Retail Hell Underground

Coupon Hound Tries To Get Extra Discounts

Hey, it's Luna again.

My manager Angel has done everything she can to stop scheduling me and Turkey together, so my life has gotten a lot less stressful. Now I just have to pick up after her mistakes. This is a completely different story, though.

My store is never NOT on a sale of some kind. You never pay full price for anything here. In addition we give out coupons, and there are a few coupons you can get online. They very clearly state one coupon per customer. This does not mean one coupon per transaction, or per day. Per CUSTOMER. Meaning its valid ONCE.

Had a lady come in yesterday that tried to use five $10 off of $50 coupons on a $55 order. I was the manager on duty, so I am the one that has to tell her it cannot be done. She bitches for a good 15 minutes, saying such things as "I paid $3 for each coupon online, you're ripping me off!" and, "Oh fine then, I'll just come back tomorrow! I know Turkey and SHE always does it for me."

So as usual, in my customer-handling voice, I say, "I'm sorry ma'am, there are a few flaws with your coupons. First of all, it clearly states one coupon per customer. Secondly, if you used one your total would come down to $45, and the rest of your coupons would be invalid. Thirdly, if Turkey does this for you all the time, she is breaking company policy and will be written up. And lastly, I'm the only manager working tomorrow."

She gave me the "Fine, you caught me," look and paid her forty-five dollars, and left.

Here's the kicker, though! Today, a man comes in with one of those coupons and the receipt. He says his wife bought some items and forgot to use her coupon. I recognize the items and the phone number on the receipt and start laughing. I tell the man exactly what happened the day before, and that I already gave her the maximum discount allowed. He started laughing with me and told me his wife was a coupon hound and actually paid websites to get codes.

I feel for ya, dude!

May your Customers have positive IQ numbers,

--Luna

Riferous Finds Proof Positive That Coupons Had Balls

I am remodeling my kitchen, and when I moved a cabinet I found a bunch of coupons from 1976. While finding coupons as old as me was neat, what I found noteworthy was the first line of the disclaimer on this one.  It reads, "TO THE CONSUMER: CAUTION! Don't embarrass your dealer by asking to redeem coupons without making the required purchase of this brand." Who knew coupons had balls at one point!

Stay classy, RHU!

--Riferous

Crusty Gets Told Off By A Baby

So I had to run to the store this morning for milk while my son was at school. Took my baby with me and we decided to ditch the cart. She likes walking, I like her holding my finger while she does it. Plus I wasn't really in any rush.

When we finally got to the checkout, it became clear we were behind a crazy coupon lady. Most of her coupons worked, but not one. Now I normally don't pay that much attention, but this crusty was throwing a major fit over a coupon.

I heard the cashier say, "It's way past expired," and "You don't have the right item for the coupon anyways," and "This isn't even from our store."

So yeah, the lady was throwing a fit over a coupon that was 4 years expired, for an item that she didn't even have, from a store that she wasn't even in.

Cashier called the manager to "See if something can be done," and the lady was still throwing a fit.

Baby and I are waiting fairly patiently, watching this crazy woman. About 5 minutes into it, my baby lets go of my finger, takes three steps up to the lady. And here, dressed in her pink winter coat, with a pink polka dot hat, and pink princess boots, with a finger pointed at the lady, she says in the loudest voice her little body can muster, "No no! No cookie for you!" Then waddles back to me, takes my finger again, and looks at the lady with "that look."

It's taking all my self control not to bust out laughing, and I can see that the cashier is battling with it too. The crusty stares at my baby for 15 full seconds with the look of shock on her face before she rushes out of the store without her items.

The cashier told me I had the coolest baby around and the baby walked out with a free sticker from the cashier. (Which she promptly plastered to my face once I tried buckling her into her car seat.)

Made my day... and probably the cashier's too. Gotta love my (almost! ah!) two year old.

--Karebear

700/800 Dumbass Custys Fail To Read Coupons

Had a joy of a coupon at work today - one day only, 49% off a single, regular-priced item. These were in big letters too, not hidden at all. At the bottom of the email, a HUGE paragraph of exclusions - all the standard ones, like no sale items, gift cards, prior purchases, etc, in addition to excluding all sale items, art, and furniture (art and furniture were ALL on sale already).

So insert this gem of a crusty. And by that, I mean petrified crap.

"So if the furniture is 50% off, and the coupon is 49%, does that mean my furniture will be 99% off?"

No, No it will not be.

All furniture is *UP TO* 50% off, thank you corporate office for making me state this at least twenty times a day.

Furniture is on sale. This means its excluded. Furniture is also excluded from the coupon. Furniture is double-excluded! For each of the 900 customers in our store today, at least 800 of them were trying to use the damn coupon on furniture. *sigh*

I dont know how one of my friends does this. I've been in retail all through college, at least 8 years. My friend works for a fabric store that gives out these coupons routinely...I just signed up with them and have 3 in the past 3 weeks already. I'm just going to sit here and drink my liquor...

- Herdis

Discount Rats Go Crazy For Best Buy Coupon

From Huff Po: If you ever see a Best Buy coupon that is too good to be true, it very well might be.

The electronics retailer recently promoted a very simple internet coupon: get $50 off of your purchase of $100 or more if you pay with a Mastercard, according to the Consumerist. The coupon had some restrictions -- you could not use it to buy iPods and certain TVs -- but there was no limit on how many coupons a customer could use.

Naturally, bargain hunters everywhere went nuts. One shopper scored over $2,500 worth of Amazon cards with the deal, according to the Consumerist. Another customer used the coupon to buy $1,600 worth of gift cards, a shopper wrote on Slickdeals’ website.

It apparently didn't take long for Best Buy to catch on to the error. Some customers were reportedly told at the cash register that their coupons were not valid.

Rather than take a cut in profits in exchange for issuing such a poorly written coupon, Best Buy decided to reissue its coupon, changing the promotion entirely. The company made the promotion valid for only one day, for one purchase, excluding all gift cards. Best Buy also limited the deal to one offer per coupon, per household.

Best Buy did not immediately respond to The Huffington Post's request for comment.

... And here is what Best Buy wrote on its website:

The $50 Master Card Bonus – Save $50 When you Spend $100 In-Store and Pay With Any Master Card (valid 1/21/13-1/27/13) Promotional Offer was sent out with incorrect product inclusions, product exclusions, single product call out and end date. An ad correction is available in our retail stores, where you can see a Sales Consultant or Customer Service for any questions or to view a list of the included and excluded products.

We apologize for any confusion or inconvenience this may have caused.

 

Best Buy is not the first retailer, big or small, that has had to pay for over-promising on online deals.

After Cyber Monday, Toys 'R' Us, Kohl's and other online stores alienated many bargain seekers whose orders were ultimately canceled because the retailers' systems could not handle the rush of traffic.

A small bakery in Reading, England, was completely overwhelmed with orders after a Groupon deal offered a 75 percent discount on 12 cupcakes. The baker was forced to make 102,000 cupcakes, NBC News reports.

Best Buy’s big flop comes just weeks after the retailer got showered with praise for letting a customer keep five extra iPads it sent by mistake in exchange for her honesty.

(h/t Business Insider)

via www.huffingtonpost.com

 

Dominos Green Coupon

 

Cashier Rant: Demeaning Custys and Coupon Abusers

Banja gets a Retail Balls Award for how she dealt with abusive coupon custys and not letting them getting away with it:

I'm not nearly as steamed as the last time I posted.  

Now, I'm just tired.  

I worked yesterday for 8 hours and today for 7 - I can almost hear some of you laughing at me; I know that's not a heavy load.  I attend classes when I'm not working, so it's just a bit more than I'm used to.

Yesterday, I had a customer completely trash my goals in life.  

I know I shouldn't have even let it come up in conversation, but sometimes I can't help myself.

I try to be friendly and I talk and sometimes it slips out.  

Here's how it went down:

Custy: "You guys are finally playing some decent music!  Can you hear it?"

Banja: "Not really..."

Custy: "It's [group].  Listen real hard!"

Banja: "Oh, I don't recognize them."

Custy: "You don't?!  What the hell are *you* listening to?"

Banja: [Completely without thinking] "Most of the things I listen to aren't from this country..."

Custy: "What do you listen to?"

Banja: [On a stupid roll tonight] "Mostly video game soundtracks and J-Pop..."

Custy: "What the hell is J-Pop?"

Banja: "Japanese pop."

Custy: "Why the hell do you listen to that?!"

Banja: "Because I want to live there and teach English someday."

The custy proceeded to go on a rant about how it's an awful place to live and they hate Americans, and how I'm going to get stabbed by needles over there (wtf?!), and rawr rawr rawr I stopped listening and just finished his order.  

I shouldn't have been surprised.  Most customers who find out (I told you, I try to talk to everybody and it comes up) are very friendly and think it's an awesome goal. But this customer reminded me that for every person who thinks it's great, there are twice as many who think I'm a horrible person for wanting to leave America.  So that left me quite down for the rest of my night.  

I privately spoke with a head cashier and she gave me permission to leave register if he comes in again, as long as we aren't too busy.  Right after that conversation, though, he reappeared and went on this rant about the new season of Dexter and how it's great and blar blar blar.  We have no clue why he came back in.  One of my coworkers thinks there's something mentally not right with him, but I just wish he wouldn't go to my register...he kept cursing at me and it actually made me a bit uncomfortable.  As I have a bit of a sailor's mouth, that's impressive.

*    *    *

The second big issue I had this weekend was with COUPONS.  

I work at an outlet store, which means that we often sell slightly damaged goods at a lower price.  We accept a few coupons, though we have rules on them.  Namely, that you cannot use more than three on any item.  This rule works like this: Three coupons per item per person per day.  This means you can't exit and re-enter our store and use your other coupons.  Simple, right?

The problem with foolproof rules is that you always have the fool to prove them useless.

We sell these microwaveable chicken nuggets (nasty pieces of shit) for 99 cents, and some of them have coupons on them that are good for an immediate 55 cents off.  I had a customer who wanted to use a bunch of them yesterday, but one of the head cashiers explained why we couldn't accept them all.  There was the obligatory custy grumbling, but she left without much fuss (dumping it on my register to make me put it away does count as a 'minor fuss'), and I knew how to handle the problem if it came up again.  I just wasn't expecting to deal with it so soon.

Today, a family of crustys was going through the line of one of the new girls.  She hasn't been there long, so I try to keep an eye on her and she feels comfortable asking me questions.  I saw the man of the family with about nine of these microwaveable nugget packs, and saw that he was pulling a bunch of the coupons off.  I know that the new girl doesn't know our policies yet, so I spoke up politely.  Maybe it was being nosy, but I wanted to help her.

Banja:  "Sir, just so you know, we can only accept three of these coupons at a time."

Crusty: "Why?!"

Banja:  "I'm sorry, sir, there is a rule that states "three coupons per item per customer per day"."

Crusty: *grumbles something*

Banja:  "I'm sorry?"  (I admit.  My voice got a fraction less friendly.  I don't appreciate you talking crap when I'm standing right there.)

Crusty:  "Oh, nothing~  We're just going to beat your system."

The man sent his son to another line with the nuggets, and I went to the head cashier's office and quietly informed her of what the customer was doing.  She thought for a moment and told me to leave it go for now, but if he did it again to let her know.

Not five minutes later, the jackass sent his wife to a different register.  So, I knocked on the door once more and told her what was going on.  She came out, asked me who the person was, and pretended to be busy bagging for the cashier, but as soon as the crusty's wife approached she informed her that we could not accept their coupons due to the abuse of the rules.  

I'm a terrible person, but it made me feel all fuzzy inside to watch them leave knowing they couldn't rip us off like that.

Seriously, guys, the nuggets are 99 freaking cents.  It's not like they'll break your wallet.

But now, after much grumbling, some good news!  The head cashier who's always rude to me for no reason is leaving Saturday, which means her position is opening!  Though my hopes aren't high, I left a note for my manager saying that I am interested if the position is available.  Maybe I'll get it!

Sorry for talking your ears off, but thank you for letting me rant!

Oyasumi nasai,

--Banja

 

 

 

The Tale of Crazy Jane

CashyKat here once again after an extended period of silence. Miraculously normal custy behavior had become mediocre until today.

There is a regular older customer lets call Crazy Jane. She is known for tales of woe, misery and neediness. She also has claimed to be on deaths door from smoking but has refused to discontinue the practice.

Today appeared to be an ordinary day. She came over to the self scan in her MART cart and immediately asked for my help as she has done many times in the past.

I scan her few items of cereal, two bottles of juice, cupcakes and a mini pie and set it up to accept her food stamp card.

I go back to my self scan podium and wait for it to go through. It declines with the note of invalid pin number.

I apologize to her and inform her the wrong pin number was entered. She mutters and slides the card again. It declines it once more. I apologize to her and tell her the card is going to freeze after three or four for 24 hours tries if the wrong number is entered.

She gets a tad more agitated and tells me she has $200 something on her card and it’s the right pin number.

Crazy Jane tries it once more.

It declines it with the same message of invalid pin. I once again apologize but I believe the card is now frozen. She insists on trying it once more. It naturally didn’t work and she starts to blame me, the self scan and insists I fix this immediately. I apologize and I tell her to call the number on the card.

She doesn’t listen and looks like she is about to cry. To my relief I see the store manager at the self scan. I explain the situation to him. He tells her the same thing I just told him. She tells him she needs these groceries.

Another coworker happens to walk by and she tells Crazy Jane what the manager and I just told her. Naturally, this did not appease the situation. Crazy Jane’s hands start to tremble with the threat of tears close by. The store manager tells her to calm down which does not help. I step in and offer to call the number for her. I may not particularly care for her, but I really felt bad for her. The store manager nods his head and disappears into his office to my dismay.

Without the moral support of the store manager, I use the phone at the self scan so I could try to keep an eye on the other three registers. After wading through probably five minutes of crap I finally get a hold of a live person. I explain to the live person the situation at hand.

The live person tells me she needs to speak to Crazy Jane directly. I hand the phone to her and she tells the live person her tale of woe and bipolar disorder.

On the plus side, I notice sympathetic looks from other customers during this ordeal. I glance at the security camera with a look of “help me!” in hopes the store manager is watching. If he saw my look, he didn’t emerge from his office.

Suddenly the phone is thrust at me with Crazy Jane saying I should have reset her pin number at the register.

I tell the live person on the phone that we can do no such thing. Live person tells me she needs to talk to Crazy Jane about this situation.

I gladly hand the phone back. At some point the front end manager appeared for a situation update. However, it became too busy for her to remain with me at the self scan and had to cash.

The phone is once more thrust in my hand and the live person tells me to call the number on the card and press option 3 to change the pin number. The live person tells me the card will be unfrozen at midnight (I silently thank God it wasn’t 24 hours) and that Crazy Jane must change the pin number herself. I’m thinking “yeah right!’ but agree.

I quickly dial the number and press option 3. It asks for her date of birth, which I enter for her.

Then it wanted her social security number, which I had her enter on the phone. Then it came time for her to pick a new pin number. She enters 4111. However, when it came times to verify the new pin, she entered a completely different pin. She gets more flustered and then tries to enter some five digit number which it declined. I decide to take control and suggest 4321 as a pin number. She agrees and I am able to change her pin number. I write her new pin clearly on a piece of paper in hopes she will remember it.

Afterwards, Crazy Jane wants me to try to run her card through using the new pin. I tell her I will try, but I believe the card will still be frozen until midnight as the live person told her.

Of course the card won’t go through. Another coworker randomly appeared and tried. I apologize again to Crazy Jane, which just causes her to once more blame me and the self scan for her troubles. The front end manager arrives once more. I ask her if she could try running Crazy Jane’s order through the offline food stamp thing.

The front end manager agrees. At the end, it too failed because the food stamp card was frozen. The front end manager offers to hold her items until tomorrow. Crazy Jane disappears for a brief moment of time for a cigarette. I use that opportunity to go on my over due break.

I emerge from the break room to use the csm’s office phone to try to call my boyfriend to rant. It turned out I didn’t remember his phone number and my cell phone was at home. I emerge from the office and find that Crazy Jane had a $5 bill her hand and wants ME to help her.

I use what little acting skill I have and nicely tell her that the coworker covering my break will gladly help her. Somehow this causes me and the easy scan to once again have blame for her frozen food stamp card. I escape into the break room mouthing two bad words at her.

During that time the store manager came in and told me of a time Crazy Jane didn’t have her i.d for cigarettes and since corporate says to i.d everyone, he refused to let her purchase some. The rejection had caused her to call him every bad name in the book which didn’t faze him.

After I came back from break, the front end manager also told me to let it go. She said Crazy Jane lacks the ability to reason and that she would have had the same problem at the regular registers (which I knew) but it was nice to hear.

So what caused this 45 minute ordeal to occur?

Crazy Jane not being able to enter the simple pin number of 1234.

--CashyKat

The Onion Explores Bitchy Discount Rat Behavior

  

 

Extreme Discount Rat Couponing: Dumpster Diving Mom

 

Discount Rat Causes Hell At Toy Store

Hey RHUers!

So I know I've only posted once before, as FuckYouForCalling. I've since left the call center world so you may now refer to me as FuckYouForComing.

I currently work Mon-Sat at a wonderful gourmet soup, salad, sandwich, dessert cafe. It's the best job I have ever had, management rocks and the custys are loyal and very nice, so I haven't had much to post about. However, I do still work Sundays at a toy store. I don't get TOO much crusty action there, but every once in a while I'll uncover a gem. That's where this story comes in.

Background: It's almost summer so almost anything to do with summer, including bikes and such, are on some kind of sale.

So I'm minding my own business running a cash register when a Discount Rat lady brings up a few items. Among them is a bicycle helmet. So I ring her up and give her her total. That's when things go wrong.

Discount Rat: That helmet was supposed to be on sale.

Me: Oh, it didn't ring up that way, I'm so sorry. Was there a sign back there that said it was on sale? I'll have someone bring it to me.

Discount Rat: No, it said it in your ad in the paper.

Me: Oh alright I have a copy of that right her let me look through it.

After looking through every page I see no helmets anywhere, just bikes, and I tell her so.

Discount Rat: No, it was in there! I even ripped it out to bring with me to show you!

Me: Oh great! Let me take a look so we can get you the right price.

Discount Rat: I didn't bring it with me.

Me: *facepalm and utter confusion*  Umm....ok. Hold on let me get my manager maybe she will know something about any helmet sale.

So I call my manager over. She has a very strong personality and we have butted heads before, but we have also bonded over people's hilarious stupidity so I knew she'd either figure out the problem or get this lady off my case and laugh about it with me later.

I tell Strong Personality Manager the deal and she pulls out the same ad I was looking at, looks through it, and also finds no helmets, just bikes, so we let the rat look through the ad to see if she recognizes the page she "cut out at home".

Discount Rat: Here's the page! It's right here! See! Ugh! I told you! You should have listened! It's right in front of your face! You went right past it! Can't you read?

Strong Personality Manager and I look at the page she is pointing at. The bike page. It has no pictures of helmets on it, or coupons for helmets, no. What DR is showing us is the small print description of the sale. It said "All *brand 1*, *brand 2*, and *brand 3* bikes and matching helmets 20% off.

Now usually my problems are with custys who DON'T read the fine print. This one did, but apparently reading comprehension wasn't her strong point on the SATs. And she had the balls to ask if WE could read.

Me: Ma'am, this says the helmets have to match *brand 1*, *brand 2*, or *brand 3*. This helmet is *other brand*.

Then she blew up.

Discount Rat: THIS IS WHY I HATE COMING TO THIS STORE! YOU ALWAYS SAY THINGS ARE ON SALE WHEN THEY AREN'T!!! I NEED TO BUY A HELMET! IT'S A BIRTHDAY PRESENT! YOU WANT TO RUIN HIS BIRTHDAY! AND YOU CAN'T EVEN GIVE IT TO ME ON SALE EVEN THOUGH IT SAYS HELMETS ARE ON SALE ON THE PAPER I CUT OUT!

I wish I could have said "And this is why I hate people who can't read.", "If you hate us, don't come here." or "His birthday will already be ruined with a bitch like you there." But of course I couldn't. I could tell my manager with the strong personality wanted to say the same kinds of things though, so instead she runs off before she starts laughing, leaving me to deal with the rat.

Me: Um...is this the exact paper you have cut out at home?

Discount Rat: Yes! It says helmets are on sale!

Me: Ma'am it's very clear in the ad that the helmet has to be one of those brands, if this is the same page you cut out then your page said the same thing. Now do you want to go switch this helmet for one of the sale brand helmets? I can even send someone to run back and grab one for you if you don't want to walk all the way back there.

Discount Rat: *super huffy* Ugh no, he wouldn't like any of them. (she didn't even look at them!) *siiiigghhh* I guess I'll just pay for this one.

Me: O...kay.

So I ring her up, she is super rude the whole rest of the time, with exaggerated sighs, disgruntled noises, and general snippiness every time I ask her a question. Meanwhile I'm trying to sound super sweet just to get through this, and maybe annoy her. To top it all off, at the end of the transaction she asks about returning the helmet if the recipient didn't like it. Really now.

May all your customers be literate,

--FuckYouForComing

 

Taking It For Customer Service: Corporate Move To Make Things Easier Causes More Hell

Hi Ya'll- Womens Retail Slave here with some left over headache on one of my baby vacation days this month.

Our company is trying to be more customer friendly while in the past it was rules are rules. Which was funny because if they called out HQ they would just do it for them or send the crusty back into our store with a phone call.

So the company is letting us make more decisions in the process vs sending them to our 800# customer complaint line. While yes, that is great, its getting to a point where I feel like I should just drop my pants and bend over the desk.

Some of their requests are getting past the point of normal, here are a few of the jems:

"I have a coupon at home, can you take it?" 

*um a coupon for what?*

"I have a coupon on my phone, but my phone died. Can I use your phone to look it up?"

*um no.*

"My friend 6 states away told me about a coupon, can I call her LONG DISTANCE and get the code?"

*Do I look like Alexander Graham Bell? No.*

"I'm a member so I get a discount."

*I asked her what she was a member of, since we don't have any membership programs or discount cards.*

"Look me up on the internet at blah blah blah.com."

*Hi, we dont have internet.*

"I talked to someone and they said I was such a good shopper to give me a discount."

*1stly who did you magically talk to? and exactly what discount are you talking about?*

"I spend thousands of dollars, I deserve something!"

*I let you live, how does that sound!*

"I shop here all the time, I'm a regular!"

*Really I have worked here for xxx years never seen you, you're not in our system, you don't know our return policy, and have never heard/had our credit card. Um ok."

"HQ said it was ok!"

*Really someone on the opposite side of the US who closed 3 hours ago due to time zones said it was ok to do what?*

"I know your manager!"

*Really I don't know you...*

"I know your supervisor!"

*Really then give them a call, and let them tell you "no" again!*

"Is this the best price you can give me?"

*Well 1stly I am not in charge of prices, 2ndly we are not a swap meet. The price is clearly on the tag and on the sign above it.*

"Why did it ring up so much isn't it on sale?"

*Yes its on sale its not free!*

*    *   *    *

Lastly a few of my last week pet peeves which have started getting under my skin are:

1) When you shop with us we look you up by your phone number to get into our system for returns, and to get emails if we have your address. Do not talk to me like I am a moron because you have either

A) a highly stupid name

B) a highly complicated name

C) a foreign name

D) a basic or common name that INSIST is pronounced special. "Is it Susan?"  Crusty: " NO NO NO ITS Su- SHAZNE" Really really, it looks like Susan. OR "Is it De-men-tree-sha-ni-que-a-rhea?"  Crusty "EVERYTIME I COME HERE NO ONE CAN PRONOUNCE MY NAME RIGHT I AM NEVER SHOPPING HERE AGAIN"

Really, please do..

2) If you ONLY have $40 dollars to shop, why why why do you try on 34895 things, and bring up 2343 things to the register.

Part two of this is why do you let me unhang, desensor, scan, fold, and bag all your product before you tell me -*Oh thats too much I only have $40" You can see each item ring, and see the running total. When it got up to $100 why didn't you stop, when it got to $200 why didn't you stop. No you had to let me scan it all in, for you, there is a special place in hell awaiting. 

Thats all for now, I am going to blissfully vacate my brain of any thought of work for an ENTIRE WEEK!! WHOO HOO!

--Women's Retail Slave

Retail Balls Award: Nasty Discount Rat From Hell Gets Told

JR Manager back with another great story.

Currently at college but planning for finish my first year up in the next few weeks and return to retail hell. Working at a store from the ground up the past couple years I swear that I have seen everything. One thing that I never expected was the amount of violence that you can see over a couple dollars. Now my store, before we converted to another, had a policy that it was up to the employees at guest service and in the office to decide whether to give a custy their refund if they brought back food. Typically it would end peacefully with the store giving a full refund, or double if the fresh product did not live up to standards.

Now after my time I began to pick out the custys that would come to guest services and would be causing problems, and I would immediately call a manager or someone who has seniority to deal with them.

Since before I have gotten the statement, "I don't want some snobby ass kid taking my money, get me a manager now I will have you job." Luckily with my track record all of my managers openly trust me and stand behind me, with one even offering me a promotion after dealing with a custy from hell.

After the extreme couponer show, coupled with my stores double up to $1.99 coupons our store began to see some crazy couponers.

Let me say they are very precise about their money and how everything works out. Following a double coupon day, I was at guest service and saw this lady start walking up with a receipt almost 3 feet long, so I called my manager out of the office and went to another area close by in case she needed help.

The custy demanded her money back after she purchased "the wrong sized Mounds," now I have seen this trick before, a custy buys an item with a coupon and then demands we give them full price back on said item because our receipts only coupon on them.

My manager was happy to do so and was beginning to get the register set up for a refund.

Then all hell broke loose, the custy strait up yelled at the manager that she should also get the right size Mounds for free plus some other type of compensation, because our store does not have the employees who are smart enough to put the bags where they were supposed to be.

My manager took one look at the receipt and notice the custy was in the store at 7AM, so the shelves were correct because they had done 2 run throughs before the store opened that day.

My manager politely said that the custy would just have to take the refund and she could buy the Mounds if she wanted with it.

I believe the exact word coming from this devil’s mouth was "Give me what I want, I shop here all the time, I pay for your salary, and THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT!!!"

My manager being kind politely said that she was no longer going to run the return because a custy is supposed to respect the workers and she did not like being yelled at.

All the while this is happening the baggers all shifted down closer to the guest service desk, I moved beside the desk, and the deli workers came to the front to "clock out." We were afraid this might get violent. The custy almost leapt over the desk to grab my manager, but stopped when she saw 8 guys all who could restrain her within leaping distance of her. She then demanded that we get a manager.

We followed orders and called our manager up, who was Awesome Manager again for me and told her exactly what the front end manager said; followed by if you attempt to hurt an employee the police will become involved.

In the custy's fury storming out of the store she hit this nice old lady and her cart. OL simply said, "have some respect for the workers, they tried to help you." and the custy responded by shoving the lady’s cart across to a wall and yelling for her to "F*#@ OFF."

We apologized to old lady and offered a discount or something, but she simply stated she didn’t need anything and was glad the lady from hell left.

I found out the next time I worked that the custy had her 14 y.o. daughter come in the next day and try again for the refund, though this time just for money. Luckily my manager left a message to the openers for the next day to watch the video and to keep an eye out. No refund was given and the daughter was left with a message of "Tell your mom that all employees are aware of this and nobody will be giving you this refund.

May you all have custys like OL.

--JR Manager

 

Bookstore Coupon and Clearance Hell

Bookstore Slave with a satement of fact: 

I fucking hate coupons and clearance sale books. So. Fucking. Much.

Hoarders had struggled in the sea of sinkage with a program where you would get coupons in your email, which you could print up and bring into the store. Now SOME people, usually the ones that blew between $20-$100 a pop on normal days, would use their coupons on the most expensive item they happened to be buying that day. Makes sense, and we welcomed that. No problem there.

But then we got a new caste of "regulars." And not Regulars as in, "We come in every week to blow our bank accounts because we love your store *heart heart heart* Oh yes, we know store policy and we always obey it. *heart heart heart*" Oh no. Not THOSE.

THESE regulars would come in every time there was a coupon, pick the cheapest ass $1.99 Clearance Sale book on the shelf and slap their 20% coupon on top of it. Fucktard, you're saving $0.40 on an ancient, out-of-print Clearance book. Really? Really. Well corporate got wise to this within 6 months (ZOMG they paid attention?) and added on every coupon "Not valid with any other offer."

Oh fuckballs the shit has hit the fan now! Scream and rant and rave and argue and bitch and moan and piss themselves SHIT FIT! Every. Goddamn. Time. the coupon came out, we would have one of these useless new regulars coming in and then blowing their stack because we would tell them to buy a book that was neither on sale nor on clearance if they wanted their discount.

60 year old man: I want to add this discount.

Me: "I'm sorry sir, we cannot add your percentage off on top of your already discounted book, but you're still getting an $15 book for $4.99." *pained smile*

The old dude attempted to stare me down. I refused to have a staring contest with him over his Last Chance Clearance item.

Me: Let me know when you've made up your mind.

Him: I've MADE up my mind. I want to add THIS discount to THIS BOOK.

Me: I'm sorry Dave, but I cannot do that. (Best HAL voice I can manage) Please tell me when you've decided on whether you want this book.

Him: I've MADE up my mind. I want to add THIS discount to THIS BOOK.

Me: I'm sorry Dave, but I cannot do that. 

Him: I WANT THIS DISCOUNT ON THIS BOOK!

ARGLEBLARGLEFLARGLE! Okay, Now I've had e-fucking-nuff. Being LOUDER does not make it magically happen!

Me: Sir, I heard you the first three times you said what you wanted. And I told you three times that I cannot do that. You either need to buy the book at the clearance sale price without the coupon, or not buy the book at all.

He tries to stare me down again. I'm starting to twitch and foam at the mouth, and I'm going to contract psychosomatic rabies and start biting everything in sight.

The manager swoops in, takes the man's book off the counter and walks away with it tucked under his arm.

Manager: Sir, it is obvious that you do not want this book if you cannot get the discount, so I'm going to put it away for you. *sweet smile*

The man stared in shock that anyone would outright cockblock his hard on for repetitive denials, then chased the manager, bellowing at the top of his lungs that he wanted his discount and he wanted it now!

He skided to a stop when Truck cut in and matched him, stare for stare. In one of my older stories, I described him as the kind of guy that looks like a federal agent behind his dark shades and you start looking for the gun holster when he gets the right expression on his face. So, yeah, you can imagine this scene.

Truck: No.

That's it. No raised voice, no inflection, no anger. Straight out "No" with this blank, soulless look in his eyes like he's starting at the guy along the muzzle of his gun and doesn't give a flying fuck whether he's going to pull the trigger or not.

I'm 6 feet away and my stomach drops to my ankles and my heart stops beating. The dude, in full line with this look goes dead white, loses his nerve, and flees. Mysteriously, he never returned to harass us again.

God I miss that man... I want to pay him to be my bodyguard at my retail jobs.

May all your customers be nice.

--Bookstore Slave

Adventures in Retail: Hilarious Animated Web Series Nails Retail Life

 

RHU welcomes an LOL animated mini series called Adventures in Retail by Suzy Berhow. I will post new ones as she makes them!