A man brought in a motorcycle battery for an exchange because he bought the wrong one. He didn’t have his receipt, but luckily on the bigger sale items like that, we list it under the customer’s phone number. He didn’t even have the box it came in, but it was our store brand and on motorcyle batteries the box isn’t important.

When I looked up his receipt I had to check the calendar because he had come in exactly 14 days after he purchased it, meaning today was the last possible day to do that. When I mentioned it, he told me that the man that had originally helped him said he had 30 days.

“No he didn’t.” I said, pointing to the numerous places in the store (and on the receipt itself, which he didn’t have) where the return policy is stated in bold – 14 days. “Oh, well, I didn’t see those signs. But he definitely said 30 days.” I asked who had helped him, but of course he didn’t know. (“I didn’t ask for his name or anything!”) No. Why would you.

It turns out that the correct battery he needed hadn’t been filled and charged yet, and I told him so. He said “I can fill it at home” and I said “No, I really can’t sell you something that hasn’t been filled and charged, for warranty purposes.” He didn’t care about the warranty – he’s never had to bring anything back to this store (well, before today, of course) and can’t he just sign a waiver or something? Nope, sorry. The world doesn’t work like that.

Well if he didn’t just throw a fit. “This is already my second trip back here, and I live 30 minutes away! I called last week and they said they had this battery, so I said I’d be down that afternoon!”

So let me get this straight: You have to make a third trip down here because initially you bought the wrong thing. Then you waited until the last possible day to come back and return it, but you didn’t have the receipt or even the box it came in. You say you called last week to check stock. These less common batteries we don’t fill until they are paid for, so just seeing if we have it does not mean that it’s filled (and I know you would have been told it needed to be filled). Then, you said you would be by that day, which you weren’t. For all I know, they did prime a battery for you, but since you waited so long to come get it (and it hadn’t been paid for) they sold it to someone else. And I’m sorry that you live 30 minutes away. The next closest store of this type is an hour in either direction, so depending on  where your 30 minutes is, it might be 3 times that. But yes, you should probably demand to speak to my manager. Who isn’t here because it’s after 5pm.

When that didn’t work, he turned to one of my coworkers for help. That guy has been here less time than me, but he’s a man, so he probably knows best. But guess what? he said the exact same thing, because neither of us has the authority to change store policy, and to be honest, I wouldn’t anyway because you’re a jerk.

He eventually decided that he needed the new battery badly enough to warrant another trip (le sigh). I told him it would be ready tomorrow and his retort was that he “might swing by and get it next time he’s in town.” Dude, you’re the one that needed it soooo bad AND paid for it. Doesn’t affect me in the slighteset when you come back for it.

When I gave him his new receipt, he asked me to write my name on there “since we’re so interested in who helped him before.” I circled where my name is printed on the receipt, and reminded him that if he had his old receipt he would have seen who helped him then, too. “Oh and the reason I wanted to know who helped you before is that it seems they have given you some misinformation. If we know who it is, we can correct them so this doesn’t happen again.”

“Oh sure, because I’m just a big fat liar! I’m the biggest liar in the world!” In my head, I agreed with him, because he is. Out loud, well I didn’t actually say anything - just raised my eyebrows.

When I vented to my coworker about the encounter later, he said “some customers just need to be pampered.”
But I don’t WANT to pamper him! I want him to know he can’t always get his way!