I enjoyed your story. It certainly presents the problems working in / running a retail store. The way people handle situations vary from person to person, but you took care of the matter the right way.
What I didn't understand is this: "I used to be real good with faces but not so much anymore." You make it sound like old age is catching up with you. I know you're not that old!
Good idea.Originally Posted by Tommy
p.s. Tell them that it's their time to enter a WORLD OF HURT and then bodyslam them.
In dealing with Dracula X I'd have to return my right foot... because I would have broken it off kicking D X in his A$$. Time to get a ban hammer for the store. DP's least wanted and have pics of offenders.
With a humble heart, on bended knee...
back in the hayday of retail, we use to take this particular type of customer out back show him the scenery, and fully explain to him whats going on ::wink wink:: I completely agree with your standard of how you handled it. As a seller you have the right to refuse business to anyone for any reason. Stand by your word.
mike
..."The One And Only"
Sorry to single this part out but, that's ridiculous. No one should be uncomfortable if they didn't do anything wrong AND if it happens with other people in the store, it'll provide a bit of "word of mouth" that he's not going to let people walk all over him. You can't be self-conscious and run a retail establishment. I'm all for the teacher putting the troublemaker's name up on the board in the middle of class to shame him, not waiting until recess time to talk with him privately.
Oh and..
Do you think dirt is old? Because Joe was old before dirt was even BORN!What I didn't understand is this: "I used to be real good with faces but not so much anymore." You make it sound like old age is catching up with you. I know you're not that old!
Man, people trying to return stuff is great. Once I was called a, "whack ass cracker" because I wouldn't let a teenager return Splinter Cell (used) for a new game he wanted a few days later. Then my coworker went nuts and punched a hole in the wall through a motivational poster.
Good times.
I don't agree with this one.
Instead of holding in "this is the last time" you need to tell him that. You need to tell him what will be ok in the future and what will not. You set the rules of returns and he used it, overused it and abused it but I can see why he thought it was ok. He thought it was ok because in the past it WAS ok.
I guess I have a very strict policy and then allow exceptions to good customers on a case per case basis and you have a very open policy and then crackdown on the ones that abuse it.
I'm not sure putting a kid's name on the board is really all that effective considering there's no real consequences to it. If the kid doesn't feel the "shame" of it then it's pointless. On more than one occasion I've noticed it's actually considered a badge of honor of sorts. This is especially true if the class in general does not like the teacher. Kind of a "let's make good ol' teach miserable and see how long it takes to get our names up there."
But as for nobody should be uncomfortable, are you sure? Joe cleared up the exact tone that he used (which after his qualifier shows that he handled it fine) but from the initial story I got the impression that he blew up. And be honest. If you were minding your own business and for whatever reason someone started screaming out of the blue you wouldn't feel a little bit uncomfortable? Like the air changed all of a sudden? There is a line between a friendly guy who doesn't take shit from people and a guy you, if not consciously but subconsciously, feel like you have to walk on eggshells around.
Remember that we're seeing this from a bird's eye. We know the back story. I highly doubt that if you were in a store/restaurant/library/etc. and for no reason known to you a guy started yelling at someone you would be 100% cool with it. Of course it's all moot since Joe said he didn't blow up. But I disagree with you asserting that nobody would be uncomfortable if blowing up does happen somewhere. Maybe they shouldn't but they sure as hell would.
I remember there was a guy we kicked out of Blockbuster. He obviously destroyed the DVD he rented since it was brand new and his account was the first one that rented it. He was swearing up and down with his son (who was probably 8 or so) standing there quietly. It was very apparent that the other customers were uncomfortable with what was going on so I tried to break the ice by cracking jokes. The guy asked me who these people (the two managers he was fighting with) were and I said "I don't know. They don't work here. They just like to come in and yell at the customers."
It lasted no more than 10 minutes but after he left you could tell the other people in the store were noticeably quieter. I don't know whether they respected us any more or less for throwing the jackass out (I was certainly happy to get rid of him and was proud that we didn't cave) but that doesn't mean everyone else didn't feel the chill in the air.
Last edited by TonyTheTiger; 06-15-2008 at 01:33 PM.
Reading all this makes me feel bad about the few occasions when I have returned stuff.
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." --Bertrand Russel (attributed)
You should've taken a picture of the guy and pasted it on the wall, in a "WE DO NOT SELL TO THESE PEOPLE" hall of shame.
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You did the right thing. This guy was absolutely trying to take advantage, and it's sad, but that's how some people are. I worked at a Babbage's for five years and I could tell you some horror stories. When I started, our return policy was pretty liberal, and we had more than a few people who used us as a 30 day game rental place.
Ha ha..that would be Awesome!!!!
I agree with the majority of the posters the problem with retail today is the managments die hard belief that the customer is right every single time. I work at a popular sporting goods chain and constantly we have problems with people returning things that we inform them cannot be returned due to our rules (bats, baseballs, golf clubs etc). Low and behold they will come in sometimes up to 5 months after purchase and claim the item broke/the paint chipped/it has a smudge/I didn't like it etc. The sad part is although we clearly tell them we cannot accept returns, they still get their way. All they have to do is call our corporate office and they in turn call us and bitch us out for not being 100% dedicated to our customers (which they can dock our payroll and bonuses for), when all along we were simply following the rules and trying to keep scammers and system abusers from getting their way.
So in short, awesome job Joe you had every right to put that punk in his place and kick him out. I applaud you and I wish that other retail stores would deal with scammers/abusers/punks in the same way. You should defiantly create a wall of shame and put his picture up, it would be quite fitting and it would make a lovely discussion piece.
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my feedback: http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=108202
DP ive had plenty of those type of customers over the years but I recall 2 mother and son combos that really gave me the shits, they would come in and haggle for an hour to get me to drop the price on an item, I would cave in just to get rid of them, then the next day they would be back in complaining that either A. it was a crap game and I want a refund or B. its broken I want a refund.
It got that annoying I told them "If you dont like my goods or customer service then go elsewhere, I dont care, I dont need your business to survive". It may of seemed egotistical at the time and is propbably not something id recommend doing on an often basis with so much competition in my small little town, but wouldnt you know about 6 months later both the moether and son teams where back shopping in my store as they found out the other stores in town where less tolerant then myself and had kicked them out too.
They have been rather good customers ever since!
And while im at it I actually do have a hall of shame in my store, one Lee Meridith is perma banned! the prick came in to tell me that the legit anime DVD's I see in my store are shit and I should buy his pirated ones to stock, what he doesnt know is my dvd supplier will pay a good reward for information regarding pirates of there products, I let it go though as these are just some of the douches in society. About a month later the guy bought a used xbox from me, just before I go any futher Im sure you all that work in an indie store know, there are certain procedures you go through to make sure the product is working before you sell it. This console was checked over good as gold, the little prick bought it in the next day saying its faulty and he wants his money back, when i told him he had tampered with the console as the unit warranty seal had been broken he cracked the shits and went and got some memebers of a bikie gang to come and try and sort me out!!! no fucking kidding!!.
Last edited by Emuaust; 06-15-2008 at 05:02 PM.
zomg I have a sig
Guy sounds like a real douchebag, you did the right thing.
I'd like to get the frames from the DP live cam capturing this event.
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Gotta be careful about that Mr. Digitpress. Some parents have this "my baby can do no wrong mentality" with their kids; when the kid needed a good, leather belt to the ass years ago.
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A lot of these parents NEEDED the leather belt to the ass when they were kids, and they never got it.
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I would have done the same thing if I happened to be in your place. If the kid is too intellectually limited to take care of his stuff and people around him just keep humoring him by replacing everything he breaks, he will never learn a lesson. Stupidity needs to be punished more often in our society. If you beat up your stuff, you deal with it instead of taking it back to the store. The reason he claimed so much of his stuff was broken was probably because he didn't have the intelligence to use them right. Probably putting the DS cart in backward or something. Maybe trying to stick a Sony UMD into his DS cart slot. People are stupid, and they need to be educated. Personally, in my perfect world, that would involve hot tar and feathers, or putting them in stocks and let kids splat him with rotten vegetables. You can take that theme all the way up to cigar burns for the repeat offenders. I'm a bit of a disciplinarian, with an extremely low tolerance of stupidity.
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