I was threatened by a customer yesterday!

Kteacher

<font color=660099>Not your average kindergarten t
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Jul 27, 2000
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:scared1:I've worked retail for over 30 years, and have never experienced anything like this. A woman was bringing back a ring for repair that she had purchased in another store. I told her no problem, I'll take care of everything, we'll send it out, and we'll call her when it comes back from repair. She gets very agitated and tells me it was bought in July and this shouldn't have happened. She asks to speak to a mgr., again not a problem I say to her. mgr. comes over, customer looks at both of us, and tells us that we " are not going to like what she's going to do to us if her ring isn't fixed properly". :scared1: She leaves the store, and the mgr. looks at me and asks me if the woman just threatened us, and I said "yes". I wrote the customer's contact info on a piece of paper and told the mgr. that she should have the store mgr. call the customer. I really don't want to deal with this customer when her ring comes back in:scared1:
 
Sorry that happened to you!

My MIL is a cashier at a big box retailer in Mass, her store is in an area of the city that is a little rough. She gets threatened by customers all the time, mostly when their credit cards get declined. They blame her and want her to call the CC company. Once two guys were hauled away in cuffs from her line!
 
Oh that is frightening:hug: I think both you and the store manageer should document this in writing. Do you work in a mall or other place where you could ask security to drop by when she comes to pick up her ring?
 
must have been something in the air yesterday....I work retail too and had a customer threaten my job yesterday :rolleyes:I needed to void the sale that another cashier did in order to get her rewards card entered properly and she told me I was very rude to her and said I would not be working there much longer, she was going to see to it. Yeah, okay:laughing:
 

When my daughter was 17 and working in a grocery store a customer told her she had pretty fingers and he wanted to turn them into hamburger. I kid you not.

Sorry OP- hopefully she'll take her meds the day she comes in to pick her ring up!!
 
:scared1:I've worked retail for over 30 years, and have never experienced anything like this. A woman was bringing back a ring for repair that she had purchased in another store. I told her no problem, I'll take care of everything, we'll send it out, and we'll call her when it comes back from repair. She gets very agitated and tells me it was bought in July and this shouldn't have happened. She asks to speak to a mgr., again not a problem I say to her. mgr. comes over, customer looks at both of us, and tells us that we " are not going to like what she's going to do to us if her ring isn't fixed properly". :scared1: She leaves the store, and the mgr. looks at me and asks me if the woman just threatened us, and I said "yes". I wrote the customer's contact info on a piece of paper and told the mgr. that she should have the store mgr. call the customer. I really don't want to deal with this customer when her ring comes back in:scared1:

I am guessing you work for a chain of stores, right. Is there any chance she did not actually buy the ring??? I agree that when she comes in to pick it up you alert security right away so they can keep an eye on her.
 
My DD is a supervisor in a large chain department store and she has to deal with some customer returns. The other day the guy from sporting goods called her, he had a customer wanting to return ammunition and he told the guy that was against store policy but he wanted to talk to someone else. So my daughter had to go talk to him. She told him it was against store policy to take it back, but he was saying that the sporting goods worker had given him the wrong one and he didn't realize it until he got home. She still said they could not take it back, but she did give him a store gift card for the $17 he was out, so that satisfied him.

I just don't understand how customers can get mean and nasty with store employees, do they really think they're going to get their problem solved with that kind of an attitude? :confused3
 
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Happy Holidays. I'm in retail mgmt & let me tell you - if you give me attitude & threaten me in any way I will be sure to make your purchase/return/complaint process ten times more difficult than it could have been had you approached me civilly & with respect. I will always bend over backwards & go the extra mile to make a customer happy - but once they get in my face yelling/threatening/cursing - I'm done. Once they stoop down to the level of an animal then I treat them like one. Some day I'll probably get written up for that, but I refuse to be disrespected over something as minor as returned merchandise or a declined credit card!


I would definitely make sure the store manager is scheduled when this person is picking up her ring & that any security cameras in your store are pointed at the cashwrap area as she makes the pick-up. I would also document her words the other day - what makes people think they can throw threats around like that & get away with it? I'd make sure the corporate office (and any security) has copies of the report. I can't stand when people think they are entitled to treat people like this!

I'm sure you're upset over this - I would be, but this customer has probably forgotten all about it. Unfortunately she probably went into the next store & belittled that employee for something minor too. She was on a power trip. I believe what comes around goes around - one day she'll get what's coming to her!
 
Happy Holidays. I'm in retail mgmt & let me tell you - if you give me attitude & threaten me in any way I will be sure to make your purchase/return/complaint process ten times more difficult than it could have been had you approached me civilly & with respect. I will always bend over backwards & go the extra mile to make a customer happy - but once they get in my face yelling/threatening/cursing - I'm done. Once they stoop down to the level of an animal then I treat them like one. Some day I'll probably get written up for that, but I refuse to be disrespected over something as minor as returned merchandise or a declined credit card!

:thumbsup2 sounds reasonable to me!!!!!
 
When my daughter was 17 and working in a grocery store a customer told her she had pretty fingers and he wanted to turn them into hamburger. I kid you not.

Sorry OP- hopefully she'll take her meds the day she comes in to pick her ring up!!

:scared1:
too funny!!!!! and creepy......:confused3
 
I worked retail for a looong long time, many Christmases, and honestly I'm surprised I survived it.

I will never, EVER understand why some people feel that being rotten, nasty, rude, and uncooperative is a good way to handle dealing with another human being who's just trying to do their job and follow the rules so that they're able to keep their job. Really.

:hug: :hug: :hug: :hug: :hug: :hug: :hug: to all of those who are about to begin the two months of Heck that is the holiday season.

I try to go out of my way to be pleasant and easy to deal with as possible when interacting with the poor people who have to deal with the masses; of course, I *have* also dealt with nasty employees as well; I worked Service Desk at several different stores as a "young'un", so nasty doesn't get employees very far with me ;)
 
Happy Holidays. I'm in retail mgmt & let me tell you - if you give me attitude & threaten me in any way I will be sure to make your purchase/return/complaint process ten times more difficult than it could have been had you approached me civilly & with respect. I will always bend over backwards & go the extra mile to make a customer happy - but once they get in my face yelling/threatening/cursing - I'm done. Once they stoop down to the level of an animal then I treat them like one. Some day I'll probably get written up for that, but I refuse to be disrespected over something as minor as returned merchandise or a declined credit card!


I would definitely make sure the store manager is scheduled when this person is picking up her ring & that any security cameras in your store are pointed at the cashwrap area as she makes the pick-up. I would also document her words the other day - what makes people think they can throw threats around like that & get away with it? I'd make sure the corporate office (and any security) has copies of the report. I can't stand when people think they are entitled to treat people like this!

I'm sure you're upset over this - I would be, but this customer has probably forgotten all about it. Unfortunately she probably went into the next store & belittled that employee for something minor too. She was on a power trip. I believe what comes around goes around - one day she'll get what's coming to her!

I feel the same way. It has been noted in my reviews for 4 years how accomodating I can be, always doing the right thing for the customer etc, but if you are disrespectful to me in any way, I'll give it right back to you. I do not get paid enough to take abuse from anyone! I'll probably be written up too; my customer yesterday already emailed the manager, but whatever. They can write me up all they want; I'm still not going to take crap from a rude customer.
 
I've often thought of starting a Holiday Retail Employee Support thread! Every year I say "I'm not doing this next year" yet here I am! I LOVE working in retail - I work for Yankee Candle - awesome - yet there are those few customers that make me want to walk out the door & not look back! I'm off to work right now....here's hoping to an uneventful day (now watch - after every rude guest I'll be thinking in my head - "must go write this on the DIS!!!")
 
some people are just unreasonable. I worked retail for about 5 years and I am venturing back in this year for a little extra holiday/slash Disney money.

OP, sorry you had to deal with someone like that.

A few years ago I worked loss prevention at Best Buy [I am barely 5'4" I don't know who they thought I was going to stop from stealing :lmao:]

At Best Buy they used to keep the big tube televisions up on the rafters and I had some guy get belligerent because I "refused" to get a 200 pounds television down for him. Apparently waiting your turn to be helped is clearly out of the question.
 
I am a firm believer that anyone who works as a cm or in retail have terrible hard jobs.
John Q. Public can be a you know what to work with. I worked at Walmart and sears for years. between the abysmal pay, terrible management and irate customers it was enough to qualify for the worst job in the world.

Op, hope you feel better.
 
Try talking to them on the phone... because they are not face to face they get even nastier. And the reason they get that way is to many times it has been written that if you don't get what you want, get nasty ask for their manager just keep going up the chain of command or hang up and call back until you get a person who will give you what you want. So they skip the being nice part and think if they go straight to threatening, insulting, name calling just plain being rude, they are going to get what they want the first time even when they are in the wrong, because we all know the customer is always right. They have the entitlment attitude. "I know I only have 10.00 in my account and I get a deposit once a month of 100.00 in the bank, but I really really want this makeup that is costing me 150.00, how dare you not let this transaction go thru.. blah blah blah.... you don't know who your talking to you f@@@@@@ little B@@@ where are you located, whats your name, i want your id # just stop f@@@@@ talking and get me your manager" yup the customer is always right....
 
Ah yes, this brings me back to my days when I worked at Target as a cashier and at the service desk. Cashiering wasn't too bad generally, the second there was a problem you just called over the assistant manager on duty, and 99 out of 100 customers knew you had no power as a cashier, so they didn't usually give you any grief. I did get the occasional "what do you mean, my credit card was declined. WHY?" I'd reply "Umm...the bank won't tell us information about YOUR personal, private account ma'am. If you want to know what's going on, you'll have to call them. There's a payphone just over there." (pre-cell phone...gosh I'm old! :) ).

The worst one I encountered was a woman that just would not take "No" for an answer. She had bought an $80 boom-box stereo two or three days earlier, and wanted to return it. She did have the receipt...but she had the bottom cliped off where it shows the form of payment, cash check or credit card. Target was (and still is) with the times and had a code at the top of the receipt that you pluged in on all returns and it would tell you the orginal form of payment, really just pull up the whole transaction like an electronic receipt. So I could tell it was paid for with a check, even with the incomplete receipt. The customer was asking for a refund to her credit card, or barring that, a cash refund. She had pretended that she had used a credit card to pay for the transaction right up until I told her what we had in our system showed she used a check.

Transactions paid for by check have different rules since it can take so long for the check to clear and funds be released from the customers bank. Due to this, any check purchase that is being returned under 10 days from the date it was purchased has to be in the form of a check that is mailed to the person on the 10th day, meaning with mail service it could be up to two weeks before you get your money.

She did NOT like this answer, and while she didn't swear at me, she yelled at me saying this was a horrible way to treat customers, it was her money and we had no right to hold on to it for so long, and anyway it must be a mistake because she PAID by credit card, how dare I not believe her, I was calling her a liar etc. etc. And she demanded to see a manager (as if I wasn't going to call one after all of that!!!).

Okay, fine. Assistant manager comes up, says the exact same thing as I did, that we had to follow policy etc., she yells at her (same tirade that I was treated to) and asks for my assitant managers boss. One of the stores managers (but not the head store manager) also backs up me and the assistant, more histerics ensue and she then demands to see the head store manager, and isn't leaving until she speaks to them.

Head manager comes up (by now this had been going on for a good 30 minutes), and tells her she can either give us the info to mail her a check or she can take her stereo and go home, and that she's lucky we are accepting the return at all as she attempted to alter the reciept (she claimed that's the receipt we gave her but we could tell it was cut with scissors and not torn off a register). The store manager then told her if she didn't provide her info for the check then she must leave immediately or the cops would be called, as we were finished with her and she was wasting all of our time. She left in a huff just as the head manager was about to call the cops. Of course she did not complete the return.

As near as we can figure, she was desperate for money and needed the amount either put on her CC to cover some charges that put her into trouble or get the cash so she could spend it on whatever or pay bills. Having access to none, she wanted to try and return a purchase she had writen a check for and get either a credit card refund or cash back, so she altered the receipt thinking if we couldn't tell how the item was purchased, we'd just take her word for it.

I know a lot of people here on the DIS complain about store refund policies, but this is the exact type of nonsense that made retailers tighten up their policies. Every time there is a fraudulant return, the stores have to raise prices to cover the shortfall and we all pay for it in the end.
 
I worked retail when I was in high school and that was enough for me! This was in the olden days and, although people were a little more polite in general (this was the 1960s) it was still nasty.

EVen worse, though, is working in payroll. My last job before retirement was a payroll tax accountant in a multi-state, multi-national company. The HUSBAND of an employee had to be removed from a facility by the police because he was protesting something about her paycheck. Then he threatened to fly to our office in MA from Illinois! Security was advised but he never showed up.

Anyway, best of luck to all you retail people. You have my sympathy.
 

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