People who work in food service or customer service: What’s the dumbest thing a customer ever insisted was “the law” or “illegal”?
People who work in food service or customer service: What’s the dumbest thing a customer ever insisted was “the law” or “illegal”?
Brought to you by my discovery that some people think that “the customer is always right” isn’t the slogan of a long-dead department store, but rather it’s an actual call the cops law.
I used to work in CS for a cell phone provider. The most memorable call I had from that experience was a woman who spent over an hour yelling at me because her daughter had ordered a $1200 phone upgrade without permission. She was absolutely sure that it was illegal for us to charge her for that, because her daughter was not authorized to use her card, and because her daughter was under 18.
She didn't want to return the phone, because she didn't want her daughter to hate her. She just didn't want us to charge her for it.
That sounds like an improbable attempt to leverage the notion that minors can't enter into a legally binding contract into a loophole to get anything for free by simply having your kid order it.
I see where the daughter got her intelligence from.
No, I don't have to accept a digital photo of your license as ID. No, your birth certificate is not proof of identity; it doesn't have your picture.
But the absolute worst one: Not only is this a beat-up photocopy of a foreign ID card with no photo; it also clearly states that you are 19 and even if I accepted this document as valid identification, which I can't, I still could not legally serve you alcohol.
During my very brief stint as a security guard at a casino I ran into that last part way more than I ever would have expected. It is astounding how many people do not understand that the laws from their home country do not apply in the country they are visiting.
The foreigner in question almost certainly did not know the age was 21. This happened to me in the US. Sitting with my mum and sister in the hotel bar, having a quiet beer. Then I get asked for my ID and it all gets very confusing. "But I'm 18, what's the problem?"
What I take from this is that birth certificates should have photographs.
Exactly. But before they can issue it the photograph needs to be submitted electronically and allow a 3 week processing time prior to birth, with a passport style photo...
Lmao I work for a bank and people try to pass off so many random documents as valid ID. In fact, it’s becoming harder to even depend on physical IDs considering how good and ubiquitous fakes are getting
Was working retail in an area that had a local bag ordinance that required businesses to charge customers for bags. A man came up to the register and when I asked him if he wanted a bag for a few cents extra, he looked at me like I was crazy and was like, "You charge for bags?" I explained that it was required by the government and he just kinda scoffed. I thought that was it, but as he opened his wallet to pay, he flashed what turned out to be a police badge at me from another city some ways away, gave me a look, and said something along the lines of "I think I know what the law is." I just finished up the transaction and got him going asap, blown away at the insecurity displayed. It was such a bizarre powermove over what was only a few cents extra for something completely optional.
I work in law enforcement and this is called "tinning" when you show your badge unnecessarily. My personal rule of thumb is if I'm dealing with you and you tin me then I am 100% giving you a ticket now.
I appreciate that there's a word for it.
ACAB
American police: they think they know what the law is.
If cops had to pass the bar to be a cop, there wouldn't be any cops.
ACAB
Had a guy tell me he was going to sue me, personally not the store, and financially ruin me because I told him to put on a mask in like April 2020. He didnt do either. I'm sure anyone who worked with the public during that time has some story lol.
I still can't wrap my head around why certain political factions latched onto not wearing a mask as a political rallying cry. Like.....why do you want to kill the people you need to vote for you? I can't understand.
My guess is it was part of a two-pronged election strategy. First, make COVID denial part of the GOP's political platform, so that they're more likely to be performatively reckless, including waiting on line in crowded polling places where no one is masked (which goes further to scare people away that were actually taking COVID seriously), while people taking precautions like voting by mail or by voting early when it's less crowded would be disproportionately likely to vote Democratic.
Then, pass unreasonable regulations like "mail-in and early votes can't be counted until all votes cast on Election Day are counted", while pressuring election workers to post results as early as possible, skewing votes in their favor, or, failing that, point to the fact that the votes against them were counted later as evidence of fraud.
Funnily enough, I think watching "The Last of Us" made me understand what these people were afraid of.
Personally, my mind doesn't go in that direction when I see the government doing something, but I guess for some people that is their first thought. They think that when you're temporarily not allowed to congregate in public, it's a slippery slope into a permanent lockdown state.
In order to consolidate power the Trump allies multiple factions of right wing nut jobs. I one of which is the anti-vax group. Most of the covid knee-jerk reaction was to appease this group. The leaders need to keep the loyalty of the groups, so when a pet issue of a group comes up in the main public discourse the sub-group demands the leaders act, the leaders then tell the rest of their followers what to think and do.
The government isn't supposed to tell them what to do, they are good people.
At one point I worked for an electronics repair shop fixing mostly phones, laptops, and game consoles. We actually had a great manager and we all just enjoyed fixing things, so we really weren't out to rip people off like they usually came in thinking. Our store policy was even if we didn't fix it, we didn't charge you, and we stood by it.
One day a lady drops off her laptop with a cracked screen. Part of the screen was still working, but the majority was non functional and would surely worsen over time. We diagnose the laptop and give the customer a quote and she agrees to the repair. I let her know that once we start the repair, the previous screen will be destroyed during the removal process since it has no more integrity from being broken, she's fine with that. We get the part in a few days later and I start the repair. At this point the woman's husband calls - literally while I have the cracked screen half out of the laptop - and says stop the repair and return it how it was. We were like, we're happy to give the laptop back, but unfortunately we've already started the repair and while removing the old screen it broke more so it would end up being returned in a worse condition.
This fucking guy screamed at me over the phone about how what we were doing was illegal, how we never got proper authorization blah blah. We offered to even do the repair at cost, but no that wasn't good enough. When the husband and wife finally came into the store to pick up the laptop, he left screeching about how he was going to sue us. Unsurprisingly we never heard from him again.
how we never got proper authorization
Why do I feel like this is a domestic abuse situation. Husband broke her laptop in order to reduce her attempts to communicate with others? She goes to get it repaired, he finds out.
I think it's the belief that the wife can't authorise the repair..
My thinking was that there was something in that computer that he was trying to hide.
One thing I learned from working in customer service is the amount of people that have a lawyer on retainer. Better be careful!
We developed a very effective strategy for this at a furniture store I used to work at; the moment the customer makes any suggestion of legal action, all our employees were trained to immediately say "I understand. Have a good day" and end the conversation on the spot. The unhappy customer immediately tries to press the issue, because what they want is for us to magically teleport a couch here from China or whatever, and at that point the employee says "I'm sorry but as you've notified us that this issue is now the subject of a pending legal action any further communication will have to go though our legal team."
Repeating this a couple more times would inevitably lead to the customer admitting that they were bluffing.
Is the number close to zero?
Damn I'm sorry you had to put up with that. And I feel bad for the wife for being married to him.
Worked in bars as a supervisor for 3 years, almost everytime I decided to cut a patron off (usually for being too drunk, or for being an arsehole) I would be met with "you can't do that, it's illegal, you HAVE to serve me"
No, I don't. Service is at my discretion, and it wouldn often be unethical for me to continue to provide you with more alcohol, endangering yours and others around you further.
Funny because it's really quite the opposite in most places. You're legally required not to serve intoxicated patrons. If you overserve people and they go off and kill someone, you could be liable in my state. I think that's pretty bullshit but it surprises me that folks would argue to the exact opposite. Of course, why should that surprise me?
Ehhh, I think it's probably more likely that you can't discriminate on specific factors like age, religion, sex, skin colour, etc.
I just can't see "most places" having laws that force you to deal with any and all aholes in customer service. Could I have a source on that, please? I have never heard of that before.
Lots of people buy Emotional Support Animal vests online and think that means they can bring them into restaurants. Nope, FDA is very clear about it: trained service animals only. ESAs actually have almost no special privileges over regular pets. Basically the only exceptions they get are against pet policies/fees on leases.
I watched a guy get kicked out of the Costco food court area because he kept saying his dog was an "licensed" ESA. The Costco manager busted out a little card with the relevant federal laws for a service animal and listed all the rules the dog was breaking by lunging at people, not staying under the table, and barking it's head off at a real service animal that was just sitting calmly under it's owners table like nothing was going on around it.
Even if your dog is truly a licensed and trained service animal, but you've allowed it to continously break all the rules it's supposed to follow in a private business. They can still kick you out if your dog doesn't behave like it's supposed to be behaving. That's why it's a big no no to interact with working animals with their vests on and for owners to let their working animals to break the rules repeatedly by misbehaving and never correcting them.
People who do that I find so annoying and honestly pathetic. It’s like they think they’re better than everyone else and can do whatever they want.
Yay! I have one. We had a customer grab a product from a spot on the shelf next to where it was normally stocked. The spots have labels indicating the price of the item. This person argued that because the product was in the wrong spot they should only have to pay the price of the item that should have been there. The prices also include the name of the product. The reason the the product was taking up space in the next spot was because we had sold out due to the item being deeply discounted because we were discontinuing it. When we explained that they began accusing us of false advertising and threatened to call the better business bureau. They admitted that they knew it was the wrong product but insisted that because it wasn't shelved in the right spot that was some kind of loophole. I gave a firm no and then they asked to speak to a manager. I fucked off it was taken care of.
I also work front end, I've had sooo many people give me this shit.
#1 Not advertising. Advertising is what you see before you enter the building. Some stores don't even have shelf labels.
#2 Do you think someone can walk up to your garage sale and slap their own sticker that says $1 and demand you sell them a TV for $1? No, you can refuse to sell your own shit whenever you want. It's YOUR shit. You can burn it in front of them if you felt like it.
Not really the case in most of the EU.
It doesn't count obviously if it's a misplaced item and the price is clearly labelled for another item. However, if a store leaves discount stickers on some product late, or mislabels some price, they are obligated to sell at that price. There is caveat that it only works if the price is believable, but I managed to get a ton of shrimp that just arrived at a Lidl 90% off one time. Family was eating shrimp for weeks.
Here's example language from New York City law:
All consumer commodities ... shall have ... a sign at the point of display which indicates the item to which the price refers, provided that this information is plainly visible at the point of display for sale of the items so indicated.
So it is a question of whether the product spilling over to an adjacent shelf still has a "plainly visible" price tag. If it were on a wrong shelf entirely it would not, and here there is some ambiguity, but city inspectors can be pretty strict and demand items stay within the lines. If it is decided the price was not plainly visible, the store may be fined $25-$100 per violation per day. In any case, the customer would not be calling "better business bureau" (which is just yelp from before the internet), but the Commissioner of Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. And the customer would also not get to pay the lower price for the other product if it is clear it is a different product, as the customer admits they knew. (The question would be different if there were ambiguity).
However, the point that I specifically object to is the opinion that it was preposterous for the customer to claim some legal right in this situation, the implication that no such right exists. The language of the law does exist (at least in some jurisdictions), and violations do carry legal penalties.
I once had a b2b customer (store owner) tell me that having different pricing for wholesale and retail customers was racist.
I'm pretty sure meant discriminatory but even that doesn't make much sense.
It absolutely does make sense because it is discriminatory. He's absolutely correct.
The mistake that you are making, is thinking that all forms of discrimination are bad. They're not. Most are in fact good. We just don't tend to call them discrimination.
Wholesale customers buy in bulk. I'm sure the customer could get a discount for buying in bulk as well but they would end up spending way more money
Also, appart from the obvious restrictions, businesses can structure their prices however they like.
I use the word like that too. But not as a customer arguing with a business. Just with friends and family as an in joke.
Funny to hear it used that way but for srs.
I don’t think my customers were dumb but I was regularly accused of breaking the law in a previous job. This was back in 09-10, I worked for a mortgage company in the insurance escrow department processing homeowner insurance claims. The way my job worked: If a homeowner has significant property damage (fire, flood, fallen tree) and the home is under a mortgage, the insurance company will make the check payable to the homeowner and the mortgage company. If it has both names it cannot be cashed unless the mortgage company endorses the check. I was the person responsible for determining if we would sign the back of that check so the customer could cash it.
Mortgages have a clause that allows this, because it’s in the best interest of the mortgage company to make sure the property is returned to the way it was before the claim. If the claim was over a certain amount (I think it was $5k) we required a whole process of holding the money in an escrow account and doling it out in increments using property inspections to verify the work was being completed.
It was honestly a whole annoying process to have to go through, especially if you are already dealing with a traumatic situation that requires the claim in the first place. I got yelled at a lot.
Oftentimes it would start with the customer calling in to figure out why the check was made payable to the mortgage company also. The mortgage company I worked for was part of a large bank, so if the homeowner called the 800 number they were often frustrated by the time they finally found their way to me. Then as I explained that they couldn’t just have the money, we needed them to select a licensed contractor and get our approval, then we would provide 1/3, then we would do an inspection at 50% and release the next 1/3, then a final inspection at 100% and release the remainder. I would get yelled at and told it was illegal. But I would just point them to page 18 section 5 of the mortgage. I could access people’s mortgage docs and I was often asked to send the relevant pages.
Eventually people would accept their fate because they had no choice. I tried to be very sympathetic because it did suck for them. And I had customers tell me a lot of sad stories about fires and floods and tornadoes. It was a super interesting job though. I loved looking at the home inspection reports.
There are, in fact, no products in that empty drawer. I promise I'm not hiding them from you, ma'am.
could you just check the back please?
Sure, I can go play on my phone for 5 minutes while "checking the back".
Karen look, 'the back' only has things we don't have space for, it isn't a secret second store we hide stuff from you.
Does working as a security guard and having the company that contracted your company trying to get you to basically be their own personal police force count? I worked for a security company hired by Longs and the loss prevention manager of the Longs kept trying to get us to do things that, in California anyway, are illegal as a security guard. Such as digging through someone's personal belongings. We can ask to look inside, but not touch, and we really can't force them to comply. We could not arrest people. We couldn't have weapons (not even allowed to carry a pocket knife while on duty with our guard cards). Little Napoleonic complex motherfucker didn't care. He would insist that it was legal and we would just tell him to talk to our boss because he isn't our supervisor, manager or even part of our company.
I used to work retail loss prevention and had several of the exact opposite- we'd get contract security to supplement our staff as a visual deterrent and they would then think they were given carte blanche to hassle whoever the fuck they wanted. It really didn't take long to realize that as long as I treated shoplifters with respect, more often than not they would come with, take care of the paperwork, get their ticket from the real cops and then be on their way unless the jurisdiction required they get booked. But there would always be that one fuckhead trying to steal thousands of dollars worth of shit and then act like we had no right to stop or detain them . I know it varies by where you live, but we were fully allowed to make citizens arrests and would do so daily. In 21 years I got subpoenaed four times and testified once. Never lost one case.
We do not have to keep a register open just because there is a customer in the store. We've been making closing announcements for almost an hour and the store closed 20 minutes ago. You had more then enough time to buy whatever you wanted. Come back tomorrow.
People not knowing the difference between a cash register and a voting booth kinda makes most election results of the past few decades make a lot more sense though 🤔
Had a similar thing when our internet and phones went out in a retail store. We processed cash transactions for as long as we could before closing a couple hours early. Asshole stuck his foot in the door when the manager was trying to explain why he couldn't come in, demanding that we let him shop. He was clearly drunk, to boot. Ugh.
"Actually, in the terms of service you signed with DirecTV, your NFL Sunday Ticket was set to auto renew after the first free year.
Also.
We've billed you for it for two months, and is now past the point where we can remove it. You have 5 additional payments.
This is in fact also not illegal apparently. Since it's in the terms of service.
If you'd like to sue DirecTV please have your lawyer contact our TEAM of lawyers and we'll be happy to address it."
Worked that soul sucking job for five long years while going to college. Sucked.
Could be a UDAAP violation if they didn't know what they were signing up for.
I worked at a book store, and the card readers processed everything as credit. Which is generally fine, since most folks' debit cards can be run either way.
I had an old dude come up and pay with his debit card. When it didn't ask for a pin, he started screaming at me about how I'd just illegally charged his credit card. I politely explained that it didn't work that way and he just kept yelling. So I rudely explained that it didn't work that way.
Dude, you think you inserted your debit card and that magically, our system somehow found out your credit card information and charged that instead?
Dude would probably be better iff it it made his debit a credit card.
Debit cards can be run as credit, but they don't have anywhere near the protections of a credit card.
Debit cards can be run as credit
Does it cost the merchant more?
In Australia, debit cards are dual-network, and credit transactions cost far more than debit transactions. Debit uses a local system called EFTPOS that has low fees, whereas credit uses the card issuer's network (Mastercard, Visa, etc) and they take a far larger percentage.
some people think that “the customer is always right” isn’t the slogan of a long-dead department store, but rather it’s an actual call the cops law
wat
That was my reaction too. I haven’t seen it myself but I heard it from a friend who works in food service.
Not exactly to the title but I was alone with a coworker and explaining my precancerous cells I was being checked up on and a customer walked up as I was explaining.
He said, "that sounds like bullshit and I would know because I have a PHD."
he was an idiot.
I know lots of very stupid people with PhDs
I have a PhD, for one
I have a buddy who's about to get his PhD in math. He's probably one of the dumbest guys I know. Don't get me wrong, he's incredibly smart and a very hard working. But also the guy can't open a baby gate, even if show show him 3 times. We play a lot of non-voice acted video games together where you need to read stuff, and he mispronounces pretty much every word. Like, he isn't even close on most of them.
I have a BSC... Bronze Swimming Certificate.
Obligatory Red Dwarf love!
I would know because I have a PHD
Also "I'm an engineer". People with specific vocational training (EE, MD, whatever) think because they know one thing well enough to get a professional license they know all things well.
I think some people don't even realize PhD and MD are different things.
Philadelphia and Maryland?
Not going to ask a Chiropractor anything even if they are an MD. At first I was going to say they all specialize... but chiropractors... nah just going to play it safe and tell them I'm fine.
Working in a financial call centre, a certain type of person considered us to have stolen their money if they sent us funds for an investment and refused to send anti-money laundering documents with it, because we also couldn't return the money without them. Sorry, buddy.
That honestly should be the law. If you can't accept it without documentation, you should be required to return it. Of course you can also report it, but that's separate.
Speaking for the UK, that's every financial institution. The whole point is that everyone is required to complete checks to make sure you are who you say you are, if you refuse them then that is an indicator of money laundering. Even just receiving and returning money helps a money launderer establish a paper trail and assists in layering to legitimise the money they gave you. That's a big no-no, obviously, so it can't simply be returned without risking significant legal implications from the regulator. All expectations are set up front on this when beginning transactions.
They told me I had to honor an expired coupon for 5 cents off their gas.
I work for an ISP and I've been told on several occasions by customers that it is illegal for us to see a customer's connected devices on the router that we supply and manage... Bro if you want to manage your own network, buy your own router and stop bothering me.