Customer Service Horror Stories
 

I'm going to go out on a limb just by the age demographics of MusicBanter that most members who have jobs, either work, or have worked in some kind of service based industry. People, as we all know are selfish, greedy, hateful, ugly, spiteful cocks and when they're standing with cash in hand it just seems to exacerbate all of these delightful qualities and as such go off on some of the strangest tangents to some poor schlep working for minimum wage who has absolutely no control over the circumstances. So fellow musicbanterer's, I ask you to share your stories of customers exhibiting the kind of behavior that makes you fantasize about how many sledgehammer blows to the face it takes to turn it into a smoothie.

Here's my most recent one. A client sends in his payment for me to file his businesses annual report with the state, but on the check he confuses the "Pay to the Order of" and "memo" slots and made it so I couldn't deposit the check. I send him an email letting him know the situation and that I will be returning his check in the mail, but he decides to respond with a long tangent about how we're trying to rip him off... by sending him back the check that I can't even deposit.

Not the best story I have, but I figure I'll save those for later.

A couple of summers ago, a camper in line for fuel at the gas pumps suffered a leak in its sanitation tank and leaked excrement in a path through the pumps and all over the parking lot.

It's amazing how many people in customer service have ****-cleaning stories. People will crap their pants at the drop of a hat.

When I was working in clothing retail I had to clean one of the changing rooms because a kid either couldn't find the washroom or just didn't care and did his business in there...

had this exact thing happen to me but it was a old man.

One good thing about the modern retail structure is that it's more or less the manager who has to deal with every single instance of BS.

Oh your mad and want to talk to my manager? Certainly!!

I used to work in a theme park, and one guy started picking up trash out of a bin and throwing it at me because I refused to let his child ride a rollercoaster. The rollercoaster had a 1.4m height restriction, and this child was about 4, maybe 5, years old. He also told me that I would die unloved and alone, and claimed that I was jealous of his perfect family.
Ahh the things we put up with for a paycheck! :D

Heh... this summer I was helping to test jet engines and see if they meet military specifications. I was like a customer liaison between the manufacturer and the Canadian and American militaries. The only thing I can really say here is that there are some real bitches working for the military.

My mother received a 3ft tall santa decoration last year.
She'd phone to complain several times that she never ordered it and the person on the phone would tell her they'd send her the forms to send it back, but all they'd end up sending her was another bill for it.

3 months that thing was sitting in her living room :laughing:

Back when I used ring a cash register at a department store, I had some old lady come up to me and tell me I was going to die of AIDS because I had bleached hair and earrings.

That has got to be the coolest job ever! :thumb:

I worked in the freight business for nearly thirty years (air imports) and once had to tell a client that the urgent shipment of PCBs they were expecting from Japan, that they had brought people in on overtime to install, would not be getting there. Asked why, I had the greatest excuse ever. The plane had crashed into a mountain. Really. There was just silence on the line.

Another time, my boss was dealing with an irate customer who just wouldn't listen. He wanted the price of something dropped I think, long time ago. Our rates were too high or something. So he says to my boss "Oh look, this is ridiculous! I want to talk to someone who can make a decision!"

Grinning, my boss said a phrase I guess he'd been waiting most of his life to say: "You're talking to him. I've made the decision. You're not getting a discount!" :) Kind of like that one time I saw on TV where, seriously, these guys called to someone's house in the early morning and the girl leans out the window and says "**** off or I'll call the police!" One of the two guys looks up and no doubt grinning says, "Love, we ARE the police!" Oh my god, it really happened and I saw it! :D

Then there was the customs officer who was CONVINCED that a shipment of the album "Hotel California" by the Eagles was dodgy, as being in a gatefold sleeve (remember them?) he was sure there should be TWO records in there, but there was only one! Would not be convinced till he phoned the record company. Ah, Customs! That happened before my time.

Or the guy who regularly came on the phone five minutes before we closed on a Friday looking for a quote for "three boxes to go to India", let's say. In the freight business it's all based on dimensions and volumes, so you can't quote without those. Asked for the information he snapped "I haven't time to worry about such things! Just give me the quote!" Idiot.

During my lifeguarding I have encountered a few horrors.

Like someone ****ting in the pool, that was just awkward for everybody.

Also at the end of a backshift we give the gym changing areas/toilets a clean. I went in to the LADIES to see what needed to be done, so I walk into a toilet cubicle for '**** THE POPE' to be written on the wall in ****. What kind of stinking bastard does that?

ok personally i think anybody who writes ANYTHING with shit on a wall is a disturbed human being and should be avoided

:rofl:

I'm glad someone appreciated that story. :laughing:

i have lived that story....although i think it was green hair :)

Hoi, he does have a point, the Pope is a ****.

Wow, a man from southern Ireland who hates the pope. I am just astonished. :D


Edit: I'm a stereotyping bastard.

I think my absolute best customer service incident was when I was working at my second lumberyard. It was a Saturday, which meant all the retard home owners who don't know shit about home repairs would come in and sift through an entire pack of 2x4 8' spruce for ones with all four edges, even though it's mostly used in walls and doesn't need to look pretty. Anyways, this guy comes in and has an order for thirty 8 foot 2x4 spruce, so I direct him to where the lumber is, and walk down there to meet him. When I get to the isle the guy is throwing a shit fit because 2x4's are exactly 2 inches by 4 inches, they're actually 1 1/2 by 3 1/2, and he thought we were ripping him off. He then looks over to the 2x4 rough cedar, which is actually 2 inches by 4 inches and says he wants that, and after I ask him what he's building, he says he's putting a wall in between a large room in order to make them two rooms to rent out... and he wants to use cedar. I tell him he has to go back inside to exchange the order out, and he grudgingly does it, and I strategically take my lunch break so someone else has to help him. About an hour later, the contractor he hired comes back with the 30 2x4's and wants to swap them out for spruce.

What a day.

:beer:

A proddy stinking bastard? :D Well, they WOULD be stinking after writing in sh1t, wouldn't they? :rofl:

Seriously, that's not cool. What's wrong with bringing a big marker IF you want to write grafitti? SPray can? Chalk? Not too many artists work in the medium of sh1t ...

Apparently in there are some in Scotland.

Stinking proddy bastards lmao, yes. I come from a baaaaaad place full of Protestants.

Protestants who graffiti up the walls with their own poo.

I work in a bookstore and though I do get my share of annoying, bitchy customers, my favorite moments are when people ask things such as:

"Has Mark Twain written anything new?"

"Do you have Romeo and Juliet by Charles Dickens?"

"What is Haruki Macaroni's latest book?"

"I need a knowledge book on Antarctica."

And so on.

I had a woman come in to the gift shop I was working at during the Christmas period and there was a huge line behind her but she expected everything individually gift wrapped and made a huge fuss about it. She threw a wobbly and demanded the biggest present wrapped up in special paper but the paper wasn't big enough. Luckily I convinced her to let me use brown paper and rape it with ribbons and cellophane. She ended up satisfied but what a hassle.

I actually feel as a customer that I get treated poorly by shop assistants than being the one serving. I have plenty of stories about that.

I used to work in a store, in the evenings, and there was a collection of customers who were a complete pain in the ar$e. Their worst habit was leaving it until just before closing time (11.00pm) before deciding they needed something from the shop. One particular guy actually banged on the door when we were locking up, insisted on being let in, spent what seemed an eternity looking round and then came to the check out with......three onions and a bottle of bleach.

What, like he couldn't survive until the morning without them? W*NKER!!!

Urgh I hate people like that. There's a guy that comes in every Friday night at like 6pm and used to stay in the pool until the dying end. The worst part is the **** used to work in the centre. ****ing arsehole.

My full time job is working in a hotel, thankfully I don't have to deal with the whining public all the time, but there have been more than enough occasions believe me!

There is one thing that people can say to me that causes me to bite my tongue and use every effort not to go off the rails at them.

"What are you going to do about it?" - All complaints are, invariably, after the event. So, someone says something like "I was woken up by someone banging on my door at 2.00am," and you reply "I'm very sorry about that," to which they then say "Well, that's not good enough, what are you going to do about."

What do they then expect of me?

"Hang on, I'll jump in my f*cking time machine, jump back six hours and stop the a*sehole banging on your door. The Delorian is just outside, wait here...."

They're probably hoping you'll comp them a breakfast or something. That's usually what hotels do in those kinds of situations.

ok i worked as a bike messenger in Seattle for four years....and this situation happened more times than i can count

"is it raining out there?"

i am literally soaked to the bone, shivering and miserable handing them their documents and they ask me

"is it raining out there?"

I just hate when people ask that in general. I mean, you can't look out the ****ing window? My cousin used to work as a bike messenger in Vancouver, where it rains all the time (it seems that way anyways, lol) and also used to get that question a lot.

:laughing:

^ On a related note, it annoys me to my core when I ask customers if they want a bag and they respond with "it's raining today."

I didn't ask if it's ****ing raining, I asked if you wanted a bag.

What the hell does that even mean? People are crazy.

They assume that because it's raining I would assume that they wanted a bag. But I don't assume, I ask, because I still cannot read minds.

Haha, oh man. Sounds like typical customers over here. I work in a bank, much to my embarrassment/regret, and I speak to the worst people on this planet. From stuck up, patronising business men, to posh, rude old ladies and then to the general scumbags screaming down the phone at me when their JSA hasn't gone in. I just feel like telling the lot of them to bail it, people's attitudes really really get to me. The only good thing this job has done for me is open up to how disgusting the human race is.

What hotel do you work in? Is it like a travle lodge/premier inn?

Greatest typo ever.

As for my own CS stories. These all happened over maybe 3 months while working for UPS a few summers ago.

One of my first calls in training was a dude out in the Alberta oil sands who wanted to get some lobster shipped from the coast. UPS is not equipped to handle fresh, live, or otherwise biological material. The trucks are not refrigerated. After explaining to him that it would be toxic by the time it got there we still figured out an estimate for shipping a cooler full of giant sea bugs. $400. He still seemed OK with the idea.

----

During my first night of live calls for UPS I got a call from a dude who ran a skate shop who flipped out and started raging at me because he assumed the credit on his account would magically be used without him ever mentioning it to anyone while setting up his parcel pickup. I don't just mean raising his voice either, it was the kind of primal screaming where you start losing tonal control of your voice. The supervisor I got to handle the rest of the call got teary eyed while trying to explain to him that he'd already been told more than a few times that he HAS to tell people to use his account credit when setting up a pickup and that there was no way to magically reimburse him for the money he had just spent to get his packages picked up that evening. Pretty sure the dude was just taking advantage of the situation to abuse call center employees in attempts to get free shipping.

----

Then there was the Canadian woman from Vancouver who ran businesses in Washington state who wanted to use the Canadian service to ship or deliver goods through the States and circumvent a pile of border laws. :usehead:

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Person from Florida called my call center because the 'new' cellphone they just got ...in Florida... was actually manufactured and region locked as being a Canadian device so she'd get automatically patched through to us.

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One lady flipped out at me during my first week because she couldn't believe that shipping about 50lbs of handbags overnight, by air, from Canada to California would cost around $500.

----

Another lady got upset with me because current domestic trade laws make it far more expensive to initiate shipments from within Canada than from most international destinations. Yeah... some dude in a call center can manipulate trade laws... don't bother contacting your local politician I'll get right on it.

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Had one dude from way up north get upset with me because he didn't like his MacBook and wanted to return it. By 'way up north' I mean he had to take a skidoo for a few hours to get to the local airport, get a box, and then ship it out from there. There were literally no roads to get to his house. Yet he wanted us to come pick it up or to deal with Apple because they wanted him to return the product and he wanted us to pick it up or to make it better between them...

----

But the absolute worse call(s) I got were from about a 9 year old from Vancouver. This child's parents were Chinese nationals who couldn't speak English and he was asking us to leave their immigration papers in a specific non-secure location where they'd be able to get them. They needed the specific paperwork for some legal / court thing or face deportation and due to their work schedule were never home to be able to sign for the papers. I did try getting more help for the kid and his family through supervisors but they apparently didn't satisfy him because he called back at least 2 more times. While it could have been an immigration scam... if it was that kid deserves and Oscar. :(

Dave, I didn't realize you had worked at UPS. I'm not sure if we can continue to be friends. :laughing:

But.. but ... UPS are great! Look! This ad says so! See? :confused:

Bills gotta get paid somehow :(

If it makes you feel any better I just kind of stopped going one day. No notice, nothing.

Actually what happened was the 'new' system for organizing and tracking pick ups / deliveries went down one day and I got a whole 20 second 'refresher' on how to use the old system - because I had been in the very first training class to only learn the new one...

Apparently my ability to not freak out and organize a parcel pickup had the leader-type people in that call center believing I was a veteran they all somehow didn't recognize. Either way, there's was NO WAY I was going back to deal with the fallout mess of screwed up pick ups and people freaking out because the cost estimates they were getting from the phone agents likely didn't include taxes and surcharges.

---

Also - f@ck Friday afternoons at UPS. Soooo many douchebags calling to know just when the truck is going to be there to pick up their thing and bitching at us like we're screwing up their weekend. They have until 5pm to get their and pick up your package, don't start calling at 3 and getting mouthy because you can't leave early.




---- and if you think that's bad... I also worked for Capital One credit cards. Twice. I'm so sorry. :shycouch:

"Good morning, you're speaking to Neil. How may I help you?

I got your broadband this morning and it isn't working!

Ok, what seems to be the problem?

I put the disc in (to run an install) and then it froze my PC and now I can't do anything!

You can't do anything?

No! I put the disc in and clicked to install it and then I waited but all that happened is that my screen went black and now nothing works!

You screen is just black? Is there anything on your screen at all, any kind of patterns of text, or is just completely black?

No, nothing at all. It's black. Your disc broke my PC! I've been sitting here watching it for two hours now but nothing happens!

(I then proceed to ask her to do several things, some very basic stuff. I ask her to press Esc, to hold Alt and press F4 and also to press Ctrl, Alt & Del. I ask her to try and click on her Start menu and open My Computer and a few other things. All of them she claims to do and then states that the machine does not respond. This all takes a very long time. When she claims that none of the above has helped in any way, I do not feel confident that she is doing as I ask at all. I feel as though she isn't doing what i ask, the PC is asleep, switched off or she has broken it and is now trying to blame it on us. This wouldnt real be a surprise. People refuse to do what customer service tell them to do all of the time. They believe that we should be able to jump on the nearest train and do it all for them. Well, there was something else I thought it could be. I thought it immediately, before the last 45 minutes or so were so painfully taken from my life. But....nobody could actually be this stupid, could they?)

Actually...there is something on my screen!

Oh, there is? What is it?

It's this tiny little pattern. It starts in the bottom corner of my screen and then it moves around the screen, and it gets bigger, and bigger...

Thats your screensaver, Ma'am. Please move your mouse. Thanks for calling."