What Are the Worst Customers Ever? 

ANYTIME a retail customer walks up and immediately addresses you with the name off your name tag, you know the next few minutes are going to be a fun ride--buckle up. _"Bill, hi..."_

I love how "customers" who've been stealing threatening to never shop here again. Uh, thank you.

Ages ago I worked at a Home Depot which had an Office Depot across the parking lot. Customer brought a computer chair with clearly had Office Depot's logo on it and insisted that we return it. No amount of explaining that Office Depot and Home Depot were two different stores worked. Finally my manager on duty came up, saw the issue and told the lady "Don't worry ma'am, we will take care of you. Please let me handle your return personally." Manager picks the Box up and walked right out the door at across the parking lot to The Office Depot with the lady screaming on his heels. I never did find out if it actually got returned or if it was stolen and the lady thought she could pull one over us.

My mom was working at Wal Mart one Christmas. A family came through her checkout with a couple things and a new Barbie that cost like $50, and she knew this. The total only came up to something like $17, so she calls a manager over. The family insists that because the price was wrong, they got it for free (which may have been the policy, but it did not apply if the barcode had been tampered with). Managers would get something like $50 for catching a thief, and this manager got that bonus. My mom got nothing, so she told the manager next time it happened she'd tell the customer "Merry Christmas". She was the only one that would have even thought to stand up to the manager, since she was just working there for some extra money, since my dad had a salary job at the time.

I managed a Wendy's for years. One night in the winter a guy came to the drive-thru in a pickup with a snowplow on the front. He told me he had a deal with the night manager, Judy, where she gave him free food for plowing our parking lot. I said No, we have a professional service that does that, and there is no manager here named Judy. He said "Well you've probably don't know her because she's the night manager." I pointed out that it was night at that moment, and I was the manager. Also there is no one here named Judy. I know all the names of every employee. I have to because I make the schedule. He said, "Well, maybe Judy quit." I let him know I had been there for 10 years and there had never been a Judy in all that time. "Well . . . could you give me some free chili since I drove all this way?"

I worked in a dining hall and one day we saw someone had put a $100 bill in our tip jar. We never gots tips of any kind and we were so excited. At the end of the shift, we open the jar only to see it was actually an ad disguised as a hundred. We were so pissed. However, we now had this business’ info and proceeded to go to their Yelp and Google reviews telling the story of what happened and how fricked it was. We weren’t the only ones. They’d been doing this to other restaurants. Never seen a place with 80 one star reviews before, but there you go.

I live in Italy, I work for a gentleman who sells goods (clothes, underwear, curtains, etc.) in village / neighborhood markets, sometimes people come to bring the goods back to us, because maybe it was not the right size or color of a certain thing was wrong etc, these are some cases in which they tried to cheat us: a lady tried to give us back some stockings because according to her they were pierced, my boss gave him another pair in order not to fight, then we looked at the stockings , you could see very well that the hole was close to where the label was, there was a cut made by a scissor ..., second woman: she comes to give us back some stockings, but we didn't sell that brand, after a fight he says to at least barter them ..., always the second woman: he comes for some stockings, my boss tells him a price, but she says that the other times were cheaper. my boss says it's not true, she says last time, she points to another seller, I paid less from him ..., these are among the many people who tried to cheat us, there would also be people who booked some goods but then said it wasn't true or those people who want the discount of at least 90% ..., sorry for the poem and my English 🤣

I bought a video game in a shop years ago. When I got home I found the disks were missing. I go back and got the "all sales are final" line. But I wasn't asking for a refund, I was asking for the disks. Ended up calling their head office and talking to their loss prevention dept, who called the store and found out they had a mysterious extra set of disks (no, really?). So they gave me the disks.

I used to work for this car wash and one day while I was there there was a lady and her mother who came to get their car vacuumed and washed. Before we started to work on her car she went on this long rant about how her car was brand new and extremely cheap because she knew someone in the dealership she bought it from. She showed us every inch of the car just to brag and then finally she left us to do our work. After the car was vacuumed, went through the car wash, and was dried she came out to look at the car and started screaming about a scratch on the side of her car. She demanded that she speak to the manager and that he fix it immediately for free. Little did she know we have cameras everywhere because people love to scam car places for some reason and she made the stupid mistake of bragging about her car because everyone in the vacuum section look at her car. Everyone saw the scratch on her car before we even started working on it and because of this one of our employees took a picture of it just in case this happened. After the manager looked at all the evidence I think he showed her and offered to fix the scratch if she paid and she got pissed off and left.

If the manager told me all sales are final when he sold me fake games I'm not sure if I'd call the police or just trash his store but I'd do something.

In the UK you have to pay for the bags to hold your items both paper and plastic, I love telling people about the legal ramifications we both face if they don't pay the 10p... especially saying it all with a big shit eating grin. Another is through out being open in the pandemic the store I work at didn't accept cash mainly to keep staff safe, and people would kick off alot, and usually shout saying there's no sign, and I've never felt so much ecstacy in my life when I would point to the sign right beneath their noses saying we didn't trade cash. I'll forever chase that high.

I previously worked for Burlington (Coat Factory, but they no longer call it that). In my district, there was a group, or a few groups, that would pay for large amounts in small denominations. Like, $500 in ones and fives. Then, when you finished counting, they would take it back, pretend to recount themselves and hand it back, but they would take a few bills, rinse and repeat until they had swiped a few hundred. It never happened to me, but I had also been warned about it and always counted at least twice, especially on large purchases.

For the coke lady, they should get the coke poured and ready then when she says that she doesn’t have the money drink it in front of her

The Uscan story reminds me of a true crime story from Paris, France - this intelligent gent walked into a supermarket with self scan checkout, used the scales in the vegetable department to choose the "right" watermelon, then used the scale to print a price label - but instead he placed the price label on a PS 5 console bundle with the same weight. He covered the already present price label on said console - and he managed to get it through self checkout without anybody apparently noticing - Most supermarkets have special casheers or even security watch self checkout to prevent this fraud. The self checkout only confirms the correct weight after scanning the price label. If he just was satisfied - but no ... This bloke came back just the very next day to repeat the stunt - in the very same supermarket. Unbeknown to him the supermarket had cameras watching self checkout and also the vegetable department, so his scheme was discovered by security after closing when they reviewed the videos. As he came in the very next day security and police were awaiting him - and he was arrested on the spot. In the end he got banned from the store and all its subsidaries, he got sued for theft and proven guilty, facing either jail time or community service - and the one theft that luckily went through got also the uno-reverse card. Greedy dumbarse

That one where he shaved his head & pretended to be his own twin brother. Cheez!

I was working back in customer service in a retail store. a guy had bought a vacuum 10 minutes before, came back and claimed there was a used one in there. I look and it's used. I call my manager over and she makes me do the return and I know damn well he switched it out in his car. I asked him if he wanted to exchange but he said a friend already got a new one during the 10 minutes he was gone.

Some of these scare me at how calculating and planned these things to get free food is, like almost serial-killer levels of planning.

This reminds me of when I worked at Salvation Army and someone tried to pay a manager with a "one million" dollar bill

The one that worked at Goodwill that "rung up a 30 something year old woman" had me dying. I kept picturing a woman getting scanned

Work at goodwill, got told they would file a kidnapping charge because it was 20 minutes after closing so we locked the doors to prevent people from coming in (the manager stands there and unlocks it for them when they leave) the lady was trying to steal a bunch of crap too and refused to leave after the manager caught her (her friend did leave though lmao)

One time, at a store where my husband worked in, some men brought in a tv box. This was aver a decade ago. They were returning it. Got their money back and after they left Customer Service opened the box. There was a tree trunk inside the box. LOL That's on the people at the store.

I still feel bad about the time I accidentally scammed a bunch of banans because I didn't know where the scale was and accidntly weighed a box of something light rather than bananas. I never used a self check out before I didn't even realize what I did till the next time I bought bananas.

I was eating at a Hooters in San Diego after Comic-Con had ended for the day. I was two tables away from three tables scooted together for a family of at least ten people. About five minutes after the waitress took my order, the big group left. A few minutes after that, the waitress checked the triple table only to discover the entire group did a dine and dash.. didn't pay for a thing. Felt really bad for her. There's a special place in hell for families like that.

I work in checkout at a certain New England grocery store chain (yall probably know this one). Im ringing and i see this lady come through and roll my eyes. This lady is BRUTAL. Takes like 30 minutes to get her stuff up and the worst part this time was she yelled at my bagger like 4 times for “doing stuff wrong” even though the amount of times she did something wrong (I was watching her bag) was 0. I havent even reached the worst part yet. Another customer comes behind her (a significantly nicer lady), and puts a 12 pack of Dr Pepper cans down on the belt. This lady has ONE CRANBERRY JUICE left and legitmately DOESNT LET ME SCAN IT because “ShE iS bReAkInG tHe RuLeS”. The lady I was ringing up gets into a standoff with me and the next customer for about 10 minutes, at which point I literally say out loud “Lets end this misery” and accepted defeat by putting the dr pepper next to me on the register removing it from the belt. My tongue was bleeding the whole time and I almost screamed. The last part is 2 baggers had to help her outside and help load her car up and they were out there for 25 minutes because the lady yelled at them like 10 times. And the lady yelled at one of the other assistant managers (Im training to be one right now), and this assistant is the nicest most kind hearted girl. I told the lady coming in after the witch “We’ve had many experiences with this lady before. I salute you for that”. This lady told me she used to work at Walmart and the same fucking lady would come through and do the same thing. I will always believe she got banned from that location. And also when she comes alone since she is disabled (uses a mart cart) she has one of the baggers help her around the store (usually takes 2 hours) and she will literally make you sit there while she calls her kids on the phone asking them what they want. I did this once my manager asked me to and it was hell. Lastly, she literally doubted that i had manager numbers (when they start training you to be an assistant manager, they give you supervisor numbers and i had already been given them), and was stunned when I was able to put in my numbers so they could do manual EBT. If I had yelled at any point, my manager was upstairs in his office overlooking checkout and I would have almost instantly lost my job (I would have quit if I went off). I have a few other stories about this lady if anyone wants to hear them. Also have other stories about this store in general. The customers are generally awesome, but its always the rude ones that stick with you.

We used to have a lot of theft and return scams when I was a manager at target. I had one team member that would convince the criminals to sign up for a credit card while we stalled and waited for the police to arrive. Like thanks you committed a crime and now we have your Social Security number on file

Not my story but my mum, she used to work at Macy's in the shoe department. One day this lady came in saying my mum sold her used boots and she wanted to return them; mind you these used boots are several years old and are a brand they don't sell, I beleive the boots were from kholes. My mums manager let the woman have the refund even though they were not boots she bought from their store

5:25 Nice to see the boss rewarding the worker.

14:45 The irony here is the goddamn jelly might be worth more than the tv!

the N64 one was definitely the store scamming that customer

At one of my old jobs, I was going to unlock a cart that had one of those wheel locks on it. The cart was full of unbagged random items and I asked the person pushing it for a receipt. They dug around in their bag for a minute and then they said they had to go. I didn't realize until a coworker told me they were probably stealing that stuff. I wasn't even looking for that, I've had to unlock those dumb carts so many damn times for paying customers that it was actually the first time it stopped a thief. Also I once found a display TV from a different store that was down the street about a mile in a cart.

Work in a game store where people constantly bring in game consoles that look like they were in a house fire and try to claim it was brand new or they JUST BOUGHT it that week and that's HOW they bought it and wanted to return it/trade it in. We always say "no" and accuse US of being corrupt thieves. :/

Last one, place I worked at charged 65c for a side of toast, a portion cup of peanut butter was free for asking if one ordered toast, and we had jelly packets out for free. If you ordered a pb&j, I would have to make it in the back, plate it, and charge you $1.85 (and I got zip for making it). If you tried to order a pb&j, I’d tell you to order toast and ask for a side of pb and save $1.20 and assemble your own. Put nicely, people would do that. I wouldn’t have minded that woman one bit. Just don’t complain to the manager about it afterwards.

I'm trying to rap my head around being prescribed 26 5mg oxys per day. Holy sh*t. But then again I have no idea what it's like to go through having cancer

“I just don’t like that he thinks he’s being smart” This is the most relatable comment I’ve come across in this vid XD

That wasn't ghetto lemonade....that's how you make lemonade!

I worked as a dispatcher for a garbage company. Had plenty of people calling in because the driver “missed” their trash can. I know damn well they never put out their trash can on time and they were the ones who missed the driver. I had GPS on the drivers and would know when the driver was there. I refused to send drivers back if I had that proof. Had one customer, who missed the driver at least every other week, threaten to go to our competitor. I gave them the competitors phone number. Never heard from them again. Never checked if they were still a customer either.

I worked in the box office at a movie theater. You hear just about every excuse in the book as to why people want refunds for their movie tickets. Two little old ladies came out of Field of Dreams wanting a refund because they didn't believe ghosts exist. Two guys wanted a refund on a movie they had the wrong tickets for. They neglected to remember that they snuck into a second movie after watching the first one. My favorite days were when all 3 theaters had R-rated movies. Rejecting ticket sales to kids by themselves was an evil pleasure.

“ they were saving $1.25 a sandwich” but not really 😭 for what they spent on toast and PB , they could’ve got a loaf of bread, a jar of pb and probably the jelly for the same or less. Or gone and took the jelly for free from Dunkin’ after buying the bread and PB😂

I worked for a trash removal company and had a customer call and tell me they were loading their car with luggage to leave town and had left $6k worth of jewelry in a bag and set it by their garbage can. Our truck came through and took the bag of jewelry and they wanted reimbursed. My boss took the call from me and explained that we'd call the driver, have him stop and the customer could go through the truck to find the bag. However, they were going to have to pay $60.00 every thirty minuets that the truck had to be stopped. Of course the customer was going to "call a lawyer and sue our a$$". Never heard from them again.

The tts voice can’t even say “No.” LOL. 🤣

Some people are stupid in trying stuff like that.

I wonder how much the thrift store lady spent on gas driving there repeatedly to cheat them out of $10.

I worked a a well known fast food restaurant and one day one of our customers came in and complained that the meat was raw and funny thing was that the meat was pre cooked we just ran them through the broiler. I let them know and they walked out embarrassed

Aww man that first one worked out great for that first worker.

This is satisfying to hear because people understand. Most of my friends have never worked retail or similar jobs involving people and their money and may be sympathetic to asses and thieves. I know the frustrations of the other side. My husband has worked at a local store for twenty years, and despite his intention to stay in the back, he and many other employees are protective of the place and spring into action when things are bad. It's horrible, how many have tried or successfully robbed, stolen, defrauded, sued with bad intentions. In the last few years, thefts increased even as the store tried their best to get lower priced items. People have stolen coolers full of expensive meats appropriate for grilling at huge parties. An expensive donated raffle bike was ridden out of the front by a meanie. Druggies steal inositol. The place has done what they can afford for security, but a decreasing staff size has probably been the worst loss preventative issue. Between hurricane damage, increasing competition, and product loss, a small local place that had been open almost fifty years may close. It has done a ton for the community, and this is the repayment. It hurts. Please be good to your local businesses.

I had the opposite with the £20. I was the customer, bought something for £5 with a £20 note because i didnt have exact change, was given change, but only like a fifth. (It was like £2.01 out of a £20.) Puzzled and a bit annoyed, I turned to the second cashier and said something like, "Um, I gave a 20 I think you short changed me a bit." (Read, shortchanged a lot.) Luckily I got my full change back but it was still a dirty move. Don't try and steal an extra £15 when I already paid for my single item.

While working for Sears in the 80s, we had a customer report that the box which was supposed be an air compressor but instead had rocks weighing about the same as an air compressor should. We did sell the box because it was a scam where hijackers were stealing goods from train yards and then taking the packaging to out of state Sears stores for refunds. The stores would, in turn, resell the "compressor" unknowingly to customers who only later found rocks when they opened the box at home.

3:40 I had someone pull this shit on me saying they gave me $50 not $20 and if I would just open the register, I'd see the fifty in there. Except I had done a drop just a few seconds ago and there weren't any goddamn fifties in the drawer. I figured they wanted to cheat me out of more change, or rob me once the drawer was open. I refused to open it and jackass slunk back outside. Easiest way to tell it was a scam. If he HAD given me $50, no way would he back down.

I never had enough buy in to bother worrying about a customer scamming a store when i worked in retail.

I know someone who worked at a German based supermarket, a customer paid for an item that cost a few dollars with a hundred dollar note. She counted the change back to him as his partner distracted her by asking a question before the customer started screaming to call the police because she had “stolen his money”. The screaming and abuse had the manger running out to see what the problem was, customer claimed that he had seen her remove a fifty dollar note when her accomplice had asked a fake question and wanted the police called. This supermarket takes these things seriously so instead of taking another $50 from the drawer like many managers would, they took my friend to an office and checked the cctv that showed the customer quickly putting the fifty into his pocket before calling the police. He was arrested over $50, my friend was given a week off as she was distressed.

A customer who tried to preorder something without paying the fees quoting "I'm a regular! I thought we know each other well that fees no longer applied!" He ended up buying sth else ready-purchase about the same price of that thing he originally wanted because he didn't want to look poor after my sarcasm that he didn't want to pay penny-worth pre-order fee

I ran over my Nokia with my car , and it still worked.

The worst customers ever? All of them. Especially the stupid ones.

A customer came in a few months back I'm at my register and this couple walks up with two carriages worth of stuff. The store I work in has brand exclusions and I made a point of telling customers about the exclusions. One of the items is a pair of Nike shoes and I calmly explain,"This item is brand excluded." As I finish his over 3 hundred dollars worth of an order his store credit card is at it's limit and the rest of it has to go on his credit card. I ring in the coupons that would/could work I bagged his items and turned to his wife. Just as I finish her order this man THROWS the shoes at me and says,"I don't want these. My coupon didn't work." I pointed out that I explained it and that I would return it on the last register rather then send them back to our customer service area,In retrospect I should've sent them back!,and after I finished I walked over,did the return and explained that I would return it to the credit card,Due to the fact the split transaction put the shoes on his credit card,not the store charge. At this point,I hand him his revised reciept and while I'm standing at the return register I notice that they aren't leaving and their voices are getting louder. I stayed,cashed out the next customer,and talked to a little girl who was the child of a regular customer. This man and his wife come back and start screaming at me. The other customer,and her husband,are being so sweet. The husband even told them to stop. I have really bad anxiety and when I start to have a panic attack my left hand will twitch,I can't stop it and usually the only thing that helps me relax is a call to my bf who sat in on a therapy session and my doctor told him how to handle things. I'm listening to this couple scream,belittle and calling me horrible names. I called one of my managers over and I needed to go to the back. My hand was shaking,I was in tears,and the icing on my cake? The wife turns to me,as I whisper to my manager,"My anxiety is really bad." that perhaps I should stay home if my anxiety is bad! One of the assistant managers grabbed me,took me into the office and had me sit down. "People are buttholes." she told me. The worst part was I left my phone up front and I couldn't call my bf. My manager,up front,called and asked if I was okay,the manager told her I was staying there til they were gone and she had to re-ring the entire order. My entire team spent the rest of the day attempting to cheer me up and two of them even found me Nightmare Before Christmas ornaments for my tree. (It was December.)

I had a friend who used to do the lemonade thing. He always acted like he was so clever, but the truth is he was just being a bum.

I actually got screwed with a counterfeit c-note. I didn't realize it until it was too late 😭

Prices going up the way they are ...this will definitely keep happening

3:40 actually had a mix up like 3:40 I gave a 10 and they rung it up as a 5(honest mistake the guy on the register couldn't have been more than 18 looked closer to 16 so it was probably his first job)

Haven't had anything crazy happen yet, but at my place customers often whine about the discounts the get.... y'know, despite the fact that they're getting a discount in the first place lol. Had someone call in a week ago, claiming that she got much cheaper pricing from some other place and basically demanded that we match it. When my manager asked her to show him and send this mysterious price list - where she would allegedly be buying even cheaper than we do for stock - she threw a hissy fit and hung up. Bitch thought she was smart and thought no one would fact-check her lie lol. Then a few weeks ago we had this dude who thought he was being slick and shit by asking _everyone_ individually for a quote, as if we don't fucking talk to each other and discuss the fact that he's fishing for a bigger discount. He even approached me for pricing - and I'm not a sales rep, I'm an accountant 😂

I work at a family restaurant so we have to charge for any sauces. The cups and how much it takes to make the homemade sauces is the reason. (Of course you get one free if you get chicken tenders, nuggets, etc) people just ask for them at the drive thru, so they think they'll get them for free.. sometimes I just pay for them if they've already paid or if they're super slow finding their change (a lot of older people go there) my boss said it's just bc they want it for free

Thanks for the video

I was eating in at taco bell precovid, there were two old guys talking very loud, i don't remember what they ordered but it didn't seem like something that would have onion, one finished it and sits there for a few minutes and says "i just realized i didn't get no onions", went up to the counter and told them, they asked to see it and he goes "oh. I already ate them and i was already done when i realized" they made him a new one with onion to get him out of there

KAMEHAMEHA THE CRAP OUT OF THAT PHONE

John is a legend.

Love the Karen Gossling-Taylor Swift on the cover.

Just….wow. 😟

The way to make a scam like this long term viable, you 1have to stop scamming in same areas, and stop going to the same store time after time, you may think that employees are not paying attention but its part of their job and in some cases they have to pay for your crime, you think they ain't gonna know you and what you about,

Ghetto lemonade lol

What’s an “ad”. I was imagining a newspaper but I don’t see how you could hide $50 of food under a piece of paper

john is a chad

Not me but when I was at the checout guy sead he gave a 50 not 10 the casher opend the cash register no 50 in site

Here within 1 hour

Some of these stories are cringe

First

What's with the writing of TLDR to summarize what I just read? Very aggravating, rather stupid and pointless and I wish you guys would quit it. Just tell the story and we will read it and enjoy it just the way it is