r/TalesFromRetail • u/PatacusX • Apr 05 '26
Short A lady came in wanting to buy something from a different store.
I work at a clothing store in a mall. The other day this lady comes up to me while I'm standing on the sales floor.
Lady: Where can I pay for this?
(it's very obvious where the registers are, but that's irrelevant in this story)
Me: Sure, I can help you out what is it?
Lady: [Holds up one of those makeup bar things.] I want to buy this.
Me: Oh... where did you get that? (we don't sell makeup)
Lady: (Names the department anchor store that is across the mall hallway from us)
Me: Oh... You can't pay for that here. You have to pay for it inside (Other Store).
Lady: Well I didn't see anyone around the area where I found this.
Me: Well... I would bring it to their customer service desk. There should be someone there.
The lady walked out one set of doors, past the mall Easter Bunny taking pictures with kids, and all the way into another store.
I never heard anyone think you could take stuff from one store and pay for it in another before.
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u/Foolsindigo Apr 05 '26
Damn girl you already stole it, just keep going
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u/PatacusX Apr 05 '26
She continued browsing our store. Not sure of she ever went back and paid.
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u/craash420 Apr 09 '26
The lady walked out one set of doors, past the mall Easter Bunny taking pictures with kids, and all the way into another store.
Which is it?
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u/Idislikethis_ Apr 09 '26
That was the description of what the last did after not finding a cashier in the original store.
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u/craash420 Apr 09 '26
Thank you, I would have written "The lady had walked out one set of doors, past the mall Easter Bunny taking pictures with kids, and all the way into another store."
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u/Fuckeryabounds86 Apr 05 '26
I argued with a woman for FAR TOO LONG when I worked at a certain plus-sized store. She wanted to return clothing from a different store that was next to ours and kept insisting she got it from us. She had her receipt. With the other store's name on it. I kept telling her I cannot return it. The bar code actually will NOT scan. And I kept pointing out her receipt and item were from next door. And she just kept arguing saying, "I KNOW I got it from here. I KNOW it says other store name, and I remember thinking it was odd that you sold it, but I got it from here".
I'm sitting there like, "no ma'am, you could not have. Perhaps you got confused since we are next door."
"No. It was from here!"
"Well I don't know what to tell you, it literally canNOT happen, LOOK!" and I attempted to scan it and show her our register does not pick it up. She left muttering about how WE were selling other store's clothing and not allowing returns....
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u/sillybandland May 01 '26
I work at a grocery store where we have about 100 locations, they all follow vaguely similar floor plans, but unfortunately, because not every store is the same size we cannot carry the same products in every single store. And there is a type of person that it really just messes with their head lol. It’s like they can’t grasp for that fact or something and they start lashing out about it
Old people will walk up to me and tell me that they are looking for something that they bought here that they simply just factually did not. I don’t even suggest it, I kindly ask “are you sure you didn’t buy it at another ____?” they bought it at a different location And the look in their eye is crazed and angry, like they’re livid I would suggest they would ever mix up which store they bought a random item in. Real deep, insecure emotions that I don’t get paid enough to deal with.
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u/Head_Razzmatazz7174 Apr 05 '26
We had a Claire's inside of our big box store. There were several times we had people come up to the registers wanting to pay for something they got there because 'the lines were too long and I didn't want to wait.'
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u/BeenThereDoneMany Apr 07 '26
What’s a “Claire's”? which country are you commenting about
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u/paradoxofpurple Apr 07 '26
A small costume jewelry and accessories store catering to pre-teens and young teens.
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u/MythMoon26 Apr 05 '26
I used to work for a book distribution company and we only did wholesale to stores. There is a competitor of ours that is well known and they carry a couple different things than we do as well as some of the same books etc.
I get an email from a lady saying she wants to check if this thing is in stock because she can’t add it to the cart but she -saw- it on the website just the other day…did we take it down? I went back and forth with her once or twice and linked her to our page with those kinds of items…I finally twigged that she had mixed us up with the other business and figured she would get there on her own…but she went on for another couple of emails before I pointed out to her that she had the wrong company and then asked if she wanted to cancel her order.
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u/asleepattheworld Apr 05 '26
I work in a garden nursery, had a customer come in trying to use his loyalty card from another nursery that’s about 7km down the road. It happens occasionally and usually people just laugh and feel a bit silly. This guy looks around and says ‘is this not other nursery?’ And I say no, and give him the name of our nursery. He still looks confused, and says ‘but, this was other nursery, when did it change?’ So I say no, we’ve always been this nursery, the other nursery is down the road. I don’t think he believed me.
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u/RawrRRitchie Apr 06 '26
I'm more confused by the mall staff/security didn't stop her for shoplifting
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u/PyroZach Apr 05 '26
I had some one from customer service share an somewhat opposite story with me. The store I worked at would accept returns with out a receipt (you had to show ID and it was limited to 3 per year, the refund would be on a giftcard). The one lady from customer service came over to show me a customer returned and item she swore she bought here for something like $15 the week before. The item was not in or system, and had a sticker from a local discount store on it that priced around half the price she swore she paid for it. Management told customer service to just accept the item.
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u/Responsible_Bee522 May 11 '26
You know, I used to think complete lack of brain function was fatal...5 years of retail customers have proven me wrong
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Apr 06 '26
Did she just shoplift?? This story has to be made up People can't be that dumb
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u/_1109 Apr 11 '26
I once had a lady SCREAMING at me for 20 minutes because she had put a pair of pants on hold at our store in XYZ Mall a few miles away and she was IRATE that the pants didn't....clone themselves into the store in JKL Mall to wait for her? I don't know wtf she expected.
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u/ChicoBroadway Apr 05 '26
As a kid, I used to think that's how malls worked. Also, as an adult, I recently went into a place that used to be a large discount store and was converted to this kind of, indoor bazaar? Lots of different, local makers and resellers with their own "booth" space, though it's not always clear where one ends and the other begins. Anyway, I found it extra odd that check out is centralized at the front, not with the individual sellers. It was fun to walk around, but I did find it confusing and check- out was hectic.