.* “How stupid! You should obviously know these things! They’re 100% the same thing! I’m in the car business, and you should be thanking me on the free education!”

With that, he storms off. I ask my coworker later and apparently, they are definitely not the same, and putting chainsaw oil in your car can seriously screw up the engine. I wonder if he’ll be back…

A guy comes into the store, yelling, handing in a game for a trade-in.

Customer: “My sister is a store manager and I get a discount!”

He’s very clearly not sober, but I’m not sure what he’s on.

Me: “Do you have her employee number?”

Customer: “No!”

Me: “I will not be giving you a discount, sir.”

Customer: “Why the f*** not?!”

Me: “Aside from not having her employee number, also she isn’t here.”

I know for a fact she quit her senior manager job a couple of years ago and then came back as an entry-level part-timer. We complete the trade-in but then he later comes back in SCREAMING.

Customer: “You didn’t give me the employee discount! And the game you sold me was filthy!”

Me: “Sir, I disinfected it with gloves on when I took the trade-in.”

He threw the game disc at my store manager, who had just clocked in, and yelled at him to clean it. We did not and we made him leave!

Related:
Don’t Discount The Customer’s Ability To Discount, Part 19
Don’t Discount The Customer’s Ability To Discount, Part 18
Don’t Discount The Customer’s Ability To Discount, Part 17
Don’t Discount The Customer’s Ability To Discount, Part 16
Don’t Discount The Customer’s Ability To Discount, Part 15

One summer, a friend of mine is going to the Jersey shore one day with his family and is driving along a highway that New Jersey state police are well known to patrol heavily. He makes sure to do the speed limit. Sure enough, a state police cruiser does eventually end up behind him. My friend thinks nothing of it. After a mile with the state cop behind him, a sports car suddenly passes on the left, doing at least ninety. The state cop lights up, of course, and my friend pulls over to let the cruiser pass. To his shock, however, the cruiser pulls over behind him instead, and after a short discussion, the officer hands my friend a ticket for speeding.

My friend fights the ticket, but despite his dashcam footage proving he was doing the limit the whole time and the officer even admitting my friend was doing the speed limit, the court sides with the officer and forces my friend to pay the speeding fine. Naturally, he is frustrated at first, but he then decides that if the State of New Jersey is going to be petty, then so is he. When he writes the check to pay the fine and court costs, he writes it for exactly two cents more than the total amount of the fine.

A month later, my friend receives a check in the mail from the State of New Jersey… for two cents. He gleefully puts the check through the shredder, knowing that the state’s checkbooks are going to no longer be balanced — or at least further unbalanced since other drivers have undoubtedly overpaid the state before him. He has also started taking a different, less heavily-patrolled highway to the shore, and hasn’t gotten another ticket since. The state continues to send him two-cent checks, which continue to go right through my friend’s shredder until the state stops sending them about a year later.