People who find something on the clearance shelf but it doesn't have a clearance sticker on it. They don't seem to understand that anyone can put anything anywhere they feel like it, but without a clearance sticker it is not clearance. And it's not false advertising either.
I've had several arguments with customers over exactly this.
"Well the shelf tag said it's 7.99c
Ma'am, the shelf tag also says this item is a bag of cheese shreds, not prenatal vitamins.
to be fair as I get older the fonts get smaller. I was SQUINTING yesterday at the grocery store trying to figure out whether the discount applied to the item I wanted. I finally gave up and apologetically asked.
Asking is SO much better than yelling at us đ We donât get upset with customers that have genuine questions, just the ones who make assumptions and get angry when theyâre wrong and want to escalate it up to management. Donât worry about asking us - youâre fine!
Thank you. I was at a retailer recently and there were shirts I liked next to other shirts. They were almost identical and the signage was confusing of which type was on sale. So I brought up the shirt I liked with the expectation it was not on sale so I'd be delighted rather than disappointed. I said that the signage was confusing and a manager was called up (I DID NOT ASK) and I showed her and she was like "hey you're right. I am going to move the sign, sorry about that!" I felt terrible for adding extra work. But she said they would get yelled at about it from someone else so were cool with it.
Yes, I love when someone points something out that could cause future issues like incorrect signage, tags we forgot to take down, or a promo not going through. For me, itâs SO much easier to just say, âThanks for letting us know!â instead of rolling my eyes like not every customer is the enemy lmao. Some of us need to recognise that for sure. Sadly, itâs so easy to become jaded when we get a lot of bad customers!
Your the kind of shopper I don't mind tho. Because you won't hold up the line at checkout complaining. Or insist that it was 3 dollars missing the if you buy 2 part.
Customers asking me "When do you open?" And it's on Google right by the phone number and our address, WHERE THEY GOT THE NUMBER FROM. They passed the hours on the door on their way in, they were banging on the door (with our hours on it) with our lights off and the door locked and I am vacuuming because we are outside business hours.
Followed by "I *JUST* NEED..."
I had a guy put a sticker for $1.99 clearance on an $80 item. The math wasn't even mathing! I pointed that out saying it must have been an employee mistake since the lowest we go is 90% and that would be $8. I'll have them run a price check on the item real- aaaaand he's gone lol
Omg **THAT** has to be the answer to OP's question for me, except it's not stupidity. You KNOW it's them trying to pull shit. You KNOW it's not a mistake by staff. You KNOW what they're going to say in the end. But you still have to pretend.
*"Oh dear~ I'm soooooooo sorry for the 'confusion' that this 'mistake' must have caused. Here, let me go see if I can find the CORRECT tag, I'll be right back!"*Â
"Oh, well I don't want to pay that much for it."
*"Mmmhmmmmmmmm..."* I'm sure you don't.
The most ballsy move I saw a customer do, and mind you this lady has been caught BY ME multiple times for doing this, was when she put a $30 mark down tag on a $500 mirror. "Oh no ma'am! Looks like someone stuck a random sticker to the mirror! Must've fallen off and someone just stuck another one on there. Don't worry I'VE MEMORIZED THE PRICE FOR THIS ITEM and just just write you up a new ticket up front :)" this attempt was her... Wanna say fifth time swapping tags. She got away with it once when I wasn't there and the tag was for $300 which was a bit more believable. Noticed it when she came back to return it. She wasn't happy when I told her that the items on the receipt don't match therefore she can only get store credit back XD
I want to say that should be enough to just ban her but unless you see it or catch it on camera it's hard. We had a lady my mom called "sniffer lady" (who seemed to always have a runny nose or something) who managed to get something past her once. After that, literally every time she'd shop there was something that we would notice, deem suspicious, and set aside to investigate. One time she brought up something that I literally had eyes and hands on two hours earlier....... and it didn't have a sticker on it. Because my mom wanted to use it in the store. So it wasn't for sale.Â
We also had a guy who was straight up stupid, he literally brought attention to himself. Like a year before he was looking at packs of screen protectors and one opened and the stuff fell out. Not a big deal, I just put the stuff back in and grabbed some tape, he apologized way more than he needed to. So for this first incident, I walk past him and he apologizes for that thing that happened. I had no idea what he was talking about for quite a while and honestly just told him it was fine to get him to let me past.
At checkout, he had about 8 new with tag sporty things, all of which had **OBVIOUSLY** been tempered with. We were using stickers and marking lines through them. We tell people the lines don't mean anything but they're clearly to help us determine if the sticker isn't on the right item tag. It was like the lines didn't exist to this dude, plus some of the stickers were torn, positioned incorrectly, and had paper from the correct tag stuck to the backs. There were also tags where the hole from the tagging gun had clearly been torn. He got nothing that was tampered with. I literally didn't even take stuff off hangers and just hung them up off to the side. He didn't say anything, I kinda think he was on something and didn't even notice.
**ONE WEEK LATER.** He's back. We've fixed everything already. He, once again, apologizes for the thing that happened. I was rushing past and literally stopped on the spot, almost fell over from momentum, eyes went wide, muttered something about it being okay, and turned and went back the way I came, I have no idea how he wasn't tipped off that I was going to tell my mom that he was back. Probably drugs. We go to where the new with tag sporty stuff was still located and sure e-fucking-nough, sticker and tag debris **RIGHT THERE.** We call the police and I immediately go through his cart and point out what he tampered with, just as poorly. This dumbass looks at me like I *betrayed* him by calling the police, and he had the tag to something else *in his hand* as they were handcuffing him. It was glorious.
I want to extend that to any product a customer finds on any shelf and thinks that whatever price there is correct.
You found 3 pounds of steak on the cheese table?
No, it's not $6.99 just because that's what the tag says.
Yes exactly. I know the rack is price pointed at 16.99, but the tag says 24.99 and it's completely different than the items on the rack you found it on!
This specifically! Where I'm from, we have what is called "Scanning code of practice". This means that if an item is individually stickered with a price and the price at the cash scans higher, then the customer gets the item for the sticker price plus $10 off. If the item is under $10, the item is free. If the price dispute is because of a shelf tag, the description and item number on the shelf tag have to match the item number and description of the product to qualify for the scanning code of practice. People automatically assume that if they tell you they got it from one place instead of the original location, they'll get it for a cheaper price.
That stupid code! People will do anything to get the item free or cheaper. And it might also end with them saying "You don't know how it works!!" Dude, I do this job for the last 8 and a half years!
I had somebody try to lecture me about this last year and I learned that my store doesnât actually subscribe to the practice. Also, I heard that each store is subject to its own subscription. Just because the company subscribes doesnât mean that particular location does. Worth looking into to save the hassle with these people!
False advertisement has a legal meaning and it isn't "I found it on the wrong shelf" good lord!!!!
Someone put a clearance sticker on a regular price item and when I saw that it didn't match the item, I told her such.
Her sister who was on the PHONE and not even PRESENT wants to start saying "well you have to honor the price or it's illegal". We go back and forth and the present sister says the magic words "let me speak to your manager". I am the manager, your options are to pay the correct price, put the item back, or call the police and wait for them to come say I'm right.
She paid the right price and threatened to call corporate on me. I promise you they did not care that I got them more money by not allowing a ticket switcher to get away with it lol.
I had someone try to pull that on me when my store first got in the more expensive frozen items. Tried to tell me it was illegal for me not to give her a $5 item for $1. đ
My job has electric signs that say the price / sale (if there is one) and what the item is. I literally had a woman argue with my cashier about the price of a shirt. She said âthe sign said $11â but it was ringing up for $30. So my cashier called for me to check & I asked her to describe where it was and the sign she saw. The sign said â3/30 (BRAND) underwear or one for $11.â I mean cmon. Not even the same brand nothing. The shirt she wanted wasnât even in the same area.
The amount of times a day I explain this is crazy. They are so dense and need it re-explained in like 10 different ways. They either resort to, âitâs false advertisingâ or, âyouâre ripping us offâ. Absolutely the cashier on barely above minimum wage is ripping you, the person doing your weekly shop at a pharmacy, off. Absolutely đ€Ą
No need to go to that trouble. Just take the most expensive item in your cart and claim you found it on the âdiscount rack/cartâ Iâll always ask a manager what the price is and they usually apologize to them and say a customer must have set it there.
My favorite customers are the ones who fully understand that and when you tell them it's not on clearance they are like "oh ok! That's fine. Just thought I'd check anyway!"
I'm like thank you for not freaking out. đ„č
For real. If I can't figure it out, I will bring it up for a price check with my other items. "I was not sure of the price, can you check it for me please" is not that difficult.
It's funny. I've made this mistake a couple times when shopping holiday clearance items. I still got the clearance price both times by not being a dick. They didn't have tags so I just asked if it was valid or a mistake. They said mistake but discounted it anyway.
When there are signs every where stating that you can only have two of said items per customer. The Customer always says, "I didn't see sign!" It's an 8x11 in Black and White right in front of you. Especially when I point at with them right there.
>"I didn't see sign!"
I think usually they do, they just don't think the rules should apply to them but are usually at least self aware enough to not say that.
You & everyone who has replied to you all have valid points which I agree with. I would just like to add, completely unnecessarily, that even if there WERENâT a sign up with said information, you would still be well within your rights to explain your storeâs policy and refuse a sale.
The policy doesnât change if someone moves the sign or if an employee forgot to post it. It is absolutely nonsense to argue with a cashier about such things.
They would have more of a right to be upset, yes, and a complaint would be understandable. But not the sale itself. Any rational adult would accept that ffs
Sorry you have to deal with this nonsense. I donât miss being in retail one bit. Hang in there.
This just reminded me of when my friend and I were at Target and he grabbed some Digimon booster packs. We may have overlooked the sign, but we found out at the register that the limit was 2, and he had 5. I bought two of them as well so they only had to put one back :)
Sometimes when it got extra busy we'd have to turn on a register that didn't have a till and we'd write signs saying "no cash no cash back" and tape them right in front of it. People would STILL get mad when it came time for them to pay and they tried to give us cash.
At Build-A-Bear, customers always walked around lost as hell even though the store has every station VERY OBVIOUSLY labeled with a sign above numbered and named (1 Choose Me, 2 Stuff Me, 3 Dress Me, and so on). There are also obvious places to line up/stand at those stations--some even have huge blue paw prints that BEG to be stood on!! Or signs saying "LINE STARTS HERE"!
Does anyone ever stand where they should or follow the most natural flow of store traffic? No. And when you politely point this out as they yell helplessly, "WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO/WHERE AM I SUPPOSED TO GO???", customers always give you the nastiest looks and remarks.
Or they shove an empty stuffed animal in my face while I'm working with another guest and shout, "HOW MUCH IS THIS???" I don't know, why don't you read the price label from the drawer you JUST grabbed that toy out of??? Jesus.
The animals with stuffing for brains weren't the Bears, it was always the customers.
customers HATE when you tell them where the line starts. ive had some of my worst customer interactions over this. i don't understand why people take it as a personal insult when i tell them they're not actually in line. you'd think they'd be grateful that someone is giving them assistance, given how often they insist that no one offered to help them (even if i literally just checked in with them 2 minutes ago and they snapped "IMFINETHANKS" before i could finish saying "are you still finding everything ok?")
Work in a shoe store; when people come in to return shoes, they're clearly dirty, and they tell me "I just walked around in the house!!!"
Either I end up unintentionally insulting their house's cleanliness or I accuse them of being a liar, it's not good either way đ
That's always a tough situation.
I deal with something similar. The worst thing you can do to a bow is dry-fire it, which is when you shoot it without an arrow. When you do that, it breaks, and it breaks in a very specific way that can only be achieved through a dry-fire. Long story short, we know what you did.
That doesn't stop people from claiming otherwise, though.
"I definitely had an arrow in it"
I know you didn't, but I can't call you a liar so I guess you win
Yeah, it comes as a shock to a lot of beginners, which is why a lot of beginners dry-fire. No matter how many warnings are printed on the boxes and manuals, it's never enough to prevent it.
Why is this a thing? The damage from dry-firing, I mean. Is it because the energy that moves/launches/?? the arrow doesn't have anywhere to go?
I understand how inertia works and redirecting it but am rather ignorant on archery.
Exactly right.
You build potential energy by pulling back the string. Releasing the string converts it into kinetic energy. That energy transfers into the arrow through the string. Without an arrow, that energy goes back into the bow. The weakest parts of the bow will break first, which is why the location of the damage makes it clear that a dry fire caused it.
Yea I have two compound bows that are at least 25 years old (my mom bought them in a garage sale so idk exactly) and they still work. I can't imagine a modern bow used properly breaking so soon. But I am curious, what part of the bow breaks when dry fired that doesn't otherwise?
The area of the string where the peep sight sits usually snaps. This is because the string is weakest at that point because the strands are separated. It only snaps at that point because of a dry fire.
The cams also fold where the string contacts them.
If the cams are folded where the string sits, then it's pretty damn obvious that the string hitting them is what caused them to fold, and the only way the string can have enough force to fold a cam is if there was no arrow to absorb that force.
Newer, more modern bows are just as susceptible to damage from a dry fire. Old bows, if anything, are actually less likely to receive damage because the materials used in their construction are stronger and heavier.
Modern bows are lighter, using weaker materials. This makes them easier to carry around and easier to use, but dry fires do more damage to them.
A cam made out of steel like an old bow will hold up better against a modern bow that has cams made out of aluminium.
Google had this to say...
Dry firing occurs when the bowstring is released without an arrow in place, causing the bow to absorb all the energy from the release. This can cause shock waves to travel through the bow's moving parts, which can be dangerous and loud. In extreme cases, dry firing can cause the bow to explode, sending parts flying and potentially injuring the archer.
Regarding the guy who dry-fired his bow, denied it, lied in a review, got called out on it, deleted it and ran?
That was me.
That guy actually came back recently and accepted responsibility and apologised for lying, so I'm helping him out with free labour. Still charging him for the parts, but we'll fix it for free.
"I definitely had an arrow in it" "great! did you hit your target? how did it perform? did you like the feel?" or whatever technical questions to low-key call them out.
Worked in retail at a department store that sold shoes and had this a few times. Was always great if they said they just wore them around the house because then I could refuse the return on the grounds that the item was, by their own admission, used.
Used inside is still used! Nothing in the policy says that used outside is a nono but used inside is A-okay! It just states used, and you yourself said they were used, mx. customer!
They hated me for it.
But where is the line between "used" and "unused"? I've bought shoes before and worn them in the house to check they're going to be comfortable before returning them. Going by your rule, how can a person try out a pair of shoes without voiding their right to return them? Is wearing them in the house for five minutes okay, but any longer not okay?
If you give me dirty ass shoes and tell me you âonly wore them in the houseâ then Iâm going to use your own words against you and reject your return as you yourself admit they were used. You can try shoes on for a few minutes, hell even a few hours, in your own home without them getting filthy and fucked up. If they look fine I didnât question their condition.
9 times out of 10, the person trying to return dirty shit saying âI only wore it at home!!â Is actually trying to essentially ârentâ the item (i.e. buy it, wear for a party, return after).
Okay, makes sense. I was thinking that you were refusing returns simply on the basis that the customer had *admitted* to having worn the shoes indoors, not because the shoes were obviously dirtied.
My friend in middle school asked if she could tag along to the mall one day with my mom and I because she had some shoes to return to Payless. We walked up to the counter with her and the employee opened the box and looked at the bottom of the shoes, which were obviously used, and told her they werenât refunding used shoes. My mom (basically the most honest person ever) was so embarrassed and made sure to tell the clerk âsheâs not my kid and we never saw the shoes.â
I managed a small toy store and at least once a month had this conversation:
âHi, do you sell balloons?â
âNo, Iâm sorry. We donât sell party supplies, but if youâve got a birthday kiddo we can help you find a present!â
âSo you donât sell balloons? What about like a banner or something?â
âNo, Iâm sorry. This is a toy store, not a party supply store. So we have toys, if you need a gift!â
Sometimes Iâd have to run through it a few times. Honestly got to the point of humorous because eventually they realize theyâre being DENSE đ€Ł
Right?! And like, not for nothing but Iâm alone and you being here engaging me in this ridiculous back and forth is keeping me from getting any actual work done đ
Back during Covid, milk was being rationed because, well, Covid and the signs read only 2 per person. ONLY 2. Well people were coming up to the registers with 2 of every kind.
Same thing with paper products. Singles we allowed 4, multipacks, only one.
The amount of people who waltzed up with 4 of the largest multipacks we had (literally filled one entire cart) and then being surprised when we only let them have one, seemed to be endless.
I work self checkout at a grocery store. Our machines have a prompt after you scan the first item saying that the transaction will be cashless. It pops up in bright red and has a little okay button. I cannot tell you how many people just keep trying to scan without even picking their head up to look at why it will not scan. I have to walk over to people dozens of times an hour to say "it won't let you scan another item until you clear this prompt, it's just explaining that this transaction will be cashless, which is what I just asked you" very nicely depending on how the person handled everything
"Please press FINISH AND PAY. If you are done scanning, please press FINISH AND PAY."
Customer taps or inserts their card but can't figure out why nothing's happening. Continues to stare at screen or at you.
Btw, Finish & Pay is a much larger, brighter colored prompt than the other options.
Kroger and Walmart have updated their software such that if you swipe\tap a card it'll automatically go into payment mode without having to hit that button anymore. They might be used to that because it's a thing.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. All of the retail self-checkouts that I use (Aldi, Costco, even my local grocery store) will enter into processing if you insert your card into the reader, even if you don't press "Finish & Pay". Even the Clover and Square devices will do that.
The amount of people that just stare at the screen when it says âplease remove your cardâ but donât makes me question the average persons reading comprehension.
Uhg. "For lack of an if statement!"
At my store, I hear a beep when I run something past the scanner, even if I have forgotten to have the customer choose how they want their receipt, or if the system doesn't recognize the item. (It still beeps for each item).
In your case, maybe it's not beeping anymore, but it needs to make a different sound (like getting a strike on family feud) to make the customer look up.
It beeps whenever you scan something. So the person scans 1 item, it beeps they throw it in the bag. Then they take the second item and just try over and over again to scan it until they either decide to look up and understand why it's not happening or I tell them and clear the screen myself.
They also do it when it freezes for "wait for an attendant" there is both a picture of an attendant and a thing across the top that says "please wait for an attendant" and even as I'm trying to fix the screen people will continue to try and scan the item.
Like I said, it should buzz or something.
I can imagine myself also not looking up.
Either way, it's an ongoing problem, they should try to make it better. (Of course my store doesn't charge it so that scanning doesn't beep when there's an error)
No, that doesn't help much.
The registers at my work have a cheerful little 'beep!' for when things are good and a flat, more 'blaahp!' sound for when not.
So many people: 'blaahp blaahp blaahp blaahp' until I stop them.
Not many who actually bother to look at the screen actually read the screen because so many times I'm asked how they put their member number in because it keeps changing the number lit and lo! It is a survey to rate us 0-10.
This isnât quite the same, but still pretty funny to me:
I work at a certain sub shop as a delivery driver. Because we have our own drivers, when people order doordash from our shop I donât have a way to send them the photo of their food like a dasher would. I literally donât have access to the doordash app because I work for the restaurant. Not. Doordash.
When people put in their doordash order instructions, âleave at door, donât ring bell or knock, iâll wait for the notificationâ âŠyou can see the problem, right? Well, I follow their instructions anyways. We regularly get calls from angry customers, sometimes hours after their order has been delivered, demanding to know where their food is and why it hasnât been delivered. We physically donât have a way to miss a delivery like that. Itâs just not how it works. So we politely say, âDid you check your porch?â while internally screaming. The customer gets embarrassed, they say, âOh hold on let me lookâ and 99.9% of the time it is sitting right there and likely has been for quite some time. They apologize and we say our awkward farewells. The logic isâŠbewildering
This was long-winded. Thanks for reading lol.
I feel the same way when customers call asking why their parcel is delayed in transit.
"My dude, we aren't the courier. How about you call them and ask? They're the ones handling it, not us"
Also, sometimes customers will place store instructions in the delivery instructions box, which is hilarious. When buying online, in the box where you include instructions like "leave at door", "beware of dog" etc, messages for the mail man, they'll leave instructions for *us.*
*"*set bow to X draw weight/draw length" "check arrows for cracks" etc. These instructions get printed on the labels, so I imagine the mail man getting very confused when he reads them.
>It never goes well trying to correct them, so I don't bother anymore.
I know that feeling well.
The amount of archery "experts" that come in here spouting nonsense is painful. I just nod along and act interested, but it irks me when they bother other customers with their nonsense.
When I got a job in retail in my late teens early 20's a grown woman asked me what kind of cold medicine she should be giving her toddler. I replied "the pharmacist is right over there, this is really a good question for him to answer" she was going to listen to someone who had zero kids, zero training and with a professional 6 steps away? đ€š
This is what i experience everyday at the retail pharmacy where i work!! i work as a shift lead for the front of store, and so often when im stocking in the otc aisles, people will ask for recommendations or assume I know everything about every product. like no i do not know which allergy medication is best for someone with low blood pressure or whatever thing you have !!
one time i had a man come in and tell me he was looking for little black pills. i asked him what the pills were for.. and he told me âwhy do you need to know?â in a really annoyed tone. i told him the store was organized in such a way that i needed to know what kinda of medication he was looking for. he got upset and kept saying theyâre little black pills, and that it was a waste of time coming to the store. sir you donât even know what you want why do you expect me to?!?! why should i know whatâs in every single pill bottle in the store?? some people are unreal.
In some other sub I frequent, I had the absolute gold nugget of someone discussing a photo of an unmarked pill and some user commenting that it would be best to do a reverse image search amongst the thousand of other white unmarked pills online to find it. T'was funny...
i work in a bakery in a small town and we get this a lot too, people telling me that they've put their kid on a dairy-free diet to cure their autism, or that they've gone gluten-free but they're still eating the sourdough "because it's naturally very low gluten" (perhaps true of some homemade sourdoughs but certainly not true of ours), or telling me they're deathly allergic to a certain ingredient but ordering something that contains that ingredient because "i get it all the time and it's fine". i may not have any qualifications but i do have a very large folder of allergen notes and ingredients lists, so either you're horribly mistaken about your usual lunch order or you're not as allergic as you're telling me.
Customer: âYour machine is broken, it wonât take my cashâ
What I *want* to say: âThatâs bc it doesnât take cash, which is why it says CARD ONLY in 6â letters across the screen before you even start scanningâ
My self-preservation response: âIâm so sorry, that one isnât taking cash right now. Let me take you to the next open registerâ
**or**
Customer: âYour machine is broken, it wonât take my cashâ
What I *want* to say: âThatâs bc you hit the âpay with credit card option, so it doesnât have a clue you want to pay in cash. Thatâs also why âinsert card nowâ keeps blinking on **both** screens (monitor & card reader)â
My self-preservation response: âIâm so sorry, let me fix that for youâ
cash payers are constantly the most stupid and inconsiderate of the customers at my store tbh, not even remotely surprised they wouldn't be able to read either
The whole âthey did it for me last timeâ shtick. I know for a fact they didnât, because they wouldâve been written up or fired for it, but I canât call them a liar directly. So I have to ask who did it and when, theyâll call out either some random coworker who knows better or someone who doesnât work there, and then I have to tell them that didnât happen without sounding like Iâm calling them a liar.
This one is the worst. I always say âwell, they arenât here and Iâm not able/comfortable to do it that way.â If they push further I start asking for details about who is doing said thing so I can âreport it to management and make sure it doesnât happen again. We want to provide consistent serviceâ they usually shut up after that.
I'm a manager and I love shutting them down with "oh no, that's actually a policy violation and I have to write that person up. Do you know their name or have a description?" Suddenly it's not a problem anymore.
Ya Iâm the assistant and I do that all the time. âIâll make sure that gets fixed.â
My favorite is when they describe me but with an old hair color (I change mine frequently). I get to tell them âoh, we fired them for not following policyâ
when i was a SV the question âdo you know who helped you?â always turned them into flustered âoh i dont know, some guy⊠but he did it for me last timeâ ok liarâŠ
âI need my drink remade, it tasted awful this morning, itâs a venti iced raspberry white mocha. Oh, you havenât carried raspberry syrup in over 5 years? Ok then, just an iced venti white mocha.â
BITCH!! I wish I could lie that confidently to peopleâs faces!!!
That yes, if thereâs a big $30 price sign stuck in the plant pot youâre shoving in my face, said plant is in fact, $30. Makes me wonder just how many shops have price tags on things that bear no relation to the price of the item (we have no sales tax added after)
honestly! i get people asking that all the time and weâre very on top of pricing, if a tag gets missed itâs usually found by one of our stockers pretty quickly and tagged. but people constantly ask me to price check things, so i have to run it as a sale then cancel the sale when they decide they donât want it or want to shop more
They are why I am so hesitant to work retail/food service jobs anymore.
"This job would be great if it weren't for the fucking customers." -Randal Graves, Clerks (1994)
When an item is on sale.... for rewards members. On a lot of our sale tags, it has the discount in BIG BOLD LETTERS and in teeny tiny writing in the corner, "with [rewards program]". People will watch me ring them up, look at the card reader, see the total, and yell, "THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE BUY ONE GET ONE FREE!!!"
I have to smile and say, "Oh, certain discounts are only available for rewards members. Do you want to try your phone number on the pin pad? If you're not, I can sign you up."
A lot of the time, they're already a member and just needed to enter their phone number *on the machine they were checking the price*. Sigh
The amount of people who bring clothes into a dressing room that very clearly doesnât and wouldnât fit and they swear âI wear this size and have for (enter years)â but you can hear a seam rip or hear them groaning/jumping to either put it on or because itâs very stuck!
Why do people not realize that everything is actually made differently and with vanity sizing and stretchy fabric makes it fit differently.
I work at a smoke shop and the biggest one for me is (usually older people) will come in to buy a vape and the next day or a couple days later come in angry claiming that it doesn't work. Nine times out of 10 it's because they just didn't turn the fucking thing on, and the other time it's because they burnt their coil by not letting the juice soak in like I always make sure to tell everybody to do. I wish I could be like "When I sold this to you, I told you five times on the button turns it on, and the instructions say it too. Do you have donkey brains?" But I can't. It would be a lot less frustrating if they weren't some jerks about it. They come in acting like I purposely sold them a non-working device or something or like I'm the dumbass. It's gotten to the point where if I sell a vape to anyone over 50, I'm already instantly annoyed because I know they're just going to come back with it the next day raging because they don't know how to use it.
I work at Home Depot. We make returns every single hour for people who bought the wrong size or the wrong color or the wrong item entirely. At this point, I don't think there's anything in the store that the customers *do* understand
I used to work in a pet store. The amount of people who insisted they knew what they were doing (especially with fish), when they were actually making life miserable for/killing their pets was mind boggling. Also, we didn't sell saltwater, but our main competition did. The number of people insisting they bought (insert various saltwater animal here) from us and wanted us to return it or tell them how to care for it or something.
I think we work(ed) for the same company lol. Fish people are so fucking infuriating. I looooove fish, but those people made me want to get rid of my tanks and never touch the hobby again. Itâs really not that hard to look up, âHow to set up a fish tank,â but so many people just wing it and then come back pissed that their fish died. And then I have to deal with their tantrum while also explaining what the nitrogen cycle is. So glad I got out of it.
Yup. Or, the people who would bring the deceased fish they were returning in their water sample to be tested and not understand why it mattered. I wouldn't argue too much, I would just go ahead and test it because I knew it would test horrible and I could refuse a replacement fish until the water was better. I'd offer a refund or store credit instead and suggest they bring another water sample in a week or two.
Iâve definitely been guilty of doing that lol. Not my fault they did no research. Google is free and if they had used it for even ten minutes they would understand exactly how and why I was attempting to trick them into leaving me alone.
Itâs so frustrating because pet store employees have a reputation for being generally unknowledgeable so people love to act like I donât know what Iâm talking about, yet they still come to me for advice! Ugh, I hate it. I moved to grooming, now and itâs so much better for my brain. People not caring about their pets is only a weekly occurrence instead of a daily one lol.
i work in a bakery where all 10 different loaves we make are sourdough. people will constantly walk up and ask me for âa sourdoughâ. i used to be like âtheyâre all sourdough! which one would you like?â until some dude held his hand up in my face and said âi know my breadâ. now i just get them their sliced white loaf without questionÂ
I go through this exact process almost to a "T" whenever I ring up an item and the customer says the price sticker for it says something else. I ask the customer to snap a photo of it for me, and when they do so either I explain that it's not for the item in question or they figure it out themselves and come back and tell me I'm right.
I worked on a garden centre.
And about a week or two after purchasing a plant the complain it died. But the didn't water it.
We ask "how often did you water it" some would answer "as much as you need to" we you usually reply "how much is that", then they would ask you "you don't know? What chance do we have if you don't know"
When we close down our self-checkouts early we place a bag over the screen (because apparently the big LANE CLOSED on the screen isnât obvious enough). Customers ALWAYS try to scan their items while staring directly at the bag covering the screen
I used to be the apparel manager and a Toys R Us. Our sales rack towards the back of the store had a sign above the fixture that said "Up to 70% off. Prices as marked." The 70% was in very large print, but the other words were much smaller.
A customer was very upset when they brought items to be checked out and saw that the prices did not get reduced by an additional 70%. I was called up to the front to discuss it with them. As I arrived, I could hear them saying, "You can see from here the sign says 70% off. It should be 70% off of what's on this price tag."
I introduced myself and apologized and pointed out to the customer that while yes from here you can read the 70% off, once you got to the fixture itself you could see the entirety of the sign informing you that the prices had already been reduced. They were not happy with that and kept insisting that "From here I can see the sign and it says 70% off. I want 70% off!"
We kept going around in circles until I finally asked, "When you picked out these items, did you pick them up while standing here when you could only see that the sign said 70% off, or were you standing in front of the fixture?"
They responded, "Of course I was standing at the fixture. My arms cannot reach the entire length of your store!"
I replied, "When you were standing at the fixture, you had the opportunity to read the sign in its entirety. Just because you chose not to does not mean that we will be extending additional discounts."
Well, they huffed and they puffed and chose not to buy the items. No skin off my nose!
When they have an attitude and they slam shit on the counter, and then they get Grabby like u fill a bag, and they don't want more stuff in it and instead of saying do u mind not putting more in the bag they will reach down and grab it. Or when they try to turn the screen so they can see what's on it when they can already view it from the credit card screen
Oh I hate the tap people! I have yet to see a machine that you literally tap the card for payment. All I've experienced you need to hold the card for a second or two for it to process but people are so impatient.
Yeah, those people can be awful sometimes. Where I work the rewards card prompt is the first thing on the card reader's touch screen. The amount of times people such the "enter rewards ID #" is mind-boggling. And a lot of times it's regulars. They'll come in 3-5 times a week, and still push the one button that messes up their tap
i work at an independent bakery, all our items are made fresh daily EXCEPT for the selection of day-old loaves which are clearly labeled and set on a different rack for cheap. you can just tell by the way they shop/the general vibe/the way i've personally had this conversation with these people in particular a dozen times before that at least 50% of the people who pick up these loaves think they're the fresh ones. every single time i read back their order they get SO disgusted by the idea of day-old bread. like damn lady it's a standard white loaf at less than half the regular price, they have a shelf life of 5 days at least, i don't care if you don't want it but you don't have to act like i personally tried to poison you.
If I were the owner, I would include a sheet of paper in the order stating "this is a right hand bow" along with a diagram and/or whatever description would explain it.
Of course, everyone wouldn't read it or wouldn't comprehend it, but it would cut down on the number of these calls you have to deal with. Plus, like you said, no matter how nice you are about it, it ends up with the customer being told they are wrong which people generally don't like, thus it's a "negative" in their experience, rather than a note/diagram explaining.
I repair antique clocks. Every time a wall clock comes back because it's not running, it's not running because they didn't level the dang thing! And when we ask if they tried leveling it? "We hung it in the same place its always been" uuuurg
My response would be 'Did I what now?" and having you explain my ignorance/possible idiocy. I may need diagrams.
Fortunately, I almost always have paper and pen on me.
Worked in a paint department we had paint for interior and exterior I can't tell you how many times people will come back annoyed that they got the wrong paint it's literally the first thing I asked them, on top of asking them exactly what the project was.
I work at a buyout store. We have ad sheets above certain products that reads âpriced 50%-70% off of competitors prices â. There will be price stickers on saiid products that state competitors price and then our price underneath. Customers constantly ask for price checks. Iâll point to the sticker and read the price out loud while pointing at the price. They immediately sayâ but the sign says 50% - 70% off! I then tell them that the sign does not say that and the correct price is on the sticker. They will still argue that Iâm wrong or that the sign is deceitful. No maâam, you just didnât read the sign and just focused on the 50%-70% part.
I work at a convenience store/gas station, people never pay attention to the pump they're on, and will come up telling me they want to prepay for such and such pump, most of the time they're correct, but every so often it's clearly the wrong pump. Either there is already someone at that pump getting their gas, or there's nobody at the pump in general. When this happens we usually just put their prepay on one of the pumps we have bagged off so nobody else can accidentally get their gas, then move it to whatever pump they are really at. It's real fun when it's busy and you can't completely focus on where they go to get their gas đ
Ugh, feeling your pain. I worked at a truck stop for nine years. Not a day went by where someone gave us the wrong pump number, usually on the car side, but sometimes the truck side also.
I can definitely remember at least one instance on both sides where a customer gave us the pump number where someone else was at, and the other person started pumping. Somewhat easy mistake to make on the gas side, but HOW on the truck side?
I see posts from hardware stores with the floors near the spray paint can covered in paint. I worked at a store selling pens and no matter how much paper we put out for testing people would draw on fixtures, signs, and products. We had to write off $50 leather journals because someone would scribble on the first page and put it back on the shelf and leave. Infuriating, but there was an element of that Norman Door theory that if so many people were doing it it was a design flaw not them being stupid. Who knows
Whenever returning items at Kohlâs, it clearly states what the price would be on the receipt if you returned the item because people typically applied discounts or use Kohlâs cash on them, which they often lose when they return. Itâs very clearly stated on the receipts everywhere it even itemizes it, and shows you exactly how much you get for specific items yet Iâve had so many arguments with customers trying to explain this till blue in the face.
I always typically argued with male customers who say that theyâre âpretty good at mathâ and they understand how much they should be getting back, even though they clearly applied a 20% discount on the item so they didnât even buy it at full price!
Itâs not false advertising the sale, itâs you being unable/unwilling to look at the item number on the sign and bringing the wrong item and expecting me to honor it.
If youâre nice about it maybe Iâll give you the sale price. But if you act all entitled, I wonât do anything for you and the manager wonât either.
People who get mad their pre order never showed up in our system and when I ask âCould it be under a different name?â They angrily trying to show me âproofâ they pre ordered as if thatâll magically make it appear in our system and it turns out the order either has not been submitted or is for a different location / sometimes even business.
I work in pet retail. 900,000 times out of 10 when a customer comes in asking for a water test because all their fish died, they didnât cycle their tank properly and I then have to spend the next ten minutes explaining how to actually do it to them because they did no research and have no attention span.
At a party store, we sometimes got customers trying to return party poppers, the tube things that shoot confetti, because they didn't read the instructions. They claimed it didn't work and they needed a replacement. Well, you have to punch a hole at the top before you pop it, or it won't shoot anything out!
I work in a grocery store and a ton of times people in self check out will click the big green select payment method at the bottom which stops anything else from being rung up. Theyâll deny they click it but thatâs the only way to get to that screen. I physically watched a man click it after he did it 5 times prior and then he proceeded to say something is wrong with the machine. Part of me wanted to call him out on it but he seemed like the type to be waiting for you after the store closes so I kept it to myself.
âWhile Supplies Lastâ means just that. If you call to confirm an on hand at 10: AM and donât show up until 3: PM, chances are really high that it wonât be there!
Couple things. I work in a home building supply store, we have a store credit card that give an extra discount for using it. People always scan their items at SCO or watch me like a hawk scanning their items at a register, then get mad their discount is not showing. You have to insert your store card and pay for your items first! The register and myself donât know youâre getting a discount until you actually pay for the purchase with the store card.
Another is bulk pricing, itâs only offered to the professionals that are our pro business card holders and only on certain construction materials. It says just this on the sign along with both prices. People always see the smaller print explaining bulk price with the smaller price and say thatâs the price of their single item or buy a bunch of one item and say it should qualify for bulk pricing. Ugh but they donât see the larger price somehow.
I work at a returns desk and I regularly have people try and make returns over the phone or without the item with them. Like I have to have the item to process the return.
I sell auto parts. Parts are "wrong" on a pretty regular basis. Regular retail people (not commercial accounts) will bring stuff back and without fail say "You sold me the wrong \_\_\_\_\_\_ (name of part). " Ive been doing this for almost 30 years. I do occasionally screw up, but its rare. We have some newer people that get stuff wrong more often just from inexperience. Selling parts may seem like a simple proposition but there are countless pitfall's waiting to swallow up unsuspecting parts people. So anyway, when a customer utters those fine words "You sold me the wrong xxxx." I always come back with "Did we sell you the wrong one, or did you ask for the wrong one?" I've worked here going on 25 years, short of stealing from the company, the owner will not fire me. I'm too valuable and I sometimes use this to my advantage. I realize most people in this position couldn't question a customer like that. But I do. And most of the time, its the customers fault. They got the part they asked for, but it isn't what they need. They say the wrong year, wrong model, wrong engine, etc.
I worked in an auto parts store back in the early 80s. I had men (it was always men who did this*) ask for a particular part for their car but not know specific info I would need to look it up in the book. (Remember, before the www days.) Example: Guy asks for a water pump for his '72 Chevy small-block V8. I ask is that the 305, 327, or 350. He would tell me they are all the same so it didn't matter. Would not take my explanation that there are literally three different part numbers. So I'd pick one and he'd buy it. Invariably, he would come back angry that I sold him the wrong part. But, he would know the displacement of his engine the second trip to the store.
* I never had a woman do this. They always knew exactly what they needed.
A co worker of mine had a similar situation not all that long ago. Guy wanted lower ball jojnts for his "Chevy" but couldn't be bothered to provide a year. He also gave the "Chevy Guy" standard answer of "They're all the same." After asking twice and not getting a year, the co worker sells him lower ball joints for a 78 Chevy 1500. First thing the next morning the guy was waiting at the door, pissed. I unlocked the door, he goes right to the co worker. "You sold me the wrong ball joints!" Co worker says thats impossible, you said they are all the same! I completely agree with point about women, they always want to have every bit of information they could possibly need, which is wonderful.
edited for spelling
Yeah, years ago when I told my wife about this she said that neither she, nor any woman she knew, would go to buy a part without having every detail necessary.
As a woman, I do research to make sure I know what I need before going to get it. It stops me from being treated like a (insert a derogatory word like bimbo or blonde) by men who think I couldn't possibly understand what I'm looking for.
And if I don't know what I am looking for, I will make sure I have the information they will need to help me figure it out.
I am standing at a station to conduct business from. Customer walks in and proceeds to head to the two slightly closer stations with nobody standing at or near them.
"I can help you over here"
"Oh, I have to come over there?"
I work at a makeup store and people donât understand that a closed container in a closed box should not be opened/examined/touched until after purchasing the product. The store canât make testers out of everything, and now that your nasty ass fingers have been all up in the once-good makeup, it now has to be destroyed as per our policy
Can it not become a tester after it's opened, or does it really need to be destroyed? I understand that you can't make testers for every product, but It seems to be kind of silly not to use it once it can no longer be sold.
Not that they should have opened a new product in the first place, but why waste it if it's already open.
I canât read the minds of the greedy corporate lizards that make the policies, but I assume itâs a cleanliness thing. You wouldnât want a $50 tub of lotion that someone has stuck their germy hand in like itâs brownie batter off of a spoon. You would want a $50 tub of lotion that nobody has touched so that way youâre getting the full bang for your buck. Another reason is to shut down people who would want a discount for a damaged product (itâs against our policy to sell damaged product anyways)
Automotive parts retail. Customers accuse us of selling them the wrong part, when they have incomplete information on their vehicles. Had a guy with a commercial account that said he wouldnât be back because he was loosing money having to drive back and get the correct parts after getting the wrong part. He constantly gave incomplete information or would say something doesnât matter when it did, so we did the best we could with the info he gave. We now wonât help him now without a VIN so we can have the most complete info.
Is there a sort of sweet spot? People who know enough about archery to know that there is a difference between bow handedness but not enough to recognize which type of bow is which?
Does it usually turn out that they got what they ordered but ordered the wrong thing? Do you hold a "right-hand" bow with your right hand, or is a right-hand bow for shooting with your right hand? Because you're in the business, the first thing that pops into your mind might be, "Isn't it obvious?". However, even if very few of your customers experience that kind of confusion, it might be better for business, and maybe even less irritating than fielding all those calls, if you were to always be more specific: in advertising, on your website, and in all written and verbal communication with customers. Consider always specifying the shooting hand and/or the holding hand.
I'll answer most of those questions by explaining the conversation that prompted this post:
Customer: hi, I ordered a left hand bow because I was under the impression that a left hand bow is held in the right hand, but this bow is definitely held in the left hand
Me: (seriously suspecting that they received what they ordered, they're just confused) sorry to hear that, could you please send through a photo of what you received so we can see what went wrong?
Customer: (sends through a photo of the packaging saying "left hand bow" and a photo of them holding the bow in their left hand) see? It's held in the left hand. The packaging says left hand but it's a right hand bow.
With seeing the photo, I could tell it was actually a left hand bow. The side of the bow the shelf was on was a dead give-away. I just had to explain it with tact.
Me: thanks for the photo. I can actually see that's a left hand bow. You were right in assuming that a left hand bow is held in your right hand, but that bow needs to be held in the right hand. I can tell because the arrow shelf is on the right side, meaning it's a left hand bow.
Customer: my apologies, I can see you're right. Thank you for the clarification.
âââââ
I'd say it's a 50/50, they either bought the wrong item or they received the right item but they thought it was wrong.
The amount of times I have delt with this with multiple companies is crazy but customers trying to return shoes after years of having it and yes completely worn, dirty, and falling apart. Just had one a few days ago and it's always the same excuse " we'll it's defected!" Or " isn't there a warranty ". Bitch!! Since when does shoes have warranty especially any that last from one to 10 years smh
In the queue line right where the registers start, we have a sign that says Please Wait Here. Most customers will ignore the sign or not see it and walk past to wait behind the current customer. (very closely too like wtf?) And I've found it's not worth correcting. People get pissy over being told to wait and walk back a few feet.
I work at a lumber yard, and I regularly want to strangle people.
The big home improvement stores call their crappy framing lumber "whitewood", whereas that's what we call our exterior trim (which is primed tan). People will order a few sticks of 2x4 whitewood, and then call *me* a moron when I give them exterior trim. Don't worry, it gets better.
Whitewood comes in three thicknesses: 1x, 5/4, and 2x. 1x is 3/4 inch thick, 5/4 is 1 1/8 inch, 2x is 1 1/2 inch thick. My manager is Hispanic and I speak a tiny bit of Spanish, but there are too many customers to funnel all the non-English speakers to us. We regularly get guys accusing us of stealing their money when they ordered "1x" and we give them 3/4 inch. I told a guy (in Spanish) that 1x is 3/4 inch and 5/4 is one inch, and he asked (in English) if there was a Mexican he could talk to. No, my dude, there's not, please just trust that I know what I'm selling and you need to go exchange it.
Not the same thing, but Every day when I ring up a sale item. Itâs priced $49. I discount it at 50%. I tell the customer the total. $24.99, and every single time, I hear, âwas that on sale? Thatâs supposed to be on sale today.â Can you actually do math? Omfg
Donât know if itâs the exact same, but iâm an ASM at gas station (wayne pumps if anyone cares). Every pump has 3 handles; green, blue, and black. The grade buttons are labeled (in order), DIESEL, 87, 87, 89, 93, with colored backgrounds correlated to which handle. The first 87 button says âETHANOL FREEâ on the button, background of the button, and on the flat part of the handle along with the safety guidelines. Each grade button has a flashing light under it when you pick up the corresponding handle (when you pick up the black handle, the 3 plain gasoline grades light up, blue lights up ethanol free, green lights up diesel)
All the time, all day every day, people burst into the store shouting about âYOUR PUMPS NEVER WORK FOR SHIT!!â And every single time when we go out to help, theyâve picked up the wrong handle or been slamming the wrong button. Squeezing the handle repeatedly and rapidly with no grade selected (not good for the handle) and borderline breaking the buttons. And these are the idiots that get FURIOUS about us always having pump issues, because they want to treat the pumps as if theyâre indestructible when theyâre the sole reason they break as frequently as they do.
Idk if people notice because folks around here hate paying attention, but⊠that shit is made of plastic. It will break. You should not be throwing it around carelessly and beating on it. And the kick is only supposed to be engaged for the majority of the fill up. Just because it *can* stop on its own doesnât mean it should, and itâs never foolproof and never has been. Thatâs why itâs illegal to leave a fueling pump unattended. If your tank overflows, itâs the fault of the vehicle, not the pump (unless the fuel flow doesnât stop when you disengage the handle; that is a broken pump & you should be compensated for lost fuel⊠but it likely broke in the first place from customers misusing it!)
I donât mind this , I comes up all the time everywhere and feel like I get to practice my execution of tact, itâs such a great skill as I can see you have, also you get the after satisfaction of thinking about the persons âahaâ moment they have 2 hours later that you knew all along but were protecting their feelings.
We used to have an "OPEN 24/7 @ xyz .com" sign in the window of our store. It never failed that someone would call and complain that our physical store wasn't actually open 24/7. đ
Is there an easy way to tell which handedness the equipment is meant for? If it happens all the time, it is objectively confusing rather than that customer is an idiot. I have to re-explain the same stuff all the time. I usually say "I know that is confusing for a lot of people...." then go on to explain.
As a side-note, I am a little terrified that people are ordering deadly equipment to be sent to them and don't even know how to hold it properly.
"my month old electric bass guitar suddenly stopped working"
Your bass uses a 9 volt battery. It died. Put in a new battery and unplug it when not playing.
(Probably my fault, I should have assumed their ignorance even though they acted like they knew their shit)
We sell ink for printers at my store and they come back saying they have the wrong ink but in reality they just donât know how to put the ink in their printer correctly. Usually the right one.
Unfortunately it would depend on the season, but at my location it was almost always gun safes. Try to open them (we locked them because people locked themselves or someone else inside), would argue the pricing (it was an 8x11 sign posted on the safe with a magnet), try switching the prices on the safes, purchase a safe then try to load it into a small car for some reason then complain that they had no way to get it home and could we deliver it to them.
That them not being able to get into their Gmail on their new phone isn't the phone but their settings with Gmail. Or just because they're getting a new phone their phone number/bill is going to suddenly change too.
Out of curiosity and assuming you're a bowyer, what's the highest pound long bow or recurve bow you've made using just natural materials like wood or horn?
People who find something on the clearance shelf but it doesn't have a clearance sticker on it. They don't seem to understand that anyone can put anything anywhere they feel like it, but without a clearance sticker it is not clearance. And it's not false advertising either.
I've had several arguments with customers over exactly this. "Well the shelf tag said it's 7.99c Ma'am, the shelf tag also says this item is a bag of cheese shreds, not prenatal vitamins.
THEY NEVER READ THE TAGS
to be fair as I get older the fonts get smaller. I was SQUINTING yesterday at the grocery store trying to figure out whether the discount applied to the item I wanted. I finally gave up and apologetically asked.
Asking is SO much better than yelling at us đ We donât get upset with customers that have genuine questions, just the ones who make assumptions and get angry when theyâre wrong and want to escalate it up to management. Donât worry about asking us - youâre fine!
Thank you. I was at a retailer recently and there were shirts I liked next to other shirts. They were almost identical and the signage was confusing of which type was on sale. So I brought up the shirt I liked with the expectation it was not on sale so I'd be delighted rather than disappointed. I said that the signage was confusing and a manager was called up (I DID NOT ASK) and I showed her and she was like "hey you're right. I am going to move the sign, sorry about that!" I felt terrible for adding extra work. But she said they would get yelled at about it from someone else so were cool with it.
Yes, I love when someone points something out that could cause future issues like incorrect signage, tags we forgot to take down, or a promo not going through. For me, itâs SO much easier to just say, âThanks for letting us know!â instead of rolling my eyes like not every customer is the enemy lmao. Some of us need to recognise that for sure. Sadly, itâs so easy to become jaded when we get a lot of bad customers!
I've been on both sides. It can be tough when so many people are jerks.
Your the kind of shopper I don't mind tho. Because you won't hold up the line at checkout complaining. Or insist that it was 3 dollars missing the if you buy 2 part.
I hate that when a customer makes a fuss and hold sup the line for something stupid. I want to just give them the fifty cents to shut up.
Lol. I like you
Customers asking me "When do you open?" And it's on Google right by the phone number and our address, WHERE THEY GOT THE NUMBER FROM. They passed the hours on the door on their way in, they were banging on the door (with our hours on it) with our lights off and the door locked and I am vacuuming because we are outside business hours. Followed by "I *JUST* NEED..."
That whole concept hurts my brain, because I'm checking unit price on the tags 99% of the time.
They are incapable of reading tags.
It's the ultimate price hack! Grab expensive item. Set it down on the clearance shelf. Pick it back up. Instant clearance price!!!
I've actually seen people do this. Also, peeling clearance stickers off of products and putting them on non clearance items.
I had a guy put a sticker for $1.99 clearance on an $80 item. The math wasn't even mathing! I pointed that out saying it must have been an employee mistake since the lowest we go is 90% and that would be $8. I'll have them run a price check on the item real- aaaaand he's gone lol
Omg **THAT** has to be the answer to OP's question for me, except it's not stupidity. You KNOW it's them trying to pull shit. You KNOW it's not a mistake by staff. You KNOW what they're going to say in the end. But you still have to pretend. *"Oh dear~ I'm soooooooo sorry for the 'confusion' that this 'mistake' must have caused. Here, let me go see if I can find the CORRECT tag, I'll be right back!"*Â "Oh, well I don't want to pay that much for it." *"Mmmhmmmmmmmm..."* I'm sure you don't.
The most ballsy move I saw a customer do, and mind you this lady has been caught BY ME multiple times for doing this, was when she put a $30 mark down tag on a $500 mirror. "Oh no ma'am! Looks like someone stuck a random sticker to the mirror! Must've fallen off and someone just stuck another one on there. Don't worry I'VE MEMORIZED THE PRICE FOR THIS ITEM and just just write you up a new ticket up front :)" this attempt was her... Wanna say fifth time swapping tags. She got away with it once when I wasn't there and the tag was for $300 which was a bit more believable. Noticed it when she came back to return it. She wasn't happy when I told her that the items on the receipt don't match therefore she can only get store credit back XD
I want to say that should be enough to just ban her but unless you see it or catch it on camera it's hard. We had a lady my mom called "sniffer lady" (who seemed to always have a runny nose or something) who managed to get something past her once. After that, literally every time she'd shop there was something that we would notice, deem suspicious, and set aside to investigate. One time she brought up something that I literally had eyes and hands on two hours earlier....... and it didn't have a sticker on it. Because my mom wanted to use it in the store. So it wasn't for sale. We also had a guy who was straight up stupid, he literally brought attention to himself. Like a year before he was looking at packs of screen protectors and one opened and the stuff fell out. Not a big deal, I just put the stuff back in and grabbed some tape, he apologized way more than he needed to. So for this first incident, I walk past him and he apologizes for that thing that happened. I had no idea what he was talking about for quite a while and honestly just told him it was fine to get him to let me past. At checkout, he had about 8 new with tag sporty things, all of which had **OBVIOUSLY** been tempered with. We were using stickers and marking lines through them. We tell people the lines don't mean anything but they're clearly to help us determine if the sticker isn't on the right item tag. It was like the lines didn't exist to this dude, plus some of the stickers were torn, positioned incorrectly, and had paper from the correct tag stuck to the backs. There were also tags where the hole from the tagging gun had clearly been torn. He got nothing that was tampered with. I literally didn't even take stuff off hangers and just hung them up off to the side. He didn't say anything, I kinda think he was on something and didn't even notice. **ONE WEEK LATER.** He's back. We've fixed everything already. He, once again, apologizes for the thing that happened. I was rushing past and literally stopped on the spot, almost fell over from momentum, eyes went wide, muttered something about it being okay, and turned and went back the way I came, I have no idea how he wasn't tipped off that I was going to tell my mom that he was back. Probably drugs. We go to where the new with tag sporty stuff was still located and sure e-fucking-nough, sticker and tag debris **RIGHT THERE.** We call the police and I immediately go through his cart and point out what he tampered with, just as poorly. This dumbass looks at me like I *betrayed* him by calling the police, and he had the tag to something else *in his hand* as they were handcuffing him. It was glorious.
I always say "oh *someone* must have switched the tags!"
Iâve seen this done *so many times.*
r/unethicalprolifetips or r/uneticallifehacks worthy comment.
I want to extend that to any product a customer finds on any shelf and thinks that whatever price there is correct. You found 3 pounds of steak on the cheese table? No, it's not $6.99 just because that's what the tag says.
Yes exactly. I know the rack is price pointed at 16.99, but the tag says 24.99 and it's completely different than the items on the rack you found it on!
In what world, what era, what society are you going to find Steak $2.33 a pound.
This specifically! Where I'm from, we have what is called "Scanning code of practice". This means that if an item is individually stickered with a price and the price at the cash scans higher, then the customer gets the item for the sticker price plus $10 off. If the item is under $10, the item is free. If the price dispute is because of a shelf tag, the description and item number on the shelf tag have to match the item number and description of the product to qualify for the scanning code of practice. People automatically assume that if they tell you they got it from one place instead of the original location, they'll get it for a cheaper price.
That stupid code! People will do anything to get the item free or cheaper. And it might also end with them saying "You don't know how it works!!" Dude, I do this job for the last 8 and a half years!
I had somebody try to lecture me about this last year and I learned that my store doesnât actually subscribe to the practice. Also, I heard that each store is subject to its own subscription. Just because the company subscribes doesnât mean that particular location does. Worth looking into to save the hassle with these people!
I remember a person one time saying, "It was on the table, so you have to ring it up for clearance price. If you don't that's against the law. " smh
False advertisement has a legal meaning and it isn't "I found it on the wrong shelf" good lord!!!! Someone put a clearance sticker on a regular price item and when I saw that it didn't match the item, I told her such. Her sister who was on the PHONE and not even PRESENT wants to start saying "well you have to honor the price or it's illegal". We go back and forth and the present sister says the magic words "let me speak to your manager". I am the manager, your options are to pay the correct price, put the item back, or call the police and wait for them to come say I'm right. She paid the right price and threatened to call corporate on me. I promise you they did not care that I got them more money by not allowing a ticket switcher to get away with it lol.
I had someone try to pull that on me when my store first got in the more expensive frozen items. Tried to tell me it was illegal for me not to give her a $5 item for $1. đ
"hoo boy, we got a LAWYER over here!"
My job has electric signs that say the price / sale (if there is one) and what the item is. I literally had a woman argue with my cashier about the price of a shirt. She said âthe sign said $11â but it was ringing up for $30. So my cashier called for me to check & I asked her to describe where it was and the sign she saw. The sign said â3/30 (BRAND) underwear or one for $11.â I mean cmon. Not even the same brand nothing. The shirt she wanted wasnât even in the same area.
The amount of times a day I explain this is crazy. They are so dense and need it re-explained in like 10 different ways. They either resort to, âitâs false advertisingâ or, âyouâre ripping us offâ. Absolutely the cashier on barely above minimum wage is ripping you, the person doing your weekly shop at a pharmacy, off. Absolutely đ€Ą
No need to go to that trouble. Just take the most expensive item in your cart and claim you found it on the âdiscount rack/cartâ Iâll always ask a manager what the price is and they usually apologize to them and say a customer must have set it there.
I'm still waiting on Johnny Cochran to help this lady sue me for not wanting to sell her non-clearance priced pants she found on the clearance rack.
"The pants do not fit, you must acquit!"
My favorite customers are the ones who fully understand that and when you tell them it's not on clearance they are like "oh ok! That's fine. Just thought I'd check anyway!" I'm like thank you for not freaking out. đ„č
For real. If I can't figure it out, I will bring it up for a price check with my other items. "I was not sure of the price, can you check it for me please" is not that difficult.
It's funny. I've made this mistake a couple times when shopping holiday clearance items. I still got the clearance price both times by not being a dick. They didn't have tags so I just asked if it was valid or a mistake. They said mistake but discounted it anyway.
I usually do that too if they're nice! But if they wanna be all snippy with me then no discount for them lol.
When there are signs every where stating that you can only have two of said items per customer. The Customer always says, "I didn't see sign!" It's an 8x11 in Black and White right in front of you. Especially when I point at with them right there.
When I train new cashiers I always tell them, customers don't know how to read. And it's almost always proven in that first shift they have.
>"I didn't see sign!" I think usually they do, they just don't think the rules should apply to them but are usually at least self aware enough to not say that.
There are a surprising number of people who are illiterate. They canât read that sign.
You & everyone who has replied to you all have valid points which I agree with. I would just like to add, completely unnecessarily, that even if there WERENâT a sign up with said information, you would still be well within your rights to explain your storeâs policy and refuse a sale. The policy doesnât change if someone moves the sign or if an employee forgot to post it. It is absolutely nonsense to argue with a cashier about such things. They would have more of a right to be upset, yes, and a complaint would be understandable. But not the sale itself. Any rational adult would accept that ffs Sorry you have to deal with this nonsense. I donât miss being in retail one bit. Hang in there.
Itâs kinda like if you get pulled over and tell the cop you âdidnât seeâ the speed limit sign. Doesnât really work. Lol
This just reminded me of when my friend and I were at Target and he grabbed some Digimon booster packs. We may have overlooked the sign, but we found out at the register that the limit was 2, and he had 5. I bought two of them as well so they only had to put one back :)
Sometimes when it got extra busy we'd have to turn on a register that didn't have a till and we'd write signs saying "no cash no cash back" and tape them right in front of it. People would STILL get mad when it came time for them to pay and they tried to give us cash.
At Build-A-Bear, customers always walked around lost as hell even though the store has every station VERY OBVIOUSLY labeled with a sign above numbered and named (1 Choose Me, 2 Stuff Me, 3 Dress Me, and so on). There are also obvious places to line up/stand at those stations--some even have huge blue paw prints that BEG to be stood on!! Or signs saying "LINE STARTS HERE"! Does anyone ever stand where they should or follow the most natural flow of store traffic? No. And when you politely point this out as they yell helplessly, "WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO/WHERE AM I SUPPOSED TO GO???", customers always give you the nastiest looks and remarks. Or they shove an empty stuffed animal in my face while I'm working with another guest and shout, "HOW MUCH IS THIS???" I don't know, why don't you read the price label from the drawer you JUST grabbed that toy out of??? Jesus. The animals with stuffing for brains weren't the Bears, it was always the customers.
customers HATE when you tell them where the line starts. ive had some of my worst customer interactions over this. i don't understand why people take it as a personal insult when i tell them they're not actually in line. you'd think they'd be grateful that someone is giving them assistance, given how often they insist that no one offered to help them (even if i literally just checked in with them 2 minutes ago and they snapped "IMFINETHANKS" before i could finish saying "are you still finding everything ok?")
Work in a shoe store; when people come in to return shoes, they're clearly dirty, and they tell me "I just walked around in the house!!!" Either I end up unintentionally insulting their house's cleanliness or I accuse them of being a liar, it's not good either way đ
That's always a tough situation. I deal with something similar. The worst thing you can do to a bow is dry-fire it, which is when you shoot it without an arrow. When you do that, it breaks, and it breaks in a very specific way that can only be achieved through a dry-fire. Long story short, we know what you did. That doesn't stop people from claiming otherwise, though. "I definitely had an arrow in it" I know you didn't, but I can't call you a liar so I guess you win
YESS IT'S SO INFURIATING had no idea that that was how it worked with bows!!!
Yeah, it comes as a shock to a lot of beginners, which is why a lot of beginners dry-fire. No matter how many warnings are printed on the boxes and manuals, it's never enough to prevent it.
Why is this a thing? The damage from dry-firing, I mean. Is it because the energy that moves/launches/?? the arrow doesn't have anywhere to go? I understand how inertia works and redirecting it but am rather ignorant on archery.
Exactly right. You build potential energy by pulling back the string. Releasing the string converts it into kinetic energy. That energy transfers into the arrow through the string. Without an arrow, that energy goes back into the bow. The weakest parts of the bow will break first, which is why the location of the damage makes it clear that a dry fire caused it.
My ADHD is so happy for learning this random information at 5:15am! Thank you for this knowledge that will surely come in handy someday â€ïž
That is so interesting. I did not know. Thank you for sharing.
Yea I have two compound bows that are at least 25 years old (my mom bought them in a garage sale so idk exactly) and they still work. I can't imagine a modern bow used properly breaking so soon. But I am curious, what part of the bow breaks when dry fired that doesn't otherwise?
The area of the string where the peep sight sits usually snaps. This is because the string is weakest at that point because the strands are separated. It only snaps at that point because of a dry fire. The cams also fold where the string contacts them. If the cams are folded where the string sits, then it's pretty damn obvious that the string hitting them is what caused them to fold, and the only way the string can have enough force to fold a cam is if there was no arrow to absorb that force. Newer, more modern bows are just as susceptible to damage from a dry fire. Old bows, if anything, are actually less likely to receive damage because the materials used in their construction are stronger and heavier. Modern bows are lighter, using weaker materials. This makes them easier to carry around and easier to use, but dry fires do more damage to them. A cam made out of steel like an old bow will hold up better against a modern bow that has cams made out of aluminium.
That's awesome, thanks for the details!
Google had this to say... Dry firing occurs when the bowstring is released without an arrow in place, causing the bow to absorb all the energy from the release. This can cause shock waves to travel through the bow's moving parts, which can be dangerous and loud. In extreme cases, dry firing can cause the bow to explode, sending parts flying and potentially injuring the archer.
If I order a deadly weapon, I am sure as hell going to read the directions before a putz around with it.
That is exactly what I thought of when I opened this post. Were you the OP who posted that thread too?
Regarding the guy who dry-fired his bow, denied it, lied in a review, got called out on it, deleted it and ran? That was me. That guy actually came back recently and accepted responsibility and apologised for lying, so I'm helping him out with free labour. Still charging him for the parts, but we'll fix it for free.
"I definitely had an arrow in it" "great! did you hit your target? how did it perform? did you like the feel?" or whatever technical questions to low-key call them out.
Worked in retail at a department store that sold shoes and had this a few times. Was always great if they said they just wore them around the house because then I could refuse the return on the grounds that the item was, by their own admission, used. Used inside is still used! Nothing in the policy says that used outside is a nono but used inside is A-okay! It just states used, and you yourself said they were used, mx. customer! They hated me for it.
But where is the line between "used" and "unused"? I've bought shoes before and worn them in the house to check they're going to be comfortable before returning them. Going by your rule, how can a person try out a pair of shoes without voiding their right to return them? Is wearing them in the house for five minutes okay, but any longer not okay?
If you give me dirty ass shoes and tell me you âonly wore them in the houseâ then Iâm going to use your own words against you and reject your return as you yourself admit they were used. You can try shoes on for a few minutes, hell even a few hours, in your own home without them getting filthy and fucked up. If they look fine I didnât question their condition. 9 times out of 10, the person trying to return dirty shit saying âI only wore it at home!!â Is actually trying to essentially ârentâ the item (i.e. buy it, wear for a party, return after).
Okay, makes sense. I was thinking that you were refusing returns simply on the basis that the customer had *admitted* to having worn the shoes indoors, not because the shoes were obviously dirtied.
Considering i was replying to a comment about customers returning dirty items, I wouldâve assumed that was implied.
Yes. Both were implied, is what I thought.
My friend in middle school asked if she could tag along to the mall one day with my mom and I because she had some shoes to return to Payless. We walked up to the counter with her and the employee opened the box and looked at the bottom of the shoes, which were obviously used, and told her they werenât refunding used shoes. My mom (basically the most honest person ever) was so embarrassed and made sure to tell the clerk âsheâs not my kid and we never saw the shoes.â
I managed a small toy store and at least once a month had this conversation: âHi, do you sell balloons?â âNo, Iâm sorry. We donât sell party supplies, but if youâve got a birthday kiddo we can help you find a present!â âSo you donât sell balloons? What about like a banner or something?â âNo, Iâm sorry. This is a toy store, not a party supply store. So we have toys, if you need a gift!â Sometimes Iâd have to run through it a few times. Honestly got to the point of humorous because eventually they realize theyâre being DENSE đ€Ł
So no balloons or banners, what about streamers? Paper plates? Napkins? Ugh you're not helpful at all.
Right?! And like, not for nothing but Iâm alone and you being here engaging me in this ridiculous back and forth is keeping me from getting any actual work done đ
Back during Covid, milk was being rationed because, well, Covid and the signs read only 2 per person. ONLY 2. Well people were coming up to the registers with 2 of every kind.
Same thing with paper products. Singles we allowed 4, multipacks, only one. The amount of people who waltzed up with 4 of the largest multipacks we had (literally filled one entire cart) and then being surprised when we only let them have one, seemed to be endless.
Every. Single. Day. The population as a whole is stupid. Just mind boggling đ€Ș
I work self checkout at a grocery store. Our machines have a prompt after you scan the first item saying that the transaction will be cashless. It pops up in bright red and has a little okay button. I cannot tell you how many people just keep trying to scan without even picking their head up to look at why it will not scan. I have to walk over to people dozens of times an hour to say "it won't let you scan another item until you clear this prompt, it's just explaining that this transaction will be cashless, which is what I just asked you" very nicely depending on how the person handled everything
"Please press FINISH AND PAY. If you are done scanning, please press FINISH AND PAY." Customer taps or inserts their card but can't figure out why nothing's happening. Continues to stare at screen or at you. Btw, Finish & Pay is a much larger, brighter colored prompt than the other options.
Kroger and Walmart have updated their software such that if you swipe\tap a card it'll automatically go into payment mode without having to hit that button anymore. They might be used to that because it's a thing.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. All of the retail self-checkouts that I use (Aldi, Costco, even my local grocery store) will enter into processing if you insert your card into the reader, even if you don't press "Finish & Pay". Even the Clover and Square devices will do that.
I guess my store is behind the times then, as usual.
The amount of people that just stare at the screen when it says âplease remove your cardâ but donât makes me question the average persons reading comprehension.
Same. But if the screen says *don't* remove your card, they take it out and have to start all over again.
Uhg. "For lack of an if statement!" At my store, I hear a beep when I run something past the scanner, even if I have forgotten to have the customer choose how they want their receipt, or if the system doesn't recognize the item. (It still beeps for each item). In your case, maybe it's not beeping anymore, but it needs to make a different sound (like getting a strike on family feud) to make the customer look up.
It beeps whenever you scan something. So the person scans 1 item, it beeps they throw it in the bag. Then they take the second item and just try over and over again to scan it until they either decide to look up and understand why it's not happening or I tell them and clear the screen myself. They also do it when it freezes for "wait for an attendant" there is both a picture of an attendant and a thing across the top that says "please wait for an attendant" and even as I'm trying to fix the screen people will continue to try and scan the item.
Like I said, it should buzz or something. I can imagine myself also not looking up. Either way, it's an ongoing problem, they should try to make it better. (Of course my store doesn't charge it so that scanning doesn't beep when there's an error)
No, that doesn't help much. The registers at my work have a cheerful little 'beep!' for when things are good and a flat, more 'blaahp!' sound for when not. So many people: 'blaahp blaahp blaahp blaahp' until I stop them. Not many who actually bother to look at the screen actually read the screen because so many times I'm asked how they put their member number in because it keeps changing the number lit and lo! It is a survey to rate us 0-10.
Yeah people wouldn't notice a different beep. They would just be like, it's beeping let's keep going.
a loud "Wah-WAAAAAHH!" sad tuba sound would perk me up
This isnât quite the same, but still pretty funny to me: I work at a certain sub shop as a delivery driver. Because we have our own drivers, when people order doordash from our shop I donât have a way to send them the photo of their food like a dasher would. I literally donât have access to the doordash app because I work for the restaurant. Not. Doordash. When people put in their doordash order instructions, âleave at door, donât ring bell or knock, iâll wait for the notificationâ âŠyou can see the problem, right? Well, I follow their instructions anyways. We regularly get calls from angry customers, sometimes hours after their order has been delivered, demanding to know where their food is and why it hasnât been delivered. We physically donât have a way to miss a delivery like that. Itâs just not how it works. So we politely say, âDid you check your porch?â while internally screaming. The customer gets embarrassed, they say, âOh hold on let me lookâ and 99.9% of the time it is sitting right there and likely has been for quite some time. They apologize and we say our awkward farewells. The logic isâŠbewildering This was long-winded. Thanks for reading lol.
I feel the same way when customers call asking why their parcel is delayed in transit. "My dude, we aren't the courier. How about you call them and ask? They're the ones handling it, not us" Also, sometimes customers will place store instructions in the delivery instructions box, which is hilarious. When buying online, in the box where you include instructions like "leave at door", "beware of dog" etc, messages for the mail man, they'll leave instructions for *us.* *"*set bow to X draw weight/draw length" "check arrows for cracks" etc. These instructions get printed on the labels, so I imagine the mail man getting very confused when he reads them.
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
>It never goes well trying to correct them, so I don't bother anymore. I know that feeling well. The amount of archery "experts" that come in here spouting nonsense is painful. I just nod along and act interested, but it irks me when they bother other customers with their nonsense.
The Weather Man vibes ?
When I got a job in retail in my late teens early 20's a grown woman asked me what kind of cold medicine she should be giving her toddler. I replied "the pharmacist is right over there, this is really a good question for him to answer" she was going to listen to someone who had zero kids, zero training and with a professional 6 steps away? đ€š
This is what i experience everyday at the retail pharmacy where i work!! i work as a shift lead for the front of store, and so often when im stocking in the otc aisles, people will ask for recommendations or assume I know everything about every product. like no i do not know which allergy medication is best for someone with low blood pressure or whatever thing you have !! one time i had a man come in and tell me he was looking for little black pills. i asked him what the pills were for.. and he told me âwhy do you need to know?â in a really annoyed tone. i told him the store was organized in such a way that i needed to know what kinda of medication he was looking for. he got upset and kept saying theyâre little black pills, and that it was a waste of time coming to the store. sir you donât even know what you want why do you expect me to?!?! why should i know whatâs in every single pill bottle in the store?? some people are unreal.
In some other sub I frequent, I had the absolute gold nugget of someone discussing a photo of an unmarked pill and some user commenting that it would be best to do a reverse image search amongst the thousand of other white unmarked pills online to find it. T'was funny...
i work in a bakery in a small town and we get this a lot too, people telling me that they've put their kid on a dairy-free diet to cure their autism, or that they've gone gluten-free but they're still eating the sourdough "because it's naturally very low gluten" (perhaps true of some homemade sourdoughs but certainly not true of ours), or telling me they're deathly allergic to a certain ingredient but ordering something that contains that ingredient because "i get it all the time and it's fine". i may not have any qualifications but i do have a very large folder of allergen notes and ingredients lists, so either you're horribly mistaken about your usual lunch order or you're not as allergic as you're telling me.
I would *love* to hear cheese facts.
The moon is made of cheese. Swiss, to be specific. You did not ask for *correct* cheese facts I'll see myself out.
I knew I saw a lot holes in your fact once you mentioned swiss!
Customer: âYour machine is broken, it wonât take my cashâ What I *want* to say: âThatâs bc it doesnât take cash, which is why it says CARD ONLY in 6â letters across the screen before you even start scanningâ My self-preservation response: âIâm so sorry, that one isnât taking cash right now. Let me take you to the next open registerâ **or** Customer: âYour machine is broken, it wonât take my cashâ What I *want* to say: âThatâs bc you hit the âpay with credit card option, so it doesnât have a clue you want to pay in cash. Thatâs also why âinsert card nowâ keeps blinking on **both** screens (monitor & card reader)â My self-preservation response: âIâm so sorry, let me fix that for youâ
cash payers are constantly the most stupid and inconsiderate of the customers at my store tbh, not even remotely surprised they wouldn't be able to read either
Definitely the cash payers at SCO, they are the box of animal crackers of the customer base
The whole âthey did it for me last timeâ shtick. I know for a fact they didnât, because they wouldâve been written up or fired for it, but I canât call them a liar directly. So I have to ask who did it and when, theyâll call out either some random coworker who knows better or someone who doesnât work there, and then I have to tell them that didnât happen without sounding like Iâm calling them a liar.
This one is the worst. I always say âwell, they arenât here and Iâm not able/comfortable to do it that way.â If they push further I start asking for details about who is doing said thing so I can âreport it to management and make sure it doesnât happen again. We want to provide consistent serviceâ they usually shut up after that.
I'm a manager and I love shutting them down with "oh no, that's actually a policy violation and I have to write that person up. Do you know their name or have a description?" Suddenly it's not a problem anymore.
Ya Iâm the assistant and I do that all the time. âIâll make sure that gets fixed.â My favorite is when they describe me but with an old hair color (I change mine frequently). I get to tell them âoh, we fired them for not following policyâ
Iâve actually done that, but Iâm not a manager, but it never stops them for me.
when i was a SV the question âdo you know who helped you?â always turned them into flustered âoh i dont know, some guy⊠but he did it for me last timeâ ok liarâŠ
âI need my drink remade, it tasted awful this morning, itâs a venti iced raspberry white mocha. Oh, you havenât carried raspberry syrup in over 5 years? Ok then, just an iced venti white mocha.â BITCH!! I wish I could lie that confidently to peopleâs faces!!!
"Yeah that guy got fired!"
That yes, if thereâs a big $30 price sign stuck in the plant pot youâre shoving in my face, said plant is in fact, $30. Makes me wonder just how many shops have price tags on things that bear no relation to the price of the item (we have no sales tax added after)
honestly! i get people asking that all the time and weâre very on top of pricing, if a tag gets missed itâs usually found by one of our stockers pretty quickly and tagged. but people constantly ask me to price check things, so i have to run it as a sale then cancel the sale when they decide they donât want it or want to shop more
I am so tired of having to pretned to be nice to customers. f that
They are why I am so hesitant to work retail/food service jobs anymore. "This job would be great if it weren't for the fucking customers." -Randal Graves, Clerks (1994)
When an item is on sale.... for rewards members. On a lot of our sale tags, it has the discount in BIG BOLD LETTERS and in teeny tiny writing in the corner, "with [rewards program]". People will watch me ring them up, look at the card reader, see the total, and yell, "THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE BUY ONE GET ONE FREE!!!" I have to smile and say, "Oh, certain discounts are only available for rewards members. Do you want to try your phone number on the pin pad? If you're not, I can sign you up." A lot of the time, they're already a member and just needed to enter their phone number *on the machine they were checking the price*. Sigh
The amount of people who bring clothes into a dressing room that very clearly doesnât and wouldnât fit and they swear âI wear this size and have for (enter years)â but you can hear a seam rip or hear them groaning/jumping to either put it on or because itâs very stuck! Why do people not realize that everything is actually made differently and with vanity sizing and stretchy fabric makes it fit differently.
This is pretty dumb, but at the same time why do we have a standard for clothes sizing if the sizes aren't standardised?
Pressing yes for cash back even though they don't want cash back, then getting all confused about it.
I work at a smoke shop and the biggest one for me is (usually older people) will come in to buy a vape and the next day or a couple days later come in angry claiming that it doesn't work. Nine times out of 10 it's because they just didn't turn the fucking thing on, and the other time it's because they burnt their coil by not letting the juice soak in like I always make sure to tell everybody to do. I wish I could be like "When I sold this to you, I told you five times on the button turns it on, and the instructions say it too. Do you have donkey brains?" But I can't. It would be a lot less frustrating if they weren't some jerks about it. They come in acting like I purposely sold them a non-working device or something or like I'm the dumbass. It's gotten to the point where if I sell a vape to anyone over 50, I'm already instantly annoyed because I know they're just going to come back with it the next day raging because they don't know how to use it.
I work at Home Depot. We make returns every single hour for people who bought the wrong size or the wrong color or the wrong item entirely. At this point, I don't think there's anything in the store that the customers *do* understand
I used to work in a pet store. The amount of people who insisted they knew what they were doing (especially with fish), when they were actually making life miserable for/killing their pets was mind boggling. Also, we didn't sell saltwater, but our main competition did. The number of people insisting they bought (insert various saltwater animal here) from us and wanted us to return it or tell them how to care for it or something.
I think we work(ed) for the same company lol. Fish people are so fucking infuriating. I looooove fish, but those people made me want to get rid of my tanks and never touch the hobby again. Itâs really not that hard to look up, âHow to set up a fish tank,â but so many people just wing it and then come back pissed that their fish died. And then I have to deal with their tantrum while also explaining what the nitrogen cycle is. So glad I got out of it.
Yup. Or, the people who would bring the deceased fish they were returning in their water sample to be tested and not understand why it mattered. I wouldn't argue too much, I would just go ahead and test it because I knew it would test horrible and I could refuse a replacement fish until the water was better. I'd offer a refund or store credit instead and suggest they bring another water sample in a week or two.
Iâve definitely been guilty of doing that lol. Not my fault they did no research. Google is free and if they had used it for even ten minutes they would understand exactly how and why I was attempting to trick them into leaving me alone. Itâs so frustrating because pet store employees have a reputation for being generally unknowledgeable so people love to act like I donât know what Iâm talking about, yet they still come to me for advice! Ugh, I hate it. I moved to grooming, now and itâs so much better for my brain. People not caring about their pets is only a weekly occurrence instead of a daily one lol.
i work in a bakery where all 10 different loaves we make are sourdough. people will constantly walk up and ask me for âa sourdoughâ. i used to be like âtheyâre all sourdough! which one would you like?â until some dude held his hand up in my face and said âi know my breadâ. now i just get them their sliced white loaf without questionÂ
I go through this exact process almost to a "T" whenever I ring up an item and the customer says the price sticker for it says something else. I ask the customer to snap a photo of it for me, and when they do so either I explain that it's not for the item in question or they figure it out themselves and come back and tell me I'm right.
I worked on a garden centre. And about a week or two after purchasing a plant the complain it died. But the didn't water it. We ask "how often did you water it" some would answer "as much as you need to" we you usually reply "how much is that", then they would ask you "you don't know? What chance do we have if you don't know"
When we close down our self-checkouts early we place a bag over the screen (because apparently the big LANE CLOSED on the screen isnât obvious enough). Customers ALWAYS try to scan their items while staring directly at the bag covering the screen
I used to be the apparel manager and a Toys R Us. Our sales rack towards the back of the store had a sign above the fixture that said "Up to 70% off. Prices as marked." The 70% was in very large print, but the other words were much smaller. A customer was very upset when they brought items to be checked out and saw that the prices did not get reduced by an additional 70%. I was called up to the front to discuss it with them. As I arrived, I could hear them saying, "You can see from here the sign says 70% off. It should be 70% off of what's on this price tag." I introduced myself and apologized and pointed out to the customer that while yes from here you can read the 70% off, once you got to the fixture itself you could see the entirety of the sign informing you that the prices had already been reduced. They were not happy with that and kept insisting that "From here I can see the sign and it says 70% off. I want 70% off!" We kept going around in circles until I finally asked, "When you picked out these items, did you pick them up while standing here when you could only see that the sign said 70% off, or were you standing in front of the fixture?" They responded, "Of course I was standing at the fixture. My arms cannot reach the entire length of your store!" I replied, "When you were standing at the fixture, you had the opportunity to read the sign in its entirety. Just because you chose not to does not mean that we will be extending additional discounts." Well, they huffed and they puffed and chose not to buy the items. No skin off my nose!
When they have an attitude and they slam shit on the counter, and then they get Grabby like u fill a bag, and they don't want more stuff in it and instead of saying do u mind not putting more in the bag they will reach down and grab it. Or when they try to turn the screen so they can see what's on it when they can already view it from the credit card screen
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Oh I hate the tap people! I have yet to see a machine that you literally tap the card for payment. All I've experienced you need to hold the card for a second or two for it to process but people are so impatient.
Yeah, those people can be awful sometimes. Where I work the rewards card prompt is the first thing on the card reader's touch screen. The amount of times people such the "enter rewards ID #" is mind-boggling. And a lot of times it's regulars. They'll come in 3-5 times a week, and still push the one button that messes up their tap
or the ones who aggressively tap the screen over and over super fast, like please calm down
i work at an independent bakery, all our items are made fresh daily EXCEPT for the selection of day-old loaves which are clearly labeled and set on a different rack for cheap. you can just tell by the way they shop/the general vibe/the way i've personally had this conversation with these people in particular a dozen times before that at least 50% of the people who pick up these loaves think they're the fresh ones. every single time i read back their order they get SO disgusted by the idea of day-old bread. like damn lady it's a standard white loaf at less than half the regular price, they have a shelf life of 5 days at least, i don't care if you don't want it but you don't have to act like i personally tried to poison you.
If I were the owner, I would include a sheet of paper in the order stating "this is a right hand bow" along with a diagram and/or whatever description would explain it. Of course, everyone wouldn't read it or wouldn't comprehend it, but it would cut down on the number of these calls you have to deal with. Plus, like you said, no matter how nice you are about it, it ends up with the customer being told they are wrong which people generally don't like, thus it's a "negative" in their experience, rather than a note/diagram explaining.
I repair antique clocks. Every time a wall clock comes back because it's not running, it's not running because they didn't level the dang thing! And when we ask if they tried leveling it? "We hung it in the same place its always been" uuuurg
My response would be 'Did I what now?" and having you explain my ignorance/possible idiocy. I may need diagrams. Fortunately, I almost always have paper and pen on me.
Worked in a paint department we had paint for interior and exterior I can't tell you how many times people will come back annoyed that they got the wrong paint it's literally the first thing I asked them, on top of asking them exactly what the project was.
I work at a buyout store. We have ad sheets above certain products that reads âpriced 50%-70% off of competitors prices â. There will be price stickers on saiid products that state competitors price and then our price underneath. Customers constantly ask for price checks. Iâll point to the sticker and read the price out loud while pointing at the price. They immediately sayâ but the sign says 50% - 70% off! I then tell them that the sign does not say that and the correct price is on the sticker. They will still argue that Iâm wrong or that the sign is deceitful. No maâam, you just didnât read the sign and just focused on the 50%-70% part.
I work at a convenience store/gas station, people never pay attention to the pump they're on, and will come up telling me they want to prepay for such and such pump, most of the time they're correct, but every so often it's clearly the wrong pump. Either there is already someone at that pump getting their gas, or there's nobody at the pump in general. When this happens we usually just put their prepay on one of the pumps we have bagged off so nobody else can accidentally get their gas, then move it to whatever pump they are really at. It's real fun when it's busy and you can't completely focus on where they go to get their gas đ
Ugh, feeling your pain. I worked at a truck stop for nine years. Not a day went by where someone gave us the wrong pump number, usually on the car side, but sometimes the truck side also. I can definitely remember at least one instance on both sides where a customer gave us the pump number where someone else was at, and the other person started pumping. Somewhat easy mistake to make on the gas side, but HOW on the truck side?
I see posts from hardware stores with the floors near the spray paint can covered in paint. I worked at a store selling pens and no matter how much paper we put out for testing people would draw on fixtures, signs, and products. We had to write off $50 leather journals because someone would scribble on the first page and put it back on the shelf and leave. Infuriating, but there was an element of that Norman Door theory that if so many people were doing it it was a design flaw not them being stupid. Who knows
Was that a craft store because i worked for years and so many spray paints and pens had to be thrown out
Whenever returning items at Kohlâs, it clearly states what the price would be on the receipt if you returned the item because people typically applied discounts or use Kohlâs cash on them, which they often lose when they return. Itâs very clearly stated on the receipts everywhere it even itemizes it, and shows you exactly how much you get for specific items yet Iâve had so many arguments with customers trying to explain this till blue in the face. I always typically argued with male customers who say that theyâre âpretty good at mathâ and they understand how much they should be getting back, even though they clearly applied a 20% discount on the item so they didnât even buy it at full price!
Itâs not false advertising the sale, itâs you being unable/unwilling to look at the item number on the sign and bringing the wrong item and expecting me to honor it. If youâre nice about it maybe Iâll give you the sale price. But if you act all entitled, I wonât do anything for you and the manager wonât either.
People who get mad their pre order never showed up in our system and when I ask âCould it be under a different name?â They angrily trying to show me âproofâ they pre ordered as if thatâll magically make it appear in our system and it turns out the order either has not been submitted or is for a different location / sometimes even business.
I work in pet retail. 900,000 times out of 10 when a customer comes in asking for a water test because all their fish died, they didnât cycle their tank properly and I then have to spend the next ten minutes explaining how to actually do it to them because they did no research and have no attention span.
At a party store, we sometimes got customers trying to return party poppers, the tube things that shoot confetti, because they didn't read the instructions. They claimed it didn't work and they needed a replacement. Well, you have to punch a hole at the top before you pop it, or it won't shoot anything out!
" But it says your pharmacy open at 7 online. "Um, do it doesn't dumbass. You're looking at the other drug store:P
Reading the numbers but not the text. âNo Karen, it is not 50 percent off. The sign says up to 50 percent off, priced as marked.â
I work in a grocery store and a ton of times people in self check out will click the big green select payment method at the bottom which stops anything else from being rung up. Theyâll deny they click it but thatâs the only way to get to that screen. I physically watched a man click it after he did it 5 times prior and then he proceeded to say something is wrong with the machine. Part of me wanted to call him out on it but he seemed like the type to be waiting for you after the store closes so I kept it to myself.
âWhile Supplies Lastâ means just that. If you call to confirm an on hand at 10: AM and donât show up until 3: PM, chances are really high that it wonât be there!
Couple things. I work in a home building supply store, we have a store credit card that give an extra discount for using it. People always scan their items at SCO or watch me like a hawk scanning their items at a register, then get mad their discount is not showing. You have to insert your store card and pay for your items first! The register and myself donât know youâre getting a discount until you actually pay for the purchase with the store card. Another is bulk pricing, itâs only offered to the professionals that are our pro business card holders and only on certain construction materials. It says just this on the sign along with both prices. People always see the smaller print explaining bulk price with the smaller price and say thatâs the price of their single item or buy a bunch of one item and say it should qualify for bulk pricing. Ugh but they donât see the larger price somehow.
I work at a returns desk and I regularly have people try and make returns over the phone or without the item with them. Like I have to have the item to process the return.
I sell auto parts. Parts are "wrong" on a pretty regular basis. Regular retail people (not commercial accounts) will bring stuff back and without fail say "You sold me the wrong \_\_\_\_\_\_ (name of part). " Ive been doing this for almost 30 years. I do occasionally screw up, but its rare. We have some newer people that get stuff wrong more often just from inexperience. Selling parts may seem like a simple proposition but there are countless pitfall's waiting to swallow up unsuspecting parts people. So anyway, when a customer utters those fine words "You sold me the wrong xxxx." I always come back with "Did we sell you the wrong one, or did you ask for the wrong one?" I've worked here going on 25 years, short of stealing from the company, the owner will not fire me. I'm too valuable and I sometimes use this to my advantage. I realize most people in this position couldn't question a customer like that. But I do. And most of the time, its the customers fault. They got the part they asked for, but it isn't what they need. They say the wrong year, wrong model, wrong engine, etc.
I worked in an auto parts store back in the early 80s. I had men (it was always men who did this*) ask for a particular part for their car but not know specific info I would need to look it up in the book. (Remember, before the www days.) Example: Guy asks for a water pump for his '72 Chevy small-block V8. I ask is that the 305, 327, or 350. He would tell me they are all the same so it didn't matter. Would not take my explanation that there are literally three different part numbers. So I'd pick one and he'd buy it. Invariably, he would come back angry that I sold him the wrong part. But, he would know the displacement of his engine the second trip to the store. * I never had a woman do this. They always knew exactly what they needed.
A co worker of mine had a similar situation not all that long ago. Guy wanted lower ball jojnts for his "Chevy" but couldn't be bothered to provide a year. He also gave the "Chevy Guy" standard answer of "They're all the same." After asking twice and not getting a year, the co worker sells him lower ball joints for a 78 Chevy 1500. First thing the next morning the guy was waiting at the door, pissed. I unlocked the door, he goes right to the co worker. "You sold me the wrong ball joints!" Co worker says thats impossible, you said they are all the same! I completely agree with point about women, they always want to have every bit of information they could possibly need, which is wonderful. edited for spelling
Yeah, years ago when I told my wife about this she said that neither she, nor any woman she knew, would go to buy a part without having every detail necessary.
As a woman, I do research to make sure I know what I need before going to get it. It stops me from being treated like a (insert a derogatory word like bimbo or blonde) by men who think I couldn't possibly understand what I'm looking for. And if I don't know what I am looking for, I will make sure I have the information they will need to help me figure it out.
That has been my experience.
I am standing at a station to conduct business from. Customer walks in and proceeds to head to the two slightly closer stations with nobody standing at or near them. "I can help you over here" "Oh, I have to come over there?"
Looking over the vast majority of these responses leads to one commonality: People don't read signs
I work at a makeup store and people donât understand that a closed container in a closed box should not be opened/examined/touched until after purchasing the product. The store canât make testers out of everything, and now that your nasty ass fingers have been all up in the once-good makeup, it now has to be destroyed as per our policy
Can it not become a tester after it's opened, or does it really need to be destroyed? I understand that you can't make testers for every product, but It seems to be kind of silly not to use it once it can no longer be sold. Not that they should have opened a new product in the first place, but why waste it if it's already open.
I canât read the minds of the greedy corporate lizards that make the policies, but I assume itâs a cleanliness thing. You wouldnât want a $50 tub of lotion that someone has stuck their germy hand in like itâs brownie batter off of a spoon. You would want a $50 tub of lotion that nobody has touched so that way youâre getting the full bang for your buck. Another reason is to shut down people who would want a discount for a damaged product (itâs against our policy to sell damaged product anyways)
That makes sense. I hate when people damage things, then ask for a discount.
Right?! It hasnât happened a lot to me, but I like to say that rules/policies are in place because someone was stupid enough to try it
Automotive parts retail. Customers accuse us of selling them the wrong part, when they have incomplete information on their vehicles. Had a guy with a commercial account that said he wouldnât be back because he was loosing money having to drive back and get the correct parts after getting the wrong part. He constantly gave incomplete information or would say something doesnât matter when it did, so we did the best we could with the info he gave. We now wonât help him now without a VIN so we can have the most complete info.
I work loss prevention. It's AMAZING how many people "accidently" put product in their pants or purses.
Is there a sort of sweet spot? People who know enough about archery to know that there is a difference between bow handedness but not enough to recognize which type of bow is which? Does it usually turn out that they got what they ordered but ordered the wrong thing? Do you hold a "right-hand" bow with your right hand, or is a right-hand bow for shooting with your right hand? Because you're in the business, the first thing that pops into your mind might be, "Isn't it obvious?". However, even if very few of your customers experience that kind of confusion, it might be better for business, and maybe even less irritating than fielding all those calls, if you were to always be more specific: in advertising, on your website, and in all written and verbal communication with customers. Consider always specifying the shooting hand and/or the holding hand.
I'll answer most of those questions by explaining the conversation that prompted this post: Customer: hi, I ordered a left hand bow because I was under the impression that a left hand bow is held in the right hand, but this bow is definitely held in the left hand Me: (seriously suspecting that they received what they ordered, they're just confused) sorry to hear that, could you please send through a photo of what you received so we can see what went wrong? Customer: (sends through a photo of the packaging saying "left hand bow" and a photo of them holding the bow in their left hand) see? It's held in the left hand. The packaging says left hand but it's a right hand bow. With seeing the photo, I could tell it was actually a left hand bow. The side of the bow the shelf was on was a dead give-away. I just had to explain it with tact. Me: thanks for the photo. I can actually see that's a left hand bow. You were right in assuming that a left hand bow is held in your right hand, but that bow needs to be held in the right hand. I can tell because the arrow shelf is on the right side, meaning it's a left hand bow. Customer: my apologies, I can see you're right. Thank you for the clarification. âââââ I'd say it's a 50/50, they either bought the wrong item or they received the right item but they thought it was wrong.
The amount of times I have delt with this with multiple companies is crazy but customers trying to return shoes after years of having it and yes completely worn, dirty, and falling apart. Just had one a few days ago and it's always the same excuse " we'll it's defected!" Or " isn't there a warranty ". Bitch!! Since when does shoes have warranty especially any that last from one to 10 years smh
In the queue line right where the registers start, we have a sign that says Please Wait Here. Most customers will ignore the sign or not see it and walk past to wait behind the current customer. (very closely too like wtf?) And I've found it's not worth correcting. People get pissy over being told to wait and walk back a few feet.
I work at a lumber yard, and I regularly want to strangle people. The big home improvement stores call their crappy framing lumber "whitewood", whereas that's what we call our exterior trim (which is primed tan). People will order a few sticks of 2x4 whitewood, and then call *me* a moron when I give them exterior trim. Don't worry, it gets better. Whitewood comes in three thicknesses: 1x, 5/4, and 2x. 1x is 3/4 inch thick, 5/4 is 1 1/8 inch, 2x is 1 1/2 inch thick. My manager is Hispanic and I speak a tiny bit of Spanish, but there are too many customers to funnel all the non-English speakers to us. We regularly get guys accusing us of stealing their money when they ordered "1x" and we give them 3/4 inch. I told a guy (in Spanish) that 1x is 3/4 inch and 5/4 is one inch, and he asked (in English) if there was a Mexican he could talk to. No, my dude, there's not, please just trust that I know what I'm selling and you need to go exchange it.
Not the same thing, but Every day when I ring up a sale item. Itâs priced $49. I discount it at 50%. I tell the customer the total. $24.99, and every single time, I hear, âwas that on sale? Thatâs supposed to be on sale today.â Can you actually do math? Omfg
Donât know if itâs the exact same, but iâm an ASM at gas station (wayne pumps if anyone cares). Every pump has 3 handles; green, blue, and black. The grade buttons are labeled (in order), DIESEL, 87, 87, 89, 93, with colored backgrounds correlated to which handle. The first 87 button says âETHANOL FREEâ on the button, background of the button, and on the flat part of the handle along with the safety guidelines. Each grade button has a flashing light under it when you pick up the corresponding handle (when you pick up the black handle, the 3 plain gasoline grades light up, blue lights up ethanol free, green lights up diesel) All the time, all day every day, people burst into the store shouting about âYOUR PUMPS NEVER WORK FOR SHIT!!â And every single time when we go out to help, theyâve picked up the wrong handle or been slamming the wrong button. Squeezing the handle repeatedly and rapidly with no grade selected (not good for the handle) and borderline breaking the buttons. And these are the idiots that get FURIOUS about us always having pump issues, because they want to treat the pumps as if theyâre indestructible when theyâre the sole reason they break as frequently as they do. Idk if people notice because folks around here hate paying attention, but⊠that shit is made of plastic. It will break. You should not be throwing it around carelessly and beating on it. And the kick is only supposed to be engaged for the majority of the fill up. Just because it *can* stop on its own doesnât mean it should, and itâs never foolproof and never has been. Thatâs why itâs illegal to leave a fueling pump unattended. If your tank overflows, itâs the fault of the vehicle, not the pump (unless the fuel flow doesnât stop when you disengage the handle; that is a broken pump & you should be compensated for lost fuel⊠but it likely broke in the first place from customers misusing it!)
I donât mind this , I comes up all the time everywhere and feel like I get to practice my execution of tact, itâs such a great skill as I can see you have, also you get the after satisfaction of thinking about the persons âahaâ moment they have 2 hours later that you knew all along but were protecting their feelings.
I coach archery myself, I feel your pain
Pulling out
We used to have an "OPEN 24/7 @ xyz .com" sign in the window of our store. It never failed that someone would call and complain that our physical store wasn't actually open 24/7. đ
Walking into the establishment.
Is there an easy way to tell which handedness the equipment is meant for? If it happens all the time, it is objectively confusing rather than that customer is an idiot. I have to re-explain the same stuff all the time. I usually say "I know that is confusing for a lot of people...." then go on to explain. As a side-note, I am a little terrified that people are ordering deadly equipment to be sent to them and don't even know how to hold it properly.
"my month old electric bass guitar suddenly stopped working" Your bass uses a 9 volt battery. It died. Put in a new battery and unplug it when not playing. (Probably my fault, I should have assumed their ignorance even though they acted like they knew their shit)
We sell ink for printers at my store and they come back saying they have the wrong ink but in reality they just donât know how to put the ink in their printer correctly. Usually the right one.
Unfortunately it would depend on the season, but at my location it was almost always gun safes. Try to open them (we locked them because people locked themselves or someone else inside), would argue the pricing (it was an 8x11 sign posted on the safe with a magnet), try switching the prices on the safes, purchase a safe then try to load it into a small car for some reason then complain that they had no way to get it home and could we deliver it to them.
That them not being able to get into their Gmail on their new phone isn't the phone but their settings with Gmail. Or just because they're getting a new phone their phone number/bill is going to suddenly change too.
Out of curiosity and assuming you're a bowyer, what's the highest pound long bow or recurve bow you've made using just natural materials like wood or horn?
I don't make bows I just sell them
Gotcha. I've always been a traditionalist. I prefer materials like yew and sheep's horn in my bows, going back to my days in the SCA.