She Needed These Clothes And She Needed Them Now
Leszek Glasner/Shutterstock
My manager not only hates rude customers but hates rude customers who are mean to his employees. He basically says the same thing I did, but then tells her just to leave if she’s not going to purchase anything.
She ended up begging us to let her try on the clothes outside the store…in an open parking lot…so she could buy them… We said no. By far the weirdest request we’ve gotten from a customer.”
The Customer Is Always Right
liubomir/Shutterstock
“I used to work at a little Gothic clothing shop where they sold corsets, dresses, t-shirts, etc. I once had a really huge guy come in, pretty dang overweight, and he asked for a corset. For himself. He also wanted to try it on.
We did have a little changing room but corsets are tricky to get into at the best of times, so he was definitely going to need some help. Not wanting to upset him or make him feel bad (I could tell it was quite a big deal for him to ask), I had to try and help him into this thing. It was a Gothic lacy corset, mainly black and there were some red bits. Both of us couldn’t fit in the changing room so I had to work around the curtain to help him. Long story short: it was a bloody battle but in the end, he was delighted. Thank god because he was fairly sweaty and I didn’t really want to put it back on the shelves. I rang up the sale and he paid.
Next, he wanted a bag. The owner was an idiot and didn’t want to pay out for bags but, of course, this poor man didn’t want to walk all the way through the shopping center clutching a rather large corset. I had to run next door to the pet shop to borrow a bin bag for the poor guy. I hope he was happy with it in the end.
Still, 17-year-old me having to squeeze a middle-aged very large sweaty guy into a seductive lace corset that was a trial. Yes, I could’ve refused but I really needed the sale and he looked so nervous I didn’t want to say no and ruin his day.”
Never A Dull Day In Kohl’s
“I used to be a manager at a department store. One day I’m called to customer service, and this larger lady immediately starts railing into me about how she ‘asked for the store’s buyer.’ The customer service girl mumbles about how she told the customer we don’t have that. Lady continues railing into me about how she demands to speak to the person who buys for the store.
This is a freaking Kohl’s. Obviously, Kohls has a buyer. On a corporate level. Which I explained to this lady. She was upset that the local store did not have a buyer who picked out the clothes that we at that local store sold. Which I explained to her how the merchandise was chosen by corporate and shipped to us each week and we really didn’t have any control about what exactly was carried in the store. This is not a freaking Saks Fifth Avenue or some high-end store.
I keep explaining to this lady that the store does not have a ‘buyer’ and trying to ascertain her problem. However, she ‘doesn’t want to speak to a manager, only the buyer.’ I finally am able to walk her through the process about how corporate sends us a truck every week with merchandise and we have zero control over what it sent, and that it’s primarily based on our demographics.
She acts like that is the most ridiculous thing she has ever heard. But, she finally agrees to talk to me about her problem.
She tells me that the plus size section is far too small. I again tell her that we have no control over that, that the amount allocated to each section is based on corporate data. I use the example of how our local demographic of women who shop here is primarily older women of average size (US 6-18), and thus the ‘misses classic’ section is fairly large. Of course, throughout all this, I am apologizing for her unhappiness and trying to offer suggestions, like how the online store carries significantly more styles in plus sizes.
She continues to just go off on me about how ridiculous it is that we carry ‘so little in plus size’ (actually it was a rather large selection, but was half the size of misses classic) and how absurd it is that we don’t have someone who hand selects our clothing that is carried in the store and how unfair it is that we don’t cater to plus size people. The icing on the cake was when she huffed and declared that our plus size fashions looked like ‘poor people in the 50s’ (like what does that even mean?).
So the craziest demand someone ever made of me was to speak to a person who didn’t exist and to refuse to believe that that person didn’t exist.
I have a lot of stories from that place, like the three different women who insisted on showing me their chests in the middle of the store to ask about bra or blouse recommendations. The best one was this cute guy wheeling his grandma around in her wheelchair, bra shopping for her, and he was flirting with me. Then gramma lifted up her shirt to ask me about her chest, and he, mortified, wheeled her out of the store immediately.”
When All Else Fails, These Rude Customers Won’t Hesitate To Yelp
aradaphotography/Shutterstock
“I worked at a small local menswear store in New York and a woman came in and bought her brother that lived in Tucson a sweater for his birthday. A few months later, I get a phone call from some guy saying he’d like to return a sweater his sister gave him but he doesn’t want her to know so can I please credit his credit card instead of hers so she won’t find out. Unfortunately, the garment was also missing the tags and there was no receipt. I politely explained that the store policy was a ten-day exchange or store credit with the accompanying receipt.
Unfortunately, we were well past that threshold, there was no receipt (only the sticker on the paper gift wrapping telling the store’s name) and on top of that, he didn’t want the payment reverted to his sister’s account. This dude starts screaming at me over the phone about my poor customer service and that he’s a SHERIFF and demanding better service. He then abruptly hangs up and writes a scathing Yelp review about my obstinacy and lack of customer service. Of course, I got in trouble and had a stern talking to about the incident was made to be the scapegoat because I was following the written directions that were posted literally directly above my head every day in that shop.”
This Lady’s Purchase Showed Her Scandalous History
Edw/Shutterstock
“I was working at Nordstrom in a big west coast city in the accessories department. It was towards closing time and a woman and a man walked into my department. I overheard her telling him to go look at the men’s clothing while she looked at scarves. He agreed and walked away.
She came up to me and pulled out a case of sunglasses and said ‘Hi sweetie – I need your help. My boyfriend in Texas bought me these sunglasses and I need to return them.’ I asked her for the receipt, which she didn’t have, so then I asked if the man she was with could show me his credit card so I could look up the purchase.
What this lady said to me next turned a simple return into something I never expected.