The scheming, freeloading couples

[SuperDan]

For those of you in the States inquiring about being forced to pay for things by your employer, Fact Sheet number 16 from the US Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division seems to indicate that this practice is in violation of federal law, specifically the Fair Labor Standards Act. I haven't searched the actual law, but if you think your employer is in violation of this call the Wage and Hour Division at 1-866-4-US-WAGE and their representatives will talk to you to determine if it is a violation or not, and will handle enforcement if it is. Bonus points, of course, if you make the call in front of your boss.

[greensinestro]

At the pizza place where I used to work, people would only get a refund for inedible food if they brought in the pizzas, intact, to the shop. Otherwise, they got nothing.

One day, when just me and my boss were in the shop (the driver was out on a delivery) this woman rang up to say that she'd previously ordered 4 pizzas and they were burnt.

I open the first box; nothing there cept for a smear of tomato sauce and a couple of crusts. Same for all of them. Well, the pizzas couldn't have been that bad, seeing they'd scoffed the lot. I told them that I couldn't give them a fresh order or a refund, cuz they'd eaten the pizzas. XD

Now, hold on a second. I have to defend this couple. Isn't it possible your pizza oven vaporized the pizzas except for the smear of tomato sauce and a couple of crusts? And, with the husband stopping you from opening the boxes, is it not possible he thought it was such a grisly site that you might be sick from it?

lol

[air914]

I belong to a cake website too and you wouldn't believe how many people try to scam cake decorators!

There's been weddings where people have said the cake wasn't cooked - but when asked to produce said cake - hmmm there isn't any left b/c it was all eaten????

Or people that tell a sob story to the decorator about how expensive the wedding is and that they don't have much money, yada yada yada, to get a deal - only to have the decorator show up to some extravaganza that truly shows how "tight" money is for the people.....

There's many many many more stories but it's just so sad people don't have appreciation for anything anyone seems to do anymore - customer service, waiting tables, working retail, cake decorating..... It doesn't matter how "easy" you think a job is -until you've done it, you don't have a right to say it's "oh so easy" and no matter what, you shouldn't try to scam people.

[Reyneth]

I know I'm about 3 pages late, but I admit that once I got my money back plus extra - but I wasn't an SC about it, just very calm and stated what I required.

The situation -
I ordered flowers as a surprise for my mom, to be delivered at school where she teaches. Day of delivery, I hear nothing from her. Call her at the end of the school day, she's gotten nothing. No flowers in her room, nothing in her office.

So I check the tracking information. Delivery was made at 12:30 or whatever that afternoon. Ummm, what? Her office hasn't had any delivery from that company all day. I talk with school superintendent (great to be a teacher's kid ) and he got a shipment from that company about that time - but no flowers at all, shipment has been put away.

I call the HS, which is about 4 minutes away from my mom's school. Nope, nothing.

Call shipping company. A "Reed" signed for it. Funny, nobody by that name works in the school or board office.

Call flower company. They only have shipping company information.

Guy driving delivery truck is still out on route so he can't be reached.
Now he's done, but clocked out so he can't be reached - but there were no shipments left in truck.

Lather, rinse repeat.

For TWO hours I was making calls and waiting for calls back.

Finally we come to find out that the flowers weren't delivered to the school at 100 Cougar Ave, but 100 Runway Street - A FLORIST! Talk to owner/manager there. As luck would have it, she was on a delivery when they came in and it was a new employee in the store - she opened the box, cut down the flowers and put them in the cooler to be sold. And she'd be closing in 10 minutes so my mom couldn't get there in time.

Gaaaaahhhhhh. This was supposed to be a surprise and went horribly wrong.

I called flower company back (I had been in contact with them as they were trying to find more information) and told them I knew it was the shipping company's fault but it was ultimately theirs as they used said shipping company and I paid for the flowers with expectations of delivery which were not fulfilled. And I just spend two hours of my time finding out what went wrong, so I wanted compensated for the flowers my mom never go plus the effort and time I used finding out what went wrong.

So my money was refunded and I got a gift certificate for a future purchase. Granted, it essentially covered shipping costs - but it did make for a discount on the flowers I sent my grandma this Valentine's Day.

While rare, I will argue that there are times when a customer (if not being sucky) deserves something extra - but none of the other ones in this thread qualify!

[Tria]

Just like you shouldn't be allowed to shop until you've worked retail, you shouldn't be allowed to eat out until you've waited tables.

I dunno, can we test out? I couldn't do what you do fro a living, and I ALWAYS treat whoever's waiting my table with respect.

[Dreamstalker]

that's because they have to return that defective item and do it now!

Of course it's defective; it got irradiated and that's soo dangerous to their little angels!

[Imogene]

I dunno, can we test out?

Yeah, particularly for those of us who don't have full use of their limbs? I could probably do waitressing, but it would look terribly unwieldy in places. *one good arm, the other's okay but not great*

[Auto]

I dunno, can we test out? I couldn't do what you do fro a living, and I ALWAYS treat whoever's waiting my table with respect.

who sees humanity at its worst, most vile, retail clerks or servers?

servers ought to be better treated that retail clerks if only because they could do something to the food scammers are about to put in their mouths.

that said, servers almost never ruin food they're about to serve to a jerk. cooks are another matter. every story i've ever heard about someone tampering with food has involved an angry cook.

[Jester]

They accepted to have their steaks cooked to their liking, but while they were waiting for the new steaks, the two continued chomping away at the "undercooked" ones they didn't want to pay for.

Most restaurants I have worked at, the good ones anyway, if someone doesn't like their food and wants it replaced, we TAKE the offending item away and get a new item cooked. This is done not only to prevent scamming, mind you, but also to show the management/kitchen what was wrong. ("They wanted rare, this is completely well done, see?") The fact that it prevents scamming is a bonus.

[greensinestro]

Most restaurants I have worked at, the good ones anyway, if someone doesn't like their food and wants it replaced, we TAKE the offending item away and get a new item cooked. This is done not only to prevent scamming, mind you, but also to show the management/kitchen what was wrong. ("They wanted rare, this is completely well done, see?") The fact that it prevents scamming is a bonus.

You probably do not live in South Florida, do you? lol Much of the time, these shitty customers, no, not customers, bastards, do this constantly and much of the time get what they want. Most restaurant managers are fed up with it now that they don't budge, or sometimes, they have been known to take the uncooked steak back and cook it how they want. Then again, if it's well done and they wanted it bloody as hell, that's another story there.

[Jester]

You probably do not live in South Florida, do you?

If you mean the Miami/Broward area, no, I don't.

However, since you can't really get much more South in Florida than Key West, the "Southernmost City", I would have to say you are dead wrong my friend. Not to mention quite a bit north of ME.

Like I said, when you work in better restaurants, these things can be controlled. And by "better" I don't mean "fancier." I mean better run. Some of the better places I have worked at were ultra casual, even divey, but they didn't take grief from scammers. And I have worked at some "fancy" restaurants that I would not say were better in this sense.

Not in South Florida. Funny.

[Dragonlover]

Here's a couple from the petrol station:

Two guys came in and bought a mobile phone top up voucher. Whilst one engaged the cashier in conversation, the other one put the code into his phone without the cashier noticing. The other guy then turns to the cashier and tells them that its a code for the wrong network, could we please have a voucher for (some other network)? Because the cashier hasn't noticed that the vouchers already been used, they dispensed a second one and took the first one back for resale... that quickly led to an internal memo being sent round.

A customer came in, tried to pay on card for about forty quids worth of fuel, but the card didn't work. After going through all the other options, they went out to their car and just drove off. 'Fine' we said, 'we'll call the police and let them deal with it'. Called the cops, apparently because the customer attempted to pay they haven't stolen the fuel, and thus cannot be arrested or in fact be made to come back to the store with valid payment. I think the store ended up writing off the cash.

Dragonlover

[MMATM]

"Attempted to pay"? What about the good ol' days when if someone didn't have enough cash to buy their meal you made them wash dishes until they'd earned enough to pay it off? Stupid law. Needs changing. However it would be legal to blacklist the "attempted payers" until such time as they are able to pay (not necessarily for the written-off charge, but paying in advance for example would eliminate the problem with them), since there is no guarantee that they will be able to pay next time.

Seriously, though, some places are really bad. You'd need to check ID's on the way in and out to make sure everyone had paid, or have people pay as soon as their food arrived, or pay before their food arrived, so that people couldn't skip out on paying.

There may be a law about this already, but anyone caught skipping payment should be fined an amount dependent upon the amount of the check, NQA.

[greensinestro]

Jester,

Key West is a great city. I love it there, but don't think I could ever afford what the real estate market values are there. However, I have noticed the snowbirds mainly stay away from down there being there are no high rise condos and really not that many Cadillacs either! Then again, the building code is something like nothing can be higher than seven stories, if I am not mistaken.

[Jester]

Key West is a great city. I love it there, but don't think I could ever afford what the real estate market values are there. However, I have noticed the snowbirds mainly stay away from down there being there are no high rise condos and really not that many Cadillacs either! Then again, the building code is something like nothing can be higher than seven stories, if I am not mistaken.

I can't afford the real estate market either. One of many reasons I rent.

There are plenty of condos. Just no high rises. (See below.)

Cadillacs? Perhaps not, but snowbirds aren't our problem. It's developers and their multi-million dollar clients.

And yes, there is a moratorium on building tall buildings. The two tallest buildings in town are seven stories each (though the hotel I used to work at is technically the highest point, as it is on higher ground), but no new building can be taller than four stories, and there are various restrictions beyond that on how high this or that can be.

And next time you come down here, let me know. We'll have a few brews together.