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Article created by: Jonas Žvilius
“The customer is always right” is a very quick way for a business to run itself into the ground fairly quickly. Sometimes they might have outrageous demands but there is also a class of customer who is simply planning to rob you blind.
Someone asked “Workers of Reddit, what is a scam that a customer tried to do?” and netizens detailed the attempts at fraud and deceit they’ve encountered. So get comfortable as you read through, upvote the most peculiar examples and be sure to share your own thoughts and experiences in the comments section below.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Worked as a cleaner at a mall. A customer claimed she slipped on a damp area of floor, and there was no warning sign to let anyone know that the area had recently been cleaned.
Upon watching the CCTV footage, it showed her moving a yellow warning sign away, and then laying down on the floor and suddenly acting as if she had just slipped.
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#2
I installed a piece of glass on a meat case for them. Everything went off without a hitch and I got it done in less than 30 minutes because I disassembled the case and reassembled it in that time. The manager who is supposed to sign me out walks over and, without even looking at the glass, claims it's chipped and that she won't sign for it.
I ask her where she sees a chip, and she points to a point on the glass. I look at it, take a picture of it and save it on my tablet, and then proceed to tell her that the glass is not chipped. She says I need to write in my work order that the glass was chipped during install. I tell her no. She says she won't sign for it unless I write it, so I tell her ok and I call my supervisor. I document everything that happened.
My supervisor contacts the managers higher ups and submits all the info we have. No one, literally no one, not even the manager claiming it, can find any damage to the glass. She keeps emailing us and her higher ups that she wants a new piece of glass, and she wants it for free, but keeps forgetting to ask us to remove the old piece of glass, because she wants a freebie.
And oh yeah, the best part of all this is that it's tempered glass. If it chips, it shatters. It's been fun watching all of this unfold.
#3
A lady used to damage goods and then ask for discounts. Another would go into the back storage and look for things and steal. I caught her and told her to leave, she said that she had permission from customer service. It was nice to explain to her that no she didn’t have permission from them because I was customer service.
#4
I've been coming here for years! I know ________ They always give me a discount. They don't work here anymore. Probably because they always gave you a discount.
#5
Used to work for a major ISP that had a '30 day money back guarantee'. The policy was pretty straight forward; You can cancel your service for any reason within 30 days get your full money back.
Some dude who thought he was pretty smart came up with the idea of cancelling and restarting his services every 29 days to get his money back. He did this about eight times.
There is one caveat to this policy that I should mentioned: You're only allowed to do take advantage of the money back guarantee ONCE within a twelve month period.
Eventually, the company caught on and sent him a letter (which he apparently never read) that told him they were going to back charge him all but five of those months- which still left him with a few hundred dollars to pay off.
When he called and demanded to know why we had this rule to which I said "Because we're not stupid, sir.".
#6
Ex-bank advisor here. Biggest thing we saw were “empty envelopes”. Basically that’s when someone goes to the ATM, puts in an empty envelope and claims there’s $$$ in it when there’s not. It almost immediately freezes the account for fraud. Don’t do it lol.
#7
I worked in a small village where all the local businesses were really friendly.
It was lashing rain and a kid no more than 8 or 9 came in crying, saying he slipped on the wet footpath and hurt his knee. He grabbed milk and was all snotty and sobbing. I asked if he was ok, would he like a plaster or a tissue, really concerned for this poor wee lad, but he said no, his mammy was waiting for him outside. He gave me €20, I gave him his change and he ran out of the shop.
Two minutes later the lady from the pharmacy came running in saying a small crying child came in and spun a yarn about falling in the rain, and then tried to pay with a counterfeit €20 note.
I opened my till and sure enough there was a fake note in my till. Wasn’t even the right blue colour and felt like Monopoly money. I didn’t notice because I was more concerned about the little boy being hurt.
Apparently after reviewing the CCTV a van pulled up, a load of children ran out of it into the various businesses. 4 or 5 of them fell for the fake notes.
#8
Go to store, buy item, have receipt
Go home
Go back to store day or two later, browse around, take SAME ITEM off shelf and go to counter to 'return' it with the valid receipt from previous.
She got away with it for a long time till she got too greedy.
#9
I work at a medical clinic sometimes whose owner is an oncologist. He has a history of being litigious and uncooperative. I was about to start working there early on in my career and my coworker pulled me aside and told me to never leave my stuff around the doctor. He told me he was there a month before and the equipment needed another outside contractor to come in for a repair. The repairman showed the oncologist the part that was faulty and that he had the part he needed. The only thing the repairman needed was for the oncologist to sign a purchase order so they could authorize the billing. So the repair guy has a clipboard with the quote and asks the doctor to sign the paper and he can get it fixed right away. The doctor freaked out saying he needs to get the thing fixed and he won't sign anything until its repaired. This is obviously awkward and the doctor was just trying to bully the guy into working for free which he didn't budge on. After an awkwardly long tantrum about the quote, the doctor knew the repairman wasn't going to budge so he signed the quote. The repairman got to work and had to climb on the roof. When he finished the doctor locked the roof door. The problem was the repairman couldn't find the quote when he came down. It was on his clipboard in his bag when went to the roof and it was gone when he came back. The repairman figured he lost it and just printed a new one and asked the doctor to sign it again. The doctor accused him of trying to double charge and called the cops on the guy for trespassing. He chased the repair guy out of the parking lot. No one had any reason to throw away the quote aside from the doctor if he planned on not paying the bill. The paper trail was the only thing that could prove it and he waited for the repairman to turn his back and he destroyed the quote. This is a well-respected doctor held up as a pillar of the community. I have seen similar things happen at other clinics. I think they assume its shrewd business in their minds but its often just bullying and deception.
#10
I was managing a restaurant on the open shift, and a guy called to complain about his treatment the night before. His story made no sense, then he said, “and the manager was a racist who would not help me because I am (race x.)”
I said, “that is weird because the manager last night is (race x) too!”
They hung up.
#11
Delivery driver here, he gave me 2 rolls of loonies (1$ coins) to cover a 45$ pizza. He skimmed 3$ off each of them so I had to pay out of pocket for part of it. I don't take cash at that house anymore.
#12
Some time ago - working in a large liquor shop - I had a customer present a bottle of Penfolds Bin 798 Shiraz - that scanned for $3.99...and showed up as a 185ml cleanskin chardonnay on the screen. Now I rarely even looked at what people purchased but $3.99 for a 750ml Penfolds red is crazy low...and scanning as a 185ml Chardy when it was clearly a 750 ml red? She had printed another barcode and stuck it over the top of the real one - “self discounting” a $185 bottle of wine. When challenged she just bolted out of the store... The crazy thing is - if she had simply used a barcode from a Penfolds Koonunga Hill Shiraz ($15 low end Penfolds 750ml red) I doubt that I would have actually noticed! Made me much more careful moving forward...
#13
"My kids gave me a $100 gift card and I lost both the card and the receipt. How should I go about redeeming it?"
Woman was BAFFLED when none of us would just take her word for it.
#14
Most of the customers I deal with are other businesses. It's not uncommon for them to order something, then put it on a shelf and forget about it for 10 years. Then, when they clean out that shelf they'll try to return the part as if they bought it yesterday.
#15
Working in IT. You have no idea how many times people will bring in their personal laptops and try to pass it off as work equipment and claim "It just stopped working".
Yes... Okay, your 8 year old laptop running Vista with literally hundreds of pirated videos and music with pictures of cats as the desktop, and taped up charger... Yes just how the company gave it to you considering you only started a year ago.
#16
Tried to mail a very large 14 pound box as a small 9 ounce envelope. We immediately sent it back with a hefty postage due.
#17
Rent a storage unit for zero down, then not pay anything for 4 months. Like, they literally never paid a dime. Then come in demanding access to empty their stuff, screaming they wanted my boss's number, and my boss's boss's number and they were going to call corporate and have me fired because "we had no legal rights to keep them locked out" and "they were going to take their stuff and never do business with us again."
I had the immense pleasure of telling her to her face "No. Also, to be a customer you have to have PAID ME. Right now you're just trespassing."
She really thought a national chain didn't have their legal ducks in a row for non paying customers. I guess she had maybe done it at a mom and pop place cause I heard her whispering to the guy that she brought in with her that 'last time they just let me take everything'.
#18
I'm a mortgage broker and deal with a lot of people trying to swindle me so they can borrow more. You get a good sense for when people are BS'ing you and it's quite enjoyable cross examining them
Some examples:
- foreign national just moved to the UK works in a computer repair shop in Bradford for 85k basic salary
- people working for their family business (and not telling me which is easily checked on companies House) suddenly getting a 50k pay rise in the most recent month
- gross income on payslips significantly higher but the rest of the payslip shows tax paid, YTD figures all lower
- people lying about having good credit then finding out they have 8 defaults, CCJ's, bankrupcies, etc.
#19
Worked at Dominos. Had a guy call in and say he ordered three chicken pizzas and got three pepperoni pizzas instead. (first red flag - no employee makes three identical pizzas wrong without someone noticing when they are one topping pizzas)
Asked when this was and it was weeks ago. (Second red flag - if this really happened they would have come in and gotten them replaced right away)
Asked for his number, no record. (Potential red flag but removed by the follow up) Claims he ordered them in the store for carryout and wasn’t asked for his number. (Not a red flag - we didn’t ask for numbers if someone just walked in and ordered for carryout) Ask for his name and put him on hold.
Go to the office computer to search order history. Looked up information for for a total of six weeks. Not one single order was placed for three chicken pizzas during that entire time. Inform him I have no records of anyone ordering so it was impossible that this happened and I wouldn’t be giving him any free food. He hangs up.
This happened twice more over the next year. Not sure if it was the same guy or not but they didn’t get free food any of the rest of the time.
That’s my favorite one but had plenty of people try to scam us for free food while I was there. I always helped the legitimate customers but so many people tried to pull things like this but couldn’t give us legitimate history.
#20
There was a scam where someone would come in and hand me a receipt and say something like I had to get dry cleaning done on my uniform because someone spilled on it last time I was here. Your boss said you would pay for it. The same people tried it multiple times. Another fake credit card scam is young people would always come in with janky looking credit cards and always wanted to buy $400 in gift cards. They got us a couple of times. Then it became easy to spot and every time they came in I would ask for ID they would hand it to me and I would just walk to the back of the restaurant and they would run. Last one I remember, a lady would always come in with her kids and say my husband ordered last night, it was all wrong can I get it free. The problem was that we had a lot of busboys that worked at a lot of different restaurants in the area and they knew her. So they informed me she does this at every restaurant and she was promptly told to kick rocks.
#21
There was a lady coming into a coffeehouse in NoVA to score a free latte. Bent over strategically to show the girls off to the male cashier, using a receipt from two towns over. It was always a busy day. It unfortunately worked.
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