Global retailers faced a staggering $100 billion in losses last year, attributed to theft encompassing shoplifting, employee pilferage, and various scams and frauds. Therefore, individuals with a penchant for casually taking items such as chapstick or gum from stores should reconsider their actions, as the cumulative impact is substantial.
Whether it involves attempting to return unpurchased items for cash or using fraudulent credit cards, there seems to be no shortage of inventive schemes for obtaining free merchandise.
Ironically, as technology becomes more integrated into the shopping experience, it appears to provide additional avenues for deceptive individuals. The following are some of the most absurd stories shared by retail workers on Reddit about the various scams customers have attempted to execute.
1. Retail Revelation
In the wild world of undercover operations, there’s a sneaky game afoot. Picture this: folks digging through trash cans like they’re on a treasure hunt, all for a shot at nabbing some loot.
Their game plan? Snatch receipts, spot the swag, and then hit up stores for a bit of smash-and-grab action. But wait, there’s more – after the loot is in hand, they swagger over to the cashier for some return shenanigans.
Now, these thieves aren’t exactly criminal masterminds – they’re more like bumbling burglars with a side hustle. After scoring items worth a whopping $5 that can easily slide into a coat pocket, they go all-in on the returns.
Why settle for chump change when you can aim for the big bucks? Many stores, however, catch on after the $10 mark and slap you with a store credit or demand the cash go back to the card it was swiped from.
Crafty, right?
So, here’s where the fun kicks in. Picture my manager, the Sherlock Holmes of the retail underworld, catching a would-be thief red-handed. There she was, eyeballing a lady trying to return two rolls of tinfoil that didn’t match the receipt.
A swift check of the security cameras confirmed the scam, and with a boss move, she showed the door to the wannabe thief. I was left wide-eyed and impressed by the audacity of it all.
Fast forward a few months, and I’m in the middle of my detective drama. An elderly dude rolls in with a crumpled receipt, claiming he got the wrong pills.
My suspicion radar beeped, but not enough to call him out. Plus, the receipt was from another store, making it a tricky case to crack.
So, I let him slide, thinking, “Hey, old folks keep receipts, right?”
But, plot twist! As the old guy wraps up his pill-return adventure, he takes a detour to the trash bin near the entrance, casually sifting through discarded receipts.
Hold up, did I just summon my hiring manager superhero style? You betcha! The dude scuttled away faster than a cat caught stealing cream. It was so in-your-face that I was more offended by the sheer boldness than the fact he got away with a pill jackpot.
In this wild rollercoaster of theft and deceit, there’s more than meets the eye. Sure, there’s the thrill of nabbing free stuff, but sometimes it’s not just about greed.
Picture this – a dude tries to swipe sausages, and when I catch him, he drops the bombshell: “I’m hungry.” Those words still echo in my ears, reminding me that this whole caper isn’t just black and white.
So, there you have it – the behind-the-scenes scoop on the trash-diving, receipt-stealing, and return-juggling extravaganza that goes down in the retail world. It’s a mix of cunning schemes, outrageous audacity, and the occasional dose of raw desperation.
As the curtain falls on each act, I find myself not just catching thieves but also glimpsing into the human stories that add a splash of color to this retail circus.
2. Late-Night Scam Alert
I used to be a cashier at a local grocery store where we had a self-scan checkout. At night, very few employees were on. The store stayed open until midnight and around 10:30-11, just two people were working the front end.
One night, around 11 pm, one of the self-scan checkouts started blinking. A couple was standing there waiting for someone to come assist them, so I went over and asked them what the problem was.
They immediately seemed nervous, so I looked at the items on the belt and compared them with the items on the screen. Something didn’t add up.
Every single item was rung up for $1.20 or so and was labeled as a marked-down ‘general merchandise’ item. But the things they were buying were all dairy, produce, and grocery products.
Also, none of those items would ever be labeled as general merchandise, and I’d be hard-pressed to find they all rang up for $1.20.
I told them, ‘Sorry, I need to void the transaction as there seems to be something wrong! Let’s take your groceries to the next checkout so you can get on your way and I’ll sort the problem out.’
We brought all their groceries over to another self-scan lane and I rang out each item. The total came out to like $150 or so!
Then they begrudgingly paid and went on their way. They had ripped off a general merchandise tag from one of our discount racks and pasted it to their hand to just swipe it and send an item down.
I guess the machine realized something was fishy when each item came up at the same price.
3. Checkout Confrontation
I was a cashier in a grocery store and one day a lady came up to my register with a grocery cart full of your typical crank-making supplies (lithium batteries, draino, etc) and even asked me for some dry ice, but I knew what was up as soon as her scabby self walked up.
I rang her stuff up, knowing darn well that someone was going to end up putting it all back. She pulled out a single check to pay which had a man’s name on it, a different last name than her ID, and the signature on the check didn’t look like the man’s name at all.
I told her I couldn’t accept the check and she proceeded to argue and demand a manager, who I happily called over.
He told her that there was no way we were accepting the check unless he came in himself to say it was legit. She asked us if a phone call would work and dialed a number as we told her no.
She handed my manager the phone and some guy who was messed up answered. We told him the wrong number and hung up, then told her to leave before we called the police.
She left…and then came back later in the night (guess who was the only cashier that stayed late) and tried the same stunt again with the same check without realizing I was the same cashier that told her to kick rocks earlier.
When she tried to pull the same stunt, I just told her to leave and never come back. She started demanding a manager and I just called the police right in front of her and told her they were on the way, but I couldn’t keep her there against her will.
She left on her own. Crazy crank heads.
4. McDonald’s Manager Chronicles
I used to work at McDonald’s and gosh I have many stories.
One day, we were closed for refurbishment and some poor sap had to mind the store while the construction crew went about their business (me).
The phone rang and a customer asked, ‘Are you the manager?’ I confirmed that I was indeed the manager and then listened to him ramble about how we always mess up his order and that we didn’t give him the Big Mac Meal he ordered at lunchtime.
I eagerly clarified that it was my store and that he came in around lunch, and he said yes. The silence when I told him that we had been closed for two days was a thing of beauty: ‘…Oh, must be the wrong store…’
Another time, a customer came into the store and said, ‘I Ordered a Fanta and the lid came off because you didn’t put it on properly and it ruined all my food, so I want you to replace my order.’
‘When was this?’ I asked. He explained that it was the night before so I asked what he ordered and he said it was two large double cheeseburger meals.
‘So, do you have the receipt?’
‘No.’
‘Do you have the food?’
‘I don’t.’
I explained that there was nothing I could do, unfortunately. He then lost it and started screaming at me, ‘You ain’t going to replace my food when you didn’t put the lid on properly?
It’s all your fault!’
‘Nothing I can do,’ I repeated. Then he claimed that he was burned by his beverage. His face was priceless when I reminded him that he said he had purchased a Fanta, which typically doesn’t burn people.
His empty-handed walk of shame out of the restaurant was a thing of real satisfaction.
5. Winn Dixie Chronicles
I worked at a Winn Dixie when I was a teenager. They had these really good sales on crab meat, like $5 for a 1lb can.
One day this woman came in with four cans asking for a refund; the cans were bulging and hot to the touch. She claimed that they were like that when she bought them.
‘Really? Sure you didn’t leave them in the car all day?’
The store also had a policy that they would sell meat that was about to expire for 50% off. People would grab steaks out of the meat department and hide them in the freezer section, under or behind other products, then come back later to buy them.
Not only is it pretty obvious when someone is digging through frozen peas to pull out a steak, but it’s really obvious when they come through the register with a frozen steak.
They also had a buy one get one free if someone found expired bread. People would hide bread in other sections of the store and then come back for it a few days later.
I remember one lady had a cart overflowing with bread, half of it expired.
As a result of these shenanigans, we had to comb the store every night for products hidden in the freezers.
6. Midnight Pajama Purchase
Our store was open until midnight the two last nights of the financial year calendar. They thought someone might come in at 11:59, the last chance they had to deck out their entire office with new laptops and chairs and stuff.
After 9 pm, the store was pretty much a complete ghost town. By 10-11, the store was the cleanest it ever was since it was built.
One night the phone rang around 11:30 pm. The guy wanted to know if we were still open because he wanted to buy something specific.
It turned out we had it in stock and he told me (several times) that he was going to get out of his pajamas, get dressed, and come down to the store.
I was like, ‘Sure, the item will be at the front counter whenever you’re here to collect it.’
So he showed up and told me, again, that he had to get out of his pajamas, get dressed, and come down to the store to pick up the item.
It was about 11:45 pm at that point and so I just told him how much it was going to cost. Then he asked for a discount.
I asked why and he said, ‘For being your last customer of the evening!’
I told him no, there’s no reason for giving out that kind of a discount and besides, we weren’t closed yet. There might be other customers, you know.
He might not have been the last one that night and in any case, the item costs what it costs. He told me again that he had to get out of his pajamas, get dressed, and come to the store to buy the item.
He paid full price for all his troubles.
7. Return Counter Chronicles
When I was working the Kmart returns counter, I had a guy try to return a CD (with a receipt). The shrink wrap had been sliced and the CD had been taken out.
He claimed it was like that when he bought it.
I told him I couldn’t return it for cash but could swap it for the same thing. He went to get a new CD and brought some other artists, but I told him it had to be the same thing.
I had the electronics employee bring up the right CD. As I checked that they were the same and told him I would give him a new one, a smile grew on his face…which quickly melted away when I took out a knife and cut open the plastic on the CD.
No, you can’t return that one later.
Another scammer that I caught was this guy who was paralyzed on the left half of his body. He walked slowly around the store, dropping stuff and drooling (never did find out if he was paralyzed or if it was just part of the scam).
One day, I caught him bagging Oxy-Clean in his cart. I notified my manager and she started watching him.
He went through self-checkout and told me he bought the Oxy-Clean in electronics. My manager called electronics and no such sale was made. I think she let him go that time, but the next time he came in, he was greeted by the police.
This one was an inside job: The guy who worked in electronics also did layaway, and one of the service desk girls would put a giant bag of dog food in layaway.
Then the electronics guy would empty the bag and fill it with expensive electronics. It turned out they had been getting away with it for years when the loss prevention staff changed and the new manager knew how to police the place.
8. Cell Phone Drama
I work at a major cell phone retailer. I once had a man come in with his wife to do an upgrade to whatever the new iPhone was at that time.
While they were sitting in the store working with one of my reps (I was in management at the time), the wife started getting text messages from someone claiming to be her husband’s mistress.
It did not go over well.
They took it outside before it got very nasty and we all assumed they were gone for good. Not so, the husband came back in.
Alone. He finished upgrading his phone (priorities) and left. The very next day, he tried to return the phone claiming that we had sold him one with screen damage.
He brought it in and it looked like someone took a diamond ring or something to the screen and scratched the heck out of it.
Now we have a strict ‘open the box and hand it to the customer before they leave’ policy to avoid these situations. I was able to pull tape, show the customer where he held the phone for a good 5 minutes without pointing out any flaws, and told him that my company offered no warranty on that brand even if it was bad out of the box, especially when he didn’t show it to us before leaving the store.
I suggested he take it up with the manufacturer if he truly believed the phone was damaged out of the box.
He did, right there in the store, and called them. They also told him to kick rocks. The best part? I was new to management so I didn’t have a manager name tag yet.
He asked to speak to the manager and I got to give him my best evil grin and say, ‘I am the manager.’ He left after that and we never saw him again.
9. Smoke and Mirrors
I’d like to return this unopened pack of smokes I purchased earlier today at your establishment.’ I opened the store every day and hadn’t seen this dude once that day.
I looked at his smokes and they were a brand we don’t carry. I asked him for a receipt to ‘confirm’ he purchased them here, but he didn’t have one.
‘That’s fine! If you can just tell me what time you were in here today, I can look it up on our cameras to confirm your purchase.’
My God, the backpedaling and stuttering. I grabbed his pack and fake-examined them.
‘Wait a moment, sir, are you sure you purchased these at this store? I don’t think we carry this brand,’ He took the pack back and came up with something about how his brother actually got them and then walked out.
A store in town sells some of the brands we carry at a much cheaper price, so people like to try and do returns at our store to make a quick buck.
We generally don’t take any returns on smokes, but this guy didn’t even scope out his mark.
10. Concrete Con
I used to work at a place that sold timber, roofing iron, etc. One Saturday morning, this guy came in and wanted a couple of bags of cement, so I rang up the sale and then went to load up the order.
He told me not to worry and that he’d do it, so I explained that it was my job to do it. Then when I reached for the first one, he stood between me and the bag.
Again, I insisted that I had to load the concrete; it wasn’t an option. At that point, he got quite aggressive, yelling and arm waving, so I went inside to find my boss.
Just as we came back out, he reached down, started to pick up the bag…and threw his back out.
He was writhing around on the floor for a while and then demanded an ambulance. He told my boss that I refused to help him load the bags and so he was going to sue us for millions.
What he didn’t know is that a lot of people try to steal the cement, so two security cameras were pointing right at him the whole time, recording everything he said and did…including a long discussion with his wife about how we would pay him a stack of cash to keep this out of court and so on.
The company didn’t say a word about the tapes until just before we had to be in court to make sure that he spent as much money on his lawyer as possible.
The first law firm he hired dumped him immediately and then he spent a year or more going around trying to find someone new to represent him.
Eventually, he did, and they came up with some bullcrap story about how he was not talking about THAT company on THAT day and was referring to some other scam he was planning to pull later on down the track.
Anyway, it all ended up in court eventually, and it turned out that the guy had hurt himself. But if you watched the footage, you could see that he twisted in a specific way, which took our lawyers about 5 seconds to prove was him triggering a preexisting injury.
Then his lawyers argued that we had been negligent, and he should never have been able to physically access the bags of cement in the first place.
Believe it or not, the court agreed.
Where it gets fun again is that the court awarded him $250k, and the second that they did so, THE FIRST law firm put in a demand on the money because he had signed an agreement that they would get a % of the amount awarded…but did NOT say that they had to be representing him when he won the case.
On top of that, he owed the money immediately because there was also nothing in the contract that said that it was subject to him receiving the money, only that it had to be awarded.
I left the company shortly after that, but I spoke to my boss one day and he said that they never paid it. They dragged it out for like seven years and by that time, the whole company went broke for other reasons and the payout just went into a massive pool of something like $125 million worth of debt.
11. Behind the Counter
I used to run the weapons counter at a store. One day, a sketchy guy came in to buy a Glock. I didn’t like the way he was acting and the way he was answering my questions about what type of item he was looking for.
He decided on a weapon and I decided that I was not going to sell it to him. My store is strict about this. If I didn’t feel comfortable, I could deny the sale and there’s nothing he could do.
He could call managers or HQ and complain, but they will always side with me.
He handed me his ID to start the paperwork. I always let them start the process so that I have names and addresses, and his name seemed familiar.
I had sold him a weapon the day before but it wasn’t him. I let him fill out the form and compare it to what I had from the day before.
I asked him how he liked the weapon he purchased yesterday.
That took him by surprise and I knew what was happening. I called the code words to have management call the police without suspicion. The man was using his father’s identification to purchase his weapon.
He was a junior, but I was going to run a check on the senior. The police arrived and fear washed over his face. They put him in cuffs before even speaking to me.
They knew who he was the second they saw him and knew he was not allowed to touch weapons. I showed them his ID and the paperwork.
The guy is now in prison for lying on federal documents, being a violent felon in possession of a weapon, and identity theft. The next day, the police came back and told me that he admitted to trying to buy the weapon to kill his wife and son.
I had a little bit of a breakdown and sat in the break room for about an hour just thinking about the incident.
12. Gift Card Scam Alert
I’ve been in and out of retail for 10 years, and one time at a part-time gig that I had (I have a full-time job, too), this couple came in looking sketchy as all heck.
They had a substance abuse problem. They were scanning every register looking for gift cards, particularly those that were prepaid like Visa or MasterCard. I knew their game as I’d dealt with it before.
The woman came to my register. Originally, they wanted to go to self-checkout, but I told them they couldn’t purchase gift cards there (they could, I just wanted to catch them).
The woman came up to me, purchased $400 worth of gift cards, and when it was time to pay, I asked her for her ID because she wanted to use ‘her’ credit card.
The ID she had and who she was were two different people.
The woman in the driver’s license had no tattoos on her face, but this woman had stars below her eye. I told her, ‘This is not you, I will not sell these to you, and I will call the police.’ She booked it out of there.
Unfortunately, the man got away with it because he had purchased his at another register before the woman came to me. And wouldn’t you know it, I got in trouble for doing that.
13. Measure Twice, Snap Once
I was working at a home improvement store. I was a manager in the millwork department at the time, where primarily we sold doors, windows, and the like.
I usually try to go out of my way to help people if they ask me a question in a department I don’t work in because, hey, it’s not that hard a job.
But don’t, for the love of whatever god you believe in, snap your fingers at me and yell to get my attention. Enter Crazy Old Lady (COL):
COL snaps her fingers from about 100 feet: ‘HEY! HEY YOU!’
Now, at this point, I’ve already determined I’ve no care to give this lady, so I make eye contact and stand, waiting. I waited for her to turn back into a functional human and address me politely.
COL: ‘HEY! I NEED HELP OVER HERE!’
I raise my eyebrows and furrow. She’s beginning to understand.
COL: ‘Could you help me, please?’
Me, walking over: ‘Sure, what can I do for you today
COL: ‘Well, I’m looking at these shelves here, and I need to know if this shelf will fit in a three-foot space.’
Now, this is a prepackaged shelf-in-a-box. I do what any good retail employee does when someone asks me a question. I read the words on the package.
I politely take the package from her and start flipping the box over. Ah — there it is!
Me: ‘Well, as you can see, this is a thirty-six-inch shelving unit. So… (I trailed off, hoping she’d put two and two together. She was rude, but at this point, I didn’t want to embarrass her).
COL: ‘SO WHAT?!’
Ah, so she’s an idiot. A mean idiot. Game on.
Me: ‘Well, it just so happens that thirty-six inches is exactly three feet. So if you’re looking for a shelving unit that will fit in a three-foot space, this is perfect.’
COL: ‘WELL HOW THE EFF AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT? I DON’T DO INCHES!’
She then proceeds to grab the shelf-in-a-box out of my hands angrily and storms off towards the registers. Holy. Cow.”
14. The Epic Quest
This one guy continually butchers the name of a product on a level that doesn’t even make sense and gets annoyed that no one knows what he’s talking about.
I work at a retail pharmacy chain…
M=Me; He will be CN=Cheese-Nez.
I’m stocking products on the shelf when the guy walks up to me.
CN – ‘Where’s the cheese-nez?’
M – ‘Cheeze-nez? Do you mean Cheez-Its? They are on aisle…’ (guy cuts me off)
CN – ‘NO. C H E E S E – N E Z’
He says it slower as if that will make me understand what he is looking for.
M – ‘Okay, sir, I’ve never heard of cheese-nez. What is it used for?’
CN – (Loudly sighs) he starts outlining the shape of a box with his hands and says, ‘You know, cheese-nez!’
M – ‘I’m sorry, sir, but I still don’t know what you’re talking about. Do you know what it’s used for?’
CN – ‘Someone else might know.’ He starts looking around.
M – ‘Well, I’m the manager, and if anyone would know, it would be me.’ (I know our entire stock enough to know when we don’t carry a particular product.)
The guy shakes his head and walks off. About five minutes later, the guy walks back up to me with A BOX OF KLEENEX in his hand and waves it at me with a dumb look on his face to show that I am the one who should know what he is looking for.
Then he dared to say Kleenex correctly and ignore the fact that HE was pronouncing it completely wrong.
Now my co-workers and I use the word ‘cheez-nez’ when talking about Kleenex.
15. The Closing Time Drama
We have a regular who comes in once every couple of weeks to look at our wares, makes lots of loud noises about the things she wants, and then reacts, loudly, in horror at the prices.
She has been caught switching tags in the past. As such, she is not exactly beloved within our walls.
She comes in 30 minutes before we close (yeah, you already know how this is going to go) and clomps around. She uses this weird lurching, swinging walk, where instead of walking like a normal person, she swings each leg in a wide, sideways arc before setting it down in front of the other foot.
Her whole body is involved in this exaggerated method of locomotion that looks like she’s either wasted while walking on a rolling ship in a storm or wasted while swinging from vines Tarzan style.
She’s huffing and puffing and blowing out her breath and making agitated, unhappy noises. Every heaving breath she takes looks like it’s going to throw out her back.
To sum up, if you are easily irritated by the sound of someone chewing or making noises constantly, this woman will make you go postal in five seconds, guaranteed.
I am not that sensitive, and even I’m developing an eye twitch. Calm. Calm. I am cool. I am fine. She’ll be out of here soon enough.
Be chill. Cool like the mountain breeze.
Her: ‘Oh, I like that thing. And that one. And that one. Please take those out of the case so I can look at them.
This is great; I want that. Wait, it’s $75?’
The sound of cracking teeth echoes through my head as I clench them. And so it begins.
It’s a glass statuette of a horse in green glass, hand painted with a flower motif from some company that custom makes them and sells them for well over $100 each.
I know enough about the way we handle prices to know that getting it for $75 is a steal.
Her: ‘You know I just came from the doctor, where they discovered that I might have cancer.’
Me: ‘Yikes. That’s a bummer.’
And while cancer is serious business, the timing of her mentioning this is suspicious.
Her: ‘They’re going to do some more tests to confirm it, but I need to do something nice for myself to keep from flipping out about it, and my family’s not supportive right now, so I’m shopping for myself.’
Me: ‘Okay.’
Time check.
Me: (Announcing to the store in general) ‘Good evening ladies and gentlemen; we will be closing in approximately 20 minutes!’
Her: ‘I know! I know! Are you sure there’s no wiggle room on that horse? Because I like it, but I don’t know, it’s not nice enough to pay THAT much for it.’
Then you don’t want it badly enough.
Me: ‘We look these things up online, then discount the retail price some 75 to 80 percent, ma’am. We’re not likely to go lower on it.’
Her: ‘Yeah, that’s not true. There’s no WAY that is 80 percent off.’
Oh good, she’s calling me a liar to my face because that’s how you endear yourself.
Me: ‘That’s the way we price everything, ma’am. Regardless of what we’re selling, our pricing policy is uniform across all the boards.’
Her: ‘There’s still no way that’s 80 percent off.’
Okay, fine. Forget it. I’m not going to argue with you anymore.
‘Me: ‘Sorry, but whether or not you believe me, that’s the price. We don’t discount an item until it’s been sitting around for over 30 days.’
Her: ‘Are you SURE you can’t discount it to $20? Even though I might have cancer?’
Nope, don’t care.
Me: ‘Unfortunately, that doesn’t change the answer, ma’am.’
Her: ‘MY GOD, you are heartless!’
Now I don’t care at all.
Me: ‘That’s right ma’am! I am! I’m a raging witch. I’m going to sacrifice a goat after work tonight.’
My supervisor and coworker make muffled choking noises around the corner but are straight-faced when I glance their way.
There is no one else in the store. The usual customers have drifted to the registers at the half-hour announcement. No last-minute stragglers except Mrs.
Cancer.
Her: ‘I believe it! You won’t even discount for somebody who may be dying of cancer!’
Lady, even if I believed you, my behind would be kicked from here to Timbuktu for arbitrarily (and massively) discounting prices on somebody else’s territory.
You’re not worth that, cancer or no cancer.
Me: (Announcing to the store in general) ‘Good evening ladies and gentlemen; we will be closing in approximately 10 minutes!’
Her: ‘I know! I’m almost done!’
She takes a wide-swinging-leg-huffing-puffing tour of the store, occasionally bringing some random thing for me to hold.
Me: (Announcing to the store in general) ‘Good evening ladies and gentlemen; we will be closing in approximately five minutes!’
Her: ‘I know!’
Me: (Announcing to the store in general) ‘Good evening ladies and gentlemen; IT IS NOW 7 PM, AND WE ARE NOW CLOSED! THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO BRING YOUR PURCHASES TO THE REGISTERS!’
Her: ‘I know!’
She messes around for five MORE minutes before coming up to the registers. She waffles around, asks if we can discount a $50 hand-blown, hand-painted vase, complains a little, looks at all the crap that she has supposedly planned on buying, then rejects most of it for the vase.
Ten minutes after we close the store, she finally swing-walks outside, huffing and puffing and complaining loudly about us being heartless. Naturally, she leaves the pile of merchandise for us to clean up.
As I watch my supervisor lock the door behind this obnoxious lady, I can see through the windows that her wildly awkward walk straightens up, her posture corrects, her walk becomes normal, those deep, throw-out-your-back heaving breaths disappear as if they never existed and she saunters through the cold to her car, quite calmly and easily.
She was doing it all JUST to be as obnoxious as possible.
Supervisor: ‘You know, if I thought I might have cancer, I wouldn’t spend $50 in a thrift shop. I’m pretty sure I’d hang onto that money too… you know… pay for the treatment.’
Coworker: ‘Yeah, go figure.’
16. Sales Tax Standoff
I know in some states there’s no sales tax, but not in my state. So one day a couple comes to my checkout lane and I ring them out.
Me- ‘Total is $200.23.’
Guests showed me his state ID.
G- ‘Here you go.’
M- ‘That’s an ID.’
G- ‘Yes it is.’
M- ‘You can’t pay with an ID.’
G- ‘I know that, don’t I pay sales tax if I’m from a tax-free state?’
M- ‘No, you still pay sales tax.’
G- ‘That’s absurd, I’m showing you my ID.’
M- ‘You still have to pay sales tax.’
G- ‘No. Other stores do it.’
M- ‘They might, we don’t.’
G- ‘No this isn’t right, you’re infringing on my rights.’
At this point, I’m like ‘Uhhhhh wut.’ I don’t know what to do so I just keep talking.
M- ‘What stores do it?’
G- ‘What does it matter if you’re not gonna do it?’
M- ‘Just curious.’
G- ‘Are you gonna do it or not?’
M- ‘No I’m not, you have to pay for the sales tax.’
G- ‘Are you kidding me? This is ridiculous, is there someone I can talk to?’
M- ‘Yeah, gimme a minute.’
G- ‘No want them now!’
I kind of want to slap him for this stupidity, and it’s been about 10 minutes at this point which is a LONG TIME. Finally, the manager comes over and this moron explains the situation to her.
She has this stunned look on her face as she can’t believe how dumb he is being, and just like I told him MANY times, that he has to pay the sales tax.
He responds that this is infringing on his rights and begins cursing her out.
G- ‘Forget it I ain’t buying anything, I ain’t shopping here no more.’
M- ‘Ok.’
Now as he leaves, he knocks over our gift card display and now there’s like a thousand gift cards all over the floor. Unbelievable.
17. Grocery Store Chaos
I work with self-checkouts at a grocery store.
We were extremely busy yesterday. There were customers at every register, lines wrapped around the store, and we were understaffed. I needed a manager override for two registers, and of course, nobody was picking up the phone.
As I was dialing various phones and paging different people just trying to get ahold of someone while also talking to two customers, I heard a guy yell, ‘YO’ from one of the registers on the other side of the store.
I looked over and saw a guy leaning on the produce scale/scanner, and the machine loudly telling him to remove everything from the scanner. This was something people did a hundred times a day.
So I put down the phone and walked over to tell him this, and he instantly became hostile.
Me: ‘You can’t lean on that, it’s a scale.’
Guy: ‘First of all, DON’T TELL ME WHAT I CAN AND CAN’T DO! And I wasn’t leaning on the scale!’
Me: ‘I just watched you lean on it.’
Guy: ‘I WAS NOT LEANING ON IT.’
Machine: ‘Please remove all objects or items from the scanner!’
Me: ‘You’re leaning on it right now.’
This went back and forth for a bit. I kept telling him it wouldn’t let him start if he continued to lean on the scale.
He kept insisting he wasn’t leaning on the scale while leaning on it and continued to make a big show out of looking at my nametag and mispronouncing my (very common) name.
He asked for a manager, so I went over to page someone for the fifth time.
He kept arguing with me and yelling for a manager while I tried to tell him that I had already called her, and then he dropped this bomb on me:
‘Are you telling me that me leaning on the scale is the reason I didn’t get a receipt?!’
I never told him that, and until this moment, he never mentioned anything about a receipt.
As the whole store was a mess and there were carts of both bagged and unbagged items scattered everywhere, I didn’t even know he had already paid.
Just as I finished processing that this was what I was supposed to gather from him loudly screaming ‘YO’ at me from 20 feet away, the manager walked up.
I walked over to my computer and printed out a receipt for the guy, while the manager checked the printer on his register. It turns out the roll of paper ran out, and he started screaming about how I KNEW it was out of paper because he used to work there.
As he was yelling about that, I handed the manager the printed receipt because I didn’t even want to look at this guy. Finally, the guy left, screaming at the manager the whole way out.
18. The Million-Dollar Phone
This was a while ago when I worked at the mall location of a certain cell phone provider.
It was a normal day when a guy in a suit came in and demanded we fix his phone. From this point, he’ll be SG (suit guy) I’ll be M (me).
M: ‘Welcome to my store how can I help you?’
SG: ‘Fix this now!’
M: ‘Um ok, what’s wrong with it?’
SG: ‘I can’t hear out of it so my calls won’t work!’
M: ‘Ok, can you make calls?’
SG: ‘Of course I can! What, are you stupid?’
M: (Deep inner sigh) (Call coworker (CW) over) ‘Hey let me call you from this phone and see if I can hear you.’
CW: ‘Ok.’
Proceed to call everything sounds fine.
M: ‘Looks to be working fine.’
SG: ‘Well it is not! Do you think I would be wasting my time here if it was working fine?’
M: (Another deep sigh) ‘Ok well your account shows you have insurance – Yay! Here’s the info, you can file a claim online and you’ll have a replacement phone tomorrow!’
SG: ‘TOMORROW!!!! That’s unacceptable, I run my whole business off this thing I can’t go a full day without it. I’m expecting a very important call and if I miss it, I’m holding you responsible for costing me a million dollars!’
M: ‘Oh wow that’s a lot of money.’
SG: ‘Yeah it is, so fix it or give me a new one.’
M: ‘Well you can’t upgrade yet so that’s out the window, but if there’s a million dollars at stake here, why not just buy the new phone you want?
I mean, I know if it was me, I’d rather spend $750 than lose 1 million.’
SG: ‘That’s not the point! Are you going to fix it or give me a new one for free?’
M: ‘Sorry, we don’t have a technician at any blue store in this area and we can’t use in-store inventory for replacements unless it is within the 14-day grace period.’
He huffs and puffs and calls my manager over. I get told to help another customer while my manager tries unsuccessfully to help him. The guy ends up leaving threatening to cancel his lines due to bad service.
Some days guys, some days…
19. The Mincemeat Pie Conundrum
This is an encounter I had with an awful man who just refused to believe I knew what I was talking about. I’ll be B for Baker, he’ll be M for Man:
M: ‘Do you have any mincemeat pie?’
B: ‘Hello! No, we do not currently have any mincemeat pie, and I don’t think we’ll be getting any this season.’
M: ‘What do you mean you don’t think you have any? Go check.’
B: ‘Oh, I meant, I know we don’t currently have any. Corporate is just a little slow on communicating to anyone except managers so I’m not sure if we will be getting any mincemeat pies this season.’
M: ‘Well can you go check?’ said in a very condescending tone.
B: ‘I just finished our shipment for the day and I spend about 4 hours a shift in our freezer. Trust me, I’m the first to know when we get a new product!
If you leave your name and number, I’d be happy to call you if/when we get mincemeat pie!’
M: ‘Forget it, you don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ll wait for someone who does.’
B: ‘Okay! Well, I’m the only one here for the rest of the day and 6/7 nights of the week. So if you’d like to double check, you’ll have to come in or call in the morning.’
M: ‘You had mincemeat pie last year. I know you have it.’
B: ‘We don’t. If it’ll make you feel better though, I will gladly check the freezer.’
M: ‘Finally! I need two.’
I pop into the freezer real quick and just hang out for a second. I come back out and tell him the bad news.
B: ‘Gosh, so sorry! We do not have any mincemeat pies.’
M: ‘What’s your name? You don’t know anything.’
B: ‘My name is [Name] and my manager’s name is [Manager]. If you’d like, I can call a general manager over and you can voice your complaints to him?’
M: ‘No, I’m going to speak with your manager and get you fired for not knowing how to do your job.’ [stomps away]
I came in early the next day and heard the Manager talking to the Decorator about mincemeat pies and the guy called in to complain about me.
Nothing was done, but I fully believe that man was trying to get me fired because he thought I was just purposefully hiding frozen mincemeat pies from him.”
20. The Quest for the Elusive ‘Display Shopping Cart’
I work at a pretty large DIY store chain in Ireland/UK. We have hundreds of shopping carts outside, of different types. One day, I was busy stocking some shelves when a man started storming towards me telling me to get him a cart.
I advised him if he walked straight out the door he could get one himself. He furiously told me there were none out there and demanded I get one for him.
Usually, I wouldn’t humor someone so rude, but I was curious how we could ever run out, so I went out to have a look.
Lo and behold, there were hundreds of shopping carts.
I pointed at them, and said to the man, ‘There are loads there, just take one.’
To which he angrily replied, ‘Those?! I thought they were just display shopping carts; you should mark them more clearly!’
I may not be the most well-traveled person, but I am almost sure that in the history of retail, there has never been ‘display shopping carts.’
