Worst customer complaint ever you've ever heard

Ruu · 05-02-2014 01:20AM

There is a coffee shop next to the library I work, once every fortnight or so, the same fella calls. Same story every time, the person working at the coffee shop short changed him and he wanted a refund. Same response, we can't pass on messages to the coffee shop and even if we could refund, you would still have to come in and collect the refund! :P

05-02-2014 01:25AM

Customer comes in looking for a drivers licence renewal form. I inform her we don't do ANYTHING like that. She asks where she can get one. I suggest that the local Garda station might have one, and I'd be surprised if you couldn't download them online. She tells me she doesn't have time for computers. I tell her she could go across the street to the library and they'd probably help her print one out there. She says that won't do, and where else could she get one? I tell her I don't drive myself, and the shop doesn't deal with anything like that, so I really wouldn't know. Then came the complaint:

"Well you really should know things like that if you're not going to have them behind the counter!"

WTF? You're the one with the licence and the car, surely you're the one that should recollect where to pick one up instead of ambling into your local shop and expecting a young non-driver to know??? It's like people feel entitled to get literally ANYTHING they need in their local shop. I've even rung utility providers for customers before (even did it at the stage where I was 21 and I'd never payed a utility bill myself before), because dear lord they couldn't do it themselves.

questionmark? · 05-02-2014 01:29AM

Once had a bloke call me at work and launch into a rant about another company. I got a good giggle and then said am I think you'll find you've called the wrong number. He then tried to tell me he had the correct number and I was wrong. I assured him I had a good sleep so was fresh and wide awake so I know I came to the right office! Dont know how that bloke got my direct line number? To this day a little bit of me thinks it was phonejacker!

krudler · 05-02-2014 01:36AM

rainbowdrop wrote: »

I work in a call centre, so could probably write a book of retarded complaints I've dealt with. This one I posted i ranting and raving a few months ago stands out in my mind though:

Something I genuinely don't understand, if you're viewing a house would you not ask first? same with mobiles, you obviously dont buy a house after seeing it just once, would you not think to pull out your phone and check you can actually get coverage in the place? having no phone coverage or only able to get sh1te broadband would put me off living someplace instantly.

A2LUE42 · 05-02-2014 01:40AM

Years ago working in a restaurant.

Some examples.

Customer ranting that they didn't get horseradish sauce on their roast beef and wouldn't allow the waitress to point out that there was a sauce boat of the stuff in front of them. She took it back to the kitchen and got one of the chef's to put it on. Brought it back to table and low and behold the customer didn't bloody like it.

One woman was shouting that she needed proper cutlery
How was she supposed to eat her fish with these things, holding her fork and knife in the air. Waitress replied that if the lady liked she would remove her fish knife and fork and bring her standard ones.

Putting a finger bowl on front of someone, only to be told that they ordered the ribs, not the lemon soup.

Having someone rant about why they didn't have a wine bucket at their table. To have to point out to them that they had red wine and the other table has white.

Complaints that gespacho was cold.

wandatowell · 05-02-2014 01:47AM

A2LUE42 wrote: »

a sauce boat

Is that what those things are called?

I never knew and always wondered.

Orim · 05-02-2014 03:10AM

weemcd wrote: »

One that springs to mind is someone who got their delivery earlier than the estimated timeframe and called to complain.

There's genuine problems and then there is what is called being a cúnt, this was delivered quicker than expected which I would consider a positive. But sure that's just me and what would I know about the mind of a crazy person.

I'd probably have 100's of these but I can't remember and can't be arsed trying to remember either.

Without further context, I can see this being a problem if you need to arrange time off or a pick up or whatever based on the estimated delivery time.

I've worked in customer services for a while so I have a few. One of my favourites is the executive in a tech company that believed that software on her laptop would allow her to pick up non existent wifi signals.

There was also the person that would not allow us to replace a damaged product because the replacement wouldn't be the same as the identical product they had. So we offered to just replace the shell but this was also rejected. And all of this was down to their complaint and they had no idea what they actually wanted beyond vague assertions of "fix it" and vague threats of "watchdog will love this"

Dr Robotnik · 05-02-2014 03:32AM

I spent a summer holiday working in a supermarket. One particular day I was approached by a visibly angry woman. She was annoyed that every time she came to the shop, a certain brand of sausages was sold out. I think it may have been Granby Sausages she was looking for, where perhaps there was only one delivery per week. On the other hand, brands like Denny's and Clonakilty would have been delivered every day.

"MY SON will only eat those sausages. HE doesn't like any other ones."

Fair enough. I told her that I wasn't sure what day they were delivered. I told her I'd pass on her complaint/suggestion/observation on to the manager. I even suggested she have a word with Customer Service who might be able to find out for her exactly when the fabled sausages are delivered.

"WELL THAT'S JUST NOT GOOD ENOUGH."

And of she went with her little brat in tow. I have no idea if she ever solved the riddle of the sold-out sausages.

CaliforniaDream · 05-02-2014 03:52AM

Not exactly a customer complaint but it's one of my favourites.

wandatowell · 05-02-2014 03:57AM

My parents' home phone number is/was almost identical to the local ESB office here in East Cork. When ever there were power outages or someone had a complaint a high percentage of calls ended up at my parents house bitching and moan about the power. Even when they were told they dialed the wrong number they would still be giving out.

Ken. · 05-02-2014 04:20AM

think were bad have a look at this American site. Some right doosies in here. www.notalwaysright.com Also there sister site http://notalwaysworking.com/

chrissb8 · 05-02-2014 05:17AM

Someone put their hand behind the counter of a shop where I work to grab a bottle of spirits. Not a robber or anything. A real regular who was just in line and decided to do this and then bring it to the counter to pay for it. Just a complete "I come here loads they know me" attitude. Anyway saw the hand go behind the counter. Didn't know it was his hand as I couldn't see the rest of him. I pipe up what's he doing. I did say oh ok it's fine just I didn't know it was you and I'll serve you in a second when I saw him. He Then proceeds to give me grief how he has been coming to the shop for 10 years and has never been treated like that. Treated like what! That you have a sense of entitlement and you got scolded for a very cardinal well known rule of a shop. Don't put your hand behind the goddamn counter.

DeanAustin · 05-02-2014 08:51AM

Worked in a call centre for one of the telecoms companies and on one of my very first calls I had a woman from a disadvantaged area call in distress. She had gotten a solicitor's letter over an unpaid telephone bill. She pleaded and begged for what seemed like an age and I couldn't get a word in edgeways.

She then said "I can't believe Eircom are doing this to me". "Aha," says I "this isn't Eircom, I'm very sorry but you have the wrong number."

"Oh I know that," says she. "But your number is a freephone number and I need some legal advice because I can't afford a solicitor."

The fella sitting in training me was on the ground laughing.

Ghost Buster · 05-02-2014 09:12AM

An woman in my work came back in after a bank holiday weekend looking a bit peaky. She explained that she had been ill over the weekend and attributed the reason to a bottle of wine she had drank on the Friday night. She said it was a year out of date :eek::eek::eek::eek:

And her numb skull son tried to return it and was shocked that they would not refund the cost or replace the bottle.

Montiii · 05-02-2014 09:20AM

The old urban legend.

Customer calls computer company as her new PC is not working, customer service reps takes her through all the usual tricks but nothing working, screen is constantly blank.

Ask's her to make sure it's plugged in at the back, customer says she can't see, the lights are all off as the electricity has been off for the last few hours.

Link to said story

http://www.snopes.com/humor/business/wordperfect.asp

Dartz · 05-02-2014 09:55AM

Hottest day of the year last year. Had our contractor out insalling gear. All was well until I get an irate phonecall from the biddy who owned the house he was working in, claiming he'd stolen something from her. Naturally, I'm concerned so I ask what it was. She told me he'd stolen a bottle of tap water - he'd had the nerve to go into her kitchen and fill his water bottle from her tap. So naturally, I deducted the 1cent cost of a bottle of water from her bill, specifically annotating it on the invoice.

Another one. Same guy. I get a phone call from a homeowner to let me know that our contractor's fallen off a roof, has broken his leg and had to get carted away in an ambulance. Not a word of a lie, the next statement out of that woman's mouth was; "And I'm expecting there'll be a discount for the delay this is going to cause in getting the job finished"

I could've murdered her right there.

There's a whole class of customer out there who just doesn't give a ****. They treat plumbers and contractors like they're somehow serfs - like paying someone to do a job for you means you get to treat them like utter ****e for a few hours. They're always over 50, and they're almost invariable female. ****ing old crones.

You can tell what sort of person someone is by watching how they treat a waiter. Or a plumber. Or an electrician. Easily.

I added "Customer must supply tea and biscuits" to our service contract as a joke because of it.

Tzardine · 05-02-2014 10:12AM

Many moons ago while in school I was working part time in a shop. I was on the customer service desk right at the very back of the store. Conversation went like this.

Me: Hello
Customer : (Places a TV on the desk) Yeah I bought this here a few days ago. Its faulty. The screen is broken. This is a disgrace yadda yadda yadda. Loads of attitude.
Me: Can I see your receipt
Customer: Here you go. Still being an ignorant sh1t.
Me: Yeah. This is TK Maxx. We are a clothes shop. Your receipt is for argos !
Customer said nothing and just turned and walked out.

How I did not burst into tears I still dont know. The guy must have been so annoyed and focused on what he was going to say that he did not notice all the racks of clothes. What a doofus.

rainbowdrop · 05-02-2014 10:26AM

Dr Robotnik wrote: »

I spent a summer holiday working in a supermarket. One particular day I was approached by a visibly angry woman. She was annoyed that every time she came to the shop, a certain brand of sausages was sold out. I think it may have been Granby Sausages she was looking for, where perhaps there was only one delivery per week. On the other hand, brands like Denny's and Clonakilty would have been delivered every day.

"MY SON will only eat those sausages. HE doesn't like any other ones."

Fair enough. I told her that I wasn't sure what day they were delivered. I told her I'd pass on her complaint/suggestion/observation on to the manager. I even suggested she have a word with Customer Service who might be able to find out for her exactly when the fabled sausages are delivered.

"WELL THAT'S JUST NOT GOOD ENOUGH."

And of she went with her little brat in tow. I have no idea if she ever solved the riddle of the sold-out sausages.

Well, it's NOT good enough! If you were any bit dedicated to your job, you would have offered to sh1t the sausages for her......

Truckermal · 05-02-2014 10:34AM

I worked in a phone shop years ago and one day this dope came in moaning and looking for a refund for his Nokia 5110 when he eventually let me speak and look at the phone all that was wrong the snake game was on level 5 and he could only play level 1..:rolleyes:

I met him some time later on a night out and asked him had he reached level five yet..

Stone Deaf 4evr · 05-02-2014 11:15AM

I used to work in a nightclub, as such places are wont to do, we used to 'stretch' the legal serving hours by having the bouncers keep an eye out for johnny law.

one night I had put together an order of drinks for a girl, when I got the nod to close the bar immediately. I jumped up and pulled down the shutters, depriving the girl of her drink - she hadn't paid for them, yet proceeded to start beating her fists on the shutters and wailing like a banshee, she made such a scene that the guards came over and asked her what the problem was.

Mink · 05-02-2014 11:22AM

Husband works in complaints dept of a phone/mobile company.

Case gets put up to him of a guy who refuses to pay his 2K mobile phone bill, demanding to know how it could have gotten so high etc. So husband googles the premium numbers the guy was calling and they are all chat lines, every night hours and hours. He got a great kick in relaying that back to the customer and shutting them up. Honestly in this day and age how could you not know that.

Legs.Eleven · 05-02-2014 11:56AM

Two stand out. The woman who tried to haggle down the price of a book that "was too expensive". When I told her I couldn't give her a discount, she lost it. I worked in Easons.

I used to do the night shift in a petrol station on my own when I was 19 and some drunk driver demanded I serve him wine at 3 in the morning. Told him I couldn't and he proceeded to throw rocks at the window of the station and hurled abuse at me 'till the police came.

iguana · 05-02-2014 12:01PM

I used to work for UPC before it was UPC and had a couple call me up to tell me that their newly installed digibox wasn't working. After we went through everything for 10 minutes it finally turned out that they hadn't actually turned the television on. I thought they were especially stupid but it turned out to be a fairly regular cause of new customer complaints. An especially stupid one I had to deal with was someone who was sure I could tell her where she'd put her missing remote control because surely we'd have tracking systems that could locate it.

My brother had a customer who couldn't connect heir new laptop to the broadband. She couldn't work out how to do anything he was advising her to do and didn't know if she was using a PC or a Mac. He got her to read out the name written on the laptop and it was a VTech. She would not accept that a child's toy could not access the internet.

Another story I heard was a guy going through some issues with tech support who couldn't follow the instruction 'right click' as no matter how many times he wrote 'click' on a piece of paper, nothing happened.

GarIT · 05-02-2014 12:02PM

I've had numerous complaints made about me, that's what you get for fixing the public's computers. Apparently I am notorious for deleting people's Facebook accounts and email addresses, part of the virus removal process is to reset your browser to factory settings, which will clear your saved passwords, that is "deleting an account". There were so many times where a computer had to have windows reinstalled, this usually means all the data on the computer will be deleted, I was sick of hearing "When you said you were going to have to delete everything I didn't think that eveything would include x".

Another case was a woman who complained because she originally told us not to back up anything as she had everything backed up in the cloud. She then came back in to complain that when she went to restore her backup from the cloud that it asked for an email address and password and it had never done that before, and how was she supposed to know she would need to log in to get her backup, she then explained she doesn't have an email address she just used a fake one for signing up for the storage. So she proceeded to call me every name under the sun and then threaten to sue me for the data she had lost. After she sat crying in the shop for two hours and feigned sympathy or assertiveness wasn't working I had to tell her I was getting the gardaí to get her to leave.

Another complaint was that I wouldn't change the name on visa documents before I photocopied them.

Then I got accused of stalking somebody and logging in and out of their Skype account, their Skype account was set to login when windows starts.

I also rip people off too, I had a furious woman in when I told her she needed a new motherboard as her son assured her it was only a virus. The funny thing was there was no power going into the laptop at all, no lights or anything, the charger was making al electrical hissing noise which was probably the cause of the fried motherboard, but this physical damage all caused by something she installed according to her son. "my son is good with computers" the worst phrase you can hear hear working in IT repairs.

bear1 · 05-02-2014 12:05PM

I used to work for a banks credit card hotline years ago.
Now, you'd get some stories there I tell ya.
Once, a guy rang up to query transactions which had popped up on his account.
We went though them one by one until we get to the disputed transactions, now the guy disputed each and every Ann Summers trans that had shown up.
Standard procedure at this point is to block the card immediately and start the process of a fraudulent case.
He had his wife as an authorised user so that card is also blocked.
Few hours later my colleague tells me there is a guy that will only speak to me and a certain case, so I accept the call.
It's the same guy again tellilng me that the wife had admitted to the transactions and that he want's the card reactivated.
When I told him I can't reactivate it once it's blocked he blew up telling me how useless the bank and I am etc and that he was disputing the items again.
When I told him that he had admitted to the transactions then no fraud will have taken place. Bill was paid in the end

Another one:

Same job, woman calls up complaining that her card is constantly being declined in the petrol station.
Checked her account and she had completely maxed out the card. She gets thick and asks me to raise the credit limit.
We generally can only do this every 6 months and the account has to be in good order.
She'd only had a limit increase a month before or so so I told her I couldn't increase it.
She actually then asked me if I could just give her the credit card number of another customer and that she'd pay the bill then.
I was just amazed at the idiocy.
Told her no and she slammed down the phone

snowbabe · 05-02-2014 12:05PM

Worked in a photo processing place years ago,customer standing at counter telling me I gave her 6 photos that weren't her's and wanted a refund as the 6 pused price up another pound.I explained that the photos were definately hers,she's now screaming and shouting at me 5hat they couldn't be hers as she didnt know the blonde (young &pretty) in the photos. I'm now showing her the negatives which include the blonde and shes still screaming at me when in runs a man, her husband with sweat pouring out of him .she tells him whats happened and I try to explain to man,he just says to me "sorry,I'll deal with this" ...he scoops up photos,looks at her,as realisation dawns on her!! They left shop with her screaming at him..that was a good day but I actually felt sorry for her,she was a rude cow though.

krudler · 05-02-2014 12:07PM

Dartz wrote: »

Hottest day of the year last year. Had our contractor out insalling gear. All was well until I get an irate phonecall from the biddy who owned the house he was working in, claiming he'd stolen something from her. Naturally, I'm concerned so I ask what it was. She told me he'd stolen a bottle of tap water - he'd had the nerve to go into her kitchen and fill his water bottle from her tap. So naturally, I deducted the 1cent cost of a bottle of water from her bill, specifically annotating it on the invoice.

Another one. Same guy. I get a phone call from a homeowner to let me know that our contractor's fallen off a roof, has broken his leg and had to get carted away in an ambulance. Not a word of a lie, the next statement out of that woman's mouth was; "And I'm expecting there'll be a discount for the delay this is going to cause in getting the job finished"

I could've murdered her right there.

There's a whole class of customer out there who just doesn't give a ****. They treat plumbers and contractors like they're somehow serfs - like paying someone to do a job for you means you get to treat them like utter ****e for a few hours. They're always over 50, and they're almost invariable female. ****ing old crones.

You can tell what sort of person someone is by watching how they treat a waiter. Or a plumber. Or an electrician. Easily.

I added "Customer must supply tea and biscuits" to our service contract as a joke because of it.

Self entitled oul wans, worst people in the world to deal with, always a doctors or solictors wife too, and will tell you this multiple times as you deal with them. or describe themselves as "well respected" usually meaning they're an interfering oul bat who knows everyone's business.

Green Giant · 05-02-2014 12:14PM

Heard of someone working in a Limerick newspaper who wrote an article about a footballer signing for Limerick FC with the headline 'Robbie Williams to play at Thomond Park'.

That same person got an indignant e-mail after the paper came out from someone asking "Do you know how misleading that headline is? I thought the singer was coming to Thomond Park?", even though it appeared in the sport section of the paper.

That was nearly a year ago. He still enjoys telling the story.

demixed · 05-02-2014 12:22PM

Montiii wrote: »

The old urban legend.

Customer calls computer company as her new PC is not working, customer service reps takes her through all the usual tricks but nothing working, screen is constantly blank.

Ask's her to make sure it's plugged in at the back, customer says she can't see, the lights are all off as the electricity has been off for the last few hours.

Link to said story

http://www.snopes.com/humor/business/wordperfect.asp

It's no longer a myth

I had this call last month. Her internet wasn't working, and it had also affected her pc...

thejaguar · 05-02-2014 12:32PM

Possibly an urban legend, but I heard a story once of a chap calling a customer care line about his phone bill. There was a huge amount of calls to premium phone numbers - the kind of numbers you wouldn't want your wife to see.
He gets on and rants and screams about not paying it, he never made the calls etc. etc. Then after about 5 mins or ranting he suddenly quiets down and says 'My wife's just left the room, I'll pay the bill, but I'm going to scream at you for another few minutes to make it look realistic' - he then carried on ranting to himself until he was happy that it looked kosher for the wife.

Worst customer complaint ever you've ever heard

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