Why "You Owe Me" Scams Don't Work Here

[wolfie]

I would like to more easily find out who the enablers are (local managers and companies in general) and then boycott them! Cave in to a scammer, lose their "business" or risk losing the business of honest people who tire of that behavior.

Not to mention the honest customers tiring of paying inflated prices to cover the merchandise given out free to scammers.

[mathnerd]

On the other side of this is the situation I had back about 7 or 8 years ago with a particular fast food place. Now, this location was in the same parking lot as the ice skating rink where I took my son 5 or 6 days a week. I was a near-daily customer. Anyway, one day I go through the drive through, and as I was having a lack of money day, I only ordered an item off the dollar menu for each of the 5 people in my vehicle and asked for cup of water (the kids had water bottles, but I didn't). Anyway, they try to tell me that they can't give me a cup of water and I must buy the bottled water if that's what I wanted. I said no, I wanted regular tap water in a cup, and they told me that they couldn't because the water in the restaurant wasn't working. I nearly vomited and told them to give me my money back and cancel my order. Then they said they couldn't do that either. I admit I turned into a bit of an SC at that point, parked the car, came inside, got all the relevant store information and informed them that I'd be calling their franchise owner and the health department. The manager tried to backpedal immediately, but I still wanted my money back so I could go somewhere else.

I did actually make both phone calls I threatened to make. The franchise owner promised me a free value meal of my choice if I would give them a second chance. About 6 months later I figured I'd give them the chance. I went in, explained that 6 months prior I'd had an incident and had been promised a free value meal if I ever came back and I decided that I'd take them up on the offer. The manager, without even going to look immediately accused me of being a a scammer and said some very nasty things, including that I was the person who was in there last week trying to get free kids meals. Of course that wasn't possible since I hadn't been to that store for six months. So, I said to him "are you sure?" Okay. Then got out my phone and called the franchise owner, who'd given me his personal cell phone number after the previous incident. Turns out he lives just a couple blocks from that location and came in immediately. He pulled the tapes, made the guy apologize to me, then fired everybody in the store who had a part in mistreating me. At least the owner was a good guy.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Nice people don't do shit. That's the problem. What is the saying I sometimes see, "Well-behaved wome seldom make history?" I'll just amend that to Well-behaved customers never set company policy."

That and social media. If some scammer complains and 25 people "like" or agree with the complaint, it appears valid. Due to some clearance swamp "customers" complaining about certain parts of our pricing strategies, corporate (or maybe just our DM, I dunno) made us take down some of our ad signs every week when we lowered the prices even further for a time, and then put the signs back up when the price went back up. Which lead to lost and misplaced sale signs and a lack of fun for all involved.