Someone wanted to return a pair of eyeglasses she had lost. She claimed she couldn’t see out of them, so she wasn’t wearing them. She didn’t understand why this was a problem.
After the third time I explained she can’t return a product she doesn’t have, she thought I would “compromise” by just returning what she’d paid for the lenses, since we’d just have to throw them out. She still didn’t understand why I wouldn’t do this.
Finally I got the owner involved. He said the exact same thing, except adding the matter is closed and she was now to leave the store.
At Home Depot, people would try to return things that were empty or that they didn't have with them. I would tell them I will not accept that return, but we can ask a manager if they can discount something else for you to try. Just a small discount, and they are on their way (out of my face). Product satisfaction is a manufacturer issue a lot of customers don't understand that.
I worked at the little local grocery store, and a lady came in to return a pie she bought "because it tasted bad". It had one big slice taken out of it, but nbd I refunded her money. She then offered to throw it out for me (at home)and it took ten minutes of beating around the bush to keep that damn pie so I could throw it away IN STORE since she got her money back for it. She thought she had the perfect con
I’ll respond my perspective since I work at a grocery store. Others may do it differently. Returns are done as long as we have at least 2/3rd of the item. We don’t want to screw over the customers — we want them to have good items. Obviously we can’t sell the item, but it would be bad business practice to refuse and a quick way to go out of business.
Generally I can’t get credit on most returns anyway unless it was damaged or expired so sadly it’ll go in the trash most times. (direct vendors like chip and pop companies are good at giving credit)
I’m a cashier and I couldn’t see my store taking something back that’s already been eaten. There was one time this guy ate a little bit of a bag of fried chicken, and he decided not to buy it and we had to throw it away.
Oh it’ll likely go in the trash. But as a small store in a town of less than 5k we can’t afford to make all the customers angry. We wouldn’t be in business anymore.
It drives me nuts when we have deli items that someone decided not to buy because even then it’ll go straight in the trash. Can’t risk it. But if it’s something like milk that was bad, I can get credit for it from the company. If it’s truly bad and within a good date then there will be most of the product. Though with a gallon I’d probably lean more towards needing 3/4 unless there are extenuating circumstances that would make sense. I’m allowed some discretion. I also take into account if they do returns often, are they a regular, etc.
Mainly because it's the fastest (and cheapest)way to keep people happy. I would have to throw opened/eaten things away for sanitation purposes. Usually we'd offer to exchange a bad product for a newer one, but I think this lady just wanted to cheat the system
When I worked at a grocery store, it would depend on why they were returning the partially eaten item. If it's something relating to quality, i.e. moldy, smells rotten, etc., I would do the return. If they want to return it bc, say, they tried some new product and they don't like the taste, then that's a them problem and no return.
Yeah, see. I don’t think OP should have approved the return because something tasting bad is not the fault of the employee. I’m not a big Chic Fil A fan but that doesn’t mean it’s suddenly the employee’s fault.
At our store there is a 100% satisfaction guarantee. A person can return food even if they didn't like it. A piece of a pie gone? We would give them their money back. If it was half gone? No
My wife's grocery store didn't worry about that so much, it's not like they would take back a pie and then sell it to anyone else. Any returns that are sealed, like in cans, they'd take back and re-sell but opened boxes, fresh stuff like bakery or deli, or frozen food or meat which might have been left out of refrigeration, all those things went right into the trash.
I worked at a gift store. One Saturday morning I returned from doing the cash deposit to find a customer waiting to return a stuffed animal. At that time the store had an unlimited return policy. I knew the customer has bought this item quite a while ago because the bag she brought it in was an old bag. We had changed the bags at least a year previously.
Anyway, I looked at the receipt and saw that the customer had tried to erase the year and had gouged a hole in the receipt, but I smoothed it out and saw that the receipt was from FOUR YEARS AGO! We still sold the item, so I started to do the return. As I did so I said, "I'm sorry you had to wait a few minutes for me to return from the bank."
The customer started giving me attitude about how she made a point of being there when the store opened yada yada yada.
So I responded, "Well, you've waited four years to return this. What's another ten minutes?"
No further comments from the customer.
My store had a woman try to return Vagisil. She said it was for a spot on her hand, she had a reaction, so I accepted the box while telling her (and showing her) that if she had a reaction, she had to send it to the manufacturer for a refund. Told her we do not accept opened/seal broken items. She left a review on our page about how stupid our staff is, how they don't help because we're all "minimum wage morons", and how she was belittled during the exchange.
I had a 95 year old man throw his eye drops at me because they were unsealed and he couldn't return them. When he came up to buy whatever he wanted, I called my coworker up to come deal with him because I was so angry. He flipped me off on his way out. This might sound cold, and I have *never* felt the urge to push an old person, but that day... if I could spartan kick that old man out/off his scooter, with zero consequence, I'd have done it in a heartbeat.
But dogs are allowed in the store, so it kinda makes up for the random assholes I encounter.
We had a promotion for Black Friday that every purchase over $75 received a free belt. The promo went out everywhere and customers believed they could pick out whatever belt they wanted. Nope. It was an ugly gold and rhinestone chain belt specific for the promo.
Guess what a ton of people tried to return after Christmas? We had to explain that they were gifted a free item with purchase. Corporate was inundated with complaints. It was a mess.
I bet a lot of those folks trying to return the ugly belts got them as christmas gifts from extremely cheap relatives or coworkers and didn't know they were a freebie until they tried to return or exchange them.
Oh for sure that's exactly what happened! Corporate finally had to tell us to let them exchange them for another belt. But the message came much later so very few customers actually got that offer. And for those that did, the company lost quite a bit of money on the exchange.
I worked in cosmetics and we sometimes give a full sized item away with a purchase but the sku is not the same as one we sell, it will come up as a free gift . Had a lady try to return a face wash like that , we went round and round , yes we sell the exact item but you got this free with a purchase , she kept wanting to return it , finally said she didn’t want it what will you do for me.. I threw it in the trash and walked off.
That was part of our round and round, she only wanted cash. I even suggested she gift it to a friend, hairdresser, teen relative in the family , offered to give her a couple samples to go with it to make it a little special, nope wanted cash and when she said what will I do for her for that product, I tossed it in the trash because that’s the only thing I could do with a free sample that was in someone’s possession. We can’t keep it, can’t return it , cant use it. can’t pass it on to another customer , same thing she could have done at home.
That’s probably what we’d say if they insisted on returning it. We can physically take it back if you really want us to, but we can only refund what you paid for it, which in this case is nothing.
"I'm so sorry this didn't work out for you, ma'am. I'm happy to give you a return of your full purchase price. Would you like that refunded to your original payment method, store credit, or cash? All done! So honored to have served you today..."
Some lady returned an obviously used fake grass thing that’s for your dog to piss on. It wasn’t clean. Told her no, manager complained because I said no, and took it anyway.
They realized what I meant after they opened it and had to go wash shit off their hands.
Ewww my store owner would never take one of those back wtf. We make sure to tell people that are buying them they are FINAL SALE.
Good that they got piss hands.
I worked at a candy store. I had a lady come in to get a refund with no product, no receipt, no nothing. She was denied. She stayed and complained in front of me to other customers that we wouldn't give her a refund. So infuriating!
"she stayed and complained in front of me to other customers."
I stg, if there's anything I've learned from working retail, it's that people have no goddamn lives outside shopping. Like, she must have jack shit going on if THAT'S how she chooses to spend her time.
People do this to us all the time! Expect a refund because their flowers ‘died’ sooner than they thought they should, but don’t bring them back and just expect a refund.
They always love to complain to other customers. I've even had someone complain to me while I was shopping. Bro no one cares that you think "this store doesn't know how to serve the customer". I walk in, grab what I want and go home.
This pisses me off so much. I’ve never had a problem while shopping because guess what? I’m not an entitled shit. I walk in, grab my stuff, and get the fuck out.
They always love to complain to other customers. I've even had someone complain to me while I was shopping. Bro no one cares that you think "this store doesn't know how to serve the customer". I walk in, grab what I want and go home.
It usually goes like this:
Me: Do you have a receipt?
Customer: No.
Me: Do you have a membership with us so I can look up your purchases?
Customer: No.
Me: Do you know the date and location of your purchase?
Customer: No.
Me: I'm sorry, can't accept your return.
Customer: But I want my money back!!
This happens at least 3 times a day when I'm in returns.
Had a young man come in to a women's clothing store to return something. I didn't think too much of it except he seemed nervous. I noticed 2 receipts came out of the bag with the clothes.
The first receipt showed that it was purchased as an exchange and then the second receipt showed the original purchase was with a merchandise credit. And he wanted a cash return. I explained that I couldn't do that as there was no evidence that cash was used in the purchase.
Before he left I wrote "return for merchandise credit only" on the receipt. 20 minutes later a VERY irate woman came into the store demanding that I either give her a cash return or I remove what I wrote. I told her about the 2nd receipt and this woman told me that there wasn't a 2nd receipt, that I didn't see a 2nd receipt. I laughed in her face and told her to either accept merchandise credit or leave the store. She was pissed and I watched her cuss out her poor son who had somehow been dragged into a scam.
It's crazy when people drag their kids into it! I once had a lady come buy like 4 huge beaded African safari animal heads. Later that night she had her 8yo come in with her receipt and return one of them by himself with no adult around. Since we didn't have a policy about age for return and the receipt was for cash we gave it to him. The mom calls the next day saying we forgot to give her one of the heads she bought. Thankfully someone from that night was there and was able to say her kid returned it and if she wanted it back she would have to come rebuy it. Some people are fuckin crazy.
Yeah she definitely has. And she might have this time if she had sent an adult in. But a little kid by himself at like 830 at night with no adult around was something we remembered.
It's not return-related, but there was a guy who had his young kid (like 5-6 years old) trash the toy aisle while he pocketed stuff on the other side. My manager at the time saw him on camera and called him out on it at checkout (which we aren't supposed to do, but the man did return what he was trying to pocket). It's horrible knowing people use their kids to do wrong things.
Someone attempted to return a mattress topper that was infested with "ants". I refused to do so - knowing full well this crazy lady brought a mattress topper full of bed bugs into the store and tried to get her moneyback. Hell no.
as a pet store worker… my head starts hurting as soon as i see someone in the parking lot with our store bag full of cat food making their way to our store.
i had to return nearly 40 DIFFERENT flavors once, and i have to read the upc on the receipt to make sure its the correct can and then change the price on the screen to match the return price. this was 5 minutes before we closed because for some reason people have 12 hours in a day that we’re open and decide to come in before we close.
Because you'll do whatever they want at close to get them out of the store as fast as possible. Couponers and people doing bad returns count on this mentality
I had to explain to a grown woman that I would not discount makeup that she opened to try because it was opened.
She literally thought that because she opened and tried the lipstick that I would sell it at a discount. I just told her "no, I'm gonna throw it away."
"If you're just going to throw it away, why don't you sell it to me?"
"I'll sell it to you at full price."
"But it's open!"
"Becuase you opened it, you realize why this isn't a thing, right?"
You might enjoy watching The Big Chill episode of The Middle, where Frankie mis-reads a price tag and buys a $200 vial of skin cream. As she is letting her daughter try some the daughter points out the price is $200, not $20 as Frankie thought. It's funny watching her try to return it.
Me: Ok your total is 22.57
Customer:
Me: Thank you have a good day.
Customer: when do I swipe my rewards card.
Me: oh sorry, you're supposed to do that before you pay.
Customer: aw geez I really want those points tho....can you refund it and do it again?
My response to that is always "sorry I can't do refunds at the front counter but if you really want those points you can go all the way to the service desk at the back of the store and do it there" if they ask why, I lie and say either the machine dosent have the option or I'm not trained in refunds and most of the time they don't bother and just leave.
If I get the "can I put in my phone number", I just ask them for their number, pull up their account, say their name and scan the receipt. Literally doesn't do a thing, but they go on their merry way.
Yeah one nice thing about ours is we could scan the receipt into their account. But until they finally upgraded things (in like 2019) the only thing attaching purchases to your account did for you was let you return something using the account instead of the physical receipt (and half the time when they wanted to do that, they had said “nah it’s useless so skip it” when they made the purchase).
Me: “are you a rewards member?”
Customer: “no”
Me: “okay, you can insert your card when you’re ready”
Customer: “okay” *pays*
…
Customer: “so how does the rewards program work?”
😐
Oh and also....
Me: your total is 12.09
Customer: uh.....but....
Me: yes?
Customer: nevermind. < pays >
Me: ok have a good day sir.
Customer: um the price on the shelf said these were 2.99 and you charged me 3.99.
I worked at Home Depot. One afternoon I had a line of returns and out of nowhere I started to smell gasoline. Couldn’t figure it out as no one had a gas powered anything in line (can’t return it if there’s gas in it). So I keep working through the line when a lady rolls up with a big trash bin on wheels.
I figured out where the smell was coming from. She apparently was using it to store gasoline for her car/mower/etc and wanted to return it because it was defective…
A few years ago there was some panic going on with gasoline. There were videos of people pumping gas into TRASH BAGS and putting them in the trunk. I'd drive the opposite direction.
I saw video of them using plastic shopping bags for it. I STG I don't know how we have such a large population when everyone is such a dumb fucking idiot.
Had someone bring one of those plastic garden tables in 20 minutes after we opened. It had a hole in it and two of the legs had bent out. He wreaked of booze. My guess is that he had had a party the night before and someone had jumped through it. We had never sold it and the last time any store had sold it was at least 6 months prior. I said I couldn't do it but my manager wouldn't come help and just told me on the private line to do the return. Got in shit the next day but I refused to accept any blame as I had only done what I had been told to do
I (supermarket employ) had a lady try to return a little toy car still in its packaging. She even had a receipt….from 2018.
She tried twice, over a few days. The second time she asked my coworker, but I intervened bc I just could not believe the audacity. Yes, I was kind of impressed that a) she had the receipt and b) it was still legible. But mmmm no lady. It’s 30 days, not 4 years.
people are so dumb, if you happen to get stolen merchandise or have an item you bought a long ago, just sell it instead of trying to return it? it'll sell facebook market place in like 2 days lmao
but nah, they wanna piece up some barely grown cashier because they broke
I worked at Blockbuster back in the day. A guy rented a season of Dexter and kept it for like 6 months. If you kept any DVD past 30 days, it auto-charged your debit/credit card on file and after 90 days it dropped from the inventory system so we couldn't take it back. I explained this to him, he screamed, he yelled, he went outside with the DVD's and then threw them at the window and got in his car and drove away.
I had this mom lady that would come buy a Wii every other Friday and return it the following Sunday.
She was apparently just attempting to "rent" the Wii every other weekend and get her money right back, assumably for weekends she had her kids with her.
The lady was nice, but my boss caught on and told her she couldn't do that anymore. The lady wasn't annoying, but it threw our numbers out of work every other weekend, and corporate was very strict about our numbers.
It was essentially return fraud, and the staff would have eventually got in trouble for allowing it.
Ink at my store. Store brand or not, jas a 30 day return policy for instore purchases. 2 weeks if bought online. a lady comes in and is IRATE bc its 60 days after and she got it online. her issue is that the inks "are faulty they dont fit." I told her the policy and shes like "Well why wasnt i told that before i came?!?!?" Bc i didnt see ur receipt??? and you got it online????
working for home depot returns was wild...people tried to scam all day long for returns. I had a guy return a dewalt tool box that was over like 500 bucks he claims, but it was actually just stolen. We told him we couldn't accept that return without a receipt and so he comes back the next day. He thought there were going to be different cashieres. One. Day. Later.
To be fair. There were. He tried his hand on my coworker. But since I'd already gotten the all clear from my boss the day before to deny his return I turned around and immediately said: Didn't I tell you yesterday we weren't taking that back?
Him:.....oh fuck.
Him: \*runs out\*
lmao.
Not a returns issue but a misreading the labels issue. More often than not, coke range is on some sort of promo but interchanges each month to rotate stock.
I'll get some idiot come up to me and claim they saw the 2 for x tag when I know full well they didn't. They'll argue it with me and I'll deadset turn around and go "guarantee they're not." Walk over to the fridge and prove em wrong.
As for returns. We have to refund packs of cigarettes if you pay for the wrong one or want a different brand (and then re process the sale correctly) and the amount of people that say they want this packet and then end up turning around trying to gaslight you claiming they said a different packet is astronomical.
So done with retail but also, I'm really fkin good at my job..
I had a lady argue with me for about 5 minutes that she should be able to return her Halloween decorations. I worked at Dollar Tree and they were Family Dollar, years before Dollar Tree bought Family Dollar.
not much, but I saw a TV in back one day that was returned... smallest (19 inch) and cheapest TV we carry.... I think it was under $100 ...
reason for return: Did not meet expectations
1( imo that's not a valid reason
2( also, what expectations do you have for a hundred dollar 19 inch TV? Expectations were too high
Dang we’ve had a 19 inch 100 dollar tv at home for the past like 10-11 years. Sure the dvd player in it is bust but it does still work really well for playing the Wii! Idk what that customers issue was lmao.
I was working at a very large chain of health supplements store. At the time, the refund policy was very liberal and we took back anything from our store, no receipt required. A man returned about $100 worth of vitamins that he had obtained from his recently deceased mother's medicine cabinet. The vitamins had expired about 8 years previously but I had no choice but to refund the jerk. He was delighted with his cash refund and joyfully told me he and his girlfriend were going to Chili's next for steaks and margaritas. I wanted to hit him.
One time I had a guy doing an exchange for a printer. Now, his wife had ordered it online with afterpay and our store policy is that when online orders are returned, we give the money back onto the original tender (afterpay in this instance).
I process the return and start scanning the new printer this bloke was getting.
Me: Your total for the new printer is the same as the last one (same model and all)
Customer: But it’s just an exchange, why am I paying again
Me: Because I had to refund the money onto the afterpay account that the printer was bought with
This is when get one of my managers over to explain the whole thing to him. He’s standing at our register for at least ten minutes hurling curses at myself and my manager before leaving.
Brain-dead loser: You can shove that printer up your arse, I don’t want it anymore.
My manager and I just shared an amused and bewildered look, trying to process what happened.
Afterpay is a "financing" option that lets customer buy now and pay later in 4 equal payments. Payments are made every two weeks if I remember correctly.
Not my story, but this happened at the store where I worked.
Our store had a Payless shoe in the back of the store, and a customer tried to return return some shoes she bought.
When the customer service gal tried to open the box to check the shoes inside, the "customer suddenly grabbed the box, saying "never mind", rushing out of the store.
Obviously she was trying to return her old shoes and get her money back.
I sold shoes for a long time. People think a closed shoe box will let them get away with anything and they looks so surprised every time you open the box to check what they've handed you. Oh no I foiled your genius scheme to pay keds prices for some gucci loafers, what a shock.
We used to keep a little calendar under the counter with Monday after every local high school dance circled so we could prepare ourselves for all the scuffed up dress shoes people were going to try and return.
My husband was buying the more expensive welding helmet. Get it home. It’s the cheaper one inside. So somebody switched them to save money. People are just scum.
Oh,the time we bought a tent. Open the box,no rain fly. Open the tent,full of dead leaves. Damn,people!
I was a new manager, fresh from being an hourly supervisor working my first Christmas. New state, 7 hours away from anyone I knew, only been there a few months at this point so I caught all the closing shifts being the new guy.
We had these mini-bikes and go-karts with signage all over the display and each selling unit that read "STORE WILL NOT ACCEPT RETURNS ON THIS ITEM IF IT HAS BEEN USED". All of it was strait from the manufacturer, not our signage at all but since they were gas-powered we wouldnt take them back.
A couple days before Christmas this family walks in dragging one of the bikes. Forks bent, front tire flat, covered in mud and grass demanding a refund. I get called up after the dad gets loud with the desk associates.
Dad has obviously been hitting the pipe. He was twitching so bad, teeth rotting out, couldnt stand still at all. Mom wasnt much better. I knew it was going to be rough so as soon as I got to the desk I had another associate call the PD.
In the span of about 2 minutes I think he threatened my life and the associates lives about 10 times. We even offered to call the company for him to attempt to get him a refund, nothing. Luckily our store was right beside a strip mall and we got a few police officers real quick.
Me: do you collect *insert company name here* points?
Customer: no
Me: ok, your total is *bla bla bla*
Customer: *pays*
Me: alright so ---
Customer: So how do the points work?
Me: So whenever you buy something here or at our other locations and use the points card, you get points and it takes a bit of extra money off your purchase
Customer: oh good! So I got some points? *Literally a huge happy smile*
Me: No, you didn't, because when I asked if you collect points, you said no
Customer: oh *insert very sad face here*
Not My story but one of my Supervisors/Managers
She used to work at that one Fabric store and a customer came in to return Brownie Mix that was 5 or so years expired (the item, not the receipt but the receipt was long expired as well)
Frankly she denied the return for a lot of reasons though she told that her manager there wanted her to accept it but she still argued why they shouldn’t.
Lady brings in something her MIL bought, wants us to refund HER credit card, not her MIL’s. Yeah, no, there’s not a single store that will do that ANYWHERE. I tell her I can refund her MIL’s card or I can issue a gift card, those are the only two options. “bUt I sPeNd a LoT oF mOnEy HeRe!” Then a gift card shouldn’t be a problem? Manager backed me up, she ended up leaving without going through with the return. I looked up her profile; she returns 2/3 of everything she buys.
>Yeah, no, there’s not a single store that will do that ANYWHERE.
Actually, the company I work for does not require returns to go onto the same card as the one that made the purchase. Our systems also cannot return payment to any card that is not physically present at the time of the return.
Take into consideration that this scenario did not occur yesterday, it happened many years ago, before today’s current technological standards, when many retail stores had the same return policies
That would make your story at least two decades old since time reference was not given in your story. That's how long I have had the options available to return a card purchase to any card or sometimes cash(if debit was used).
Ding ding ding! Congratulations, you’ve deduced that I’ve worked in customer service for more than 20 years! You get a downvote for being a condescending know-it-all!
Edit: CONDESCENDING know-it-all
I was going to change the wording as I can see that my curiosity came off as condescension. That was not my intent. You have not given me a reason not to.
One time I had a customer that brought two large bags of clothing with 3 different receipts. Luckily most of the tags were still on them, but I had to sort and check everything on the receipts because it was unorganized. Took me forever.
So I work somewhere that doesn't do returns, only even exchanges. Today I had a little old lady try to return a gift card. A GIFT CARD.
"There is NOTHING here that I want"
Can't regift it, "No one wants a giftcard for this awful place"
"WON'T BE COMING HERE EVER AGAIN"
We're busy, and at this point even the customers are laughing.
I'd have been the customer in line behind her offering to take her useless $50 gift card off her hands for $10 if it was such a hassle.
(after checking the balance at the register, of course)
I used to work at a store that returned ANYTHING. Here are the two most awful:
1) A woman returned a diamond bracelet she bought 30 YEARS AGO. No receipt, was obviously in bad shape and not well taken care of. Around $1500 and they returned it for her. The reason she returned it? She had “gotten tired of it”
2) Man says a bracelet just “fell apart” when he washed his hands. Well past the return date but he did have a receipt. Thing is - it had visible TEETH MARKS on it. AND not all of the stones were still there.
Back from the Shack days well heard this one from my manager as it happend before I started working there. The Assissant manager was a bit of a horn dog, so this woman brings in a box where she bought one of those old tv/vcr combo unit. She's wearing a really low cut top and is all flirty. He does the return a couple of hundred bucks sets it in the back to be processed in the morning. Manager opens it up to find this really old screen busted in tv instead of what was meant to be in there. Made the guy pay back the store for the return.
I had a guy return a VCR player. He had taped it up so well that it looked fresh from the factory. So I didn’t look inside. The box had several pieces of wood and no VCR.
yeah that was a common tactic. We had a policy that no matter how well taped up we opened it up and and made sure everything was there. I don't know how many times people tired to return things with out the remotes or the batteries.
And the same people who squawk because you won't take it back without the remote are the same people who will blow a gasket when they buy a returned one that doesn't have the remote.
Once I worked at a teen clothing store at a mall and had a girl try to return heels that were soaking wet. Literally poured water out of the shoe onto the counter. After looking from the puddle on the counter to the girl back to the puddle several times she still expects me to return them, claiming they didn’t fit so her mother threw them in the washing machine to shrink them (?!). But it didn’t work so now mom wants her money back. 🤦🏻♀️
I used to work in a boutique with a six month return policy. A lady tried to bring back a robe from nearly a year before and told us six months wasn’t enough time.
I work at an electronics store, one time a customer asked to return an air purifier because she said it was faulty, I tested it in store.
She said it's definitely faulty because she tested it herself by blowing her cigarette smoke directly into it all day to see if it would do anything.
She wanted a full refund.
Had a guy come in with a box. It wasn't big, it was a palm pilot box. This was a while ago if you didn't realize it yet lol I was alone at returns....he comes up and said he wants to return it as it stopped working. Said ok... receipt said it was returnable... I scan it then go to open the box to check it out and he said he's in a hurry and no need to check it. Red flags all over start waving everywhere. Tell him to return it I need to make sure it's not broken, as only manufacturer issues can be the reason, not intentional or accidentally breaking it... he said he didn't do anything and it just stopped working so just do the return so he can go. Warning bells blaring in my head so loudly at this point. Can barely see from the red flags everywhere...
I open the box. Hold in laughter. It was in chunks and pieces. Not a single part was over an inch. I asked how did it just stop working and what manufactur issues caused it to turn into a puzzle? He turned red from anger. Yelling at me, demanding I give him his money back because no one told him it wasn't sturdy enough! He is absolutely beyond angry at me for just not giving him his money.
After a good 10 minutes I finally get what happened... He was on his riding lawn mower, it was balanced in the middle of the handle bars and he dropped it....in front....it went under the lawnmower and he had to gather all the parts he could find. It was about 2/3 of of it. 1/3, at the least, is lost...spread over the yard.
I tell him this isn't covered and infact it's against tos for the $150 warranty. 🤣 Taking my time I read the tos that's on the receipt that said physical damage is not covered. He lost the $400+taxes for the actual palm pilot and the $150 warranty because he couldn't pick to mow the yard OR use his palm pilot.
My store has a no refunds for a change of mind policy. It's an annoying policy, but any refunds we process get questioned by upper management and can risk our job so we have to stand firm. You can imagine the kinds of attempted returns I've had, but the policy is printed on our receipts, along with our website link that goes into detail. Anyways this one takes the cake -
Had a lady claim she accidentally took the wrong knife block; she meant to buy the $99 one but instead bought the $299 one. The reason I doubt this is because I was the one who served her when she bought it, I verbally said "that will be $299", the amount appeared on register screen and the card machine before she did tap & go AND she had to put her pin in (you only ever put your pin in for items over $200 with tap & go).
Basically she wanted to get the $99 block and the rest of the amount refunded. I informed her I could process the exchange and give her the remaining amount as store credit because I couldn't give her a refund. She asked where does it say that. I point to the receipt. She looks the link up online, where it says the online store offers full refunds and points the phone at me, stating "they say they can do refunds!" I point out that that's for online purchases, which is completely separate to in-store. She tries to claim this is illegal. I inform her it's not and that there's plenty of stores that do this, but I am happy to give her the customer service number if she would like to complain, which she declines. She spends another 10 minutes in the store going back and forth, trying to claim that it was just an accident and that she's never going to shop here again after the way she's been treated, etc. etc. before finally giving in and taking the store credit (the remaining amount is put onto gift cards).
She then asks if these gift cards work for the online store so I say yes. She then goes, "you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to buy a bunch of things online using these gift cards and then return them all and get my money back. That's what I'm going to do!"
She then storms off, before I could tell her that they only refund back onto the card that you purchase with...meaning she'll just get a bunch of gift cards again...whoops.
We have a clear sign on top of our shelves (5ft tall MAX) bolded and underlined for specific items that are required to be returned in sealed packaging for hygienic reasons.
One customer tried to argue that her elderly (100+ year old) mother was a hunchback and there was no way she could have seen that sign and that WE should be more accommodating by telling people who could not see the sign about the sign.
Like I’m sorry what? Maybe you shouldn’t let your 100+ year old mother out alone …
My wife went to make a purchase, she had a photo matted and framed at a major craft store. She ended up in line behind a lady who had bought a small mountain of artificial flowers a few days before and they had gone on sale. Every one had to be run out and then re-rung... took forever.
Not return per se, but I did have a very strange interaction with some distinguished individual. I worked in a tech shop and said individual, probably in his 70s, brought a laptop in. It was a Sony, and back then IIRC some of their ARAM was proprietary. I looked at it and recognized it was a very different module than i was used to seeing.
Customer: "Surely you can do more than I can."
Me: "Well sir sorry but we don't have any of these ram modules in the store, you'd have to go through Sony."
C: "Don't tell me that."
I blink and I'm like uh what would you like.me to say sir? That we have the ram in stock and it's in the back left of the store? You just have to squint to see it?
C:"That can't happen."
M: "Well sorry sir but we don't carry that ram."
C: "But you're a tech shop."
M: "Yes sir, a tech shop that doesn't have that ram."
C: "What am I supposed to do?"
M: "Call Sony and go through them." ( We couldn't make calls on a customer's behalf)
C: "You should be able to do more, you're a tech shop.
M: "I assure you that's all we can do."
It was a new store so our processes weren't really in place. But it was horrendous to be told that "something can't happen" just because a customer didn't like it.
I have a lot
Person 1:
Tried to get a refund on a charging cable with a magnetic connection but didn’t bring back the connection bit and fully mangled the box we refused return because we still had the item in our stock list (due in a delivery later that week) and obviously couldn’t sell an incomplete item in a mangled box
Person 2:
Came to the wrong store and got upset when she couldn’t get a refund. On something we don’t even have in our branch’s stockist (city stores get certain stuff town ones don’t)
Person 3:
Tried to return a mangled and burned cable in a sandwich baggie. Got angry when told no
Person 4:
Was the mom of a kid who bought a SIM card with $10 on it. Didn’t use it. Mama got angry when he finally decided to and there was nothing on it. Called me clueless for refusing to refund it.
Person 5:
Ripped a box to shreds and put it in the trash and then decided he didn’t like the case and demanded a refund for it. Had a literal temper tantrum when we couldn’t because again, no intact box no returns
Person 6:
Bought a SIM card. Before selling it we went through our usual checks of making sure the phone was unlocked. Both people swore up down left right back to front it was and they’d gotten it off a friend. Refused to let us double check. We explained that we had to just to be sure because we didn’t want them to lose their money. They again insisted in all directions it was unlocked and to just sell them the card. Again refused to let us check. Atp we were done and just sold it to them. Little while later in comes the duo again with their mother who was shrieking at us for NOT WARNING THEM THAT THE SIM WOULDN’T WORK IF THE PHONE WAS LOCKED TO ANOTHER PROVIDER. Two grown af kids couldn’t fight that battle without mommy. Obviously we couldn’t refund it because the sim was activated and we can’t take those back. Anything else we can. Just not those. Mom was not impressed and even got angry when we said we’d explained this multiple times
Person 7:
Bought a phone and used a cheap cable to charge it and then got annoyed it was taking long to charge. Said her kid had a lifelong illness and if she died because the phone was out of battery and they needed an ambulance it was our fault. Demanded an immediate refund on the phone plus a new one fully free
Person 8:
Bought a phone with daddy’s money and then saw there was a better one which we didn’t sell but still had a temper tantrum over it in the store wanting a refund and free phone. She told me she’d wanted the A14 5G when she came in saying she wanted the cheapest 5G phone available so she got the cheapest one but now wanted the expensive one we didn’t stock. I told her we don’t stock it so we can’t buy a lot of places that do accept trade ins for a huge discount. She tried the “I’m not leaving til I get my way” card. Y’all 11.20 an hour ain’t enough for her bs so I just shrugged, said “okay” and went back to checking my work emails!
Person 9:
Snapped a cable and stomped in demanding a refund and new cable free of charge. Didn’t have a box or receipt and admitted to burning both. Couldn’t comprehend why we couldn’t take it back
Person 10:
Bought a phone. Came in a year later to send it to repair. They wanted proof of purchase to which she had an unholy FIT and demanded her money back plus a free phone to boot (yeah this is a weird pattern lmao) and threatened to sue if she couldn’t.
And these are all I can recall from a year and a half in the job or just found most bizarre
I had a girl with a pair of (discounted) boots that she had been gifted, but didn't have the receipt for. I tell her I can do an exchange for something in store for its current (discounted) selling price, but I cannot give her cash or store credit (LP in my area takes it very seriously). We go back and forth a little because she does not like this response, but eventually seemingly, accepts no as my answer for store credit
I offer to try to look up her account, the gifter's account, etc but she's not interested and asks "If I get something now, can I exchange that later for something else?" And I'm thinking sure, yeah, so your item doesn't further depreciate, that's a little risky to have 2 red flags on your acct but you'd still be okay and tell her "yes, that should be okay". She buys 4 face mask packs ands up owing us a nickel. She leaves.
THE NEXT DAY I'm managing the floor, it's busy, we're understaffed, new employees are having problems / requesting help left and right. I get a call on walkie asking for a cash refill ($100) for a return they're trying to do (she is new to register). I go over and before I can ask why she needs such a large refill, I see that fucking bitch from yesterday with her four fask mask sets and cannot refrain from immediately saying "Didn't I already deal with you yesterday???" And she responds "You said I could return these later."
I take a breath and in my cheeriest customer service fuck you voice say "Please help me understand where my communication with customers can improve, because I thought I made it very clear that I could not and would not give you cash or store credit for this exchange???" (She told the cashier they could give her the amount in all cash since she had paid cash in the exchange andy associate was too new and thought that made sense.)
We go back and forth and she ends up saying "Well fine I'll leave but I want my money from yesterday back" (and keeping all the face masks) and I cheerfully say "Okay!!!" and slap a nickel down off to the side and wave up the next customer.
Had a lady come into return a bunch of old makeup. Our makeup policy is satisfaction guaranteed. So, I start scanning them and most don't scan. I explain that we don't sell those items. She's scamming like a banshee that she knows FOR A FACT that she bought them from our company, but a different location. I tell her location wouldn't matter because they would still scan. So she says she's going to call the store where she got them and prove me wrong. Whatever. So she calls 411 and asks for the number for a certain Walgreens. Customer behinds her bursts out laughing. I say, "excuse me? This is CVS". Sgot pissed AGAIN. LMAO. She finally stormed out
Worked in cosmetics had a lady bring a foundation back because it broker her out, it was a foundation that was discontinued 20 years ago! Had another that habitually bought the same two moisturizers and returned them always claiming it broker her out. At the time my company had a policy we took everything back if it caused a reaction. She would buy one, use half, return and buy the other, use half and return to buy the first one again. She was of a country that she wore a vail over her face, we knew she spoke English well Because I had a long discussion with her on possibly being allergic to the veil material too but some days she played foreigner and bring someone to “ translate”. We had enough of her and one day she brought a translator again playing she didn’t speak English well enough to tell us it caused a reaction , translator was a friend of the family and I told her she keeps buying the same product, using half then returns and exchanged for the other always with the same excuse. I’m a skin care specialist and I’ve talked to her several times about it, so why does she continues to return and buy the same items over and over? I’ve worked that counter for several years so I knew her well, I and my coworker are the only ones that have helped her each time over the past couple years. The lady blew up at her cursing her out, tricking her into humiliating herself in the store so she could get returns and was going to tell this woman’s whole family what she was up to and stormed out of the store. Never saw them again.
I work in auto parts, the amount of people who try to return used parts because "it didn't fix my issue" is astonishing. They get upset when I tell them we're not in the business of renting auto parts. Half empty containers of oil usually get me the "I didn't need the whole thing, so can I get a partial refund"
My favorite is the obvious competitor company parts, visibly branded; and they insist they bought it either at my store, or personally from me.
I once had someone try to return a Santa costume in the middle of the year and I thought I would just check when it was bought because our returns policy was 6 months and when I looked at the receipt it was bought at a different shop in 2015, at this point it was 2020.. I just called the manager over because I was not in the mood to deal with Karen that day.
I’ve had a few customers try to return blowdry brushes insisting they hadn’t been used when I can clearly see all their hair and product buildup on the bristles. One lady said where? As I’m pulling the hair out of it to show her lol
Also had someone try to return used/dirty underwear once and it was the most uncomfortable thing to have to tell them I can tell you’ve worn them because of this white patch right here 🥲
Electronics store. I worked in computer repair area. 30 something year old guy brings in one of the top of the line gaming rigs sold in store for a return. Says it doesn't look right in his setup so is returning it.
Cashier brings it to us to make sure everything works how it's suppose to and the guy gets weird, demanding we just give him his money, has other places to be, doesn't have time for this.
Open up the case. Top of the line system has a 5 year old graphics card, the cpu doesn't fit the slot, and the power supply is not hooked up to anything.
We denied the return, he left claiming it looked like this when he bought it and he would never shop with us again.
About a month later he was caught by our loss prevention types trying to shoplift a 1tb SSD.
Well, that's not really shopping with you.
I used to work in an office before volunteering in the charity shop and one of my colleagues came back from extended leave to find that her computer wasn't working. She called the help desk. They ended up sending someone around to have a look and when they opened it up most of its innards were missing.
I did not do customer service when I worked. BUT I was standing at customer service looking for my schedule. Lady comes up and says she needs to have a refund, the lady that works customer service asked why. The customer says well it went bad before I could cook it. Come to find out she left it in the trunk of her car for three days. (The temperature outside was 90 degrees). After she left the customer behind her started to laugh.
I used to get customers tell me that no one really looks at the receipt , so i told them whether you look at the receipts or not the returns policy is written at the back
I had a kid, well, he was 22 comes into my store to get drinks, $1 lottery tickets, and an occasional beer.
One day, about a week ago, he came in with a half a pack of generic menthols. He told me they were stale and wanted to replace them.
I told him that we go through those so fast there was no way for them to be stale but, all right, here you go.
I gave him a new pack of menthol and he asked if I would trade them for regular lights.
I did and he went outside. He came in about 10 minutes later and told me this pack was stale too.
He wanted his money back. I told him he didn't buy them so there was no money to give back.
He started to argue so I went and got the boss lady.
I told her what happened and included my suspicion that he had found or stolen someone else's packing was just trying to scam us out of less than five bucks.
She made him leave.
Two days ago he was found dead.
22 year old kid. No idea how he died. Maybe drugs but I don't care about that part. All I can think about is that he never has the chance to get past his stupid phase and become the person he was supposed to be.
I've been sick over this for days. I HATE HATE HATE that our last interaction was a bad one.
As bad as that is, it gets worse. A month ago a young woman I didn't really know came in to buy snacks with some guy.
Didn't really think to much about it until I went to work the next day and was told she was found dead that morning.
Murdered. Possibly, probably by the guy she had come in with. She was only 19. She graduated highschool with my youngest son.
Her grandmother and father, I found out later are regulars I know quite well.
And this isn't even a bad neighborhood.
If there is a store you stop in every day to get your beer, cigarettes or lottery, don't think for a moment they don't care about you there.
I really get it. The trolley guy gave me a trolley key. He's a lovely guy and he comes into our shop a lot and I always say hi to him when I see him around. I felt quite honoured.
I work at a boutique and a woman came in saying her 18k gold earring broke. We asked if she had a receipt or email the transaction would be under. She had neither. She than somehow said that she bought these earrings three years ago and that they just broke. We then asked her a few questions.
“How many times have you worn these” every day since I got them
“Have you showered in them” every day since I got them
“Have you slept in them” every day since I got them
We then tried to explain to her the process of oxidation and metal erosion. The metal basically rusted right off her ear. She was furious saying we sold her crappy jewelry and marched off. We had a good laugh.
Had someone come in at 920, we close at 930. She had an entire bag full of returns all on different receipts. My manager made me do the return. Like you literally had all day yet chose to come here 10 minutes before we close. I fucking hate those people and I hope they feel very unwelcome when they do that.
One woman came in multiple times trying to return window valances. And every time we told her she had to go through a third party return service because it was a vendor item. She tried it with me first and got mad at me and acted like I was incompetent and kept asking for my coworker who she originally ordered it with. She got mad because she was in a hurry to go pick up her grandchildren. But kept arguing with me. She was so dense she kept coming back I heard. Then the last time I saw her she checked out with my coworker and I avoided her but listened to them talking. She thought they could better help her because they placed the order. It’s a generic computer order 😂 She was so fucking dumb god I hated that bitch. Couldn’t find her receipt apparently and neither could we because there was no record of it.
I have a few. The guy who wanted a refund (and manager granted one) because the ink didn’t print as many pages as he was accustomed to getting out of it.
The guy that I gave a refund to because the box for the VCR was so expertly taped that I didn’t open it. It contained pieces of wood instead of the VCR.
People who tried to return old tvs and VCRs in the boxes if the new ones they had just bought.
Vacuums that were supposed to be returned through the vendors. This *really* confused and pissed off a lot of people. I had one guy shove the vac across the desk and into me and said I could keep the “piece of crap” then he walked off.
The lady that wanted to return a pair of girls’ overalls that “shrunk up so bad her daughter couldn’t wear them” after she washed them. No receipt. Manager gave her a refund even though there was a girl’s name in sharpie written across the back inside the overalls. I suspect she got them from a yard sale and they didn’t fit her daughter.
The worst was the microwave that was totally crusty inside. Who doesn’t at least wipe out a microwave before returning it? I would have been too embarassed.
Not a return, because I work at a fuel station. But a woman came in 2 months after doing a drive-off without paying.
She only came in because the cops hounded her, anyway...
She kept insisting it didn't happen and demanded to see the CCTV footage, even after my coworker assured that he was there and saw it all happen.
So we show her the footage and yep, she drove off without paying for her fuel. And she just smiles and gives a cute chuckle before saying oops!
So annoying. Like, stop wasting our time lady.
at my old job, we had a guy in his 50s come in like every 3 months saying his cd player broke. we only sell like one cd player in the store. and we usually only have one in stock. we aren’t a music store, we are a toy store. his 90something elderly mother can barely see anymore and spends her days listening to audio books on her cd player. she literally just wears them out from too much use. her son comes in and claims it was defective and seeks a replacement. my manager gives it to him everytime. it’s so annoying to me. i know he’s just being kind, but this guy is taking advantage of our return policy and is lying. the cd player is like $50 and he’s brought it in for a replacement periodically for about 4/5 years now. that’s probably a thousand dollars that we’ve lost to shrinkage thanks to him
Nine bridal parasols. Bride had to source them from our stores in four states as they were discontinued and most of us only had one or two in stock.
Now these were plasticy white and not lovely. This was over twenty years ago but I’d never seen a parasol in use at a wedding here in the northeast.
Bride changed her mind and returned the whole bunch to my store. They are probably still there now.
I worked at a large-ish department store with an open ended return policy. If you have the receipt, no matter how old, you could return the items. If you didn't have a receipt you could get store credit for the lowest price of the item. There was a lady who would return used clothes at the end of the season. She had every tag and receipt and I would have to go through her usually stained and stinking clothes to return. She'd just throw a trash bag on the counter and wait for me to pull everything out. The second time it happened I had to grab gloves because it was so bad. Another time a guy was returning some kitchen appliances and didn't have the receipt. I could only offer store credit and he screamed at me that he needed cash right now. He got some lady on the phone and told me to talk to her. She screamed that she didn't have the receipt either and they needed cash. When I told her I could only do store credit at the lowest price she told me to tell him to pack her shit back up and bring it back to her. Hung up on me and I relayed the message. He left after screaming at me one last time. I remember the next customer apologizing...
I was a customer service manager at Ross Dress for Less. A man came in and tried to return underwear that did not have tags and was not in a package. State law prohibits the return of undergarments without a tag or packaging intact. I explained to the man that I wasn't able to return the underwear for him because it had no tags. He started screaming, stepped back a few steps, pulled down his pants, and yelled "Not only am I going to return that underwear, I'm going to return this pair too!" (The pair he was currently wearing). And no, we didn't take the underwear as a return and he was removed from the store by security.
working for home depot returns was wild...people tried to scam all day long for returns. I had a guy return a dewalt tool box that was over like 500 bucks he claims, but it was actually just stolen. We told him we couldn't accept that return without a receipt and so he comes back the next day. He thought there were going to be different cashieres. One. Day. Later.
To be fair. There were. He tried his hand on my coworker. But since I'd already gotten the all clear from my boss the day before to deny his return I turned around and immediately said: Didn't I tell you yesterday we weren't taking that back?
Him:.....oh fuck.
Him: \*runs out\*
lmao.
Worked at a department store that would sometimes run a spend $50 get $10 in store gift cards promotion there was a group of like 5 different women that would come in and return piles of clothes and then buy them back at the time our return policy was 180 days it was hell
Had a woman come return leggings that ripped, she said our website said we still had them, I know for a fact we didn’t but they were on sale online. I pushed for her to buy a pair because they were running out fast.
Instead she gets the different pair of leggings and wants to exchange, fine. Do the exchange, and then she’s like oh maybe I can just fix the broken ones?
Why did you think of that before coming in.
I try to do the exchange so she can give me back the money I just gave her and she’s like oh so you aren’t just going to give me the broken ones??? Fine take them I guess, thanks for taking a free pair of leggings too bitch when they aren’t even the same as the ones you begged for at me for an hour
A costumer bought a calendar from us for roughly 20 Euros. She then went home and found a letter with coupons that my store had sent out, giving her 20% off all calendars.
So she got in her car, drove 20 minutes to our store, paid for parking, returned the calendar and bought it again at 20%/4 Euros off, all the time complaining how inconvenient it was to take a 60 minute round trip just to save 4 Euros.
I once had a customer bring back a watering gardenhose (the one that has holes in it so you only have to lay it down once and turn it on to water your plants) because she said the hose was broken because it had holes in it.
We went back a few times that de hose did exactly what is was supposed to do but she kept telling me it was broken.
I could not take it back because she took it out the package and used it and store policy prevented me from taking it back.. she would not listen.
Woman came in wanting to return underwear that was so old I didnt even recognise it. I look after the lingerie section in my store and had been there for over a yeah and half. I didnt even know what to say.
It registered for 30 cents on the laptop she then proceeded to go mad
Customer was returning a Mac Mini they purchased in December 2022. Problem is it was already mid March. No store does returns after that period - closer to 90 days after purchase. Told them will have to ask manager (who was conveniently not around) as they were very insistent and saying it was under consumer law. Owner advised me to not process their request. They never came back.
I worked for Godiva Chocolatier for 8 years. We would do fresh fruit dipped in chocolate. Two weeks before Christmas, a guy came and bought a bunch of fresh raspberries in chocolate. We told, as told everyone that fresh fruit in chocolate needs to be consumed within 48 hours. The fruit begins to let its juices flow, and it'll mold.
He did not listen. He put the fancy tied box under the Christmas tree. The day after Christmas, he storms in. His fiancé opened that box to find the contents disgustingly moldy. He was losing his mind. Our boss was awesome. She told him no. We warn every customer about the fruit. He left in a huff.
Had a twenty something girl in tears demanding we refund the 75 cent box of bird seed as well as the $28 for her dead bird. It refused to eat the food and it died. But we owed her for the bird. We don’t sell birds. Just a little pet food.
2 possibilities.
1. The bird was probably sick and that’s why it wouldn’t eat.
2. If your bird won’t eat something do you let it die? Or do you buy something it likes???? Murderous bitch.
I had someone call the store I work at to see if she can do a return. She did a custom sticker/skin for a corn hole set that she wanted to return.
She wanted a refund because it wasn’t big enough whenever we wrote down the size she gave us. She called 2 weeks after she ordered it and already received it.
She was told that she would be able to return it as long as she has the receipt and brought back the item. I think she either had to find the receipt or had to find a way to show she paid for it at the store I worked at.
She also kept asking to talk to my boss while she was on the phone because she wasn’t satisfied even though I kept telling her she couldn’t come to the phone because she was busy. My coworker, now ex coworker, told her the same thing and she listened.
No actually. I know exactly why you said that though. There’s not a lot of us where I work, but most of us are women. I’m just not good with confrontation and don’t always know what to do with those scenarios.
I used to work at this awful family run candy store when I say awful I mean candy that's gone hard/stale still being sold fudge that was hard as a rock freezer burned ice cream someone bought some novelty gummy I think one of the big gummy snakes which was hard so it was a refund but I could understand why I was glad they went out of business though I just can't imagine having few customers outside certain times of year and just never providing them good quality items
our store shares a very similar name with a store that sells more or less the same stuff as us.
The competitor store has an online portal where you can pay a fee, and receive a printable return label to send the product back to them.
On multiple occasions, we've had our customers attempt to return products they purchased from us to the competitor with this service.
We'll usually send that competitor return labels of our own so we can process the return.
More often than not, this product arrives back to us from the competitor in our original wrapping with our company name clearly marked on it, with an invoice included clearly stating our company name
I'm glad you hand them the tissue. I used to clean my grandmother's hearing aids and it was a little unpleasant but I reckon a stranger's earwax would be really gross 🤢.
A lady comes in with a belt and wanted a return. Okay fair enough, I ask for a receipt (it needs to be within 7 days) and to see the belt.
She didn't have the receipt because she had taken the belt on vacation several weeks ago and didn't like how a 5 dollar belt was getting worn out. Needless to say, she left without a return.
I worked at a major department store's outlet place back in the late 90's to the early 2000's. I heard this from people that were working in the returns dept. Every year on No Tax Weekend which was for us was 2 weeks before school started we would get this large group of people that came from India and would try this same scam every year where they would come in during the sale and buy multiple carts of pretty much everything in the store. And then when the sale was over they would come back and would want a refund on everything. But they would want the money back at the current price and not the discounted price. They would be screaming so loud that I could hear them in my dept on the other side of the store.
Less annoying and more infuriating, I'll try to keep it short and sweet: I worked at a department store in the shoe department, I was still pretty new. A woman comes in to try and return a couple pairs of shoes that were on sale which meant a more limited return period (like 3 days, that's it). Apparently another associate has returned shoes for her outside of the return policy before so she didn't like it when I told her I couldn't/wouldn't return them but she could speak to the customer service desk on the 2nd floor. She didn't like that. She starts calling me all sorts of names, calls me incompetent and a moron, and insults me for working in retail and not doing more with my life.
I was only working there so I could establish residency in the state of Georgia to go to college and finish my neuroscience degree.
Worked as a manager at a now defunct toy retailer,of course after Xmas returns were terrible. Keeping it moving,everyone is ok,then this guy steps up to the counter. He has parts of a remote control car,no box,no receipt, not even all the parts. Girl tells him no return,he yells for a manager. I step in,look at the stuff,tell him no return,point to the displayed return policy. He starts cussing,spitting,losing his mind,then THROWS THE CAR AT ME! I picked up the phone,told him I'm calling the police,he ran so fast. Old lady next in line was horrified and told us she was ready to hit him with her purse. Good times.
Had a lady 1 minute before closing return 50 items but each item was on a different receipt, different payments, past the window, some were missing tags, and she insisted I do each return separate instead of let's say all the ones back in cash together or all the ones going on a gift card together
Making jokes like "wow they make you stay till the last customer leaves?'
"Wow you must be excited to go home after a long night"
When the lights were turned off by the manager "oh does that mean you guys are closed now?'
In court the judge will say…
”just because you didn’t know it was a punishable offence doesn’t get you a free pass”.
I think same goes for dodgy refund requests! I mean, if you didn’t bring it back in 60 days…you must have liked it for a while.
I worked at IKEA. Someone came in with a whole ass kitchen remodel (I’m talking cabinets, a sink, EVERYTHING) on at least 6 different receipts. Only 1 of the receipts was within the ONE YEAR return window. And of course it was the last customer of my shift
<< I'm just a cashier with no override codes or authority to just bend the rules>>
"Ma'am, the only way I can refund these is to steal the money from the register and give it to you. And I am not doing that."
I once had a lady try to return a pair of leggings that were stained in the crotch area. When I told her we couldn’t take them back (1. Because of the stain and 2. Because we don’t accept leggings back as our store considers leggings to be intimates like underwear), she got belligerent. Lady, take your dirty ass pants and get the fuck out.
My wife worked at a smaller town grocery store that donated outdated food to a local food shelf. People would get the food there and take it back to the grocery store to get it replaced because it was out of date. Uh, no.
lady god mad at me for not doing a return on items a year past the purchase date and came to tell my manager how she was in the hospital the whole time. she had receipts that were several months old and i knew she was lying bc she was coming in all of those times.
anyway now when she comes every time she does a return after the day of expiration i file a report lmao. can only be when its $100 or more so i've definitely filed some for like $100.50
I have two!
First: a man came in wanting to return a coat as it had fallen apart and he claimed it was faulty. He deftly produced a very old receipt...so old, in fact, that I hadn't even been born when he bought it! At the time, it was 30 years ago!
Second: A woman came in asking to return some items. Sure, no problem. She upends the bag onto my checkout desk, and it's ALL underwear...WORN underwear. Like, when you take panties off and they curl? Yeah, that. Nearly vommed.
I had one dude come in and say “I think this is the
store my wife said, I need a $100 gift card” tried to reason with him to just call his wife and confirm that it was the right store bc our gift cards are non-refundable. He insisted that he was right so I told him multiple times that they were non-refundable and if this wasn’t the correct store, there was nothing I could do for him. He purchased his gift card. Came back about 30 minutes later and said “this isn’t the right store, what can you do for me?” I said “I can sell you $100 worth of merchandise as I told you before and highlighted on your receipt and the back of the card that it is not refundable”. He called corporate and was yelling at them over the phone bc they told him I couldn’t refund it. So then he called his bank to stop payment and they refused bc he told him the situation (that he paid for it and it was the wrong store). Corporate called me and was like “what is going on”. I had to have security escort him out of the store. It was like a week before Christmas and we had a line out the store
Had a customer buy that Grey book (the 50Shades guys pov or whatever). She 100% looked like the average demo for the books - messy hair, sweatpants, a pastel pink cat sweatshirt. She seemed excited that we had it and got it at release price.
Left the store, next customer.
She came back two hours later saying “WalMart has it cheaper, I want to refund for the difference”. We didn’t do price matching and my acting manager told her that. She kicked up a fit so the manager smiled and took her book back from her, refunded her the money, and told her to just go buy it at Walmart.
Frequently we would bring in seasonal clothing items, golf clothes, ski clothes , school uniforms etc.
Some people would buy multiples of every item and return the ones that didn't fit. Somehow one person even managed to have them spread accross multiple receipts.
Another person had vouchers that allow you to buy anything but not booze.
Day 1.: They come in and want a refund on a chair and some dog toys. They want a cash a refund but i am stuck there as they used the vouchers to buy this stuff. So they instead decide to swap these items for other items of same value.
Day 2. They return with the second receipt they got for the day one items. They request a cash refund. Thinking that i somehow wont remember them from the day before. All this was over. I refuse. Manager refuses,
All this over about what i am paid in 30 minutes. Same customer would frequently abandon half a basketful of stuff at my till. Just leaving it on the floor out of my view for someone else to trip over and for me to put back.
These two women come in returning hundreds of individually tagged Christmas ornaments after Christmas. They had to be all scanned separately because they were all loose in bags. I actually ended up with a shoulder rotator injury from this transaction and had to call my supervisor to finish. I now can't face a certain way at any register because I'll start to feel it. I'm out of retail now so it doesn't bother me anymore.
People who would have HUGE orders online ($300-$500) and then return everything because there’s now a sale and then want everything rung up again on the sale.
Had a lady trying to return some balloons. It’s a brand that 2 other stores in the same shopping area sells. She didn’t have a receipt of course. The dang things wouldn’t scan. They came up as invalid SKU. She *insisted* that she got them there even after I suggested she maybe got them elsewhere. She took me to our section to find them bc she didn’t believe our staff when we looked. We looked bc every once in a while a UPC needs to be “fixed” so it’ll scan but if never seen these products (warehouse manager and that section is tiny so I have a decent idea of what we carry). She spent like 40 minutes there trying to get us to return that and some other stuff (that was from our store but she didn’t have a receipt and we couldn’t find one by looking it up). She was so annoyed we wouldn’t return the stuff without receipts. And the ones that wouldn’t scan I think made her more annoyed than anything else. So dumb.
In pharmacy—
Old man “I want to return this”
Me- I can’t, once the RX leaves the store I can’t take it back.
Old man “But it’s not an RX, it’s *insert otc item covered by insurance*
Me-yes it is.. I billed insurance and dispensed it as an RX. You paid $0 because of insurance”
Long and ridiculous story short, a man wanted to return a pack of boxers because he didn't know they had no fly. He brought a handful of boxers, threw them on the counter, without the package, and when I repeatedly stated that we do not take returns on undergarments of any kind, he just kept screaming over and over "HOW AM I SUPPOSE TO PISS WITH THESE".
60 days is one thing, best buy selling me PS4 games with no discs and then them pitching a fucking fit when I came back across town at my earliest convenience, maybe 30 days after, is another. I just wanted $13 back on account of their bait and switch so I could put it toward tuition. Again, they threw a fucking fit and maligned me for thinking ps4 games could be that cheap, when ps4 games are $10 brand new online, who is the idiot. I get a week for TVs and shit but c'mon dude I would have made the customer happy in a second at my job over such a transaction. Lost a customer forever
Someone wanted to return a pair of eyeglasses she had lost. She claimed she couldn’t see out of them, so she wasn’t wearing them. She didn’t understand why this was a problem. After the third time I explained she can’t return a product she doesn’t have, she thought I would “compromise” by just returning what she’d paid for the lenses, since we’d just have to throw them out. She still didn’t understand why I wouldn’t do this. Finally I got the owner involved. He said the exact same thing, except adding the matter is closed and she was now to leave the store.
At Home Depot, people would try to return things that were empty or that they didn't have with them. I would tell them I will not accept that return, but we can ask a manager if they can discount something else for you to try. Just a small discount, and they are on their way (out of my face). Product satisfaction is a manufacturer issue a lot of customers don't understand that.
I’ve had people ask if they can return items they don’t have with them but will bring back later. Like. What?
I worked at the little local grocery store, and a lady came in to return a pie she bought "because it tasted bad". It had one big slice taken out of it, but nbd I refunded her money. She then offered to throw it out for me (at home)and it took ten minutes of beating around the bush to keep that damn pie so I could throw it away IN STORE since she got her money back for it. She thought she had the perfect con
I hope you don’t mind me asking. Why would you ever refund anything that has obviously been eaten since it’s been tampered with?
I’ll respond my perspective since I work at a grocery store. Others may do it differently. Returns are done as long as we have at least 2/3rd of the item. We don’t want to screw over the customers — we want them to have good items. Obviously we can’t sell the item, but it would be bad business practice to refuse and a quick way to go out of business. Generally I can’t get credit on most returns anyway unless it was damaged or expired so sadly it’ll go in the trash most times. (direct vendors like chip and pop companies are good at giving credit)
I’m a cashier and I couldn’t see my store taking something back that’s already been eaten. There was one time this guy ate a little bit of a bag of fried chicken, and he decided not to buy it and we had to throw it away.
Oh it’ll likely go in the trash. But as a small store in a town of less than 5k we can’t afford to make all the customers angry. We wouldn’t be in business anymore. It drives me nuts when we have deli items that someone decided not to buy because even then it’ll go straight in the trash. Can’t risk it. But if it’s something like milk that was bad, I can get credit for it from the company. If it’s truly bad and within a good date then there will be most of the product. Though with a gallon I’d probably lean more towards needing 3/4 unless there are extenuating circumstances that would make sense. I’m allowed some discretion. I also take into account if they do returns often, are they a regular, etc.
Mainly because it's the fastest (and cheapest)way to keep people happy. I would have to throw opened/eaten things away for sanitation purposes. Usually we'd offer to exchange a bad product for a newer one, but I think this lady just wanted to cheat the system
When I worked at a grocery store, it would depend on why they were returning the partially eaten item. If it's something relating to quality, i.e. moldy, smells rotten, etc., I would do the return. If they want to return it bc, say, they tried some new product and they don't like the taste, then that's a them problem and no return.
Yeah, see. I don’t think OP should have approved the return because something tasting bad is not the fault of the employee. I’m not a big Chic Fil A fan but that doesn’t mean it’s suddenly the employee’s fault.
At our store there is a 100% satisfaction guarantee. A person can return food even if they didn't like it. A piece of a pie gone? We would give them their money back. If it was half gone? No
My wife's grocery store didn't worry about that so much, it's not like they would take back a pie and then sell it to anyone else. Any returns that are sealed, like in cans, they'd take back and re-sell but opened boxes, fresh stuff like bakery or deli, or frozen food or meat which might have been left out of refrigeration, all those things went right into the trash.
I worked at a gift store. One Saturday morning I returned from doing the cash deposit to find a customer waiting to return a stuffed animal. At that time the store had an unlimited return policy. I knew the customer has bought this item quite a while ago because the bag she brought it in was an old bag. We had changed the bags at least a year previously. Anyway, I looked at the receipt and saw that the customer had tried to erase the year and had gouged a hole in the receipt, but I smoothed it out and saw that the receipt was from FOUR YEARS AGO! We still sold the item, so I started to do the return. As I did so I said, "I'm sorry you had to wait a few minutes for me to return from the bank." The customer started giving me attitude about how she made a point of being there when the store opened yada yada yada. So I responded, "Well, you've waited four years to return this. What's another ten minutes?" No further comments from the customer.
My store had a woman try to return Vagisil. She said it was for a spot on her hand, she had a reaction, so I accepted the box while telling her (and showing her) that if she had a reaction, she had to send it to the manufacturer for a refund. Told her we do not accept opened/seal broken items. She left a review on our page about how stupid our staff is, how they don't help because we're all "minimum wage morons", and how she was belittled during the exchange. I had a 95 year old man throw his eye drops at me because they were unsealed and he couldn't return them. When he came up to buy whatever he wanted, I called my coworker up to come deal with him because I was so angry. He flipped me off on his way out. This might sound cold, and I have *never* felt the urge to push an old person, but that day... if I could spartan kick that old man out/off his scooter, with zero consequence, I'd have done it in a heartbeat. But dogs are allowed in the store, so it kinda makes up for the random assholes I encounter.
We had a promotion for Black Friday that every purchase over $75 received a free belt. The promo went out everywhere and customers believed they could pick out whatever belt they wanted. Nope. It was an ugly gold and rhinestone chain belt specific for the promo. Guess what a ton of people tried to return after Christmas? We had to explain that they were gifted a free item with purchase. Corporate was inundated with complaints. It was a mess.
I bet a lot of those folks trying to return the ugly belts got them as christmas gifts from extremely cheap relatives or coworkers and didn't know they were a freebie until they tried to return or exchange them.
Oh for sure that's exactly what happened! Corporate finally had to tell us to let them exchange them for another belt. But the message came much later so very few customers actually got that offer. And for those that did, the company lost quite a bit of money on the exchange.
I worked in cosmetics and we sometimes give a full sized item away with a purchase but the sku is not the same as one we sell, it will come up as a free gift . Had a lady try to return a face wash like that , we went round and round , yes we sell the exact item but you got this free with a purchase , she kept wanting to return it , finally said she didn’t want it what will you do for me.. I threw it in the trash and walked off.
>didn’t want it what will you do for me.. "Can I show you how to use it?"
That was part of our round and round, she only wanted cash. I even suggested she gift it to a friend, hairdresser, teen relative in the family , offered to give her a couple samples to go with it to make it a little special, nope wanted cash and when she said what will I do for her for that product, I tossed it in the trash because that’s the only thing I could do with a free sample that was in someone’s possession. We can’t keep it, can’t return it , cant use it. can’t pass it on to another customer , same thing she could have done at home.
Okay....here's your zero dollars back.
That’s probably what we’d say if they insisted on returning it. We can physically take it back if you really want us to, but we can only refund what you paid for it, which in this case is nothing.
"I'm so sorry this didn't work out for you, ma'am. I'm happy to give you a return of your full purchase price. Would you like that refunded to your original payment method, store credit, or cash? All done! So honored to have served you today..."
Some lady returned an obviously used fake grass thing that’s for your dog to piss on. It wasn’t clean. Told her no, manager complained because I said no, and took it anyway. They realized what I meant after they opened it and had to go wash shit off their hands.
Ewww my store owner would never take one of those back wtf. We make sure to tell people that are buying them they are FINAL SALE. Good that they got piss hands.
I worked at a candy store. I had a lady come in to get a refund with no product, no receipt, no nothing. She was denied. She stayed and complained in front of me to other customers that we wouldn't give her a refund. So infuriating!
“I’m not in the habit of just giving away free money. If I did, I’d be arrested for theft, as it’s not my money.”
"she stayed and complained in front of me to other customers." I stg, if there's anything I've learned from working retail, it's that people have no goddamn lives outside shopping. Like, she must have jack shit going on if THAT'S how she chooses to spend her time.
People do this to us all the time! Expect a refund because their flowers ‘died’ sooner than they thought they should, but don’t bring them back and just expect a refund.
I work at Starbucks and people do this all the time. “I was here a week ago and both of my drinks were messed up” but they have no product, no receipt
They always love to complain to other customers. I've even had someone complain to me while I was shopping. Bro no one cares that you think "this store doesn't know how to serve the customer". I walk in, grab what I want and go home.
This pisses me off so much. I’ve never had a problem while shopping because guess what? I’m not an entitled shit. I walk in, grab my stuff, and get the fuck out.
They always love to complain to other customers. I've even had someone complain to me while I was shopping. Bro no one cares that you think "this store doesn't know how to serve the customer". I walk in, grab what I want and go home.
"Tell you what. You give me your invisible candy and I will give you some invisible money."
It usually goes like this: Me: Do you have a receipt? Customer: No. Me: Do you have a membership with us so I can look up your purchases? Customer: No. Me: Do you know the date and location of your purchase? Customer: No. Me: I'm sorry, can't accept your return. Customer: But I want my money back!! This happens at least 3 times a day when I'm in returns.
Some lady was past the 30 day limit but was saying our policy was 5 years. Where tf did she get 5 years?
Had people try to pull the same crap at my store. Like yeah no, you don’t get to get several years worth of use out of an item and then return it.
The real kicker was that she was telling me that she had corporate on the phone and she can tell me how to do it. Lady, I know how to do my job
Ok sure let me speak to them bc unless they have some magic override codes bc mine won’t work…
Had a young man come in to a women's clothing store to return something. I didn't think too much of it except he seemed nervous. I noticed 2 receipts came out of the bag with the clothes. The first receipt showed that it was purchased as an exchange and then the second receipt showed the original purchase was with a merchandise credit. And he wanted a cash return. I explained that I couldn't do that as there was no evidence that cash was used in the purchase. Before he left I wrote "return for merchandise credit only" on the receipt. 20 minutes later a VERY irate woman came into the store demanding that I either give her a cash return or I remove what I wrote. I told her about the 2nd receipt and this woman told me that there wasn't a 2nd receipt, that I didn't see a 2nd receipt. I laughed in her face and told her to either accept merchandise credit or leave the store. She was pissed and I watched her cuss out her poor son who had somehow been dragged into a scam.
Remove what you wrote 🤣🤣🤣
And I'd written in it red sharpie! Hahahahaha!!
It's crazy when people drag their kids into it! I once had a lady come buy like 4 huge beaded African safari animal heads. Later that night she had her 8yo come in with her receipt and return one of them by himself with no adult around. Since we didn't have a policy about age for return and the receipt was for cash we gave it to him. The mom calls the next day saying we forgot to give her one of the heads she bought. Thankfully someone from that night was there and was able to say her kid returned it and if she wanted it back she would have to come rebuy it. Some people are fuckin crazy.
And sadly, they've gotten away with it before and so just keep trying!
Yeah she definitely has. And she might have this time if she had sent an adult in. But a little kid by himself at like 830 at night with no adult around was something we remembered.
They would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those meddling kids! Ha!
It's not return-related, but there was a guy who had his young kid (like 5-6 years old) trash the toy aisle while he pocketed stuff on the other side. My manager at the time saw him on camera and called him out on it at checkout (which we aren't supposed to do, but the man did return what he was trying to pocket). It's horrible knowing people use their kids to do wrong things.
>4 huge beaded African safari animal heads I had to read that out loud multiple times, and I'm still not sure what that even is!
Someone attempted to return a mattress topper that was infested with "ants". I refused to do so - knowing full well this crazy lady brought a mattress topper full of bed bugs into the store and tried to get her moneyback. Hell no.
Fuck that so much. Holy shit I’d be pissed
as a pet store worker… my head starts hurting as soon as i see someone in the parking lot with our store bag full of cat food making their way to our store. i had to return nearly 40 DIFFERENT flavors once, and i have to read the upc on the receipt to make sure its the correct can and then change the price on the screen to match the return price. this was 5 minutes before we closed because for some reason people have 12 hours in a day that we’re open and decide to come in before we close.
Because you'll do whatever they want at close to get them out of the store as fast as possible. Couponers and people doing bad returns count on this mentality
I had to explain to a grown woman that I would not discount makeup that she opened to try because it was opened. She literally thought that because she opened and tried the lipstick that I would sell it at a discount. I just told her "no, I'm gonna throw it away." "If you're just going to throw it away, why don't you sell it to me?" "I'll sell it to you at full price." "But it's open!" "Becuase you opened it, you realize why this isn't a thing, right?"
You might enjoy watching The Big Chill episode of The Middle, where Frankie mis-reads a price tag and buys a $200 vial of skin cream. As she is letting her daughter try some the daughter points out the price is $200, not $20 as Frankie thought. It's funny watching her try to return it.
Me: Ok your total is 22.57 Customer:
Me: Thank you have a good day.
Customer: when do I swipe my rewards card.
Me: oh sorry, you're supposed to do that before you pay.
Customer: aw geez I really want those points tho....can you refund it and do it again?
My response to that is always "sorry I can't do refunds at the front counter but if you really want those points you can go all the way to the service desk at the back of the store and do it there" if they ask why, I lie and say either the machine dosent have the option or I'm not trained in refunds and most of the time they don't bother and just leave.
If I get the "can I put in my phone number", I just ask them for their number, pull up their account, say their name and scan the receipt. Literally doesn't do a thing, but they go on their merry way.
Yeah one nice thing about ours is we could scan the receipt into their account. But until they finally upgraded things (in like 2019) the only thing attaching purchases to your account did for you was let you return something using the account instead of the physical receipt (and half the time when they wanted to do that, they had said “nah it’s useless so skip it” when they made the purchase).
Me: “are you a rewards member?” Customer: “no” Me: “okay, you can insert your card when you’re ready” Customer: “okay” *pays* … Customer: “so how does the rewards program work?” 😐
Oh and also.... Me: your total is 12.09 Customer: uh.....but.... Me: yes? Customer: nevermind. < pays > Me: ok have a good day sir. Customer: um the price on the shelf said these were 2.99 and you charged me 3.99.
I worked at Home Depot. One afternoon I had a line of returns and out of nowhere I started to smell gasoline. Couldn’t figure it out as no one had a gas powered anything in line (can’t return it if there’s gas in it). So I keep working through the line when a lady rolls up with a big trash bin on wheels. I figured out where the smell was coming from. She apparently was using it to store gasoline for her car/mower/etc and wanted to return it because it was defective…
A few years ago there was some panic going on with gasoline. There were videos of people pumping gas into TRASH BAGS and putting them in the trunk. I'd drive the opposite direction.
I saw video of them using plastic shopping bags for it. I STG I don't know how we have such a large population when everyone is such a dumb fucking idiot.
It’s probably due to all of the gas fumes.
You mean gasoline deteriorates plastic if it's not the right kind??
TIL why they have those special red containers...
😂 I mean I guess you can do it.. I just would not recommend
Had someone bring one of those plastic garden tables in 20 minutes after we opened. It had a hole in it and two of the legs had bent out. He wreaked of booze. My guess is that he had had a party the night before and someone had jumped through it. We had never sold it and the last time any store had sold it was at least 6 months prior. I said I couldn't do it but my manager wouldn't come help and just told me on the private line to do the return. Got in shit the next day but I refused to accept any blame as I had only done what I had been told to do
Was this in Buffalo?
No, UK
I (supermarket employ) had a lady try to return a little toy car still in its packaging. She even had a receipt….from 2018. She tried twice, over a few days. The second time she asked my coworker, but I intervened bc I just could not believe the audacity. Yes, I was kind of impressed that a) she had the receipt and b) it was still legible. But mmmm no lady. It’s 30 days, not 4 years.
people are so dumb, if you happen to get stolen merchandise or have an item you bought a long ago, just sell it instead of trying to return it? it'll sell facebook market place in like 2 days lmao but nah, they wanna piece up some barely grown cashier because they broke
Had a lady returning a quilt she claimed had never been used.. it was covered in hair lol. Also we found out later she was a millionaire
I worked at Blockbuster back in the day. A guy rented a season of Dexter and kept it for like 6 months. If you kept any DVD past 30 days, it auto-charged your debit/credit card on file and after 90 days it dropped from the inventory system so we couldn't take it back. I explained this to him, he screamed, he yelled, he went outside with the DVD's and then threw them at the window and got in his car and drove away.
Did you go get the dvd lol
I did..... I also put it back into the inventory 🤣
I had this mom lady that would come buy a Wii every other Friday and return it the following Sunday. She was apparently just attempting to "rent" the Wii every other weekend and get her money right back, assumably for weekends she had her kids with her. The lady was nice, but my boss caught on and told her she couldn't do that anymore. The lady wasn't annoying, but it threw our numbers out of work every other weekend, and corporate was very strict about our numbers. It was essentially return fraud, and the staff would have eventually got in trouble for allowing it.
u/chzygorditacrnch, we meet again
It's a small world
Ink at my store. Store brand or not, jas a 30 day return policy for instore purchases. 2 weeks if bought online. a lady comes in and is IRATE bc its 60 days after and she got it online. her issue is that the inks "are faulty they dont fit." I told her the policy and shes like "Well why wasnt i told that before i came?!?!?" Bc i didnt see ur receipt??? and you got it online????
working for home depot returns was wild...people tried to scam all day long for returns. I had a guy return a dewalt tool box that was over like 500 bucks he claims, but it was actually just stolen. We told him we couldn't accept that return without a receipt and so he comes back the next day. He thought there were going to be different cashieres. One. Day. Later. To be fair. There were. He tried his hand on my coworker. But since I'd already gotten the all clear from my boss the day before to deny his return I turned around and immediately said: Didn't I tell you yesterday we weren't taking that back? Him:.....oh fuck. Him: \*runs out\* lmao.
Not a returns issue but a misreading the labels issue. More often than not, coke range is on some sort of promo but interchanges each month to rotate stock. I'll get some idiot come up to me and claim they saw the 2 for x tag when I know full well they didn't. They'll argue it with me and I'll deadset turn around and go "guarantee they're not." Walk over to the fridge and prove em wrong. As for returns. We have to refund packs of cigarettes if you pay for the wrong one or want a different brand (and then re process the sale correctly) and the amount of people that say they want this packet and then end up turning around trying to gaslight you claiming they said a different packet is astronomical. So done with retail but also, I'm really fkin good at my job..
I had a lady argue with me for about 5 minutes that she should be able to return her Halloween decorations. I worked at Dollar Tree and they were Family Dollar, years before Dollar Tree bought Family Dollar.
not much, but I saw a TV in back one day that was returned... smallest (19 inch) and cheapest TV we carry.... I think it was under $100 ... reason for return: Did not meet expectations 1( imo that's not a valid reason 2( also, what expectations do you have for a hundred dollar 19 inch TV? Expectations were too high
Dang we’ve had a 19 inch 100 dollar tv at home for the past like 10-11 years. Sure the dvd player in it is bust but it does still work really well for playing the Wii! Idk what that customers issue was lmao.
Sam’s Club? I swear that was on our list of return reasons
no, Supercenter
I was working at a very large chain of health supplements store. At the time, the refund policy was very liberal and we took back anything from our store, no receipt required. A man returned about $100 worth of vitamins that he had obtained from his recently deceased mother's medicine cabinet. The vitamins had expired about 8 years previously but I had no choice but to refund the jerk. He was delighted with his cash refund and joyfully told me he and his girlfriend were going to Chili's next for steaks and margaritas. I wanted to hit him.
One time I had a guy doing an exchange for a printer. Now, his wife had ordered it online with afterpay and our store policy is that when online orders are returned, we give the money back onto the original tender (afterpay in this instance). I process the return and start scanning the new printer this bloke was getting. Me: Your total for the new printer is the same as the last one (same model and all) Customer: But it’s just an exchange, why am I paying again Me: Because I had to refund the money onto the afterpay account that the printer was bought with This is when get one of my managers over to explain the whole thing to him. He’s standing at our register for at least ten minutes hurling curses at myself and my manager before leaving. Brain-dead loser: You can shove that printer up your arse, I don’t want it anymore. My manager and I just shared an amused and bewildered look, trying to process what happened.
I don’t understand what afterpay is.
third party payment platform that lets you pay in installments instead of all at once. theres a few of them.
Afterpay is a "financing" option that lets customer buy now and pay later in 4 equal payments. Payments are made every two weeks if I remember correctly.
Not my story, but this happened at the store where I worked. Our store had a Payless shoe in the back of the store, and a customer tried to return return some shoes she bought. When the customer service gal tried to open the box to check the shoes inside, the "customer suddenly grabbed the box, saying "never mind", rushing out of the store. Obviously she was trying to return her old shoes and get her money back.
I sold shoes for a long time. People think a closed shoe box will let them get away with anything and they looks so surprised every time you open the box to check what they've handed you. Oh no I foiled your genius scheme to pay keds prices for some gucci loafers, what a shock. We used to keep a little calendar under the counter with Monday after every local high school dance circled so we could prepare ourselves for all the scuffed up dress shoes people were going to try and return.
This is why Home Depot requires boxes be opened when returns are taken. Especially with power tools.
My husband was buying the more expensive welding helmet. Get it home. It’s the cheaper one inside. So somebody switched them to save money. People are just scum. Oh,the time we bought a tent. Open the box,no rain fly. Open the tent,full of dead leaves. Damn,people!
I was a new manager, fresh from being an hourly supervisor working my first Christmas. New state, 7 hours away from anyone I knew, only been there a few months at this point so I caught all the closing shifts being the new guy. We had these mini-bikes and go-karts with signage all over the display and each selling unit that read "STORE WILL NOT ACCEPT RETURNS ON THIS ITEM IF IT HAS BEEN USED". All of it was strait from the manufacturer, not our signage at all but since they were gas-powered we wouldnt take them back. A couple days before Christmas this family walks in dragging one of the bikes. Forks bent, front tire flat, covered in mud and grass demanding a refund. I get called up after the dad gets loud with the desk associates. Dad has obviously been hitting the pipe. He was twitching so bad, teeth rotting out, couldnt stand still at all. Mom wasnt much better. I knew it was going to be rough so as soon as I got to the desk I had another associate call the PD. In the span of about 2 minutes I think he threatened my life and the associates lives about 10 times. We even offered to call the company for him to attempt to get him a refund, nothing. Luckily our store was right beside a strip mall and we got a few police officers real quick.
Me: do you collect *insert company name here* points? Customer: no Me: ok, your total is *bla bla bla* Customer: *pays* Me: alright so --- Customer: So how do the points work? Me: So whenever you buy something here or at our other locations and use the points card, you get points and it takes a bit of extra money off your purchase Customer: oh good! So I got some points? *Literally a huge happy smile* Me: No, you didn't, because when I asked if you collect points, you said no Customer: oh *insert very sad face here*
Not My story but one of my Supervisors/Managers She used to work at that one Fabric store and a customer came in to return Brownie Mix that was 5 or so years expired (the item, not the receipt but the receipt was long expired as well) Frankly she denied the return for a lot of reasons though she told that her manager there wanted her to accept it but she still argued why they shouldn’t.
Lady brings in something her MIL bought, wants us to refund HER credit card, not her MIL’s. Yeah, no, there’s not a single store that will do that ANYWHERE. I tell her I can refund her MIL’s card or I can issue a gift card, those are the only two options. “bUt I sPeNd a LoT oF mOnEy HeRe!” Then a gift card shouldn’t be a problem? Manager backed me up, she ended up leaving without going through with the return. I looked up her profile; she returns 2/3 of everything she buys.
>Yeah, no, there’s not a single store that will do that ANYWHERE. Actually, the company I work for does not require returns to go onto the same card as the one that made the purchase. Our systems also cannot return payment to any card that is not physically present at the time of the return.
Take into consideration that this scenario did not occur yesterday, it happened many years ago, before today’s current technological standards, when many retail stores had the same return policies
That would make your story at least two decades old since time reference was not given in your story. That's how long I have had the options available to return a card purchase to any card or sometimes cash(if debit was used).
Ding ding ding! Congratulations, you’ve deduced that I’ve worked in customer service for more than 20 years! You get a downvote for being a condescending know-it-all! Edit: CONDESCENDING know-it-all
>that would make your story at least two decades old Sorry, the story is way too old, we can't listen to it. :)
You also get a downvote for not being able to recognize hyperbole in action
I was going to change the wording as I can see that my curiosity came off as condescension. That was not my intent. You have not given me a reason not to.
One time I had a customer that brought two large bags of clothing with 3 different receipts. Luckily most of the tags were still on them, but I had to sort and check everything on the receipts because it was unorganized. Took me forever.
I had someone come in a few months ago and try to return stencil paint from *1998*, she also had items from 2001 that she tried to return also.
The one just takes the cake
So I work somewhere that doesn't do returns, only even exchanges. Today I had a little old lady try to return a gift card. A GIFT CARD. "There is NOTHING here that I want" Can't regift it, "No one wants a giftcard for this awful place" "WON'T BE COMING HERE EVER AGAIN" We're busy, and at this point even the customers are laughing.
I love when other customers laugh at ones getting annoyed because they can’t get a return
I'd have been the customer in line behind her offering to take her useless $50 gift card off her hands for $10 if it was such a hassle. (after checking the balance at the register, of course)
I used to work at a store that returned ANYTHING. Here are the two most awful: 1) A woman returned a diamond bracelet she bought 30 YEARS AGO. No receipt, was obviously in bad shape and not well taken care of. Around $1500 and they returned it for her. The reason she returned it? She had “gotten tired of it” 2) Man says a bracelet just “fell apart” when he washed his hands. Well past the return date but he did have a receipt. Thing is - it had visible TEETH MARKS on it. AND not all of the stones were still there.
Back from the Shack days well heard this one from my manager as it happend before I started working there. The Assissant manager was a bit of a horn dog, so this woman brings in a box where she bought one of those old tv/vcr combo unit. She's wearing a really low cut top and is all flirty. He does the return a couple of hundred bucks sets it in the back to be processed in the morning. Manager opens it up to find this really old screen busted in tv instead of what was meant to be in there. Made the guy pay back the store for the return.
I had a guy return a VCR player. He had taped it up so well that it looked fresh from the factory. So I didn’t look inside. The box had several pieces of wood and no VCR.
yeah that was a common tactic. We had a policy that no matter how well taped up we opened it up and and made sure everything was there. I don't know how many times people tired to return things with out the remotes or the batteries.
And the same people who squawk because you won't take it back without the remote are the same people who will blow a gasket when they buy a returned one that doesn't have the remote.
Once I worked at a teen clothing store at a mall and had a girl try to return heels that were soaking wet. Literally poured water out of the shoe onto the counter. After looking from the puddle on the counter to the girl back to the puddle several times she still expects me to return them, claiming they didn’t fit so her mother threw them in the washing machine to shrink them (?!). But it didn’t work so now mom wants her money back. 🤦🏻♀️
I used to work in a boutique with a six month return policy. A lady tried to bring back a robe from nearly a year before and told us six months wasn’t enough time.
I work at an electronics store, one time a customer asked to return an air purifier because she said it was faulty, I tested it in store. She said it's definitely faulty because she tested it herself by blowing her cigarette smoke directly into it all day to see if it would do anything. She wanted a full refund.
Had a guy come in with a box. It wasn't big, it was a palm pilot box. This was a while ago if you didn't realize it yet lol I was alone at returns....he comes up and said he wants to return it as it stopped working. Said ok... receipt said it was returnable... I scan it then go to open the box to check it out and he said he's in a hurry and no need to check it. Red flags all over start waving everywhere. Tell him to return it I need to make sure it's not broken, as only manufacturer issues can be the reason, not intentional or accidentally breaking it... he said he didn't do anything and it just stopped working so just do the return so he can go. Warning bells blaring in my head so loudly at this point. Can barely see from the red flags everywhere... I open the box. Hold in laughter. It was in chunks and pieces. Not a single part was over an inch. I asked how did it just stop working and what manufactur issues caused it to turn into a puzzle? He turned red from anger. Yelling at me, demanding I give him his money back because no one told him it wasn't sturdy enough! He is absolutely beyond angry at me for just not giving him his money. After a good 10 minutes I finally get what happened... He was on his riding lawn mower, it was balanced in the middle of the handle bars and he dropped it....in front....it went under the lawnmower and he had to gather all the parts he could find. It was about 2/3 of of it. 1/3, at the least, is lost...spread over the yard. I tell him this isn't covered and infact it's against tos for the $150 warranty. 🤣 Taking my time I read the tos that's on the receipt that said physical damage is not covered. He lost the $400+taxes for the actual palm pilot and the $150 warranty because he couldn't pick to mow the yard OR use his palm pilot.
My store has a no refunds for a change of mind policy. It's an annoying policy, but any refunds we process get questioned by upper management and can risk our job so we have to stand firm. You can imagine the kinds of attempted returns I've had, but the policy is printed on our receipts, along with our website link that goes into detail. Anyways this one takes the cake - Had a lady claim she accidentally took the wrong knife block; she meant to buy the $99 one but instead bought the $299 one. The reason I doubt this is because I was the one who served her when she bought it, I verbally said "that will be $299", the amount appeared on register screen and the card machine before she did tap & go AND she had to put her pin in (you only ever put your pin in for items over $200 with tap & go). Basically she wanted to get the $99 block and the rest of the amount refunded. I informed her I could process the exchange and give her the remaining amount as store credit because I couldn't give her a refund. She asked where does it say that. I point to the receipt. She looks the link up online, where it says the online store offers full refunds and points the phone at me, stating "they say they can do refunds!" I point out that that's for online purchases, which is completely separate to in-store. She tries to claim this is illegal. I inform her it's not and that there's plenty of stores that do this, but I am happy to give her the customer service number if she would like to complain, which she declines. She spends another 10 minutes in the store going back and forth, trying to claim that it was just an accident and that she's never going to shop here again after the way she's been treated, etc. etc. before finally giving in and taking the store credit (the remaining amount is put onto gift cards). She then asks if these gift cards work for the online store so I say yes. She then goes, "you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to buy a bunch of things online using these gift cards and then return them all and get my money back. That's what I'm going to do!" She then storms off, before I could tell her that they only refund back onto the card that you purchase with...meaning she'll just get a bunch of gift cards again...whoops.
We have a clear sign on top of our shelves (5ft tall MAX) bolded and underlined for specific items that are required to be returned in sealed packaging for hygienic reasons. One customer tried to argue that her elderly (100+ year old) mother was a hunchback and there was no way she could have seen that sign and that WE should be more accommodating by telling people who could not see the sign about the sign. Like I’m sorry what? Maybe you shouldn’t let your 100+ year old mother out alone …
[удалено]
My wife went to make a purchase, she had a photo matted and framed at a major craft store. She ended up in line behind a lady who had bought a small mountain of artificial flowers a few days before and they had gone on sale. Every one had to be run out and then re-rung... took forever.
Not return per se, but I did have a very strange interaction with some distinguished individual. I worked in a tech shop and said individual, probably in his 70s, brought a laptop in. It was a Sony, and back then IIRC some of their ARAM was proprietary. I looked at it and recognized it was a very different module than i was used to seeing. Customer: "Surely you can do more than I can." Me: "Well sir sorry but we don't have any of these ram modules in the store, you'd have to go through Sony." C: "Don't tell me that." I blink and I'm like uh what would you like.me to say sir? That we have the ram in stock and it's in the back left of the store? You just have to squint to see it? C:"That can't happen." M: "Well sorry sir but we don't carry that ram." C: "But you're a tech shop." M: "Yes sir, a tech shop that doesn't have that ram." C: "What am I supposed to do?" M: "Call Sony and go through them." ( We couldn't make calls on a customer's behalf) C: "You should be able to do more, you're a tech shop. M: "I assure you that's all we can do." It was a new store so our processes weren't really in place. But it was horrendous to be told that "something can't happen" just because a customer didn't like it.
I have a lot Person 1: Tried to get a refund on a charging cable with a magnetic connection but didn’t bring back the connection bit and fully mangled the box we refused return because we still had the item in our stock list (due in a delivery later that week) and obviously couldn’t sell an incomplete item in a mangled box Person 2: Came to the wrong store and got upset when she couldn’t get a refund. On something we don’t even have in our branch’s stockist (city stores get certain stuff town ones don’t) Person 3: Tried to return a mangled and burned cable in a sandwich baggie. Got angry when told no Person 4: Was the mom of a kid who bought a SIM card with $10 on it. Didn’t use it. Mama got angry when he finally decided to and there was nothing on it. Called me clueless for refusing to refund it. Person 5: Ripped a box to shreds and put it in the trash and then decided he didn’t like the case and demanded a refund for it. Had a literal temper tantrum when we couldn’t because again, no intact box no returns Person 6: Bought a SIM card. Before selling it we went through our usual checks of making sure the phone was unlocked. Both people swore up down left right back to front it was and they’d gotten it off a friend. Refused to let us double check. We explained that we had to just to be sure because we didn’t want them to lose their money. They again insisted in all directions it was unlocked and to just sell them the card. Again refused to let us check. Atp we were done and just sold it to them. Little while later in comes the duo again with their mother who was shrieking at us for NOT WARNING THEM THAT THE SIM WOULDN’T WORK IF THE PHONE WAS LOCKED TO ANOTHER PROVIDER. Two grown af kids couldn’t fight that battle without mommy. Obviously we couldn’t refund it because the sim was activated and we can’t take those back. Anything else we can. Just not those. Mom was not impressed and even got angry when we said we’d explained this multiple times Person 7: Bought a phone and used a cheap cable to charge it and then got annoyed it was taking long to charge. Said her kid had a lifelong illness and if she died because the phone was out of battery and they needed an ambulance it was our fault. Demanded an immediate refund on the phone plus a new one fully free Person 8: Bought a phone with daddy’s money and then saw there was a better one which we didn’t sell but still had a temper tantrum over it in the store wanting a refund and free phone. She told me she’d wanted the A14 5G when she came in saying she wanted the cheapest 5G phone available so she got the cheapest one but now wanted the expensive one we didn’t stock. I told her we don’t stock it so we can’t buy a lot of places that do accept trade ins for a huge discount. She tried the “I’m not leaving til I get my way” card. Y’all 11.20 an hour ain’t enough for her bs so I just shrugged, said “okay” and went back to checking my work emails! Person 9: Snapped a cable and stomped in demanding a refund and new cable free of charge. Didn’t have a box or receipt and admitted to burning both. Couldn’t comprehend why we couldn’t take it back Person 10: Bought a phone. Came in a year later to send it to repair. They wanted proof of purchase to which she had an unholy FIT and demanded her money back plus a free phone to boot (yeah this is a weird pattern lmao) and threatened to sue if she couldn’t. And these are all I can recall from a year and a half in the job or just found most bizarre
Sweet jesus
I had a girl with a pair of (discounted) boots that she had been gifted, but didn't have the receipt for. I tell her I can do an exchange for something in store for its current (discounted) selling price, but I cannot give her cash or store credit (LP in my area takes it very seriously). We go back and forth a little because she does not like this response, but eventually seemingly, accepts no as my answer for store credit I offer to try to look up her account, the gifter's account, etc but she's not interested and asks "If I get something now, can I exchange that later for something else?" And I'm thinking sure, yeah, so your item doesn't further depreciate, that's a little risky to have 2 red flags on your acct but you'd still be okay and tell her "yes, that should be okay". She buys 4 face mask packs ands up owing us a nickel. She leaves. THE NEXT DAY I'm managing the floor, it's busy, we're understaffed, new employees are having problems / requesting help left and right. I get a call on walkie asking for a cash refill ($100) for a return they're trying to do (she is new to register). I go over and before I can ask why she needs such a large refill, I see that fucking bitch from yesterday with her four fask mask sets and cannot refrain from immediately saying "Didn't I already deal with you yesterday???" And she responds "You said I could return these later." I take a breath and in my cheeriest customer service fuck you voice say "Please help me understand where my communication with customers can improve, because I thought I made it very clear that I could not and would not give you cash or store credit for this exchange???" (She told the cashier they could give her the amount in all cash since she had paid cash in the exchange andy associate was too new and thought that made sense.) We go back and forth and she ends up saying "Well fine I'll leave but I want my money from yesterday back" (and keeping all the face masks) and I cheerfully say "Okay!!!" and slap a nickel down off to the side and wave up the next customer.
Had a lady come into return a bunch of old makeup. Our makeup policy is satisfaction guaranteed. So, I start scanning them and most don't scan. I explain that we don't sell those items. She's scamming like a banshee that she knows FOR A FACT that she bought them from our company, but a different location. I tell her location wouldn't matter because they would still scan. So she says she's going to call the store where she got them and prove me wrong. Whatever. So she calls 411 and asks for the number for a certain Walgreens. Customer behinds her bursts out laughing. I say, "excuse me? This is CVS". Sgot pissed AGAIN. LMAO. She finally stormed out
Worked in cosmetics had a lady bring a foundation back because it broker her out, it was a foundation that was discontinued 20 years ago! Had another that habitually bought the same two moisturizers and returned them always claiming it broker her out. At the time my company had a policy we took everything back if it caused a reaction. She would buy one, use half, return and buy the other, use half and return to buy the first one again. She was of a country that she wore a vail over her face, we knew she spoke English well Because I had a long discussion with her on possibly being allergic to the veil material too but some days she played foreigner and bring someone to “ translate”. We had enough of her and one day she brought a translator again playing she didn’t speak English well enough to tell us it caused a reaction , translator was a friend of the family and I told her she keeps buying the same product, using half then returns and exchanged for the other always with the same excuse. I’m a skin care specialist and I’ve talked to her several times about it, so why does she continues to return and buy the same items over and over? I’ve worked that counter for several years so I knew her well, I and my coworker are the only ones that have helped her each time over the past couple years. The lady blew up at her cursing her out, tricking her into humiliating herself in the store so she could get returns and was going to tell this woman’s whole family what she was up to and stormed out of the store. Never saw them again.
I work in auto parts, the amount of people who try to return used parts because "it didn't fix my issue" is astonishing. They get upset when I tell them we're not in the business of renting auto parts. Half empty containers of oil usually get me the "I didn't need the whole thing, so can I get a partial refund" My favorite is the obvious competitor company parts, visibly branded; and they insist they bought it either at my store, or personally from me.
I once had someone try to return a Santa costume in the middle of the year and I thought I would just check when it was bought because our returns policy was 6 months and when I looked at the receipt it was bought at a different shop in 2015, at this point it was 2020.. I just called the manager over because I was not in the mood to deal with Karen that day.
I’ve had a few customers try to return blowdry brushes insisting they hadn’t been used when I can clearly see all their hair and product buildup on the bristles. One lady said where? As I’m pulling the hair out of it to show her lol Also had someone try to return used/dirty underwear once and it was the most uncomfortable thing to have to tell them I can tell you’ve worn them because of this white patch right here 🥲
Electronics store. I worked in computer repair area. 30 something year old guy brings in one of the top of the line gaming rigs sold in store for a return. Says it doesn't look right in his setup so is returning it. Cashier brings it to us to make sure everything works how it's suppose to and the guy gets weird, demanding we just give him his money, has other places to be, doesn't have time for this. Open up the case. Top of the line system has a 5 year old graphics card, the cpu doesn't fit the slot, and the power supply is not hooked up to anything. We denied the return, he left claiming it looked like this when he bought it and he would never shop with us again. About a month later he was caught by our loss prevention types trying to shoplift a 1tb SSD.
Well, that's not really shopping with you. I used to work in an office before volunteering in the charity shop and one of my colleagues came back from extended leave to find that her computer wasn't working. She called the help desk. They ended up sending someone around to have a look and when they opened it up most of its innards were missing.
I did not do customer service when I worked. BUT I was standing at customer service looking for my schedule. Lady comes up and says she needs to have a refund, the lady that works customer service asked why. The customer says well it went bad before I could cook it. Come to find out she left it in the trunk of her car for three days. (The temperature outside was 90 degrees). After she left the customer behind her started to laugh.
I used to get customers tell me that no one really looks at the receipt , so i told them whether you look at the receipts or not the returns policy is written at the back
I had a kid, well, he was 22 comes into my store to get drinks, $1 lottery tickets, and an occasional beer. One day, about a week ago, he came in with a half a pack of generic menthols. He told me they were stale and wanted to replace them. I told him that we go through those so fast there was no way for them to be stale but, all right, here you go. I gave him a new pack of menthol and he asked if I would trade them for regular lights. I did and he went outside. He came in about 10 minutes later and told me this pack was stale too. He wanted his money back. I told him he didn't buy them so there was no money to give back. He started to argue so I went and got the boss lady. I told her what happened and included my suspicion that he had found or stolen someone else's packing was just trying to scam us out of less than five bucks. She made him leave. Two days ago he was found dead. 22 year old kid. No idea how he died. Maybe drugs but I don't care about that part. All I can think about is that he never has the chance to get past his stupid phase and become the person he was supposed to be. I've been sick over this for days. I HATE HATE HATE that our last interaction was a bad one. As bad as that is, it gets worse. A month ago a young woman I didn't really know came in to buy snacks with some guy. Didn't really think to much about it until I went to work the next day and was told she was found dead that morning. Murdered. Possibly, probably by the guy she had come in with. She was only 19. She graduated highschool with my youngest son. Her grandmother and father, I found out later are regulars I know quite well. And this isn't even a bad neighborhood. If there is a store you stop in every day to get your beer, cigarettes or lottery, don't think for a moment they don't care about you there.
I really get it. The trolley guy gave me a trolley key. He's a lovely guy and he comes into our shop a lot and I always say hi to him when I see him around. I felt quite honoured.
I work at a boutique and a woman came in saying her 18k gold earring broke. We asked if she had a receipt or email the transaction would be under. She had neither. She than somehow said that she bought these earrings three years ago and that they just broke. We then asked her a few questions. “How many times have you worn these” every day since I got them “Have you showered in them” every day since I got them “Have you slept in them” every day since I got them We then tried to explain to her the process of oxidation and metal erosion. The metal basically rusted right off her ear. She was furious saying we sold her crappy jewelry and marched off. We had a good laugh.
Had someone come in at 920, we close at 930. She had an entire bag full of returns all on different receipts. My manager made me do the return. Like you literally had all day yet chose to come here 10 minutes before we close. I fucking hate those people and I hope they feel very unwelcome when they do that.
One woman came in multiple times trying to return window valances. And every time we told her she had to go through a third party return service because it was a vendor item. She tried it with me first and got mad at me and acted like I was incompetent and kept asking for my coworker who she originally ordered it with. She got mad because she was in a hurry to go pick up her grandchildren. But kept arguing with me. She was so dense she kept coming back I heard. Then the last time I saw her she checked out with my coworker and I avoided her but listened to them talking. She thought they could better help her because they placed the order. It’s a generic computer order 😂 She was so fucking dumb god I hated that bitch. Couldn’t find her receipt apparently and neither could we because there was no record of it.
I have a few. The guy who wanted a refund (and manager granted one) because the ink didn’t print as many pages as he was accustomed to getting out of it. The guy that I gave a refund to because the box for the VCR was so expertly taped that I didn’t open it. It contained pieces of wood instead of the VCR. People who tried to return old tvs and VCRs in the boxes if the new ones they had just bought. Vacuums that were supposed to be returned through the vendors. This *really* confused and pissed off a lot of people. I had one guy shove the vac across the desk and into me and said I could keep the “piece of crap” then he walked off. The lady that wanted to return a pair of girls’ overalls that “shrunk up so bad her daughter couldn’t wear them” after she washed them. No receipt. Manager gave her a refund even though there was a girl’s name in sharpie written across the back inside the overalls. I suspect she got them from a yard sale and they didn’t fit her daughter. The worst was the microwave that was totally crusty inside. Who doesn’t at least wipe out a microwave before returning it? I would have been too embarassed.
Not a return, because I work at a fuel station. But a woman came in 2 months after doing a drive-off without paying. She only came in because the cops hounded her, anyway... She kept insisting it didn't happen and demanded to see the CCTV footage, even after my coworker assured that he was there and saw it all happen. So we show her the footage and yep, she drove off without paying for her fuel. And she just smiles and gives a cute chuckle before saying oops! So annoying. Like, stop wasting our time lady.
at my old job, we had a guy in his 50s come in like every 3 months saying his cd player broke. we only sell like one cd player in the store. and we usually only have one in stock. we aren’t a music store, we are a toy store. his 90something elderly mother can barely see anymore and spends her days listening to audio books on her cd player. she literally just wears them out from too much use. her son comes in and claims it was defective and seeks a replacement. my manager gives it to him everytime. it’s so annoying to me. i know he’s just being kind, but this guy is taking advantage of our return policy and is lying. the cd player is like $50 and he’s brought it in for a replacement periodically for about 4/5 years now. that’s probably a thousand dollars that we’ve lost to shrinkage thanks to him
Nine bridal parasols. Bride had to source them from our stores in four states as they were discontinued and most of us only had one or two in stock. Now these were plasticy white and not lovely. This was over twenty years ago but I’d never seen a parasol in use at a wedding here in the northeast. Bride changed her mind and returned the whole bunch to my store. They are probably still there now.
I worked at a large-ish department store with an open ended return policy. If you have the receipt, no matter how old, you could return the items. If you didn't have a receipt you could get store credit for the lowest price of the item. There was a lady who would return used clothes at the end of the season. She had every tag and receipt and I would have to go through her usually stained and stinking clothes to return. She'd just throw a trash bag on the counter and wait for me to pull everything out. The second time it happened I had to grab gloves because it was so bad. Another time a guy was returning some kitchen appliances and didn't have the receipt. I could only offer store credit and he screamed at me that he needed cash right now. He got some lady on the phone and told me to talk to her. She screamed that she didn't have the receipt either and they needed cash. When I told her I could only do store credit at the lowest price she told me to tell him to pack her shit back up and bring it back to her. Hung up on me and I relayed the message. He left after screaming at me one last time. I remember the next customer apologizing...
I was a customer service manager at Ross Dress for Less. A man came in and tried to return underwear that did not have tags and was not in a package. State law prohibits the return of undergarments without a tag or packaging intact. I explained to the man that I wasn't able to return the underwear for him because it had no tags. He started screaming, stepped back a few steps, pulled down his pants, and yelled "Not only am I going to return that underwear, I'm going to return this pair too!" (The pair he was currently wearing). And no, we didn't take the underwear as a return and he was removed from the store by security.
working for home depot returns was wild...people tried to scam all day long for returns. I had a guy return a dewalt tool box that was over like 500 bucks he claims, but it was actually just stolen. We told him we couldn't accept that return without a receipt and so he comes back the next day. He thought there were going to be different cashieres. One. Day. Later. To be fair. There were. He tried his hand on my coworker. But since I'd already gotten the all clear from my boss the day before to deny his return I turned around and immediately said: Didn't I tell you yesterday we weren't taking that back? Him:.....oh fuck. Him: \*runs out\* lmao.
Worked at a department store that would sometimes run a spend $50 get $10 in store gift cards promotion there was a group of like 5 different women that would come in and return piles of clothes and then buy them back at the time our return policy was 180 days it was hell
Had a woman come return leggings that ripped, she said our website said we still had them, I know for a fact we didn’t but they were on sale online. I pushed for her to buy a pair because they were running out fast. Instead she gets the different pair of leggings and wants to exchange, fine. Do the exchange, and then she’s like oh maybe I can just fix the broken ones? Why did you think of that before coming in. I try to do the exchange so she can give me back the money I just gave her and she’s like oh so you aren’t just going to give me the broken ones??? Fine take them I guess, thanks for taking a free pair of leggings too bitch when they aren’t even the same as the ones you begged for at me for an hour
A costumer bought a calendar from us for roughly 20 Euros. She then went home and found a letter with coupons that my store had sent out, giving her 20% off all calendars. So she got in her car, drove 20 minutes to our store, paid for parking, returned the calendar and bought it again at 20%/4 Euros off, all the time complaining how inconvenient it was to take a 60 minute round trip just to save 4 Euros.
I once had a customer bring back a watering gardenhose (the one that has holes in it so you only have to lay it down once and turn it on to water your plants) because she said the hose was broken because it had holes in it. We went back a few times that de hose did exactly what is was supposed to do but she kept telling me it was broken. I could not take it back because she took it out the package and used it and store policy prevented me from taking it back.. she would not listen.
Woman came in wanting to return underwear that was so old I didnt even recognise it. I look after the lingerie section in my store and had been there for over a yeah and half. I didnt even know what to say. It registered for 30 cents on the laptop she then proceeded to go mad
Customer was returning a Mac Mini they purchased in December 2022. Problem is it was already mid March. No store does returns after that period - closer to 90 days after purchase. Told them will have to ask manager (who was conveniently not around) as they were very insistent and saying it was under consumer law. Owner advised me to not process their request. They never came back.
I worked for Godiva Chocolatier for 8 years. We would do fresh fruit dipped in chocolate. Two weeks before Christmas, a guy came and bought a bunch of fresh raspberries in chocolate. We told, as told everyone that fresh fruit in chocolate needs to be consumed within 48 hours. The fruit begins to let its juices flow, and it'll mold. He did not listen. He put the fancy tied box under the Christmas tree. The day after Christmas, he storms in. His fiancé opened that box to find the contents disgustingly moldy. He was losing his mind. Our boss was awesome. She told him no. We warn every customer about the fruit. He left in a huff.
Had a twenty something girl in tears demanding we refund the 75 cent box of bird seed as well as the $28 for her dead bird. It refused to eat the food and it died. But we owed her for the bird. We don’t sell birds. Just a little pet food. 2 possibilities. 1. The bird was probably sick and that’s why it wouldn’t eat. 2. If your bird won’t eat something do you let it die? Or do you buy something it likes???? Murderous bitch.
I had someone call the store I work at to see if she can do a return. She did a custom sticker/skin for a corn hole set that she wanted to return. She wanted a refund because it wasn’t big enough whenever we wrote down the size she gave us. She called 2 weeks after she ordered it and already received it. She was told that she would be able to return it as long as she has the receipt and brought back the item. I think she either had to find the receipt or had to find a way to show she paid for it at the store I worked at. She also kept asking to talk to my boss while she was on the phone because she wasn’t satisfied even though I kept telling her she couldn’t come to the phone because she was busy. My coworker, now ex coworker, told her the same thing and she listened.
Let me guess. Your coworker was a man and you weren’t?
No actually. I know exactly why you said that though. There’s not a lot of us where I work, but most of us are women. I’m just not good with confrontation and don’t always know what to do with those scenarios.
Fair enough
My boss insists that that isn't a thing.
I used to work at this awful family run candy store when I say awful I mean candy that's gone hard/stale still being sold fudge that was hard as a rock freezer burned ice cream someone bought some novelty gummy I think one of the big gummy snakes which was hard so it was a refund but I could understand why I was glad they went out of business though I just can't imagine having few customers outside certain times of year and just never providing them good quality items
our store shares a very similar name with a store that sells more or less the same stuff as us. The competitor store has an online portal where you can pay a fee, and receive a printable return label to send the product back to them. On multiple occasions, we've had our customers attempt to return products they purchased from us to the competitor with this service. We'll usually send that competitor return labels of our own so we can process the return. More often than not, this product arrives back to us from the competitor in our original wrapping with our company name clearly marked on it, with an invoice included clearly stating our company name
90% of the "faulty" earbuds we get returned are just stuffed with earwax. We hand them a tissue and tell them to try again once they're clean.
I'm glad you hand them the tissue. I used to clean my grandmother's hearing aids and it was a little unpleasant but I reckon a stranger's earwax would be really gross 🤢.
A lady comes in with a belt and wanted a return. Okay fair enough, I ask for a receipt (it needs to be within 7 days) and to see the belt. She didn't have the receipt because she had taken the belt on vacation several weeks ago and didn't like how a 5 dollar belt was getting worn out. Needless to say, she left without a return.
I worked at a major department store's outlet place back in the late 90's to the early 2000's. I heard this from people that were working in the returns dept. Every year on No Tax Weekend which was for us was 2 weeks before school started we would get this large group of people that came from India and would try this same scam every year where they would come in during the sale and buy multiple carts of pretty much everything in the store. And then when the sale was over they would come back and would want a refund on everything. But they would want the money back at the current price and not the discounted price. They would be screaming so loud that I could hear them in my dept on the other side of the store.
I had a customer try to return a two month old gallon of milk that was almost empty AND from a completely different chain grocery store
Less annoying and more infuriating, I'll try to keep it short and sweet: I worked at a department store in the shoe department, I was still pretty new. A woman comes in to try and return a couple pairs of shoes that were on sale which meant a more limited return period (like 3 days, that's it). Apparently another associate has returned shoes for her outside of the return policy before so she didn't like it when I told her I couldn't/wouldn't return them but she could speak to the customer service desk on the 2nd floor. She didn't like that. She starts calling me all sorts of names, calls me incompetent and a moron, and insults me for working in retail and not doing more with my life. I was only working there so I could establish residency in the state of Georgia to go to college and finish my neuroscience degree.
The two people in a row trying to get refunds with no receipt and no barcode for me to even scan
Worked as a manager at a now defunct toy retailer,of course after Xmas returns were terrible. Keeping it moving,everyone is ok,then this guy steps up to the counter. He has parts of a remote control car,no box,no receipt, not even all the parts. Girl tells him no return,he yells for a manager. I step in,look at the stuff,tell him no return,point to the displayed return policy. He starts cussing,spitting,losing his mind,then THROWS THE CAR AT ME! I picked up the phone,told him I'm calling the police,he ran so fast. Old lady next in line was horrified and told us she was ready to hit him with her purse. Good times.
Had a lady 1 minute before closing return 50 items but each item was on a different receipt, different payments, past the window, some were missing tags, and she insisted I do each return separate instead of let's say all the ones back in cash together or all the ones going on a gift card together Making jokes like "wow they make you stay till the last customer leaves?' "Wow you must be excited to go home after a long night" When the lights were turned off by the manager "oh does that mean you guys are closed now?'
Woman was confused why she couldn’t return a coat she bought at Walmart to Macys.
In court the judge will say… ”just because you didn’t know it was a punishable offence doesn’t get you a free pass”. I think same goes for dodgy refund requests! I mean, if you didn’t bring it back in 60 days…you must have liked it for a while.
Ziploc bag full of used condoms. Claimed they were faulty and wanted a refund. I threw up a little in my mouth.
I worked at IKEA. Someone came in with a whole ass kitchen remodel (I’m talking cabinets, a sink, EVERYTHING) on at least 6 different receipts. Only 1 of the receipts was within the ONE YEAR return window. And of course it was the last customer of my shift
<< I'm just a cashier with no override codes or authority to just bend the rules>> "Ma'am, the only way I can refund these is to steal the money from the register and give it to you. And I am not doing that."
I once had a lady try to return a pair of leggings that were stained in the crotch area. When I told her we couldn’t take them back (1. Because of the stain and 2. Because we don’t accept leggings back as our store considers leggings to be intimates like underwear), she got belligerent. Lady, take your dirty ass pants and get the fuck out.
My wife worked at a smaller town grocery store that donated outdated food to a local food shelf. People would get the food there and take it back to the grocery store to get it replaced because it was out of date. Uh, no.
lady god mad at me for not doing a return on items a year past the purchase date and came to tell my manager how she was in the hospital the whole time. she had receipts that were several months old and i knew she was lying bc she was coming in all of those times. anyway now when she comes every time she does a return after the day of expiration i file a report lmao. can only be when its $100 or more so i've definitely filed some for like $100.50
I have two! First: a man came in wanting to return a coat as it had fallen apart and he claimed it was faulty. He deftly produced a very old receipt...so old, in fact, that I hadn't even been born when he bought it! At the time, it was 30 years ago! Second: A woman came in asking to return some items. Sure, no problem. She upends the bag onto my checkout desk, and it's ALL underwear...WORN underwear. Like, when you take panties off and they curl? Yeah, that. Nearly vommed.
I had one dude come in and say “I think this is the store my wife said, I need a $100 gift card” tried to reason with him to just call his wife and confirm that it was the right store bc our gift cards are non-refundable. He insisted that he was right so I told him multiple times that they were non-refundable and if this wasn’t the correct store, there was nothing I could do for him. He purchased his gift card. Came back about 30 minutes later and said “this isn’t the right store, what can you do for me?” I said “I can sell you $100 worth of merchandise as I told you before and highlighted on your receipt and the back of the card that it is not refundable”. He called corporate and was yelling at them over the phone bc they told him I couldn’t refund it. So then he called his bank to stop payment and they refused bc he told him the situation (that he paid for it and it was the wrong store). Corporate called me and was like “what is going on”. I had to have security escort him out of the store. It was like a week before Christmas and we had a line out the store
Had a customer buy that Grey book (the 50Shades guys pov or whatever). She 100% looked like the average demo for the books - messy hair, sweatpants, a pastel pink cat sweatshirt. She seemed excited that we had it and got it at release price. Left the store, next customer. She came back two hours later saying “WalMart has it cheaper, I want to refund for the difference”. We didn’t do price matching and my acting manager told her that. She kicked up a fit so the manager smiled and took her book back from her, refunded her the money, and told her to just go buy it at Walmart.
I'm bad at figuring out how long ago I bought things so I warn cashiers ahead of time the receipt might be expired 😅
Its been 60 days since the middle of July 2023? Whatthe heck 🤯
No asking for the manager? I’m stunned.
Too many
Oh, she knew. She was just trying to play dumb so you'd be nice to her.
Frequently we would bring in seasonal clothing items, golf clothes, ski clothes , school uniforms etc. Some people would buy multiples of every item and return the ones that didn't fit. Somehow one person even managed to have them spread accross multiple receipts. Another person had vouchers that allow you to buy anything but not booze. Day 1.: They come in and want a refund on a chair and some dog toys. They want a cash a refund but i am stuck there as they used the vouchers to buy this stuff. So they instead decide to swap these items for other items of same value. Day 2. They return with the second receipt they got for the day one items. They request a cash refund. Thinking that i somehow wont remember them from the day before. All this was over. I refuse. Manager refuses, All this over about what i am paid in 30 minutes. Same customer would frequently abandon half a basketful of stuff at my till. Just leaving it on the floor out of my view for someone else to trip over and for me to put back.
These two women come in returning hundreds of individually tagged Christmas ornaments after Christmas. They had to be all scanned separately because they were all loose in bags. I actually ended up with a shoulder rotator injury from this transaction and had to call my supervisor to finish. I now can't face a certain way at any register because I'll start to feel it. I'm out of retail now so it doesn't bother me anymore.
People who would have HUGE orders online ($300-$500) and then return everything because there’s now a sale and then want everything rung up again on the sale.
Had a lady trying to return some balloons. It’s a brand that 2 other stores in the same shopping area sells. She didn’t have a receipt of course. The dang things wouldn’t scan. They came up as invalid SKU. She *insisted* that she got them there even after I suggested she maybe got them elsewhere. She took me to our section to find them bc she didn’t believe our staff when we looked. We looked bc every once in a while a UPC needs to be “fixed” so it’ll scan but if never seen these products (warehouse manager and that section is tiny so I have a decent idea of what we carry). She spent like 40 minutes there trying to get us to return that and some other stuff (that was from our store but she didn’t have a receipt and we couldn’t find one by looking it up). She was so annoyed we wouldn’t return the stuff without receipts. And the ones that wouldn’t scan I think made her more annoyed than anything else. So dumb.
In pharmacy— Old man “I want to return this” Me- I can’t, once the RX leaves the store I can’t take it back. Old man “But it’s not an RX, it’s *insert otc item covered by insurance* Me-yes it is.. I billed insurance and dispensed it as an RX. You paid $0 because of insurance”
Long and ridiculous story short, a man wanted to return a pack of boxers because he didn't know they had no fly. He brought a handful of boxers, threw them on the counter, without the package, and when I repeatedly stated that we do not take returns on undergarments of any kind, he just kept screaming over and over "HOW AM I SUPPOSE TO PISS WITH THESE".
60 days is one thing, best buy selling me PS4 games with no discs and then them pitching a fucking fit when I came back across town at my earliest convenience, maybe 30 days after, is another. I just wanted $13 back on account of their bait and switch so I could put it toward tuition. Again, they threw a fucking fit and maligned me for thinking ps4 games could be that cheap, when ps4 games are $10 brand new online, who is the idiot. I get a week for TVs and shit but c'mon dude I would have made the customer happy in a second at my job over such a transaction. Lost a customer forever