Storytime!: Your most memorable returns

[flyonthewall]

So it's holiday season and SCs are on their WORST behavior. Sooo, let's share some return stories!


*Sets scene: It is Fly's first holiday season working retail. Young Fly is naive. Fly is currently on register duty.*

*Grandma approaches in a hissy way.*
Sucky grandma: I need to return these.
*slams large shopping back on counter*
Fly: Oh, sure! I'll enter in your receipt info and get this started right away!
SG: Okay.
Fly: Is there a reason for this return? Were the products unsatisfactory? *standard ??s*
SG: No, everything was great. It's just my son-in-law decided he won't take my grandkids to see me this Christmas. So I'm returning all my grandkids' presents.

NOTE: This sounds like something Fly's grandmother would do. Fly hates Grandma Fly because she is a manipulative wretch who does things like this. Fly feels bad for SG and wants to remedy the situation.

Fly: I'm sorry to hear that, have you considered shipping?
SG: No, they live in *European country*. I'm not paying the expensive shipping. Besides, if I can't see my grandkids, I'm not getting them presents.
Fly:

NOTE: SG was very nicely dressed in a fur coat, had a gold AmEx card, and was returning hundreds of dollars of merchandise. I do not think SG was living just off her social security. I'd suggested she save the items for when her grandkids come next because some of them were special edition items that had limited availability but she said no.

We do the return, she gets her money back on her AmEx. Their no good father, ruining Christmas for this poor granny. Our company isn't international and from our chit-chat, I gathered that her grandkids really liked our things. Logistically this is probably one of her grandkids' few chances to get our exclusive products. The company does not do business in the country they live in. SG seemed really smug about it too. Like she won. When I was sorting the returns, I realized that a lot of the tags had already been removed, packaging was messed up. So some of it was unsellable or was going to require a visit to the stockroom to be reprocessed/repackaged/steamed. It took me awhile to get all the returns sorted.

What a . Returns like that piss me off.

[Kogarashi]

I only heard about this, seeing as I never got to work the returns desk myself, but it's the most memorable I can think of.

When I first started cashiering just out of high school, I was told about one "customer" who came in with a television, seeking a refund.

Problems:

• The television was broken, and from what my coworker said it was the customer's fault.
• The television was purchased two years previous, well outside the return window.
• The television was a brand we didn't carry, because....
• The television was purchased at a completely different store. Not just a different branch of our store, a completely different corporation entirely.

The "customer" pitched such a fit that the store manager ended up giving them the refund, just to get them to shut up and leave. I do seem to recall that the customer was told in no uncertain terms not to return.


The only other return I've had to deal with was with someone at a convention who purchased one of my hand-painted fans. She'd walked off with it, wandered around for about half an hour or so, and then came back and sheepishly admitted she didn't know how she was going to get it home without damaging it, so could she return it for a refund?

I sighed, but allowed it, since it was a paddle-style fan and therefore not foldable into a compact form like most of the folding fans I sell. So I gave her the money back and she gave me the fan back. And then I pointed out I would also need back the free charm she got for spending X amount of money (that one fan alone met my minimum). She hesitated, but thankfully her friend with her pointed out that I was right, that she hadn't really earned that charm now that she'd gotten her refund. She could either pay for the charm or give it back. She ended up giving it back.

I did find someone else to buy the fan who had no trouble figuring out how to get it home, so not a total loss. Just a bit frustrating. First time I've encountered someone with buyer's remorse (of a sort) at a convention.

[notalwaysright]

Recently we have had a couple special order return issues. Normally, SOs are not returnable unless there's something wrong with the product. Cue the following women.

First lady wants to make a bunch of skirts out of an expensive batik. A real batik, not a printed fake-batik. We had two bolts, but they weren't quite the same color. This is completely expected of this type of fabric. Each batch is likely to be slightly different, there is nothing we can do about it. She sighed and fussed, and finally decided to order two bolts.

The manager had to get involved because she was a general pain at every stage, and taking up so much time. She was told that it was not possible to guarantee an exact match. She was told this a lot, by my CW and the manager. It was like talking to pudding. Manager took the time to order a third bolt, (this wasn't part of the order, it was not charged to the customer) predicting this woman throwing a tantrum, hoping that if we had three bolts maybe two would match close enough to please the woman. Did you guess it? Three bolts arrived, plus we pulled the two original bolts from the shelf, so she had FIVE bolts. They were so close in color that they were hard to tell apart. Yet none fit her exacting requirements! She demands a refund. She gets it.

A similar situation happened with burlap for a wedding. Lady orders something like 100 yards, of the natural (undyed) burlap. Some is slightly darker than others. This is unacceptable for a wedding! Wants us to order her another couple bolts to "make up for the ones that are the wrong color." We do. Same exact issue happens with the new bolts. Now it's too close to the wedding, lady wants to return all of it. She gets her money back.

[eltf177]

I'd suggested she save the items for when her grandkids come next because some of them were special edition items that had limited availability but she said no.

What a manipulative bitch! And why is it I see her returning when her son finally caves and sends the grandkids over, only to whine and bitch the items are no longer available?

I realized that a lot of the tags had already been removed, packaging was messed up. So some of it was unsellable or was going to require a visit to the stockroom to be reprocessed/repackaged/steamed. It took me awhile to get all the returns sorted.

Should have been charged a restocking fee, or the items shouldn't have been allowed to be returned in the first place.

The "customer" pitched such a fit that the store manager ended up giving them the refund, just to get them to shut up and leave. I do seem to recall that the customer was told in no uncertain terms not to return.

But they got what they want, so a ban is no problem as they know they can't pull that scam there again...

Three bolts arrived, plus we pulled the two original bolts from the shelf, so she had FIVE bolts. They were so close in color that they were hard to tell apart. Yet none fit her exacting requirements! She demands a refund. She gets it.

Same exact issue happens with the new bolts. Now it's too close to the wedding, lady wants to return all of it. She gets her money back.

The special orders should have been paid for up front, with a heavy (25%) restocking fee retained if not purchased...

[Catwoman2965]

Ugh. At my former job, the OLD return policy was we took anything back, pretty much for any reason, at ANY time. So we'd get people who would want to return something, say a purse, they'd used daily for 2 years, and the strap broke. Or they bought shoes, and they were uncomfortable. NOthing wrong, they just hurt their feet. And we had to take them back. When I was hired, my manager told me "even if the cat pees on it, we take it back"

we would also take back items without a receipt, but they'd only get the current selling price. But back then, we only had two sales per year, and no markdowns or sales or promos inbetween. Plus, when we did have our sales, items were marked on sale in store, but not if you ordered from the catalog. So we'd get a lot of people who bought something online, on sale, but came in with no receipt, and due to our policy, and the ticket NOT being marked, even if the item was currently on sale, they got the full price refunded. And if they had a store charge, they'd get a credit to their account, regardless of how they paid, as we had no way to look that up.

We had one customer I was told about, who had weight loss surgery, dry cleaned her ENTIRE closet of worn, but too large things, and returned them. and we took them back!!!!

FF a few years, and the return policy changed. to 90 days, with receipt, tags on, unworn, credit in the original form of payment. No receipt, but current item, store credit, but for current selling price. so if it was marked down by $20, and then another 50% off, that's what they'd get. Past 90 days? no return, no exchange. I don't care what the policy USED to be, this is what it is now.

I can't tell you how much screaming and yelling went on about that, how they didn't know, etc. We made it clear to everyone, the policy would be, or had changed, etc. For a while we also did final sale, which was even worse, as that didn't allow exchanges either. But we told each and every customer, askedif they had tried on, as it was no return, no exchange. Still, some didn't listen and would try and force us to do it. Years after the policy changed, and we still got people who claimed they "didn't know" Right. Bye bye now.

Two stick out in my mind; one woman, mainly sucky, who came in, 40 minutes before closing, with two huge boxes of stuff she had ordered online. It took me and a CW 35 minutes to just mark it all off on the two bags of receipts that she just handed us. UGH. a look at her customer history showed that she bought something like 10K worth of clothing in the past year, and returned almost all of it! Maybe keeping a few hundred dollars worth.

Second one, she was great. I was afraid at first, as she had a large box of online returns, maybe 24 items total, and all but two were over the 90 day mark. UGH. Told my manager, who said, well, we'll ahve to tell her. I asked her to, since i knew if she made a fuss, i'd have to get the manager anyway. Mgr comes back and says the customer said "ok" I asked her to repeat herself. I wasn't expexting that at all! so in the end, not an issue.

[mjr]

SG: No, everything was great. It's just my son-in-law decided he won't take my grandkids to see me this Christmas. So I'm returning all my grandkids' presents.

That reminds me of this (NSFW!!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srHM2sIll68

[sirwired]

We had one customer I was told about, who had weight loss surgery, dry cleaned her ENTIRE closet of worn, but too large things, and returned them. and we took them back!!!!

By CS.com standards, she's practically a model customer because she actually had them cleaned first!

[VComps]

By CS.com standards, she's practically a model customer because she actually had them cleaned first!

How sad is it that this was my first thought too?

[Slave to the Phone]

I don't have any really terrible retail stories because I didn't work the return desk. I heard some doozies, though.

The worse return I ever witnessed was volunteering at pet rescue. Someone adopted a dog. Said dog was a popular breed, so the adopter had to prove to us that she was a better choice than all of the other people who wanted the dog. We would see the dog on a regular basis because the adopter would bring it to the PetStore. Dog looked as happy as could be, adopter seemed happy.

After about a year, the adopter got another dog. The dogs didn't get along. The evil bitch (adopter, not the dog) returned a dog she had pretended to love for over a year because she liked the new one better.

[figgyx]

Clueless crafters

Awhile back I worked as a cashier at a very popular craft store. One day during the holiday season this couple came in with several bags of Christmas crafts - all the branches and picks and stuff that are used to make wreaths etc. They had several receipts.

I had to turn off my light since I now had to spend the next hour combing through the receipts looking for the SKU numbers so I can properly credit back the amount paid for each item.

[Android Kaeli]

How about the customer who returned a long list of items with a receipt that was not only six years old but also very hard to read and about 90% of the items were discontinued? Or the customers who bought $800 or so worth of airbrushing stuff and returned all but $200 of it the next day right at opening [I remember them because I helped them personally AND they paid with cash]?

I do have one that I heard of but can't really verify, since it not only happened about 25 or so years ago but I didn't really know the neighbors all that well. Apparently an older couple that lived on the street I grew up on always got a rotisserie chicken for free every week because they didn't like the taste of it. They would always bring the bones back to the store they went to, got their free chicken, ate the free chicken, and repeat until they moved. Or died, I don't remember exactly.

[Aria]

I don't have any really terrible retail stories because I didn't work the return desk. I heard some doozies, though.

The worse return I ever witnessed was volunteering at pet rescue. Someone adopted a dog. Said dog was a popular breed, so the adopter had to prove to us that she was a better choice than all of the other people who wanted the dog. We would see the dog on a regular basis because the adopter would bring it to the PetStore. Dog looked as happy as could be, adopter seemed happy.

After about a year, the adopter got another dog. The dogs didn't get along. The evil bitch (adopter, not the dog) returned a dog she had pretended to love for over a year because she liked the new one better.

That is so cruel. I think I just cried a little. *goes to hug her cat*

[MoonCat]

I don't have any really terrible retail stories because I didn't work the return desk. I heard some doozies, though.

The worse return I ever witnessed was volunteering at pet rescue. Someone adopted a dog. Said dog was a popular breed, so the adopter had to prove to us that she was a better choice than all of the other people who wanted the dog. We would see the dog on a regular basis because the adopter would bring it to the PetStore. Dog looked as happy as could be, adopter seemed happy.

After about a year, the adopter got another dog. The dogs didn't get along. The evil bitch (adopter, not the dog) returned a dog she had pretended to love for over a year because she liked the new one better.

I want to hit that woman. I've had a stressful day and it would help me work out all that aggravation. Plus, she deserves it.

[paxillated]

The evil bitch (adopter, not the dog) returned a dog she had pretended to love for over a year because she liked the new one better.

That's the story of our "deafgit," who has been living with us for, I think, 6 years now. The former owners got a Rottie, who dragged our boy around by his head. From the scars, you'd think he was a fighting dog! But he gets along fine with the Gigantic Hound. He went through 4 foster homes before he got here. The rescue lady begged us to foster him because we could deal with his behavior problems. Yeah, she knew what she was doing. Sucked us right in! By the time he'd been here for 2 days, he was our dog.

It was a joy to show him how he should be treated. Now he might be just a bit spoiled...

[Kittykat]

This didn't happen to me, but a former coworker when I worked at Cracker Barrel. Lady came in and bought $2,000.00 worth of stuff. The VERY next day her husband came in with her and made her return ALL of it. Took my former CW 2 hours to do.