“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.
#1
I worked a Christmas season at Target. On my very last day of work, we had one lone straggler shopper. We had made numerous closing announcements, turned off every light except by the registers and shut down every register except mine. Finally almost 20 minutes after we closed, she finally came up to the register, oblivious to keeping us late.
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#2
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#3
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#13
Long time ago when EB Games was a thing in my area, I had a scamy a*s "friend" (more of a distant associate), so dude would buy a new game the day it released and request a gift receipt. One time I happened to be in the store with him when he requested a gift receipt, so I ask him what the deal was, was it someone's birthday or something... Nope, he told me it was a back up plan incase the game sucked. He said if he liked the game and planned to keep it the gift receipt was tossed in the trash, if he hated the game he would take it back and tell the store it didn't work, he would then request a new copy, and the store would give him a new, unopened copy, which he would take to the store in the other town with the gift receipt, that store would give him the option of getting store credit or cash back... So about a month after this conversation our local EB Games and surrounding locations started removing the plastic from replacement games when they got returns of "broken" copies... S**thead was pissed and to this day I can not imagine how they found out, I mean *someone* must have told the store.
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#16
"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.
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She had *one* thing in her cart: a huge Rubbermaid storage container. You know, one of those big green ones. It had its lid on, closed tight. She tilts it a little so I can scan it. “Just this!” she says.
I ask innocently, “Do you mind opening the lid please? We just need to check inside.”
Her face turned to a frown but she lifted the lid.
The storage container was **packed:** boots, a leather jacket, jeans, jewelry, a purse, makeup, etc.
100% truth she said: “How did *that* stuff get in there?! I didn’t put anything in there!”
“No problem,” I said. “We’ll just take it and put it all back.”
“Wait! I *do* want some of that.” She picked out a couple of makeup items from the huge haul.
The manager unlocked the door and let her leave without another word. But security kept an eye out for her from then on.
Amazing she thought that would work.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.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.One of my cashiers called me over to deal with a customer who "Needed to speak with the manager".
Customer smoothly and with complete confidence tried to return a *lot* of obviously used dinnerware and cutlery. Said the party plans fell through and even though ours is an exchange only policy (no cash refunds) an exception had been cleared with the manager on the phone before coming in.
This lying sack of s**t had no idea that they were *speaking to the manager* the whole time lol. I pulled out my phone, asked the customer to please stand still and took their picture. Customer actually smiled for me! I then directed this person to pick up their stuff and get out of my store with no refund or exchange. Started to bluster and argue until I told them I was the top manager in the store and the only manager on duty all day so use your lying hands and pick up your lying stuff, put it in your lying car and get your lying face out of here.
As soon as they left I sent the picture to our other locations in the area to be on watch for this f*****g b******t artist.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.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.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.I was at a sushi dinner for a friend's birthday party and one of the attendees pulled some skin/rind off an orange slice and tried to claim it was a soft fingernail. Already knew where they were trying to go with this....
They told the table "i'm going to get my meal for free over this," and demanded to see the manager. The restaurant owner came to our table to discuss the problem.. and to my surprise, I knew them! We went to the same culinary school and often teamed up for different classes and lessons. I kinda overshadowed the woman trying to get a free meal, telling the owner it was a mistake by the woman, and just quietly dismissed her b******t claim while I caught up with my former classmate.
First time I ever had the joy of dealing with a scammer inside a restaurant while NOT actually working. Was very satisfying.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.Any time there's a sale in one department. Its an absolute guarantee that a few people each day will rip the sale stickers of discounted clothes and stick them to full priced ones.
Then they get upset and angry when we call them out on their b******t
"This coat isn't £80, it's £20, says it right there on the sale label"
"Mam this is scanning as a pair of jeans"
"ARE YOU CALLING ME A LIAR, WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE PLAYING!?!"
"Yes you are a liar, would you like to speak to my manager, she'll say the same".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.".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.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.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.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.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.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...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.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.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'.Theft, attempted theft, and scams were a daily problem at my last job. We had all the usual problems: incorrect receipts, trying to return one product and claiming it was a different one, trying to get a refund for something obviously stolen, all that. One time, a guy came in 10 minutes before close and started looking around - usually a bad sign. He totally had all the signs he was going to grab and run. My manager was done with that c**p for the night, and basically guarded the front door all subtle. The guy caught on, grabbed the stuff he was going to steal, and walked to me at the front register. He asked if we had Apple pay. I said we did while ringing him up. Then as he was about to check out, manager and I both *saw* him subtly hold down the power button on his phone. Then he turned it around to show me the screen go black and said he was super sorry, but his phone just died and that was his only means of paying. So he just left. Bro thought he was slick.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.Had a customer order a couple hundred dollars worth of Kcups from one of our vendors to get the free Keurig machine. They sent the Kcups back as a return for a refund AFTER USING THEM. Yes, they carefully replaced each Kcup back into the box, and glued the boxes shut, then returned them for a full refund. Thinking that we'd refund them and they'd keep the free machine.
Their refund was denied, and we put a fraud hold on their account. Nothing they ever order again can be returned for a refund and they will have to wait three full days before we ship future orders, for charges to clear. Oh, and they can't participate in those flash sale giveaways either. The system will say they're ineligible. For ALL of our vendors' promotions.
PS- it was a s****y Keurig machine, the kind you can pick up for $39 at Walmart. My friend had the same model, it died in less than a year. Sad trombone noise.
(Edited to add- we knew what was up when we opened the package, and water with coffee grounds leaked out of each Kcup box we picked up. It was a clever effort, but drain the water out first, dummy.).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.When I worked pizza hut, guy called nearly every weekend to say he had a credit from corporate for a large meat lovers and cinnabons. Same name, order, address, and story every time. Usually on Friday at 9pm. And each time Id pull up his profile and see no credit on it. His profile had a note of who gave free stuff and when and at the bottom of the list management had enough and put "NO FREE FOOD ANYMORE" signed and dated by our gm.
So he'd give up and he whouldnt get free food. A few times he whould actually call corporate and probably make up some story to them and they whould apply a real credit. Then he'd call back and order it. Either he didn't always beg from corporate or they barred him too because that only happened a couple times.
So when our store refused his order and corporate didn't give him something l, he'd call again. Sometimes on the same night sometimes the next night Same order, same story, 2 doors down from the "other guy" but the way these apartments were numbered I knew the address was fake, and different name. I asked if this was mr person (don't remember his name and cant remember if he called from the same phone number) this dumb a*s actually said "no its not". I have actually had to deliver to his plan B before and naturally when there was no unit with the number Id call and he'd say he's at his friends over in this unit. Told him for faster delivery to put the actual address of where he is instead of the home address. On my last night shift, he was using his personna again and the store had enough and a manager in training took over the call from me so I could get on a delivery. Manager Lite told him we know he's lying, he does it every week, and he needs to f**k off we ain't got time for his nonsense. Im too meek for that but good on manager lite for getting him. Its been a few years, I wonder what kinda games he played after that.
Edit: Wanted to add someone in my town just got busted for buying tens of thousands of dollars in stuff with stolen credit cards. The name looks familiar and I think it's him so theres my answer: hes now a felon in custody ?.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.I worked at a pet store where we sold some very expensive fish filter media. There was this one guy who would always come in to return packages from this one particular brand but never had the receipts. He'd take the cash and walk away, inevitably coming back within the next few weeks to do the same song and dance.
Because the owner of our chain had pissed off someone with Petco by building one of our stores across from theirs, they had just put another location across the street. One day, someone from Petco comes into the store and slips into the manager's office with the GM of the store. I didn't think much of it and then a couple days later she tells me that if I ever see that guy again not to sell him anything and not to do any returns. Turns out that he was stealing the filter media from Petco and returning it here and stealing our filter media and trying to return it at Petco.
I later ended up working at a PetSmart in the area and saw the same guy come in and start hovering around near the filter media. My manager looked at me like I was crazy when I told the guy he has to leave, but he got when I sat him down after.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.
