People who work in food service or customer service: What’s the dumbest thing a customer ever insisted was “the law” or “illegal”?
Brought to you by my discovery that some people think that “the customer is always right” isn’t the slogan of a long-dead department store, but rather it’s an actual call the cops law.
I work for an ISP and I’ve been told on several occasions by customers that it is illegal for us to see a customer’s connected devices on the router that we supply and manage… Bro if you want to manage your own network, buy your own router and stop bothering me.
I worked at a book store, and the card readers processed everything as credit. Which is generally fine, since most folks’ debit cards can be run either way.
I had an old dude come up and pay with his debit card. When it didn’t ask for a pin, he started screaming at me about how I’d just illegally charged his credit card. I politely explained that it didn’t work that way and he just kept yelling. So I rudely explained that it didn’t work that way.
Dude, you think you inserted your debit card and that magically, our system somehow found out your credit card information and charged that instead?
In Australia, debit cards are dual-network, and credit transactions cost far more than debit transactions. Debit uses a local system called EFTPOS that has low fees, whereas credit uses the card issuer’s network (Mastercard, Visa, etc) and they take a far larger percentage.
I have no idea, Do debit cards have better protections in australia?
Cause in America, if you run a debit card, you get no protections (edit, banks will generally give you your money back if the card is stolen, after an investigation, nothing else really). I literally have been told by a bank that “If you wanted to make charge backs and have protections, you should have used your credit card”
A lot of people only have debit cards in Australia, and consumer protection is a lot stronger than the USA. Most credit cards in Australia have an annual fee, and the only rewards are usually frequent flyer points, so they’re nowhere near as common as in the USA.
I’m Aussie but I’ve been living in the USA for 10 years. American credit cards are something else. So many good cards with no annual fee, great perks (like extended warranty), and great rewards (like cash back, or points that are worth way more than in Australia).
At one point I worked for an electronics repair shop fixing mostly phones, laptops, and game consoles. We actually had a great manager and we all just enjoyed fixing things, so we really weren’t out to rip people off like they usually came in thinking. Our store policy was even if we didn’t fix it, we didn’t charge you, and we stood by it.
One day a lady drops off her laptop with a cracked screen. Part of the screen was still working, but the majority was non functional and would surely worsen over time. We diagnose the laptop and give the customer a quote and she agrees to the repair. I let her know that once we start the repair, the previous screen will be destroyed during the removal process since it has no more integrity from being broken, she’s fine with that. We get the part in a few days later and I start the repair. At this point the woman’s husband calls - literally while I have the cracked screen half out of the laptop - and says stop the repair and return it how it was. We were like, we’re happy to give the laptop back, but unfortunately we’ve already started the repair and while removing the old screen it broke more so it would end up being returned in a worse condition.
This fucking guy screamed at me over the phone about how what we were doing was illegal, how we never got proper authorization blah blah. We offered to even do the repair at cost, but no that wasn’t good enough. When the husband and wife finally came into the store to pick up the laptop, he left screeching about how he was going to sue us. Unsurprisingly we never heard from him again.
We developed a very effective strategy for this at a furniture store I used to work at; the moment the customer makes any suggestion of legal action, all our employees were trained to immediately say “I understand. Have a good day” and end the conversation on the spot. The unhappy customer immediately tries to press the issue, because what they want is for us to magically teleport a couch here from China or whatever, and at that point the employee says “I’m sorry but as you’ve notified us that this issue is now the subject of a pending legal action any further communication will have to go though our legal team.”
Repeating this a couple more times would inevitably lead to the customer admitting that they were bluffing.
Second lawyer is mentioned, shut down all communication and offer only “Due to your pending litigation, Please direct all correspondence to our lawyers as we are not authorized to discuss legal matters.”
Why do I feel like this is a domestic abuse situation. Husband broke her laptop in order to reduce her attempts to communicate with others? She goes to get it repaired, he finds out.
I think it’s the belief that the wife can’t authorise the repair…
Working in a financial call centre, a certain type of person considered us to have stolen their money if they sent us an funds for an investment and refused to send anti-money laundering documents with it, because we also couldn’t return the money without them. Sorry, buddy.
That honestly should be the law. If you can’t accept it without documentation, you should be required to return it. Of course you can also report it, but that’s separate.
No, since people can just wire you money. Then, if you return it, they can attempt to use that transaction to prove dirty money is clean. If it is clean in the first place, they should be able to provide documentation.
I’m not seeing how that proves the transaction is clean.
If I put money in a bank account, then transfer it to another account, then back to the same one, the transfer back doesn’t obfuscate anything. If it’s not caught on the initial deposit in the banking system, then I’m not seeing how any subsequent transactions matter.
OK, well I disagree that it ‘doesn’t obfuscate anything’. Additional transactions are in a launder’s interest.
But also consider that If unknown monies can just be returned, then a launderer can keep trying, with multiple institutions in multiple ways, until they are successful in investing it.
Speaking for the UK, that’s every financial institution. The whole point is that everyone is required to complete checks to make sure you are who you say you are, if you refuse them then that is an indicator of money laundering. Even just receiving and returning money helps a money launderer establish a paper trail and assists in layering to legitimise the money they gave you. That’s a big no-no, obviously, so it can’t simply be returned without risking significant legal implications from the regulator. All expectations are set up front on this when beginning transactions.
I understand that’s the law as it currently is. I’m saying that it shouldn’t result in any legal ramifications.
It seems they weren’t well setup, if they were then he wouldn’t have gotten to the point that he wired money before filling the required paperwork out.
Okay, do you work in the UK financial services industry, or an associated regulatory body? Because this was an infrequent circumstance that came as a result of the inattentiveness and belligerence of specific customers. There’s no industry wide issue and this was whilst working for one of the largest investment platforms in the UK.
If you don’t like how things work, then that’s fine, but it was working as intended and would have been no issue if the client had just followed the required, and explained, process. I feel it goes without saying that it is very important to maintain anti-money laundering processes in our financial systems, both legally and conceptually.
I’m not saying it’s a common issue. I’m saying that something like this should never occur.
I’m also not saying that I don’t value anti money laundering process. I agree those are very important.
However, I also think it’s even more important that people aren’t deprived of their money without due process. If you can’t accept it, because they’re not proving the required evidence then you should be required to return it unless there’s more to it. In order to keep the money, there needs to be some form of evidence showing money laundering not just an absence of evidence altogether.
If you receive money without verification and return it no questions asked, then you are opening yourself up as an avenue by which people can launder money. Every receipt and retransfer of that money legitimises that money further and makes you party to the crime. The money is in limbo and can be returned as soon as the regulatory needs are met, but to do otherwise just voids the whole process.
At this point they are depriving themselves of the money by refusing to verify themselves, it’s a basic identify and address check. This is an investment company, they weren’t sending us their rent money, they wanted to invest it. They were just pissed that we expected them to follow the same process that every client needs to follow when investing.
It doesn’t void the whole process. It may very slightly increase the degree to which it’s easier to launder money (I’m not convinced on that aspect since the money already originated from within the banking system).
Rather it prioritizes people’s right to their own property.
What you’re saying makes sense to me if you’re talking about a deposit of cash that was mailed. It doesn’t make sense to me for a wire or electronic transfer.
It absolutely does make sense because it is discriminatory. He’s absolutely correct.
The mistake that you are making, is thinking that all forms of discrimination are bad. They’re not. Most are in fact good. We just don’t tend to call them discrimination.
The customer called it racist. The person you were responding to said that discrimination would be a better descriptor, but also that the customer was still silly for thinking they had a case because of it, regardless of what words the customer used.
It takes a certain kind of person to get upset that a store isn’t treating you like an employee. What’s next, demanding access to the private areas? Wait, people already do that too :(
The person I responded to said discriminatory didn’t even make sense. I pointed out why it does make sense, because it is discriminatory and that’s perfectly fine.
Yes, that’s true and not in contrast with what I’ve said.
Was working retail in an area that had a local bag ordinance that required businesses to charge customers for bags. A man came up to the register and when I asked him if he wanted a bag for a few cents extra, he looked at me like I was crazy and was like, “You charge for bags?” I explained that it was required by the government and he just kinda scoffed. I thought that was it, but as he opened his wallet to pay, he flashed what turned out to be a police badge at me from another city some ways away, gave me a look, and said something along the lines of “I think I know what the law is.” I just finished up the transaction and got him going asap, blown away at the insecurity displayed. It was such a bizarre powermove over what was only a few cents extra for something completely optional.
I work in law enforcement and this is called “tinning” when you show your badge unnecessarily. My personal rule of thumb is if I’m dealing with you and you tin me then I am 100% giving you a ticket now.
Worked in bars as a supervisor for 3 years, almost everytime I decided to cut a patron off (usually for being too drunk, or for being an arsehole) I would be met with “you can’t do that, it’s illegal, you HAVE to serve me”
No, I don’t. Service is at my discretion, and it wouldn often be unethical for me to continue to provide you with more alcohol, endangering yours and others around you further.
Funny because it’s really quite the opposite in most places. You’re legally required not to serve intoxicated patrons. If you overserve people and they go off and kill someone, you could be liable in my state. I think that’s pretty bullshit but it surprises me that folks would argue to the exact opposite. Of course, why should that surprise me?
Ehhh, I think it’s probably more likely that you can’t discriminate on specific factors like age, religion, sex, skin colour, etc.
I just can’t see “most places” having laws that force you to deal with any and all aholes in customer service. Could I have a source on that, please? I have never heard of that before.
Had a guy tell me he was going to sue me, personally not the store, and financially ruin me because I told him to put on a mask in like April 2020. He didnt do either. I’m sure anyone who worked with the public during that time has some story lol.
I still can’t wrap my head around why certain political factions latched onto not wearing a mask as a political rallying cry. Like…why do you want to kill the people you need to vote for you? I can’t understand.
Honestly I think some of this stuff is a way to filter out people with critical thinking skills the same way scam emails are often deliberately spelled wrong to filter out people who wouldn’t have fallen for the scam to begin with.
Caring about other people is leftist and woke, and no god fearing american patriot would ever give a fuck about another person, ever! Thats communism! /s
Masks are annoying and a hassle and everyone hates them.
But you also hate democrats and every major or minor inconvenience in your life is always their fault.
Since wearing a mask is something one might choose or not choose to do, it is therefore a choice issue and therefore a freedom issue, which is guaranteed to you by the constitution. And hence it’s a political issue.
Funnily enough, I think watching “The Last of Us” made me understand what these people were afraid of.
Personally, my mind doesn’t go in that direction when I see the government doing something, but I guess for some people that is their first thought. They think that when you’re temporarily not allowed to congregate in public, it’s a slippery slope into a permanent lockdown state.
Making a loooot of assumptions here. Like that conservatives know how to think for themselves, or that right wing fanatics have any understanding of how reality works.
Have you ever seen that movie Don’t Look up? It’s a great watch. Even in the face of a planet destroying comet heading for earth, the conservative were all “You know what, I’m FOR all the jobs the comet will provide! Don’t look up! Don’t look up!”
Not really. They were told by their talking heads that they should be against masks but that doesn’t make sense. The powerful people need the votes right? We haven’t descended fully into fascism yet, just mostly…so why would they push that narrative knowing it would kill people who would vote for them? Was it a calculated risk to attempt to kill more of the other guys? I’m just confused about how that worked in their minds, and why they wouldn’t have looked for some other narrative that wouldn’t endanger their voters so much. I get that they don’t care about the people who cast the votes, but they do care about the votes.
They thought that cities, which lean heavily blue, would be more affected. This was the case at first, until we got a handle on things, particularly vaccines. Then their strategy backfired and killed more reds.
In order to consolidate power the Trump allies multiple factions of right wing nut jobs. I one of which is the anti-vax group. Most of the covid knee-jerk reaction was to appease this group. The leaders need to keep the loyalty of the groups, so when a pet issue of a group comes up in the main public discourse the sub-group demands the leaders act, the leaders then tell the rest of their followers what to think and do.
My guess is it was part of a two-pronged election strategy. First, make COVID denial part of the GOP’s political platform, so that they’re more likely to be performatively reckless, including waiting on line in crowded polling places where no one is masked (which goes further to scare people away that were actually taking COVID seriously), while people taking precautions like voting by mail or by voting early when it’s less crowded would be disproportionately likely to vote Democratic.
Then, pass unreasonable regulations like “mail-in and early votes can’t be counted until all votes cast on Election Day are counted”, while pressuring election workers to post results as early as possible, skewing votes in their favor, or, failing that, point to the fact that the votes against them were counted later as evidence of fraud.
point to the fact that the votes against them were counted later as evidence of fraud.
It was stated in some documents or something that were released that this was the plan. I don’t know about the entire anti-mask plan, but they absolutely knew early/mail-in would skew Democrat, because it usually does and covid made it worse, so they knew they could sell the narrative that the sudden increase in Democrat vote averages must be cheating somehow. I don’t know how Fox News still exists after they sold this lie. Hopefully the people who fell for it eventually realize how wrong it was. It’s going to keep being true (probably not the the same level without covid though), so they’ll either belief every election is fucked or that they were manipulated.
Yay! I have one. We had a customer grab a product from a spot on the shelf next to where it was normally stocked. The spots have labels indicating the price of the item. This person argued that because the product was in the wrong spot they should only have to pay the price of the item that should have been there. The prices also include the name of the product. The reason the the product was taking up space in the next spot was because we had sold out due to the item being deeply discounted because we were discontinuing it. When we explained that they began accusing us of false advertising and threatened to call the better business bureau. They admitted that they knew it was the wrong product but insisted that because it wasn’t shelved in the right spot that was some kind of loophole. I gave a firm no and then they asked to speak to a manager. I fucked off it was taken care of.
Reminds me of a really old Saturday Night Live “commercial” for a supermarket price gun. They showed a person shopping for all sorts of premium goods (steaks, etc) and re-labeling them all as something like $0.79, and the cashier blindly ringing them up for that price.
I also work front end, I’ve had sooo many people give me this shit.
#1 Not advertising. Advertising is what you see before you enter the building. Some stores don’t even have shelf labels.
#2 Do you think someone can walk up to your garage sale and slap their own sticker that says $1 and demand you sell them a TV for $1? No, you can refuse to sell your own shit whenever you want. It’s YOUR shit. You can burn it in front of them if you felt like it.
It doesn’t count obviously if it’s a misplaced item and the price is clearly labelled for another item. However, if a store leaves discount stickers on some product late, or mislabels some price, they are obligated to sell at that price. There is caveat that it only works if the price is believable, but I managed to get a ton of shrimp that just arrived at a Lidl 90% off one time. Family was eating shrimp for weeks.
My dad and I were shopping at Home Depot one December and found a small Christmas decoration I wanted. When we got it to the register the cashier couldn’t find a tag or sticker on it. Normally I’d go get another one with a tag but this was the only one they had. The cashier tried looking it up through the computer system but still couldn’t figure it out. She handed it to us and told us it was free because it was the store’s fault that she couldn’t find the price.
We’ve been enjoying that decoration for years, my mom still puts it in the middle of her kitchen display. And we always remember how nice that cashier was to us.
I used to work in a supermarket in the UK about 20 years ago. The store is not legally required to sell anything to anyone (as long as it’s not because they are discriminating against a protected characteristic), so the workaround for the store was to say that the item was no longer for sale and to remove it from the shop floor (presumably fixing the labeling, then putting the stock back out)
AFAIK a legally binding contract only happens once you actually exchange money for a product. That should be true pretty much all over the world as long as there’s actual laws/customs regulating this process.
Any prices/offers or whatever else you might see in or around a store are in no way legally binding no matter how believable the prices are.
Otherwise anyone can just run around with a 10/20/50% off sticker and force any store to sell them whatever they want for much cheaper.
Otherwise anyone can just run around with a 10/20/50% off sticker and force any store to sell them whatever they want for much cheaper.
Or they can just steal it, it’s just as legal. In my experience this is law in a lot of the EU, including Germany and a bunch of Eastern European places.
In my case, it wasn’t a misplaced 90% off sticker, it was just that the normal price tag on the shelf was printed with one zero less. It was also a “premium” item at the time, so the price wasn’t that much off, just cheap. It wasn’t just a bunch of shrimp, it was ready made, cleaned, arranged into a neat circle with dipping sauces in the middle.
On the other hand, I had a thing where Microsoft was introducing Skype to a country where the local currency was around 200:1 to the dollar. They messed up the currency conversion, and it defaulted back to 1:1, giving everyone a 99.5% discount on consumer electronics. It was obviously not honoured, and the law was clear, so no lawsuits either.
All consumer commodities, sold, exposed for sale or offered for sale at retail except those items subject to section 20-708.1 of this code, shall have conspicuously displayed, at the point of exposure or offering for sale, the total selling price exclusive of tax by means of (a) a stamp, tag or label attached to the item or (b) by a sign at the point of display which indicates the item to which the price refers, provided that this information is plainly visible at the point of display for sale of the items so indicated. This section shall not apply to consumer commodities displayed in the window of the seller.
§ 20-708.1 Item pricing.
e. Price accuracy. No retail store shall charge a retail price for any stock keeping item, whether or not exempt under subdivision c of this section, which exceeds the lower of any item, shelf, sale or advertised price of such stock keeping item.
City inspectors may perform random checks to compare tag price to scanner price at checkout and fine store $25-$100 for every incorrect/missing tag, and may repeat the inspections every 24 hours until problem is solved.
If you run around slapping your own discount stickers it wouldn’t count since the store didn’t do it, you are just committing fraud. The store would be on the hook if it continued to display the fraudulently-mislabeled product for sale after being made aware of it.
All consumer commodities … shall have … a sign at the point of display which indicates the item to which the price refers, provided that this information is plainly visible at the point of display for sale of the items so indicated.
So it is a question of whether the product spilling over to an adjacent shelf still has a “plainly visible” price tag. If it were on a wrong shelf entirely it would not, and here there is some ambiguity, but city inspectors can be pretty strict and demand items stay within the lines. If it is decided the price was not plainly visible, the store may be fined $25-$100 per violation per day. In any case, the customer would not be calling “better business bureau” (which is just yelp from before the internet), but the Commissioner of Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. And the customer would also not get to pay the lower price for the other product if it is clear it is a different product, as the customer admits they knew. (The question would be different if there were ambiguity).
However, the point that I specifically object to is the opinion that it was preposterous for the customer to claim some legal right in this situation, the implication that no such right exists. The language of the law does exist (at least in some jurisdictions), and violations do carry legal penalties.
I don’t, but I watch people working a food truck on twitch. Usually no issues, but the stream has a CTFO: “Cancel The Fucking Order” emote because of this guy: livestreamfails.com/post/7591
Whilst I don’t follow US law, quick Google suggests one of the conditions is “the injury is not readily avoidable by consumers”. In other words the business isn’t liable for the customer not reading the documents they signed up to.
It’s not always so simple. I’m in Fintech so have to take the UDAAP course every year or so and the law is more consumer friendly than you’d expect, at least for the US. The deceptive bit is probably the most relevant. If the person signing them up for it told them “you won’t be charged” but failed to mention that they would be charged later that is an example of a deceptive practice.
I work collections at a bank. The only thing UDAAP doesn’t protect consumers against is their inability to read their account terms and their sense of entitlement.
I don’t think my customers were dumb but I was regularly accused of breaking the law in a previous job. This was back in 09-10, I worked for a mortgage company in the insurance escrow department processing homeowner insurance claims. The way my job worked: If a homeowner has significant property damage (fire, flood, fallen tree) and the home is under a mortgage, the insurance company will make the check payable to the homeowner and the mortgage company. If it has both names it cannot be cashed unless the mortgage company endorses the check. I was the person responsible for determining if we would sign the back of that check so the customer could cash it.
Mortgages have a clause that allows this, because it’s in the best interest of the mortgage company to make sure the property is returned to the way it was before the claim. If the claim was over a certain amount (I think it was $5k) we required a whole process of holding the money in an escrow account and doling it out in increments using property inspections to verify the work was being completed.
It was honestly a whole annoying process to have to go through, especially if you are already dealing with a traumatic situation that requires the claim in the first place. I got yelled at a lot.
Oftentimes it would start with the customer calling in to figure out why the check was made payable to the mortgage company also. The mortgage company I worked for was part of a large bank, so if the homeowner called the 800 number they were often frustrated by the time they finally found their way to me. Then as I explained that they couldn’t just have the money, we needed them to select a licensed contractor and get our approval, then we would provide 1/3, then we would do an inspection at 50% and release the next 1/3, then a final inspection at 100% and release the remainder. I would get yelled at and told it was illegal. But I would just point them to page 18 section 5 of the mortgage. I could access people’s mortgage docs and I was often asked to send the relevant pages.
Eventually people would accept their fate because they had no choice. I tried to be very sympathetic because it did suck for them. And I had customers tell me a lot of sad stories about fires and floods and tornadoes. It was a super interesting job though. I loved looking at the home inspection reports.
We do not have to keep a register open just because there is a customer in the store. We’ve been making closing announcements for almost an hour and the store closed 20 minutes ago. You had more then enough time to buy whatever you wanted. Come back tomorrow.
People not knowing the difference between a cash register and a voting booth kinda makes most election results of the past few decades make a lot more sense though 🤔
Had a similar thing when our internet and phones went out in a retail store. We processed cash transactions for as long as we could before closing a couple hours early. Asshole stuck his foot in the door when the manager was trying to explain why he couldn’t come in, demanding that we let him shop. He was clearly drunk, to boot. Ugh.
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