The Two-Dollar Punch

In my former life, I was the floor manager of a large computer retailer. We were generally a premium-priced store, but various “buy now, pay later” promotions coupled with aggressive sale pricing with “loss leader” products tended to attract customers who simply couldn’t really afford to otherwise be in our store.

One day, a middle-aged chap pops in. He’s shorter than me but quite agitated. He starts screaming about being ripped off and blabbering whilst waving around a copy of a finance contract.

Trying to calm him down and defuse the scene occurring during our Saturday morning peak time, I take a look at the contract to see if I can work out what was sold to him and by whom (mostly hoping that if they’re about, they’ll disappear for a while).

I notice quickly that the contract isn’t in his name but instead in the name of a woman, who turns out to be his mother. He quickly points out that she is a senior citizen on a pension and cannot afford a monthly surcharge on this contract.

I should point out that this is a $2-per-month surcharge that doesn’t actually need to be paid any time soon; it will accrue until the interest-free period ends and will start to be due then.

Customer: “My mother took out this finance on my behalf because I’m unemployed and my attempts to obtain finance myself failed.”

Oh, dear.

Looking at the contract, I note who the salesperson was: our own franchisee, someone who is a stickler for going through the fine print, and who I know would not have missed details about surcharges on finance contracts.

Me: “Sir, all surcharges were made clear before the contract was signed.

Seriously, we bled this stuff, we did it so often.

At this point, my efforts at calming him down had gone out the window and I saw his arm rise with a fist…

…just in time for him to be pinned from behind by one of the sales guys — one who had recently moved from being a nightclub bouncer to retail, so he was fairly attuned to when things were going down and knew how to react.

This sales guy promptly marched the chap from the store to his car and suggested in no uncertain terms that he think twice about returning.

I worked at one of the most expensive computer retailers in the country, and the first time a customer almost dropped me was over a $2-a-month surcharge on financing the chap couldn’t even afford to compensate his mother for.