There’s a forum on social networking site Myspace where Best Buy employees share the dumbest things customers have ever said to them. They range from the “I probably should find another job:”
wheres the bathroomEVERY DAY AND I WANT TO KILL MY SELF (NOT REALL) EVERY TIME CAUSE THEY ARE ALWAYS RIGHT NEXT TO THE FUCKING SIGN.
DUMB ASS BITCHES
To the whimsical…
I was standing in the middle of Media and a customer asked me where the CDs were (they were directly behind me, and in her direct line of vision), I threw my hands in the air and like a Magician shouted “Behold!”
…to the absurd.
A lady came into geek squad while i was at LP slammed an insignia vcr dvd combo on the desk and said
Lady: IT DOSENT MAKE TOAST!!!!!
My budy took the player flipped open the vcr slot and there was 2 slices of bread crammed n the slot and a piece of bologna n the dvd slot.
With over 386 postings in the forum, the verdict is clear: America, you’re saying a lot of dumb things in Best Buy. Is it any wonder they can get away with scamming their customers?
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Oh, please. Us lowly retail employees need to vent about our jobs, too.
You really wouldn’t believe how dumb and downright nasty some customers can be to service workers. If you make an effort to treat a store employee like a human being, don’t worry, they won’t be complaining about you later. Anyone who truly believes that working retail is an easy, mindless job should try doing it for a month.
@DashTheHand:
I’ve heard worse, including a real, living, breathing “any key” person.
While it is true that urban legends and strange computer-related stories are usually false, they have to start somewhere. At any given moment, there’s definitely someone out there putting a coffee mug on the CD tray.
I’ve seen plenty of strange things, and heard worse. Nice ones have been:
1) The Mac that was returned 15 days past the 30 day return policy, OK’d by management. When the tech opened it up, there was an entire colony of pinworms just hanging out in the keyboard. If it hadn’t been for the clear keyboard base, we might not have caught them.
2) From before my time, there was a PC checked in for service, had been used in a school cafeteria. When it was opened up… dozens of german cockroaches (the tiny ones) scuttled out and ran everywhere. Ages and ages of pest control to get rid of them. Not exactly unusual, since it was kept in an area with food, but still a bit frightening.
3) We have a regularly odd customer who comes in from time to time with strange stories about viruses that don’t exist and whatnot… but he was topped by the gentleman who was insistent that he needed to protect his computer from the hackers who were breaking in using the AM radio in his office coupled with the “radiation” from his *LCD*.
Remember that just because an urban legend IS an urban legend doesn’t mean that it is devoid of any truth. Truth is stranger than fiction sometimes.
Okay a little insight here. I work retail, I have for 10 years. And I will tell you this, it is one of the most demeaning positions out there. We have to put up with customers throwing temper tantrums like 2 year olds, getting called names, being yelled at over the phone, getting stuff thrown at us…and yet we have to stand there and smile the entire time. When I was 9 months pregnant a gentleman placed his tv on the wrong counter. I asked him if he could place it on my counter. He looked right at me and said “It’s your job, YOU move it”. He could clearly see I was extremely pregnant. You better believed I moved it, and I made sure I set it down nice and gently, smiling the entire time. The people behind him were discussing how HORRENDOUS this gentleman was for his behavior.
Here are some tips to getting GOOD customer service:
1-Smile….PLEASE. Even if your day is sucking, that smile could mean a HUGE difference in your shopping experience.
2-Self Check-out…this is the ONE place I DESPISE. If you have NO intentions of using self-checkout for the intended purpose and want someone to ring you out, please do NOT go to the self-check out lane. The person there is monitoring at LEAST 5 other registers. Usually there are other lanes open you can go to.
3-When returning something, please have your receipt there or your driver’s license. Don’t insist on getting store credit. Believe it or not a LOT of places do NOT like giving out store credit, we would rather give you your money back. Plus if you have no reciept and we can’t find your transaction, we are required to ask for an ID.
4-We ask for your phone number because of reason #3. We can retrieve your transaction if you paid with cash or check by your phone number. No we don’t sell that information, no we won’t tax you, no we won’t call you.
5- Remember we are people too. We have families to feed just like you. Not all of us are college drop-outs. I was pre-med in college but decided I wanted to have a family instead. I don’t regret my decision. Don’t assume that because I work retail that I’m on welfare and a slacker. I personally work just to get out of the house, I don’t HAVE to work.
6-Please and thank you goes a LONG way.
7-Please get off your cell phone while in line or getting helped. It’s very rude to the retail worker and those waiting in line because you are discussing the Mets game with your bother.
8-Don’t complain about the store warranty we offer. Just because you think it’s a scam, you don’t need to go on and on about it. Just say No Thank You. But at least become informed about it. Take a brochure and read through it.
Just some tips….but that forum is the one place those people can go to to vent. Would you rather have them vent there, or saying those things to your face?
Oh this is hilarious!!! Hilarity aside, some of these stories ARE true since I have dealt with dumb people while fixing their computers. No I don’t work for Best Buy. Anyways the things that people say are people that should not even own certain things. For example, I already had one person asking whether she should buy the IPOD Zune. I said no its just called Zune. IPod is something else. She went on to tell her husband that its something new called Zune and went on to continue calling it the Ipod Zune.
Was it on this site that posted an article on how Walmart employees end up having a combatant relationship with their customers? I can imagine it can be that way for a lot of retail employees. I haven’t worked retail, but I did do waitressing/hostess and I can tell you sometimes customers are rude and treat service people like crap. Not always but you tend to remember the rudest customers vs the nicest ones. I think it’s fine for a site where employees can vent anonymously about customer service horror stories BUT I think Best Buy shouldn’t have a page designated solely to their employees.
My turn!
I worked at a Subway while I was in highschool. One Saturday, the HS hosted an exhibition soccer game for kids ages 12-16. One group came up with about 65 kids and 10 adults. They were nice enough that they called us at about noon and said “We’re bringing 75 team members and chapperones, and possibly 20 adults down to your Subway at about 4 pm” We said thanks and prepared accordingly.
So, around 4:15pm, I have no less that 120 people in the restaurant, waiting patiently as the three of us made thier food.
When I was starting on #15, a guy pulled up, looked in, saw we were full, then wen’t around to the drive thru, skipped the order board and came straight up to the window and started yelling for us to take his order. We took it, and then told him that he was number one-hundred twelve. He tore out of the drive through, nearly hitting someone.
Ten minuntes later, we get a phone call, it’s Mr. Drive-thru, wanting to call in an order to pick up in then minutes. my manager then took the phone and told him that he was #113, after the soccer people and some guy who went to the drive-thru and forgot to pay for his food.
I’d like to bore you with my own “dumbest” anecdote (real, not made up) if I may….
My phone wasn’t working one afternoon with a lot of crackling, hissing, and sometimes no dial tone. So, I walked to the nearest office of the phone company repair office which was about a kilometre away. I went in and asked to speak to a repairman, and explained the situation. The employee said to me, “Well, why didn’t you call us instead of coming here?”
For whatever reason (my sarcasm, my annoyance, etc.) I uncharacteristically said to him, “How much of a forking idiot,” or something similar, “Are you to ask me that question?” Needless to say, he got very uppity. He then threatened to have me physically removed from the building, and I said, “Go ahead, call for your supervisor,” which he did.
The employee reported my profanity to his supervisor. I told the supervisor about the phone problem and what the employee said which led to my profanity. The supervisor said to the employee, “You ARE an idiot,” and then proceeded to set up a time for a repairman to come to my home, which they subsequently fixed.
http://www.bestbuysux.org
Far, far, far more than 386 posts.
I worked retail for a decade. These stories are probably not exaggerated and they probably real.
Ever wonder why customer service is so bad? Customers DO in fact hold some of the blame for being unreasonable and just downright crazy sometimes.
Someone said to me the other day that people should be required to work retail for one year out of their lives. I beginning to think this is true.
The best is going to things that are supposed to be about bad service, and seeing customers BRAG about being idiots and jerks, expecting people to encourage them.
to all you meathead BB employees, you may be right in saying that what you are doing is “freedom of speech;” however, what you are doing is giving your company a bad name. they find out who you are, guess what? you’ll be walked right out the door. it’s funny how you meatheads are calling your customers stupid!
I used to work for CompUSA as a salesman (post-commission days). It was a decent job only because I worked with pretty intelligent people. The majority of our customers came from Best Buy though, since the store was a) right behind us and b) didn’t have very friendly sales people. That being said, 4/5ths of our customers were extremely rude to us over what they had to deal with at best buy. We didn’t push warranties and stuff on PCs unless we actually thought they needed it. (You are buying your spoiled brat a new laptop because he got mad and broke the screen? You *might* want to consider buying the ‘screen protection’ and telling us it was in accident next time). It was hard not to be a little rude though. The majority of customers either don’t understand what we do, or only want to be told what they want to hear. Case in point: We sold a NASCAR PC at one point. $500 for desktop and monitor. Needless to say, it was crap. Someone would come in wanting to do gaming, video editing, and god only knows what else, see the NASCAR PC and want to know that it will do everything they want. They buy it (against our advice), keep it for two months until they buy an actual game to install, and then try to bring it back since it doesn’t do what they wanted. When they are told they can’t return it, guess who gets tracked down? As for the bathroom… At our store there was a sign right inside the door which left you FACING the bathroom when you would come in. There were also signs at the warehouse entrance, training rooms, and any other door customers could THINK was a bathroom to let them know where it was. Needless to say, once a day at least one person would walk in, walk all over the store, and come up to me and get mad that he tried to find it himself but couldn’t. I still blame all this on Best Buy sending us their “difficult” customers, and us having to accept because we needed the business.
Anyone who bothers to even walk into Best Buy is an idiot. Their prices are through the roof. Exhibit A: virtually any type of computer cable (cord): $30. Newegg.com: between $2 and $6. Don’t waste your time or money at Best Buy, people.
@rjascott121: “it’s funny how you meatheads are calling your customers stupid!”
It’s a good job you’re doing there, perpetuating the stereotype of a rude and derogatory customer that causes employees to get burnt out and need to vent.
They deserve a chance to vent, just as much as the people here vent about bad customer service.
@meiran: Oh how I love you!
As a customer support rep let me say that many (not all) customers are just insane in their requests.
I work at a small internet company on the west coast in client services/customer support. I start out everyday in a good mood, by the end of the day I normaly just want to lash out at everyone.
This change in mood does not occur because I’m working a full day but occurs because all the customer lash out at me and blame me for everything.
—
Me-”Yes sir, your right it is not your fault your mouse fell in a cup of water and no longer works, but as your internet company we do not support your mouse nor will we send you a replacement mouse.”
Customer-”Well maybe I’ll just switch to another ISP and see if mouse works then, THANKS FOR NOTHING!”
–
Me-”I understand that your computer won’t boot but to fix that you’re going to need to find out what happened in the first place, such as hardware failure, and then see if you can fix that problem or possibly reinstall windows”
Customer- “Well you guys should do that”
Me- “I’m sorry we only support you’re internet service not the whole computer you-”
Customer- “WELL THEN WHAT DO I PAY YOU FOR YOU KNOW YOUR SO STUPID YOUR OTHER REPRESENTATIVES WOULD DO THIS WHY ARE YOU SUCH AN ASS”
–
Or how about the lady that came up to my customer service counter when I worked at Circuit City, wanting to return a stereo system that she had submerged in water? I was having a good day, and felt like being easy-going.
Me: Normally, your warranty would not cover water damage, but in this case, I’ll see if I can make an exception if you’d like a replacement since you’re withen 30 days. Let me just call my manager –
Woman: NO! That’s not acceptable! This piece of **** doesn’t work, and I want my money back.
Here, she literally picked up this mamoth of a stereo reciever and CHUCKED IT at me. I jumped out of the way with this look: O.O on my face, and watched this fourty pound machine slam into the wall directly behind me, leaving a giant hole. She then proceeded to scream.
Woman: I hope you die, and I hope your husband dies! **** off, and go to hell!
Me: *blinking in shock* I don’t have a husband ma’am, but have a nice day.
True story. Like someone else said, you can’t make this stuff up.
BY MEIRAN AT 11/15/07 05:09 PM
@rjascott121: “it’s funny how you meatheads are calling your customers stupid!”
It’s a good job you’re doing there, perpetuating the stereotype of a rude and derogatory customer that causes employees to get burnt out and need to vent.
They deserve a chance to vent, just as much as the people here vent about bad customer service.
…………………..
pay attention… there is NOTHING wrong with venting; however, IF you owned a company, would you want your employees venting on a public forum? I HIGHLY doubt that you would. Now, the difference, as it seems to escape you COMPLETELY, is CUSTOMERS CAN VENT, and they can also shut down businesses by not shopping at said store. Now, the reason why they vent: THEY GIVE BEST BUY MONEY, which best buy turns around and pays those RETARDS. Now, without the customer there would be no best buy. understand, or do I need to spell it out to you?
I worked at best buy for over 3 years. Most of the stories I could tell about the stupid customers that I had to deal with, put the posted stories to shame. For instance, a woman swearing that her hard drive was stolen over the Internet. She even tried to get a police report over it.
I’m sorry, but if you have no common sense, then we are going to laugh at you as soon as you walk away as well as post these stories up for others to laugh at. At some point, we have all done something stupid that other were laughing at as soon as we walked away. When did everyone lose the ability to laugh at themselves?
I know I’ve probably asked someone where the bathroom was while staring right at the bathroom sign and I know the person I asked probably rolled their eyes at me but guess what, I laughed at myself!
When you work in a job where customers cuss you out daily for their own mistakes, as well as throw things at you, you have to find a way to make the day go by more easily. Laughing at stupid people, makes the day fly by and allows us to find humor in what would have been considered a horrible day.
Can any of you that are bashing us really say that at your job you’ve NEVER laughed at someone you had to deal with that was stupid? Ya, I didn’t think so.
And just an FYI to all of you that may have to deal with customer service at Best Buy, if you start cussing us out, we WON”T help you!! If you treat us like you would like to be treated, then we will do everything in our power to help you out. And throwing whatever you are trying to have repaired or replaced at us, will only hurt your case, not help it.
I am a former Best Buy employee and I think your indignation at people venting about their job on the internet is misplaced. Every single person who has ever had a job has had something or someone to complain about. From a defense lawyer complaining about a DUI client who after getting out on bail got arrested for DUI again, to teachers in the teacher’s lounge complaining about the student who came to her first period class stoned and her parents who worship the ground she walks on, while that same student in the cafeteria complains about how her teachers don’t understand her. Customer service can be as just as difficult a job. A lot of us have a war story mentality about it. That is not to say that most of the people we deal with are not reasonable, intelligent, and respectful.
Some people that we deal with, perhaps one ever day or one every week, will scream, shout, and bully because we won’t give them something they want, like a discount, or will, despite coming into a store to drop lots of money will appear to have done no research or have any awareness as to what the item they are interested in does, looks like, or where it can be found. We vent about these customers behind their backs, just like anyone else would at their jobs. There is nothing wrong with that.
@rjascott121: “Now, without the customer there would be no best buy. understand, or do I need to spell it out to you?”
And without workers, there would be nobody to serve the entitled people who think the world owes them a living, would there?
Customers can and do vent. In fact, in forums I’m involved in usually people are members of BOTH the “I hate customers” and the “I hate terrible service” sides of the forum. They complain on both sides.
The point is that if customers stopped being stupid and insulting, then perhaps the workers would be that much happier, and PERHAPS the service would get better, and everyone would be happier!
Yes, both sides need to give and stop holding a grudge, but you seem so attached to yours.
Giving a giant corporation a handful of coins does not give you anything than the product that said handful of coins pays for, and a smile as you leave the store. They are venting about customers asking for things they do not deserve.
And maybe, just maybe, people reading this forum will say, “Wow, what terrible customers these people are! I’ll try not to be a terrible customer.”
Also: Best Buy doesn’t care at all. They don’t demonstrate that they care about their customers OR their workers. Usually the workers hate the corporate machine just as much as the customers do.
If I owned a company where my customers were acting like morons and asking why the dvd player didn’t toast their salami, then I wouldn’t mind a bit if the people who had to deal with them laughed about it.
“If I owned a company where my customers were acting like morons…”
with that being said, you’ll NEVER own a company, and/or you’ll NEVER be successful if you did.
now, laughing is one thing, calling them “fucking stupid” is completely different, and doing such a thing in private isn’t unheard of. posting that shit on a forum is just pathetic, inconsiderate, and rude.
“And without workers, there would be nobody to serve the entitled people who think the world owes them a living, would there?” apparently, economics escapes you. Regardless of whether the customer wants to act like an asshole or not has NO bearing on employees calling the customers “stupid assholes” or even treating them like shit. Basically, as i see logic escapes you as well, when a customer comes into a store, and they are pissed off about something, THE EMPLOYEE IS A REPRESENTATIVE OF THE STORE, so the customer is going to bitch about the product or bad service. These retards take that shit personal. Once that happens, their jobs are doomed. Eventually, these shit sticks will quit, or get fired. Why? they take “this insert item name is a piece of shit!” stupid employee “they just called me a piece of shit!” OH, RLLY? These morons have an obligation, as the fucking customers didn’t force these retards to get a job in the service industry, and their obligation is TO SERVE THE ENTITLED. If these assholes don’t like it, then they can go elsewhere. Maybe they’d be suited in a warehouse facility, stacking boxes, not having to deal with the public.
These employees are NOT venting to the customers they are NOT being terrible to the customers.
They are getting their anger out in a perfectly acceptable way and for all you know are the same people you would normally praise.
If you have so little sympathy for employees of retail stores, then you are clearly part of the problem and will never learn any better.
Your attitude is exactly why customer service is deteriorating. If you can’t see that, there’s nothing more to be said here.
@rjascott121:
[Me]: It looks like you’ve got some spyware on your machine. Our service department can take a look at it and try cleaning it, but some spyware is notoriously hard to remove. It might require a recovery.
[CU]: Will I still have all my stuff?
[Me]: We can try to clean it off without doing the recovery, which will wipe your data. We’ll call you before we do that, though. If you really need to ensure that you have all of your documents and music, you can back them up to a jumpdrive, CD/DVDs, or an external drive, or we can do a backup to DVD for $XX.
[CU]: What do you mean $XX? Why do I have to pay?! Isn’t this covered by the warranty?!
[Me]: Unfortunately, no laptop warranty covers software problems, and can’t cover your personal data.
[CU]: WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT DOESN’T COVER SOFTWARE?! DON’T YOU PEOPLE STAND BEHIND THE PRODUCTS YOU SELL?! YOU LIED TO ME WHEN YOU SAID THIS WOULD COVER EVERYTHING.
[Me]: Well, the extended warranty DOES cover all *hardware* problems, including accidental damage, but it simply can’t cover your personal data. We’ll be happy to take a look at the machine, and we’ll do the recovery for free if that becomes necessary.
[CU]: BUT I HAVE ALL OF THIS MUSIC AND ALL OF MY CLIENT LISTS AND EMAIL WHAT THE F@!# ARE YOU PEOPLE DOING HERE THIS IS ALL JUST A SCAM AND YOU LIED TO ME ABOUT THIS WARRANTY.
[Me]: I’ll be happy to get you a manger if you’d like to speak to them, but there’s really nothing more I personally can do for you.
[CU]: NO YOU JUST MEAN YOU WON’T DO ANYTHING I KNOW YOU CAN FIX THIS I DON’T SEE WHY I HAVE TO LET YOU KEEP MY COMPUTER I CAN’T WORK WITHOUT IT AND YOU’RE JUST TRYING TO GET MORE MONEY OUT OF ME.
*and on, and on, and on with the management*
I get these kinds of customers *AT LEAST* twice a week, and they have the same attitude as you. They’ll sit there and scream and yell no matter what you tell them or how much you try to give them a break, and are only satisfied if you give them everything they want for free.
Management bends over for them, too. No matter how stupid or ridiculous the request, there’s this feeling of “the customer is always right” that permeates the environment in this country. You are not entitled to what you want simply because you bitch and moan about it.
The customer is nearly always COMPLETELY WRONG about everything. Because they’re a customer, you *are* obliged to make a genuine attempt to help them – but if they throw that in your face, they can go die in a fire. I have seen more *good* customers chased off by customers with poor attitudes than by a small customer service problem.
I have also seen many excellent employees chased off by customers who felt that they were entitled to bend the employee over a desk
I am still sickened reading the comments that have come after mine. I no longer work retail. I just left my job doing customer service because I would come home from a migraine nearly every single day because customers would come in and feel as if they have the right to call me names and insult me simply because they drove 2 hours to come get a product they ordered that wasn’t in yet. Did they call ahead to find out if it was in? NO. They admit they “assumed” it was in. Or they would get irrate we wouldn’t take back an item because our store clearly doesn’t carry said item. Or the people just now trying to buy a Nintendo Wii and expecting stores to have them. They are one of the most sought after items, it’s YOUR fault for waiting until now to buy one!!! Do people think items magically appear on the shelves when they run out? NO. Companies like Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, they decide how many each store gets and WHEN they get them. If a store doesn’t have it, instead of complaining to a manger who has heard the same thing over and over again for the past 2 months, call the actual company who MAKES the item and complain. They are TRYING to keep up with the demand but it’s very hard to.
As for the venting, yes some of them are bad. I posted a few of mine on there when I was working at BBY, but I never cursed or called the customer stupid. You would be amazed at how many people DO feel like they are superior to retail workers. What makes you superior? I’ve seen people getting by on Food Stamps (yes I’ve seen them use them at the grocery store ahead of me) come in and buy a big screen television. How do you think that makes us feel? We don’t say anything to them when they are standing there gloating about how they get the put that in their living room because we know that their kids are going without new shoes or something just so they can watch Sponge Bob on 60 inches of plasma screen.
And for the people swearing on here to get their points across. Have you ever sat back and listened to a person curse? It doesn’t sound cool or grown up, or even powerful. It sounds like you have such a poor vocabulary and an inability to get your point across so you have to use foul language to do so. Name calling as well…same as above.
BY RVLESHRAC AT 11/23/07 03:08 PM
@rjascott121:
I get these kinds of customers *AT LEAST* twice a week, and they have the same attitude as you. They’ll sit there and scream and yell no matter what you tell them or how much you try to give them a break, and are only satisfied if you give them everything they want for free.
…………………………………
same attitude as me? do you know how i act in front of asshole associates? i’m not rude, and I don’t ask stupid fucking questions. second, ASSHOLE, your assumption is WAY off base. Just by your rant, i’ve come across many STUPID associates, JUST LIKE YOU. they think they know everything, but they don’t, as a matter of fact, most of you assholes know nothing, or just enough to keep your pathetic job.
I went to home depot, needed a tap, asked an employee “can you help me with something?” ee “absolutely!” me “thank you. I want to know if this tap will fit into this t-handle, as i don’t want to have to return it. we’re having problems with our boiler, there’s two broken bolts on it that need to be drilled out.” ee “oh, yeah. you’re going to drill it out with this, huh?” i wanted to say “DO YOU KNOW WHAT A FUCKING TAP IS???????????”