When “That Never Happened” Never Happened

(I work at an extremely well-known big box retailer known for having virtually everything and a very lenient price-matching policy. However, if I am told a price that I think is incorrect, I am allowed to ask what store it’s from and make sure it’s not ludicrous.)

Me: *preparing to scan an item*

Customer: “…and that’s [price that seems too low].”

Me: “Okay, sir, and which store is that from?”

Customer: “I don’t have to tell you that! The [Company] policy says I don’t have to tell you!”

Me: “Actually, sir, I can ask, and the store you are asking me to price match must be within 50 miles of this store.”

Customer: “No, it says in the policy I don’t have to, and I happen to know insider information about this kind of thing because my ex-wife is the store manager of one of these stores in New York, so you are wrong. I have the personal phone numbers of all sorts of people in the corporate office, and I can get anyone I want fired.”

(I go ahead and give him the price — it is busy and my supervisor has asked me to send someone home at another register — finish out his order, and give him his receipt while he continues to tell me his story.)

Customer: *becoming more smug by the moment* “Once, a cashier at another store, not here, wouldn’t honor the sign saying the pants I wanted to buy were $3 and told me I’d have to pay $15, and it was 3:00 in the morning, mind you, and I made her get her supervisor. Her supervisor told me that I couldn’t pay $3 for the pants and would have to pay $15, and I asked her if she was sure about that because there are laws in this country that require companies to have truth in advertising, and she said she was just doing her job. I told her I had the personal number of [Executive that does not actually exist], and I would be perfectly happy to call him, and I did, and he screamed at her on the phone and told her she’d be fired if she didn’t make me happy! Then she had the cashier change the price for me.”

Me: “Ah, yes… I—”

Customer: *positively gleeful* “Then, that manager told me I am a horrible person! And if you think that’s bad, when my wife was an assistant manager at a [Company] in California, her boss was a gay man who decided he hated women and sexually harassed my wife, and I called [Executive that doesn’t exist], and he not only fired that man and promoted my wife, he made that gay man unemployable in the state of California!”

(I was completely unable to figure out how to extricate myself from this conversation, which actually took over 15 minutes and nearly cost me my break, and in addition, the person I was supposed to relieve wound up being sent home by the supervisor because I couldn’t get away from this man. I found out later from a friend of mine that he comes in all the time and tries to pull that crap on people, and none of it is true.)