Customers make everyone crazy, but these crazy ladies drive people even more nuts than your average crazy customer. Check out these stories of ridiculously bad behavior by customers.
Content edited for clarity
$5 Or $8 Or $5 Or…
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“A lady comes into my store to do a return. I give her my usual ‘I can hold this up here if you want to look around some.’ She waves her hand at me and tells me no just the return today. So everything is fine, she has the item, she has the receipt.
The following convo went something like this:
Me-me
L-lady
CW-coworker
Me: ‘So we will put $5 back on your card today’
L: ‘That’s not right it should be $8’
Me: ‘Well the item is $5 on the receipt’
L: ‘Yes, that’s why it should be $8.’
Me: confused, ‘but item is $5 so you’ll be getting $5 back.’
L: ‘No, $5 plus $3 equals $8.’
Me: ‘Ummm the item is $5 and it’s just the one item so I can only give you what you paid for it which is $5.’
L: irritated, ‘Yes, this item is $5. This other item is $3 that’s why I should get $8 back.’
Me: ‘I didn’t realize you were returning (the other item). Let me just scan it so I can add it to the return.’
L: ‘I left it at home, I didn’t think you’d need it.’
Me: ‘In order to refund it, I need it in store. Do you want to come back later with both items to do the return or do you want to do this return now and bring the other item later?’
L: annoyed, ‘let’s just do this and I’ll bring it later.’
Me: ‘Okay, so I’ll have you swipe to put $5 on your card.’
L: ‘No it should be $8’
Me: ‘I can’t do a return without the item here to be returned. I can only return the first item because it’s here, you can bring the other item in later and return it but until it is here, I can’t return it.’
L: ‘But I want it refunded why can’t you refund?’
(Coworker sees there is a problem and steps in) CW: ‘What’s the problem, ma’am?’
L: ‘I’m trying to return first item and second item but she won’t let me.’
Me: ‘She left the second item at home’
CW: ‘Oh, well we need the product here in order to do a refund.’
L: ‘Oh okay, I’ll bring it in later.’
Me: So, if you’ll swipe your card I can put the $5 back on it.’
Lady swipes her card and then leaves. She never did come back in to return the other item.”
Refusing The Sale Feels So Good
“So as many of you know, children and other unlicensed minors are not permitted to pump gas. Now we usually let this rule slide if mom or dad are there keeping a close eye on the situation. But if we see a very young person pumping gas on their own, we have to stop the pump.
Usually, we can head the inevitable ‘Why did my pump shut off?’ conversation by asking kids prepaying if their parents are going to pump the gas. This story is one of those cases where it didn’t work so well.
So, to set the scene. It was a dark and, well, dark night a few days ago. I was just finishing up some cleaning when I saw a person about 10 or 12 at the window (a side note: we have to speak through an intercom because the window is 1/2″ Lexan for safety). Immediately, I know I have to ask the dreaded question, to which she replies in the affirmative.
After sending her on her way, I watch through the side window as she tells her mother that she will have to pump, and is then told to pump anyway. Ho boy, one of those. So I go ahead and preemptively stop the pump because, at the very least, her mom needs to be watching. Now comes the fun part. After trying in vain for a few seconds to start the pump, daughter tells mom that it isn’t working. Now rather than actually go over and try herself, mom decides to walk about 3x farther to yell at me. The conversation (M for me, B for, well you know what) went something along the lines of:
B: ‘Why did my pump shut off?’
M: ‘Ma’am, you are going to have to pump your gas. Your daughter can’t do it alone.’
B: ‘THAT’S Nonsense! MY DAUGHTER IS OLD ENOUGH TO TAKE CARE OF HERSELF! SHE IS 11 FREAKING YEARS OLD!’
M: ‘Ma’am, children are not allowed to pump gas. And right now you are acting like a child.’
At this point, she just started screaming incoherently, so I turned off the intercom and canceled the ($10) sale. Once she paused for a second to get her breath, I pushed the refund through and said, ‘Ma’am, I’m refusing this sale. Please leave or I will call the police.’
And I turned off the intercom again and went to the back. After a minute of rambling on like a lunatic, she finally got the hint a left. I had a couple days off, so I haven’t heard the fallout yet, but I imagine nothing much came of it.”
Wasting Everyone’s Time
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“I used to work in a mall at a clothing store where I was lucky if I worked more than 6 hours a week. It was an unusually busy day and there were about five people working registers to get customers in and out of the store.
A woman came up to my register, skipping the line, and asked me to scan an item to let her know how much it would be with tax. The store was the kind of place where management refused to do anything that might even slightly upset a customer, even when they did something like skipping a line of 10 people. I had to ask a manager to come over so they could void the sale in case the customer changed her mind, so my manager walked over to stay with me while I helped the customer. She probably had at least a dozen smaller items, if not more, like jewelry and other accessories in her hands.
She proceeded to ask me to scan each item one by one and tell her how much the total would be after each new item was scanned. This went back and forth for about ten minutes, with her asking me to void or add various items so I could give her an updated total, then she abruptly said ‘Thank you,’ and walked out of the store with nothing.”
Poorly Behaved Dog Comes With A Poorly Behaved Owner
“I work in a pet-related goods store. the only pets we sell are fish and rescue cats.
People are allowed to bring their pets into the store, which usually means dogs, although we occasionally get a rabbit on a leash or something strange like that. We have a jar of treats at the front of the store which are free, and we give them to pretty much every dog that comes in if the owner is ok with it. Some people even swing by for a free treat as they’re walking their dog, which is totally fine, and no sweat off our backs.
This woman comes in with an Airedale, and it is insanely badly behaved. I’m not a strict pet owner by any stretch of the imagination, but this is an extreme case. The dog barks the entire time it’s in the store, marks its territory several times (which this woman ignores) and pulls her up and down the aisles. It harasses a couple with a French Bulldog, who have to pick their dog up. The lady laughs, and claims that it’s not ‘a real dog.’
She finally makes her way up to the register, and her dog is jumping all over me while I’m trying to do the sale, and when I ignore it, it begins to nip at my hands. There is a line of about three people behind her. I complete the sale, and she stands there and says, ‘You know, he expects a treat.’ I think it’s a really bad idea to reward bad behavior, but I don’t have the time to argue so I grab one out of the jar. She laughs when I try to make the dog sit for the treat, and it launches up and attempts to take my arm off for it. Wiping strands of saliva off of my hand, I turn to the next customer.
But this woman has noticed that I am displeased and hangs around at the register. While I’m in the middle of serving other customers and trying to answer their questions, she interrupts and says, ‘So I take it you’re a cat person, then?’
I have a dog, and much prefer them. I respond, ‘No, I’m more of a dog person.’ Unsatisfied, she waits there some more. The other customers are visibly annoyed. Finally, she leaves, grumbling.
Every Saturday after that for about a month, she comes by, peeks to see if I’m in the shop, and if I’m not, she comes in for a free treat. If I’m there, she loudly states, ‘Oh no, [dog’s name], the mean man is there, we better not go in today! Sorry!’ If I’m not, she’ll complain about me to my coworkers, who all can’t stand her.
I like to walk up to the front of the store when she’s inside, just to see her hurriedly leave. Her dog isn’t any better behaved, probably because of her reinforcing its bad behavior.”
A Women Is Convinced You’re Lying
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“I work at a large clothing retailer, and sometimes we have online-exclusive items. As the name would imply, they are online exclusive and we don’t keep them in stock in the store unless it’s been returned. The item this customer (C) is trying to return is six months old and still on the website.
C: ‘Where is this item? It says on the website you have it’
She shows me the webpage, and whenever I get shown a webpage, I immediately scroll up to see if it’s online only.
Me: ‘We don’t carry this item in the store since it’s an online only item and it’s on the older side. I can enter the information and see if we have it.’
C: ‘Go check because I need it tomorrow.’
I go and enter the products information in the item inventory (it gets updated constantly and has the quantity of every item)
Me: ‘I entered the information and we don’t have any. Sorry about that!’
She puts her phone down, looks me dead in the eyes, and point-blank says:
C: ‘You’re lying to me. I know you are. It says you have it. So where is it?’
Me: ‘I’m sorry we d-‘
C: ‘No, I don’t want to hear it. You’re lying. Show me where it is.’
I try to turn the computer monitor around to show her and she says:
C: ‘Do you really trust a computer over the website? It’s probably a glitch anyways, now where do you keep them?’
Before I can even respond, she walks away and starts shuffling through all of the wardrobes and racks violently for 3 minutes and then when she can’t find it, attempts to walk in the employee room and then storms out.
The Cat Will DIE
“In my nearly two years of retail, this is my first time (barely) losing it with a customer. I work at a big chain pet store, the really big one. Most pet stores (including mine) have their food sorted by brand, regardless of formula (can or bags or rolls…), but a few newer shops have sprung up that separate the two. These stores have just cans and just bags. I prefer the way we do it because it just makes more sense.
Last night I was working in and out of the backroom, which had heating issues. It was literally 14 degrees F back there, but I was trying to be happy on the sales floor. I was running to the office when I helped a customer in our Blue section. For those unfamiliar, Blue is a prestige natural pet food brand that has four different lines for cats: Spa Selects, which has the most options and is pretty average; Basics, which is LID; Freedom, which is still pretty LID; and Wilderness, which is super high protein and grain free.
I asked if she needed help with anything in my kindest voice. She rolled her eyes and said, ‘I think we all could use help in this section. It’s a mess!’ I looked over and noticed that it was straightened up well and everything was in stock, in its home.
I ignored her complaint and asked what she was looking for. She told me she always buys the grilled chicken kitten cans for her cat. I told her I’d go ask my manager if that sounds familiar since I didn’t remember ever carrying anything but pate formulas for kittens. In fact, we sell literally one kitten canned formula from the line she was looking at and its chicken pate.
I went over and asked my manager, who has been with the company forever, and she said it doesn’t sound familiar so if it’s not on the shelf then we don’t carry it. I delivered this news to the customer, pointing out that there is very little difference in formula and that she could just give her kitten a little extra of the adult grilled chicken.
She turned her entire body to me and began yelling at me about how poorly organized our store is and how we need to change it like we ourselves choose the layout. Then she says that her senior cat, who needs kitten formula because he doesn’t eat much, will just starve because of how horribly ‘you all’ decided to organize the aisle. I’m going to take this time to point out that the aisle set up makes a lot of sense. Small, trial sized bags on top; cans in the middle by formula (pate, grilled, etc) and bigger bags on the bottom. Every canned formula is listed on the boxes they’re in, in giant letters.
I am so mad and she’s taken a step towards me as she’s ranted, so I just snap, ‘Well, I’ll call corporate and let them know!’ And walk away.
I heard her say, ‘Corporate won’t care!’ As I walked away. It took everything I had not to shout, ‘Well neither do I!’
And of course, I later saw her checking out with what I had recommended her, which she had deemed inappropriate for her cat.”
Enough Of The Adult Temper Tantrum
“I’ve escaped cashier life for the most part, and work with the animals now! (Not that that doesn’t also get wonderful customers, but cashiering is something special.) The pet store I work at has become pretty understaffed, and I’ve been helping on the register a little more again.
About a week ago, I was closing, so it was late, and I was the only one at the registers. A woman comes up and slams her basket on the counter. Great, I already know she’s definitely not happy. I start ringing out her things and going through the process while talking to her.
Me: ‘Hi, how are ya today?’
Lady: ‘You have a freezer for this brand of frozen Raw dog food, and there’s a sign that says its broken!’
Me, unaware of this: ‘Oh, I had no idea. Sorry about that!’
Lady: ‘But it’s NOT broken!!’
My first thought is that the light must still be on, and that’s what she’s seeing.
Me: ‘Oh, if it’s running, it’s probably just not at a safe temperature so we aren’t selling anything out of it.’
Lady: ‘You have OTHER freezers!’
Me: ‘Yes, but they have other product in it, we don’t have room.’
Lady: ‘You should MAKE room. I go out of my way to come here when I could have gone to two places closer to my house, but I make SURE to come HERE for my dog’s food!’
Me: ‘I’m sorry, next time you come up you can give us a call to see if the freezer is working again, that way you don’t waste time driving over again.’
Lady: ‘No, NEXT TIME, I’m calling the manager.’
Me, getting annoyed, tired, and admittedly a little short-tempered: ‘Ma’am, the managers are the ones who removed the product. It wouldn’t be safe to sell food that would make your dog sick.’
Lady: ‘Well you could have done SOMETHING.’
Me: ‘We did. We pulled the unsafe food and put a notice on the door so you know what happened.’
Lady: ‘You have OTHER freezers.’
Me: ‘I promise we did all we could.’
Lady: ‘APPARENTLY you didn’t!!!’
She stormed out after that. My tolerance has lowered since being away from the register. I probably should have called the manager on duty over to take care of the situation. As it turns out, when I asked him about the freezer later, sure enough, it had risen to 80 degrees and we had to throw out all the food in it, and couldn’t get it fixed for another week.
If she had been nicer or even asked about it at all, I would have asked about it sooner. We had some backstock of the food she wanted that was in a different freezer, so if she had asked nicely at all, we may have even been able to give her some. But I’m getting worn out on retail and I’m tired of rewarding adult temper tantrums.
I don’t even know what she wanted from me. It sounded like she wanted me to make her food magically appear, or sell her the bad stuff we had thrown out days before.”
Complaining Just To Complain
“Monday morning, right as we get ready to open at 8 AM, the phone rings. I’m cutting fruit in produce, back by the office where the phone is, so I take off my gloves, throw them away, and answer the phone. I will be ‘Me’, Phone Lady will be ‘PL’.
Me: ‘Good morning, grocery store, how can I help you today?’
PL: ‘Yes, I have a complaint I’d like to make.’
Let me tell you the important stuff now before she starts. On Saturday, when I was working in produce, I noticed some of our bananas getting a little riper than our customers typically like, so I do what we normally do: I bag them up in a bag and mark them down so they don’t have to sit over the weekend and get even browner. The markdown is typically from 59 cents per pound to 29 cents per pound.
Unfortunately, we have to manually weigh them at the register, which is really just a couple of buttons, but it’s an honest mistake to miss the handwritten price on the bag. Maybe it was just someone new, but I’m chalking it up more to one a cashier not paying attention. Anyway, back to the story.
Me: ‘Oh, well, what can I do for you?’
PL: ‘I was there Saturday and picked up a bag of bananas for $.29/pound, but I was charged the full price for the bananas.’
Me: ‘I’m sorry to hear that. Next time you come in, just bring your receipt from that day and we’ll gladly remedy the situation.’
PL: ‘I just want you to know this is really inconvenient for people.’
Me: ‘Again, ma’am, just hang to the receipt and we can fix it the next time you come in. It was probably just a mistake and it’s really an easy fix.’
PL: ‘I don’t make it in all that often and I’m not coming in for just a dollar.’
Me: ‘Well, I’m sorry that happened.’
To be clear, there’s only going to be around a dollar’s worth of difference between $.59/pound and $.29/pound on probably three pounds of bananas, but she really wanted me to hear that she didn’t want to come in for her money. I really don’t know what she wanted from me short of me shoving the dollar through the phone for her or just talking my ear off.
PL: ‘I’m not going to drive three blocks for my money.’
Why are you calling if you don’t really care? At this point, I’ve apologized enough for her misfortune and in turn, do not really care anymore either.
Me: ‘Okay, well, have a nice day.’
I hung up the phone, put new gloves back on, and went back to cutting watermelon.”
Finally A Bad Customer Gets Banned
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“I used to work at an awesome little mom and pop pet store in the fish area (really the only live animals we sold), and among other shenanigans which happened there, there was this lady who would come in roughly once a month on a Saturday.
She would, no matter how busy it was, ask question after question about the fish, waiting for you to mess up your facts even a little bit. Then she would spend the next twenty minutes just tearing you a new one; things like, ‘How am I supposed to trust you if you don’t even know what you’re talking about’ and ‘You’re lucky these fish are even alive with how incompetent you are,’ let alone that it took fifteen minutes of constant grilling to get me to mess up. I think it was her Saturday entertainment, and she never bought anything.
One very slow summer Saturday she came in and was the only customer in the store, so I made it my goal to stump her. She ended up grilling me for the best part of 45 minutes and then hurriedly leaving in a huff. The next time she came in was on a Saturday I wasn’t working, and apparently, she was especially mean to the girl working the fish room that day who (from what I heard) spent much of the rest of her shift in the break room crying.
Thankfully we had supportive managers and after it became apparent that this was a pattern, she was banned from the store for harassing staff members.”
Missing Berries Ruins Christmas
“So I’ve worked in a ‘paint your own pottery store’ for the past couple of years, and for the most part, our customers are great. But, like most places, every now and then we get a rude one.
Now, I’ll preface this by saying that our store was partly at fault for this incident, due to an innocent mistake. However, this lady’s reaction was way out of proportion.
We do custom painting, wherein a customer buys a blank piece and has our staff paint it for them. We get a TON of these orders right around the holiday season. People wanting their family name on a Christmas plate and whatnot.
About two days before Christmas, a woman comes in to pick up the plate that she had custom done. I was not the one who painted the plate, in fact, I had never even seen the order before. Nevertheless, I was able to find it and show it to her.
She seemed pleased until she noticed one small detail. In the corners of the plate, were several tiny holly berries. Or at least holly berry leaves.
You see, whoever had painted the plate had accidentally painted red berries onto a red background, and after the piece was fired, they no longer showed up.
And this lady was pissed about it.
Now, I understand being upset that something you paid for didn’t turn out quite right, but this was barely even noticeable. In fact, I wouldn’t have even seen it if she hadn’t pointed it out, and the rest of it looked really, really nice. But no, in her eyes, it was ruined.
Despite this, I apologized profusely and told her we would repaint the berries and re-fire it free of charge. Unfortunately, because it was so late in the season, it would not be ready before Christmas. Our standard waiting time is one week, not to mention we were in the middle of a holiday rush and had literally no room in our kilns.
She was having none of that, so I ask her if she would like a refund instead.
She glared at me and said, ‘No, I’ll just take it like this, give it to me.’
Before I could even react she yanked the plate out of my hands and stormed out of the store, slamming the door on her way out.
About ten minutes later we got a phone call that my coworker answered. It was the same lady, bawling her eyes out and demanding to speak with a manager. My coworker basically told her no and hung up.
So apparently we ruined this woman’s Christmas. Whoops.”
Everything Is Ruined
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“I work at a pet shop, in the fish/small animal department. Periodically we get busy over the weekend. During one of these rushes, my coworker goes on lunch so I’m there helping everyone out the best I can, asking if anyone needs anything, etc. when I get called over to catch someone a bird. this took me 10 minutes TOPS, not to mention halfway through I passed through aquatics to grab some paperwork and no one was waiting there except for a lady who had asked me for help and I promised I’d be there in a minute.
Finished up with the bird people and went to help my other customer in aquatics only to find a different lady using my ladder and net/supplies, prepping (incorrectly might I add) to catch her own fish. The encounter went something like this, CL being the crazy lady:
Me: ‘What’s going on over here?’
CL: ‘OH, there you are! I’ll be needing 2 of these mollies, please’
Me: ‘Did you set this up yourself?’ gesturing to the crudely set up bagging station.
CL: ‘Yes I did, am I in trouble or something?’
Me: ‘No, but for future reference, we can’t have customers trying to catch their own fish, that’s why we’re here. If you don’t see anyone, a cashier can call someone to help you.’
CL: ‘Well I was standing here for 20 minutes and no one came to help me.’
Me: ‘I was here 5 minutes ago, there was no one here except someone who had already asked me to assist them.’
CL, getting closer to me: ‘You were not, what’s your name?’
I tell her my name
CL: ‘You have such an attitude. YOU’LL BE HEARING FROM ME.’
She proceeds to violently jerk her kid’s arm as she storms out, and I hear her screaming at her husband down the aisle to drop everything because the rude lady ruined their shopping trip.
I turn to the woman who had been waiting to apologize to her, but when I look at her she just has her hand over her mouth in shock and we laugh about that whole experience for a minute before I get her fish. Wonder if I really will be receiving a complaint”
From Unemployable To Your Cashier
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“I happen to have bright turquoise hair that I dye other unnatural colors quite frequently…and at the time I was also a cashier at a lovely colorful place that rhymes with Farty Pity.
Let’s refer to the rude customer as Old Lady or ‘OL’ for short.
In this story, I am about 5 or 10 minutes early for work, and I had to walk to the back of the store to get to the ‘EMPLOYEES ONLY’ part of the store.
On my way there, OL stops me and says, ‘Wow, your hair is very bright! But how would you expect to get a job with that hair?! Such a shame!’ I just kinda smiled and nodded because I am socially anxious and don’t know how to respond to something like that. Well, a few minutes later, I go up to the registers and relieve the cashier for lunch break, and clock in. No sooner do I finish a balloon order does OL come up to the register and puts all of her items on the counter before she looks at me and realizes ITS ME. The 20-year old who she insulted 5 minutes earlier by calling me unemployable for my hair…
Needless to say, OL stood red-faced, saying absolutely nothing to me while I rang her out and handed her bags to her. She practically ran out of the store when she had all her stuff and her receipt…I about died laughing when she left.”