Storytime!: Your most memorable returns

[wordgirl]

Have a few memorable ones from my retail days.

1) Happy Mouse World. I worked in a shop that sold, among other fancy things, authentic Black Forest cuckoo clocks. Customers would pick the one they wanted from the wall then we'd get them a factory-packed one from stock. We'd open them for inspection if the customer wanted.

A woman came in with four clocks she'd bought the day before (I sold them to her) wanting to do a return. NBD; that kind of thing happens a lot because people realize they've over-spent. Right away, she volunteers that the clock boxes have not been opened. She'd done a half-decent job of re-taping the boxes but I could tell she was lying; the original tape was different.

So I open one of the boxes over her protests. The packing has obviously been disturbed. And the little door where the bird comes out is missing - along with the bird. Lady gets very upset. "Must have been damaged in shipping! I never opened them!" Yeah, right.

After I opened the rest, out of the four, I had none with the little door intact. One still had its cuckoo. There were three doors and one cuckoo rattling around in the boxes.

Had it been shipping damage (which would be highly unlikely; it was clear they were all pulled out by force) the parts would still be in the box. But two clocks had parts missing - without which they NEVER would have left the factory. Also, it would be highly unlikely that four clocks (three different models) would suffer the same kind of physically impossible damage in shipping, AND out of the hundreds of clocks in our stockroom this lady got all four.

I think she figured all this out for herself, because she got increasingly loud and abusive as I went from box to box, to the point where a supervisor was called to stand with me while I finished the inspection. And he shut her down magnificently, because he noticed something I hadn't.

He picked up one of the dismembered cuckoo birds, which was laying next to the box I had just taken it out of, and observed "This bird is white."

He then turned around to the wall of clocks, opened the door of that display model, and said "This bird is blue." Turning back, he lifted up the box and read from the side: "Blue bird cuckoo clock." And then he just looked at the customer.

The lady just visibly deflated. She didn't actually fess up, but it was clear what happened: Her kids had gotten into the boxes back in the hotel room, and broken each clock systematically.

The really sad thing was that the whole charade was unnecessary; at that time, we would take back any merchandise that hadn't actually been set on fire. "My kids broke it" was something we heard a lot.

So she got her money back, but at least my awesome boss and I got to rub her nose in it a bit. That was fun. (And yeah, I might have dated that supervisor a little bit )

[Nunavut Pants]

... If you wish to purchase the mark-less guilt kit...

Pardon me, Dr. Freud, but your slip is showing!

[Aria]

The original purchase had been made by credit card, so back onto the actual purchaser's CC the money went. No way to override. So we had to eat the return still, but the shoplifters didn't get their money and the actual custy got a nice surprise when their bill was due.

If that happened to me I'd probably go down to Wal-Mart and say, uhhh, while I like not paying is there a mistake here? I've done that with the craft store and the french bakery so far...

[Kogarashi]

If that happened to me I'd probably go down to Wal-Mart and say, uhhh, while I like not paying is there a mistake here? I've done that with the craft store and the french bakery so far...

You and me both.

Regardless, nice to have a scammer swiftly shut down by their own inability to notice something like that. Even if the store did have to eat the return.

[XRogue]

Oh yes, I would have done the same had it been my credit card. But I never heard one way or the other in this case. Hope they did tho.

And yes indeedy, nice to see these pieces of work shut down, especially with the
frequent flier aspect.

[LesserSouthernFroglet]

I'm not sure you can call it a return, as it never actually left the shop, probably more a cancelled purchase.

Back when dinosaurs roamed the planet, Froglet was a young teen who occasionally got roped into helping out in her mother's antique shop.

Now, this day, I would have been 13 or 14. My job was to mind the shop, help customers, take the money. No say in haggling or anything. The label was the price.

The SC came in, looked at everything, poked around, asked questions - for over an hour. She eventually decided on several thousand $s worth of goods, including a beautiful little timber desk with perfect French polished finish. I totted up the sums, and told her the final amount. No, that won't do, SC wants a dealer's discount. I'm a kid, I've never heard that said around the shop and I have no capacity to make that decision. Hold on, I'll get Mum.

Mum comes in, no, no possibility of dealer discount, so sorry. Harrumph!! says SC (among other things, like 'I'm never shopping here again!' And 'Mustn't want to make a sale!' and 'Lack of professionalism!!'). She then took the hand-written sales docket (hey, I said it was a long time ago!), put in down on the beautiful little desk, then took a ball-point pen and scrawled 'Cancelled' in large letters over the docket.

She pressed down so hard the word Cancelled was, forever after, etched into the top of the desk.

So not only did she refuse the purchase, she permanently damaged (and reduced in value) one of the refused items.

[drjankowska]

She then took the hand-written sales docket (hey, I said it was a long time ago!), put in down on the beautiful little desk, then took a ball-point pen and scrawled 'Cancelled' in large letters over the docket.

She pressed down so hard the word Cancelled was, forever after, etched into the top of the desk.

So not only did she refuse the purchase, she permanently damaged (and reduced in value) one of the refused items.

Oh. My. God. What a mole!

[eltf177]

So not only did she refuse the purchase, she permanently damaged (and reduced in value) one of the refused items.

At that point she would have either bought the desk or received a new pair of shiny bracelets from the men in blue...

[KuariKaydrith]

I think my most memorable return happened when I was management at a fabric store...

We had a well-posted policy against returning cut fabric and patterns. The cutting slip made it clear that no refunds or store credit would be issued for cut fabric, and there were signs posted about patterns being non-return/refundable (plus we stamped the patterns with a large stamp that reiterated this policy). Clearly, the SC in this story didn't think the policy should apply to her.

She was buying a pattern for her daughter and also picked up the fabric and notions required for the pattern. Before I even cut the fabric for her I had advised her to bring her daughter in to allow her to pick the pattern and fabrics as if she didn't like them they couldn't be returned. SC nodded her head and paid the policy lip service. I had a feeling that this was going to turn out badly.

I was right.

A few hours later SC comes trotting back in the store, yelling as soon as she walked through the door that her daughter hated the pattern and the fabric so we had to either exchange or refund her. Yeah, not gonna happen. I calmly explained the policy to her and she tried to say that the lady who helped her earlier never told her any of that - I pointed out that I was the one who helped her from start to finish and that I had recommended that she bring her daughter in to let her pick everything out. SC proceeded to lose her mind and whipped everything at me, narrowly missing my eye. She said she was never shopping there again, and I told that was fine because she wouldn't be allowed through the doors ever again.

I sent a fax off to head office about what had happened figuring that I would let them know the entire story before the SC twisted it all out of recognition. Head office had the security tapes pulled and when SC did contact them they informed her that they were aware of the situation already and had viewed the security tapes, that she was the one entirely at fault and wasn't going to see a single red cent out of them. They also advised her that they had recommended that I file assault charges but that I had declined on the condition that she never set foot in the store ever again.

I think she was the worst, and therefore the most memorable, return I have ever had in all my years doing retail.

[eltf177]

They also advised her that they had recommended that I file assault charges but that I had declined on the condition that she never set foot in the store ever again.

I'm so glad corporate backed you up on this one!

[wolfie]

SC proceeded to lose her mind

Despite what you think, the SC didn't go crazy when you flagged her lie - she was already there.

[KellyHabersham]

One I remember from Macy's, although the details are a little fuzzy because it's been a few years:

This woman came in with her teenage granddaughter, the latter had been recently been given a sterling silver bracelet, and she either wanted to return or exchange it. Problem was, they did not have a receipt or what we called a "CRL return label", thus there was no way to look up the original transaction.

Anyhow, they left for a bit and then returned......not sure how the situation was eventually resolved. (I didn't get the feeling they were trying to pull a scam, just that they kind of had an entitlement attitude)

[bbbr]

There were a few good ones from when I was at the grocery store-

For some reason, customers always wanted me to smell their rancid chicken. You've got almost the entire uncooked package, I smelled it as you approached and I believe your complaint. What else would you like me to do, sample it? Uh no. That sucker is going right back to meat departments inedible bin and then we'll discuss if you want a refund or new package without either of us gagging more than necessary.

There was a frozen solid poinsettia plant that the customer had killed by leaving it outside during an extended cold snap. Who knew below freezing temps were bad for plants that grow naturally in Mexico... They got a new one to kill, we got something to throw into the compactor wall to watch it explode.

Then there were the hot dogs you could bounce quarters off of. The customer had left them in her trunk for a week during the summer. The package was swelled up to it's bursting point and the product inside was none too good looking. That was passed off to a service clerk very gently for disposal. Once more, the customer got a new package to forget about and have go bad.

Finally there was the bag of dog food from competitor (had their sticker right on it) in a size we didn't sell. The customer even had the receipt from the competitor as proof of purchase while demanding we take it back as they "must've bought it from us as they never shopped the competitor". The customer didn't get their money from us on this one.