We’ve all been there. Walked into a store, excited to browse around and maybe make that special purchase, only to be approached by a sales person who is a little too eager to help us out, which in turn, does nothing but send us straight for the door. Check out these customer stories about that time a sales person completely deterred them from making a purchase.
Source list available at the end.
“We really felt like he’d talked us into the whole thing, and when he was finally lining up the paperwork, he went and high-fived his manager. We walked away right after that.”
sweetcarolinekisses
“I asked a Subaru salesman what the best price he could give me was on a 2014 Crosstrek with 40k miles. He told me the same price that a new one goes for. I informed him of that and asked him, ‘Why should I buy this one for that price instead of just buying a new one?’ All he said was that they hold their value really well and that was the end of my search at that dealership.”
thetapatioman
“I went to buy a suit for some job interviews. I was settled on this suit, however, they suggested some shirts and ties to pair along with it. I didn’t really like any of them and was going to buy the suit and get the shirts from somewhere else. They started going on about how if I didn’t get a shirt from them then I wouldn’t get the job, so I left.”
Malgaras
“We were looking for a particular style of furniture, so we went around town checking out all of the shops to see what was in stock. You couldn’t even walk in the front door before getting approached by a salesman, but at most of the places we’d say something like, ‘We’re just looking’ and they would be like, ‘Great’ and back off while still waiting for a sign that we might be interested in something so that they could swoop back in.
But at this ONE place, it was like dealing with those street vendors who leap on the windshield of your car with a squeegee at the stop light. We would say, ‘We’re just looking’ and he would say, ‘Okay.’ Then he would take two steps back, leap forward, and say things like, ‘Just for you… I can probably get FREE delivery!’ Jesus christ, we didn’t even look at anything yet, and you’re trying to deliver it to us.
It was so obvious that the deals he was offering us were what his manager had told him to use for negotiations, and he was so excited that he was prematurely blowing his haggle load all over us.
We ended up not even walking through the store because he was hassling us so much.”
Tagracat
“I was at a furniture store looking for a new dresser. I found one for a reasonable price and might have come back for it after doing some more shopping if the salesman hadn’t tried to upsell me a couch, despite the fact that I had repeatedly told him that we didn’t need one.”
PanicPixie
“They called me about 20 times in the course of three days while we were in the ICU with our 3-year-old daughter due to a medical emergency. They wanted us to set up an appointment to get a roofing quote. We explained to them multiple times what had happened, to stop calling us, and that we would call them back. But instead, they chose to keep on calling us.”
sprickie
“Representatives from Cox called and woke me up trying to get me to add a cable package onto my already existing internet package. I told them that if I got woken up a third time by a sales call, then I would cancel all of my services and switch providers entirely. That was the end of those sales calls.”
Sciaphobia
“A car salesman told me that the van that I was looking at to buy had brand new brakes and tires. Honestly, he could’ve at least pick something less obvious to lie about. I went back to the van, checked, and (sure enough) the tires were almost bald and the rotors were grooved to the touch. He got his manager involved, and now they were both trying to convince me that the work was done. Apparently, I wasn’t smart enough to understand any of this. They didn’t say that to my face. However, they knew that I had caught them in a lie, so I just left. This experience was the last straw, and it was what ended up convincing me to buy a brand new car instead.”
octavian_c
“When I was just out of school and looking for my own car insurance, my dad helped me narrow down companies and contacted an agent for me to get the ball rolling. The agent called me to go over things, but then he started trying to upsell me a renter policy on top of the auto policy.
‘Oh, your dad asked me to also set this up for you.’
‘No, he didn’t.’
Lying isn’t a good way to get business from me.”
“I went to a Honda dealership to look at a Civic, and the salesman told me that they didn’t have any in stock. He showed me an Accord, which was nice and everything, but I was looking for something cheaper and with a better MPG. He tried to convince me to buy it by saying that it was ‘heavier’ (which was supposed to mean that it would be more ‘reliable’). I just laughed at him and left.”
hexciple
“Years ago, my sister-in-law (my brother’s girlfriend at the time) was looking at apartments with her best friend. At one of the locations, one of them asks some oddly specific question about something (i.e. Do the pipes make noise at night?) and the landlord replied, ‘Is this in regards to the alleged haunting?’
Bohemus_1313
“I was trying to buy a Honda and applied to the Honda graduate program. I was signing papers for the keys when I noticed the missing amount. The sales manager told me that I was getting such a good deal that they couldn’t add that on top. I stopped signing and told him that I was no longer buying and wouldn’t be negotiating. The look on his face was priceless as I got up and left. I got an even better deal less than a week later.”
_Merrick_
“My husband and I were shopping for a new set of patio furniture. We wanted an entire set, and it wasn’t cheap. We did our homework and went to a smallish store to lay our eyes on the items that we were already sold on but just wanted to get a look at first and ask a few questions about. The older man helping us pretty much ignored me and directed all of his attention towards my husband and his concerns. When I asked him a question, he would belittle it and treat me like I shouldn’t worry my little head. We left and spent our money elsewhere.”
ZeroOfFerelden
“I told a car salesman that I wanted my wife to look at the car as well so I wouldn’t have to make a return trip. He went and got his sales manager who then proceeded to sit down across from me and say something that I’ll never forget.
‘Let me ask you a question, whose money is it, yours or hers?”
I looked at him in shock and politely stood up and left. I’d never been so stunned by a salesman before (or ever since for that matter).”
goofy1771
“I was looking at some lower-end sporty cars. I know my way around a motor. Some guy working there pops the hood and says, ‘We like to leave everything exactly the way that it was when we first brought it from somebody else.’ It had cheap falling apart intake and oil spilling from both valve covers. I went inside and there was some sticky black stuff around the shifter. The car smelled. I understand not modifying it back to normal, but they didn’t even care enough to clean up the car or spray it with some Febreeze!”
Captain_Gnardog
“We went to buy an engagement ring. The salesman looked at me right as we walked in through the doors and said, ‘We dont sell childrens rings here.’ I was 27 at the time, and (yes) pretty petite. We ended up going somewhere.”
AKLawrence
“A salesman had gotten really pushy with me when it had come to the extended warranty on a used Mustang. I was a mechanic for a while, so I used restored old vehicles as a hobby. However, he went on to tell me that I wouldn’t know how to work on newer cars. The guy wouldn’t take ‘No’ for an answer, so I just told him that I had changed my mind.”
onanysunday
“I’m a female. My boyfriend had gotten me into motorcycles a few years back. I was determined to buy my own. Once I had the money for one, we went to a handful of dealerships around town. Only one guy at one of the dealerships actually talked to me about buying a bike. Everyone else would look straight at my boyfriend while answering the questions that I was asking! There were several places we ended up walking away from (even if they had had a decent option for me) all because they didn’t believe that I could actually know enough to buy my own bike.”
kindahealthy
“My mom and dad were meeting with a sales guy who worked for a pool company. At the time, they were looking to get a pool built. He was your standard sales guy, and at one point, he had tried to mention some add-on and stuff.
My mom started to interject and the sales guy was basically like,’Oh, don’t worry, why don’t your husband and I talk about the money details?’ He said a few other things along those lines and was just overly condescending with that whole ‘how-about-you-sit-tight-while-the-men-talk-business’ sort of mentality).
My mom looked at the guy for second and then to my dad. She then stood up and said, ‘You know what, I think we’re done here.’ As she and my dad stood up to leave, the sales guy apparently kind of stammered then smirked, looked at my dad and said, “Oh, come on… Okay, let’s just continue’ (thinking that the whole thing was just a joke or something). My dad responded, ‘Nope, you heard my wife. We’re out of here.’ And that was that.”
bojiggidy
“A door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman dumped a load on our carpet for demonstration purposes. The machine quit while trying to suck it up. He left and we had to clean up his mess. No sale.”
Back2Bach
“I was out looking for a reading chair. Ideally, something that was smaller than a love seat but bigger than an arm chair. The furniture store just didnt seem to have anything that was ‘just right’, and Mr. Pushy kept on showing me chairs that I had no interest in.
I just wanted to look around the store, so I looked at what he had to show me. I said that it was pretty and that I would think about it and then turned to look around. He proceeded to ask me if I needed to maybe call my husband or boyfriend to get PERMISSION to buy the overpriced chair that I had previously called pretty.
A big no. I politely informed him that as an adult I didnt need permission from anyone for anything and that he had officially found the easiest way to lose a sale. I promptly left without waiting for a reply.”
squishysquashy99
“I had a phone salesmen call me up and try to get me to extend my phone plan.
Him: ‘If you sign up now… you also get a laptop!’
Me: ‘What kind of laptop is it?’
Him: ‘Uhh… It’s red!'”
_Rorin_
“I was opening up a new bank account for my new business at the bank that I already had a personal checking account with. I looked at the rates for business checking, and they seemed really high. The guy whose job it was to sign me up for it said, ‘That’s just the cost of doing business, maybe you aren’t ready for it yet?’ I told him that if he had had any idea what it costs to do business, then he wouldn’t even be working at a bank. I went down the street instead and got everything that I wanted from another bank for free.”
mauinion
Posts are edited for clarity.