No receipt? No problem! No item? No...problem? Customer service workers face horrors everyday, but these returns are nightmares come to life.
Better Luck Next Time
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“We just had a guy come in the who was moving in a few days. He tried to return all his unused groceries (some were outdated and freezer burnt) and he couldn’t understand why we wouldn’t take them back.”
That’s The Opposite Of A Problem
Shutterstock/CebotariN
“One woman called in to complain that we sat her next to a deaf person on a train. I explained it’s not assigned seating and she could have just moved. She yelled that she did, but that’s not the point! That her trip was ruined because she took the rail to talk to people. God, I had to go to a supervisor. She wanted a refund credit because on her 7 day cruise and three day land package, she had to sit next to a deaf person for 60 seconds. She was a condescending b—-, she got nothing.”
Mind…Blown
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“I worked at RadioShack for years and the stories I could tell…The best one, that comes immediately to mind, is a customer that came in with an item from about six months earlier. It’s still in the package and he still has his receipt. I proceed to explain that we have a 90 day return policy, blah, blah…Well, inevitably, he starts to rant and rave and spew bulls—, at which point I calmly say to him, ‘Sir, at what point does something that you’ve purchased become yours?’
Simple question right? Blew. His. Mind. He sat there stammering for a minute, looks at me and says, ‘You’re right, I’m sorry,’ takes his stuff and leaves. Greatest win ever.”
A Stinky Discovery
Shutterstock/Ikonoklast Fotografie
I used to work for a Target store which had developed a very open return policy. Basically, if we sold the thing and it’s still on file with us, we’ll work to process the return as best we could. Lots of people abused this policy, but this lady was the worst. She came in with a garbage bag, so I already knew I was in for a s—show. She wanted to return a fabric wardrobe, but didn’t have the receipt. She also didn’t have the box it came in, thus the garbage bag. Usually, items from Target have a little code on them somewhere, especially if it was made by one of the brands exclusively offered by Target (Mossimo, Room Essentials, Archer Farms, etc). Even without the receipt, I could just type the code in and see how much store credit I could give her, but without that code, I couldn’t do anything. So, I started pulling everything out of the bag to check and see if I could find it. I got about half of it out of the bag when I noticed something crusty and brown.
Yup. Literal s—.
While I was doing all this, the lady was just yammering on about why she was returning it, giving way too much information in a way that told me she knew she was up to something shady even before I got to the s— and she wanted to distract me. I dropped the bag as soon as I realized what I’d almost touched and waited for her to pause for breath before saying anything. I had no idea whether or not she knew what was on it, she was an old lady after all, so it was possible that she just didn’t notice. I leaned in and said, in a low voice so I wouldn’t embarrass her, “I think an animal ‘made’ on this, I’m not sure I can do the return.”
She got immediately offended and said, loudly, “What?! You think an animal MATED on it? What? How could you even say something like that, it’s not even possible!” Just making a scene and deliberately misunderstanding me.
I was pretty done with her at that point, so I said, also loudly, “No, I found poop on this item, I’m assuming it’s from a dog. I’m not processing this return.” She let out a squawk at that and began going off on me, but I was already calling a manager over. They ended up processing the return for her, I think she got close to $60 of store credit. Did I forget to mention that this return was also nearly a year old?
Lost In Translation
“I used to work in a video store. We had a woman call because we charged her credit card for a DVD that was never returned. We had been calling her every day for 15 days and leaving messages, warning her of the increasing late fees and that her card would be charged on day 16. When she got the ‘Thank You for Paying The Late Fee And The Item Cost’ letter, she finally called in to argue, even when I explained the charges.
Customer (C): ‘But I returned it.’
Me: ‘We don’t have it here. Maybe you returned it to another store or another location?’
(C): ‘No, I dropped it in the mailbox.’
Me: ‘You…mailed it to us?’
(C): ‘Yes.’
Me: ‘Like…in an envelope? With stamps?’
(C): ‘No. I just put it in the mailbox.’
Me: ‘You just put the DVD case in the mailbox? No envelope? No stamps?’
(C): ‘Yeah.’
Me: ‘That’s not how you mail things.’
(C): ‘But the case has your address on it.’
Me: ‘But mail requires postage to be paid…Okay, anyways, we never got it. So it was never returned. So the late charges and replacement fee stand.’
(C): ‘BUT I RETURNED IT.’
Me: ‘Ma’am, you ‘returned’ it like you left it in a field and called us two weeks later to say it’s in a field somewhere. When you rent an object, it is your responsibility to ensure it is returned to the business. We do not have our DVD, so you owe us money.’
(C): ‘Can’t you call Canada Post and get it from them?’
Me: ‘Ma’am, I think you missed the ‘your responsibility’ part. If you call them and you manage to get the DVD back from them and bring it to us, we can refund you the replacement cost.’
(C): ‘And the late fees?
Me: ‘No, it’s still late.’
(C): ‘But I returned it on time.
Me: ‘I think we’re working with two different definitions of the word ‘returned.’ We only consider an item returned when all components of the rental are returned, dvd, box, everything. Zero pieces of your rental are in our store. So it is not ‘returned.’ Even if you were to find the dvd and return it right now, it would be crossing our threshold two weeks later than it should have been.'”
That’s One Way To Do Things
Shutterstock/nisimo
“I once worked for a large electronics retailer as a computer tech. A customer came in with a Quasmio Toshiba $2,000 laptop that he had bought about six months ago. His complaint to customer service was that it was not running as fast as it should. I had a quick peek at it and it was more than evident that he had malware been visiting NSFW sites…When the customer service rep explained that he could attempt to restore the computer himself or have us do it for $80, the customer completely lost his s—. Picked up said $2,000 computer, threw it on the ground and jumped up and down on it. This guy was about 40 years old. Completely threw a tantrum on a perfectly good computer, then left. Did not take the garbage computer.
Then about a week later we received a complaint from the BBB and my store manager, instead of standing his ground, gave the customer a new laptop…but that’s not all. He also gave the customer a $500 gift card for a home theater system as an ‘apology.’ That was the final straw for me in retail, I slammed down a stack of paper I was working on, threw a finger at the district lead and said, ‘If you condone behavior like this, then I can not work for you or this company.’
That’s the day I walked out, two others from my bay followed and the technical center shutdown for three weeks.”
It’s A Relic
“LL Bean had a lifetime guarantee on all their products. A few years ago, I was in line to return something, and the guy in front of me was returning a flannel shirt. He got it as a birthday gift, in 1978. The cuff had worn down on one sleeve.
The clerk told him that will happen if you roll the cuffs back and gave him $40 store credit to go pick out a new one.”
It’s Been Four, Long Years
Shutterstock/Marius Pirvu
“So this happened fairly early into my promotion as an assistant manager for a retail store. At the time, I was still kind of unsure about some of my decisions, but I knew for a fact I could not help this woman.
A woman came into the store with like eight bags full of deco pillows. I wasn’t looking forward to this, as our deco pillow section was super full, but I liked doing returns so I wasn’t upset or anything. I’ll be M, the customer will be T.
T: ‘HI! I’d like to return these pillows please!’
M: ‘Were you going to do any other shopping with us today? I’d be happy to hold those for you if you’d like to process all transactions at once.’
T: ‘Not today! I’ve just been meaning to return these for a long time.’
M: ‘No problem! Do you have the receipt?’
She spent 5 minutes digging through her purse to find the receipt. She hands it to me and the date on it was FROM FOUR YEARS AGO.
M: ‘Oh gosh, I’m sorry ma’am, but this receipt is too old, I can’t do this return for you.’
T: ‘You’re still going to return it though, right?’
M: ‘No, I’m sorry, I can’t. For one, we have a fairly strict 30 day return policy, and also this receipt is literally so old the computer won’t be able to process this.’
T: ‘No. Listen here. I drove all the way out here on my day off to return these d— things. You’re going to return them or risk losing a customer.’
M: ‘Ma’am, I’m sorry, but I literally cannot process a return on a receipt that is four years old. Our return policy is 30 days.’
T: ‘I WAS PREGNANT. You don’t honestly expect a pregnant woman to carry all these bags in here and drive all the way here.’
M: ‘You were pregnant for four years?’
That comment kinda made her lose it and she resorted to calling me names and threatening to call corporate. I gave her the corporate number and offered to help carry the bags to her car. She stormed out yelling she’d never come back.
Never heard back on that one.”
Exhibit A!
Shutterstock/dotshock
“I used to work in Best Buy services. It was sort of like Geek Squad before Geek Squad and it dealt with everything like TVs and VCRs and Junk.
One day, we had a guy come in and complain about his little video camera not working. I agreed to take a look at it even though there’s not much I can do but send it back to the manufacturer for him. It will take some time, but that was 90% of the problem people had with services. Naturally, this guy wants a new one on the spot and he starts getting REALLY loud about it.
So I call the manager because I can’t piss in Best Buy without getting manager approval. While I’m waiting for the manager to come up, I’m still tinkering with the camera in the back. I get some tools out and, hey, look I got the thing open for the guy. A minute or so later I come back out when the manager gets there. The manager is talking to the guy as I move a computer up to the counter.
I jump in and say, ‘Hey, I don’t think we should give this guy a new unit.’
The guy gives me dagger eyes and the manager is like, ‘Oh? why’s that?’ Then I play the footage of what is unmistakably someone running around a pool, dropping the camera which tumbles into the pool. He had taken out the tape, but it was recorded to the memory stick. Guy takes his camera and quietly leaves the store. Worth two years of an otherwise pretty annoying job.”
Blame The Driver, Not The Car
Shutterstock/Tushnov Alexey
“A customer wanted to return a computer that was about a year old when I worked in retail. I asked him what was wrong.
‘It just don’t work.’
I powered it on, got into Windows, connected to the wireless network, went online. I opened Office, everything seems to be working properly. I show it to him, ask him what’s wrong.
‘It just don’t work.’
I asked him what was actually wrong with the machine (let alone why would you return a computer a year later).
‘It just don’t work. Are you saying if a car don’t start, it works fine?’
At this point I had enough of the guy:
‘No sir, I’m saying if there was a car and everyone could start it except one person, I wouldn’t blame the car.'”
Is That A New Allergy?
“I’ve worked retail for about six years, so I thought I’d seen it all until I had to deal with this woman last week. I work in an upscale clothing store. She brought her golden retriever into the fitting rooms and then proceeded to try on clothes from all around the store over the clothes she was already wearing — awkwardly out in the store in front of other customers.
When she was done, I was eager to get her out of there because there were other customers that I wanted to help. She mentions that she has a return that she needs to do on a pair of pants because they have wool in them and she has a skin allergy. She says that she has the tags and the receipt so I said that’s fine because we do returns up until 30 days. I took a look at the receipt she handed me, and I was blown away. It was from 2007! I ended up having to call the manager over to handle most of it, but things just got weirder and weirder. The manager asked if the skin allergy was new, but the customer insisted that she had always had it. The manager ended up doing the return, just to avoid a bigger conflict.
The ridiculous thing is that the manager told me that that same customer had come in a few months before with another five-year-old return, this time wanting to exchange a skirt that she had been wearing to a bigger size because she had gained weight over the last five years. This must sound so petty to people who have never worked retail, but the kinds of things that people try to get away with are ridiculous. Managers are forced to comply with so much nonsense in order to avoid a corporate complaint to our store.”
When They Say Lifetime Warranty…
Shutterstock/Everett Collection
“A friend of mine worked at a department store in 2001, which was part of a franchise that had been in operation since about 1910. One day, a 70-something-year-old man came into the store asking for a replacement for a carpet sweeper he had purchased in the 1940’s, complete with the life-time-guarantee card he had received with it. Obviously, a replacement wasn’t possible and he was offered a new vacuum cleaner, etc. Apparently it took about an hour of careful explanations until the man finally accepted that it’s not possible to give a replacement for a product last manufactured over 50 years ago.”
The Three Part Plan
Shutterstock/Iakov Filimonov
“So this crazy b—- would come into my store (a closeout store called Tuesday Morning) about five minutes before closing at least once a month and take her sweet f—ing time picking out literally dozens of sheet sets or plate sets or decorative pillow sets, etc. This peevish ritual was just the beginning of a much bigger Ponzi scheme she was running.
Part two of the plan to bother me would come about the next day, when she would come in with all but one set of things to return. She would essentially take all of the bedsheets or whatever she was looking for home, try them on her bed and return the ones she didn’t want. This sucked because she gave minimal s—s when it came to repackaging them, meaning that I had to fold and precisely repackage and reshelve piles of s— for her convenience after taking the time to hold up the line returning it. It wasn’t that bad as this was part of my job, but it was annoying if we were understaffed (as we often were these hours) and I would have to take care of the line of customers she delayed, only to look forward to repackaging sheets that stunk of her filthy house/bed.
Part three was the kicker. She would take anything she bought, and kept, and come back with it about 90 days later. Ultimately, her goal for the s— she did want, was that she would return it and repurchase it. Over time, items in our system pick up discounts to help them move faster, and these would accrue and be counted when she repurchased them eventually for 20, 50 and 80% off. This was f—ing ridiculous, but it was store f—ing policy so I had to accept it.
One day, she came back with five sets of expensive sheets pillowcases, sheets, etc. to return/repurchase and my boss was out to lunch, leaving me completely alone. They were filthy, obviously filthy…too filthy for any self-respecting store to reshelf (of course, we were required to accept them). Once returned, she said, ‘I would like to repurchase those sheets.’
‘Nope, I have to discard these as they are not fit for display,’ I replied. She looked like she was going to blow a fuse as she stomped out the door.”
Scam Me Once…
“When I worked at a large retail giant, we had several notorious people that came in like clockwork to pull schemes. They would order merchandise online, then bring it in to return it for whatever made up reason.
If something was purchased from our website and returned to a store, we mark it down BIG time – like 75%-90% immediately, simply because it’s an atypical item to have in our store. These people would get cash back, then wait til we put it on the shelves in the stores the next day and come back in and buy it.
Well, one time one of these customers brought in a big screen tv (purchased of course from the website) for roughly $3,000 or so. My friend and co-worker knew they would be back the next day and didn’t want them to get over on us again, so when he was working customer service for returns he told them some bs story about how we couldn’t do a cash return for an amount that large, and they would get store credit. They were kind of upset, but they still expected to get that much in store credit…and get the TV the following day or so for only a couple hundred bucks –
Well, that’s when my friend finished his plan – he went and bought the TV off the shelf that night for about $300-$400, minus his employee discount. We don’t know the people’s reaction when they came in to buy it back, but we assume it was pretty great.”
Thieves Never Prosper
“A few months ago, this scummy looking guy waltzes into the store, carrying a big KitchenAid Stand Mixer on his shoulder. I ask him what’s up, he says it doesn’t work or something, and he wants to exchange it. I tell him to go up front, leave the mixer with the lady working the returns desk, and go get the one he wants or whatever. He says ‘No, I’ll just take it with me.’ Alarm bells, they’re going off. So, we have these fancy walkie talkie type things that communicates to everyone in the store who’s wearing the earpiece, so I let the managers know this scum bag is walking in with a big stand mixer.
Someone goes to the appliances to kind of watch this guy, but as soon as he figures out he’s being watched, he just grabs what they thought was the box he walked in with, and heads up front and leaves.
Turns out, he did the ol’ switcheroo. He left the KitchenAid mixer he came in with (about $300 value), and walked out with a KitchenAid food processor (about $200 value).”
No Receipt, No Item, No Problem!
Shutterstock/Alan Sheldon
“I worked at the customer service counter at a chain grocery for a few months a while back. One day, I had a middle aged guy come in and leaned on my counter. I greeted him and asked what I could do for him. Without making eye contact with me and still leaning, he informed me he wanted his money back. This is the conversation that then took place.
‘Sure thing! I just need to see your receipt and the item in question.’
‘I don’t have the receipt.’
‘Okay, I can still give you your money back, can I have the item?’
‘Nope, the bread was bad so I threw it away.’
‘So, you don’t have a receipt and you threw away what you wanted to return?’
‘Yup.’ (Still no eye contact made)
‘Uhh, I can’t just give you money for a return if I don’t have a receipt or the item. I don’t even know how much you spent.’
(Eye contact is made finally)
‘Just give me $3.50’
‘What?’
‘You heard me. I want my money back.’
‘I am not giving you money back if you don’t have a receipt or the item in question. Please move aside, I have other customers to help.’
‘GET ME THE MANAGER HE KNOWS ME! GET HIM RIGHT NOW!’
I call the manager. Manager tells me to cash out $3.50 to this customer and then goes back to the backroom. Customer snatches the money from me and says, ‘That’s what I thought.’ I quit not too much later.
Stale Merchandise
Shutterstock/wavebreakmedia
“Some guy tried to return flatbed trolley covered in heaps of hub mono-blocks, all of which had very obviously been laid and subsequently torn out of the ground. The guy couldn’t provide a receipt or even an approximate date of when he supposedly bought them, but got pretty angry when the supervisor refused to take them back. So as a point of principle, the guy takes the trolley back outside and sits just outside the entrance from nine in the morning to nine in the evening. His family, who had come in the car with him, got out and they all sprawl about in the parking lot over this trolley, all f—ing day. After nine, all the staff are leaving and going home and the guy is still there. The supervisor, for some reason, got unnerved and went out and spoke to the guy at this point and offered him £100 to f— off. Guy accepts and the next day I come in to find that I have to find a selling space for this trolley, as if people are going to buy these bricks. The trolley sat there for about two months before someone dumped it around the back. Madness.”
Sweet Satisfaction
Shutterstock/bikeriderlondon
“I was working at CompUSA a few years before they closed. A well to do looking gentleman and his high school age son approached the counter and ask to return a 2.5” hard drive enclosure. I overhear him telling the girl that the enclosure was defective because his drive will not fit in it. She says that sounds unusual because we sell a lot of them and hadn’t seen any returned. Upon hearing this, he tells her in a very condescending tone that he ‘is an engineer and his son attends (insert expensive private school) and they could not get it to work so it must be defective.’ The customer service girl calls me over since she didn’t really know much about computers and would rather have an ‘expert’ look at it.
When I come over, he has the drive enclosure and his hard drive sitting on the counter. I immediately notice that he never removed the OEM bracket from the original drive and that was why it wouldn’t fit. I say, ‘I think I know what the problem is, just need to grab a screwdriver.’
He responds, ‘If neither me or my son can figure it out, I doubt you’ll be able to.’ I proceed to take the bracket off and slide the drive into the enclosure in about 10 seconds, all with a s— eating grin on my face. He picked it up and hurried out without saying anything or making eye contact.”
World’s Best Manager
Shutterstock/Northsweden
“I work at Ikea in Customer Service. On a daily basis, we have customers come in with items that have been used, broken, old, without their receipt, some even not Ikea products, but they are DEMANDING a refund. But the couple that really takes the cake tried to return a broken and rusty ironing board. It was obviously used and, without a receipt, I’m limited with my options. We can only offer store credit if the item can be returned to stock in original packaging. Obviously, it wasn’t. With a receipt you have 90 days to return your item in any condition. After I refused the return, they asked for my manager. My manager offered to look up their receipt, couldn’t find it, so we couldn’t take it back. They then asked for her manager. Every time they got a ‘no,’ they asked for the manager above. Eventually, it got to our store manager, this six foot tall, blonde, Swedish behemoth. He came on down to the belligerent couple who were causing a scene because our customer service was apparently SOOOO poor. After inspecting the item and removing their iron cover (which none of us did before, the item was that appalling, we really didn’t want to touch it) he finds the date stamp. It was from 2002. The couple got real silent because the entire time they said they’ve had it for less than 3 months. Our store manager said, in the calmest voice I have ever heard in my life, ‘I think it’s about time you leave my store.'”
Starting Out On The Wrong Foot
Shutterstock/Dmitry Kalinovsky
“I work in a shoe shop. One of the services we offer is to check how well school shoes fit our younger customers. Once a staff member has signed to say they are a good fit, the customer is able to bring them back if there are any problems.
This one time, a mother came back in with her son a week after being fitted with a pair, loudly mouthing off that the shoes were too tight and causing blisters. Even though she was being a psycho hose beast about it, we offered to get her a new pair.
Once back in the kids department, she spotted the girl who fitted the original shoes and went crazy at her, demanding that the girl should be there while a better pair was fitted so she wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
Despite the mum saying some pretty degrading stuff about the her, the girl agreed to sit in on the re-fit in an attempt to help out.
She remembered the customer, even to the point of remembering the child’s name, and was visibly upset about doing a bad job.
Returning to the till, the fitter offered to put the exchange through as a final gesture of goodwill, and then froze, with an awesome, s— eating grin on her face.
‘These aren’t your son’s shoes,’ she said to the customer. ‘They have a name tag inside saying Tommy, and your son’s name is Billy.’
Turns out, kid had swapped his shoes with another boy in his class. Laughed that b—- out of the shop.”