Customer Discretion is Advised

[ShadedWings]

Two stories for you guys today!

First one was told to me by a coworker. (I work in an entertainment store, for the record. Movies, books, games, music.)

He's checking people out at a register, and two young-ish (about 8 and 14) kids come up with a rental movie, and their mother's ID. Coworker looks up the rental account using the ID and the following ensues.

CW - coworker
K - Kid(s)
M - Mother

CW - (seeing that the movie is rated R and that the kids are not listed as okay to rent to on the account) Sorry guys, I can't let you rent this.
K - Why not??
CW - Your mother needs to be here, I'm sorry.

Kids leave, come back in with the mother, who's PISSED OFF.

M - WHY CAN'T MY KIDS RENT THEIR MOVIE!?
CW - I'm sorry ma'am, but they're not listed on the account as secondaries and to be honest, the movie they were trying to rent is rated R. I can't rent to them without you being present and okaying it.
M - That's bull%^*$, how do you think they had my ID?
CW - I have no way to be sure of that ma'am, but you still needed to be present either way.
M - That's stupid, who do you think you are telling my kids they can't rent something when I told them it's okay?!
CW - One of the managers here.
M - You just won't rent to them, because it's discretion!!
CW - ... Do you mean discrimination?
M - Whatever!! We're keeping our money!!! *leaves*
CW -

And this lovely one was a joy for me to handle today...

Me -
L - Lady on phone.

(Little bit of background.. yesterday our debit/credit card system went down and would time out trying to process, so we had a bit of trouble for a couple hours.)

Me - (greeting) how may I direct your call?
L - I was in there yesterday and the lady told me there that the debit machine was down (that was me :P) and we tried it anyway and it didn't go through on mine or my daughter's card so we paid cash. And now we look and I have two charges from you guys on my card and one on hers for all the same amounts, even though we paid cash!!
Me - Okay, I'm so sorry about that, we were having difficulty with the system then. If you just bring in both your banks' statements we'll get that refunded for you no problem.
L - ... You don't get it. We were charged on our cards even though we were told it didn't go through and it did!
Me - I understand that, and I apologize for it, our system had said it didn't go through. It'll be easy to fix though, just go ahead and bring in your statements and we'll refund it.
L - But... no... wait. Don't you have it there?
Me - Have what here, I'm sorry...?
L - That we were charged.
Me - N-no... the register stated that it didn't process, and no receipt was printed. We had no way of knowing that it had charged you.
L - You should have record of it charging me there!!!!
Me - No ma'am, we don't. It'll be easy enough to fix though, we just need your statements -
L - You're not understanding me. We were charged... ugh...
Me - I understand perfectly ma'am. All you need to do is bring in your bank statements. We don't have anything here that says you were charged. With your statements as proof, it won't be a problem to refund it. *starts to feel like a broken record*
L - I .. well.. but.. UGH. Fine. We'll print it out. And be there. Thank. You. *hangs up*
Me - *sigh of relief* (to customer at register) Sorry about that.
Customer - No problem, I understood you the first time you explained it myself, hehe.

[MannersMakethMan]

M - WHY CAN'T MY KIDS RENT THEIR MOVIE!?
CW - I'm sorry ma'am, but they're not listed on the account as secondaries and to be honest, the movie they were trying to rent is rated R. I can't rent to them without you being present and okaying it.
M - That's bull%^*$, how do you think they had my ID?
CW - I have no way to be sure of that ma'am, but you still needed to be present either way.
M - That's stupid, who do you think you are telling my kids they can't rent something when I told them it's okay?!
CW - One of the managers here.
M - You just won't rent to them, because it's discretion!!
CW - ... Do you mean discrimiation?
M - Whatever!! We're keeping our money!!! *leaves*
CW -

Sucky Custiomer - rated R for Ridiculous.

[crashhelmet]

Did that customer ever come in? It sounds like she was trying to pull a scam and then stumbled when you called her on it. I've seen that scam a lot in places I've worked.

CH

[bainsidhe]

Geez, I know the second one was a pain, but I have to agree it's a sucky system. If your register said it didn't process, it should be the truth. Even so, around and around we go...

[ShadedWings]

Geez, I know the second one was a pain, but I have to agree it's a sucky system. If your register said it didn't process, it should be the truth. Even so, around and around we go...

*nodnod* I agree, it sucks it happened. It pissed ME off that it wasn't working, and it would piss me off if it happened to me. But it was a simple fix and she wasn't quite understanding that, or wanted to make a bigger deal out of the fix than it was. I hope she gets to talk to my store manager, she tends to over dramatize things a bit, might help to soothe her.

[jerkface11]

I don't remember fighting Godzilla, but that's sooo what I would have done. (Guess right, win a cookie.)

Thats from the last episode(on Fox) of Futurama. I prefer peanutbutter with chocolate chips.

[Buglady]

Me -
L - Lady on phone.

(Little bit of background.. yesterday our debit/credit card system went down and would time out trying to process, so we had a bit of trouble for a couple hours.)

Me - (greeting) how may I direct your call?
L - I was in there yesterday and the lady told me there that the debit machine was down (that was me :P) and we tried it anyway and it didn't go through on mine or my daughter's card so we paid cash. And now we look and I have two charges from you guys on my card and one on hers for all the same amounts, even though we paid cash!!
Me - Okay, I'm so sorry about that, we were having difficulty with the system then. If you just bring in both your banks' statements we'll get that refunded for you no problem.
L - ... You don't get it. We were charged on our cards even though we were told it didn't go through and it did!
Me - I understand that, and I apologize for it, our system had said it didn't go through. It'll be easy to fix though, just go ahead and bring in your statements and we'll refund it.
L - But... no... wait. Don't you have it there?
Me - Have what here, I'm sorry...?
L - That we were charged.
Me - N-no... the register stated that it didn't process, and no receipt was printed. We had no way of knowing that it had charged you.
L - You should have record of it charging me there!!!!
Me - No ma'am, we don't. It'll be easy enough to fix though, we just need your statements -
L - You're not understanding me. We were charged... ugh...
Me - I understand perfectly ma'am. All you need to do is bring in your bank statements. We don't have anything here that says you were charged. With your statements as proof, it won't be a problem to refund it. *starts to feel like a broken record*
L - I .. well.. but.. UGH. Fine. We'll print it out. And be there. Thank. You. *hangs up*
Me - *sigh of relief* (to customer at register) Sorry about that.
Customer - No problem, I understood you the first time you explained it myself, hehe.

Ugh. We've been having similar issues with our debit system, and half a dozen people have ended up with double charges; for bonus fun & games, we have ALSO had two cases where customers' banks took out a double charge but WE only got one (which means the customer has to talk to the bank about getting their money back). Three of the people were fine about it, brought their statements in, were patient while the bookkeeper looked into it, and took their refunds nicely.

The other three... man. I nearly quit over one of them, and I LOVE this job. She was without doubt the most awful SC I have ever dealt with in all my life, and I've got twenty years in the trenches here. She screamed at me, refused to talk to the owner (who was beside me at the time), ranted, raved, frothed at the mouth, and generally carried on. She said we were scamming her (um, lady, you are the one who is haranguing a clerk, which spells scammer pretty clearly to us!), that banks didn't make mistakes (uh, which planet was that on, sorry?, refused to bring her statement in "because then we would see her bank balance" (we don't care), and she doesn't get a paper statement ANYWAY, she looks at it online but she doesn't have a printer, and how dare I suggest she print it on someone else's computer because then they could see her bank info!!!1! but the bank branch will charge her "a ton of money" for a printed statement that we WILL pay for!! - all of that was pretty well on one breath, by the way.

Nobody here will be at all surprised that the amount in question was under $10. Or that I pulled a ten out of my own pocket and offered it to her to make her go away. My boss then handed ME $10 out of HIS pocket. Four customers in line behind the screaming woman started to laugh.

Customer has not been sighted since.

[Jester]

M - That's stupid, who do you think you are telling my kids they can't rent something when I told them it's okay?!

"Lady, it's not who I think I am. It's who the law thinks it is. And the law thinks it is, well, the law. And I am not about to violate the law just because you are too fucking lazy to get out of your damn car to help your kids rent a movie that is probably inappropriate for them anyway. NOT that you would actually notice anything like that, of course.

banks didn't make mistakes

HAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA--wait, what? You're serious? Okay, just checking--HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!