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30 People Share Scams They’ve Seen Customers Try To Pull

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“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.

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#1

30 People Share Scams They’ve Seen Customers Try To Pull 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.

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.

xiaxian1 , 竟傲汤/Pexels Report

Final score:

144points

Brenda 4 months ago

How stupid can she be!?! Every single cashier I've ever dealt with checks closed containers for just this reason. Usually, they don't even ask you to open it & just do it themselves. And her reaction? Please! You just admitted to attempted theft with that lame response.

69points

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#2

30 People Share Scams They’ve Seen Customers Try To Pull 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.

StifferThanABoner , Pixabay/Pexels Report

Final score:

133points

Brenda 4 months ago

Some people are born without a working brain, I swear.

68points

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#3

30 People Share Scams They’ve Seen Customers Try To Pull 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.

Cyanora , Fredric Lee Phillips/Pexels Report

Final score:

93points

Jrog 4 months ago (edited)

Ok, let me be nitpicky, you are on my turf here. Tempered glass absolutely chips. The tempering process induces tension and compression forces in the glass. Those forces are not uniformly distributed in the volume, and tend to create a rounded shape inside the glass section that leaves the corners off: imagine inflating a balloon inside a box, on the edges you are still going to have some unfilled volume. These parts can absolutely chip, and this effect is what allows post-polishing of tempered glass, where the part off the "bubble" is shaved and polished without triggering the release of the internal stresses of the glass. There is no absolute rule to estimate the "safe(ish)" area, depends on multiple factors, but typically you can safely mill half the pane thickness from the edge.

17points

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#4

30 People Share Scams They’ve Seen Customers Try To Pull 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.

mymeatpuppets , Pixabay/Pexels Report

Final score:

92points

ॐBoyGanesh 4 months ago (edited)

It’s as if they believe the manager is an omnipresent being floating on some far-away cloud, whom none of the employees have never met, much less communicated with. There has to be some sort of cognitive impairment to think the store manager they spoke with to ok the return wouldn’t be on premises to confirm such.

52points

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#5

30 People Share Scams They’ve Seen Customers Try To Pull 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.

Klub-pengu-grl , Tirachard Kumtanom/Pexels Report

Final score:

85points

Cecilie Hammershøy 4 months ago

We had an older couple who used to hide food way behind other stuff, and then go find it an show it to us when it was expired. You would get a bag of coffee when you found expired food in the store.

29points

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#6

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.

Final score:

84points

Tammilee Truitt 4 months ago

Haha right!

19points

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#7

30 People Share Scams They’ve Seen Customers Try To Pull 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.

Castle_of_Aaaaaaargh , Karolina Kaboompics/Pexels Report

Final score:

82points

Savahax 4 months ago

So pathetic what people do for a free meal. People are working back there. They put time and effort into the food that you trustingly put in your mouth, and then f**k them over like this 😕

50points

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#8

30 People Share Scams They’ve Seen Customers Try To Pull 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.".

BW_Bird , Yan Krukau/Pexels Report

Final score:

82points

General Anaesthesia 4 months ago

He almost managed to get away with it eight times in spite of the once-a-year rule, and you're (corporate, nothing personal) not stupid?

46points

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#9

30 People Share Scams They’ve Seen Customers Try To Pull 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.

nstal_ , Pixabay/Pexels Report

Final score:

79points

Jrog 4 months ago (edited)

The technology to reliably count, check and photograph individual bills on ATMs is five decades old. Never seen an ATM accepting money in an envelope. (Just to clarify: not saying they do not exist. Just that we have a different method and this sounds inefficient)

26points

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#10

30 People Share Scams They’ve Seen Customers Try To Pull 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.

CylonsInAPolicebox , Deeana Arts/Pexels Report

Final score:

79points

Brenda 4 months ago

Good for "whoever" told them!

46points

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#11

30 People Share Scams They’ve Seen Customers Try To Pull 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".

Fragmented-Rooster , cottonbro studio/Pexels Report

Final score:

76points

LAWLAWLAW 4 months ago

Used to work in retail in the UK and UK law states "any retailer can change any price at any time without prior notification" used that line all the time instead of arguing about sales ticket swapping, "not accusing you of doing anything just telling you the correct current price of the item"

27points

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#12

30 People Share Scams They’ve Seen Customers Try To Pull 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.

LolsyByrne , Karolina Kaboompics/Pexels Report

Final score:

74points

Brenda 4 months ago

Using kids is the lowest of low!

91points

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#13

30 People Share Scams They’ve Seen Customers Try To Pull 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.

Fantastic_Piece_8495 , Karolina Kaboompics/Pexels Report

Final score:

74points

Jrog 4 months ago (edited)

Never seen any store where the return counter is inside the sales area. They are always outside the cashier's line or in a separate entrance. This is fraud, but a heap of blame should be on the extremely poor store planning.

20points

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#14

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.

Final score:

69points

Mystery Kitteh 4 months ago

It's theft on multiple counts

59points

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#15

30 People Share Scams They’ve Seen Customers Try To Pull 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.

middleagethreat , Marcus Herzberg/Pexels Report

Final score:

65points

Freya the Wanderer 4 months ago

Great answer! Got rid of the creep, and just might have discouraged him from pulling the same cräp at another restaurant.

16points

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#16

30 People Share Scams They’ve Seen Customers Try To Pull 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.

Kevin_wont_guess , RDNE Stock project/Pexels Report

Final score:

53points

Evan not Hansen 4 months ago

I would slowly stand there and count all of them, and not give him the pizza until I was sure he paid properly.

55points

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#17

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...

shadow125 Report

Final score:

53points

ॐBoyGanesh 4 months ago (edited)

Penfolds makes some amazing wines! Can’t go wrong with Bin 389

14points

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#18

"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.

1000veggieburrito Report

Final score:

53points

ॐBoyGanesh 4 months ago

They same way you’d go about it if you had lost cash

42points

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#19

30 People Share Scams They’ve Seen Customers Try To Pull 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.

Wild_Alaskan , cottonbro studio/Pexels Report

Final score:

52points

SkippityBoppityBoo 4 months ago

I once ordered a few packages of nuts and bolts from a shop, in the end I didn't need them but forgot that they were still there for a few months. I took them back to the store all still in the original unopened packaging with the receipt and part exchanged them for a lamp that I'd seen and liked! It pays to be a nice person and explain that maybe you've been a bit of a doofus! 😄

17points

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#20

30 People Share Scams They’ve Seen Customers Try To Pull 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.

Rogueantics , Ryutaro Tsukata/Pexels Report

Final score:

50points

ॐBoyGanesh 4 months ago (edited)

Don’t most IT depts keep inventory of the equipment in the form of bar codes? We’re a smaller, single property business & every piece of computer equipment has a # /bar code.

29points

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#21

30 People Share Scams They’ve Seen Customers Try To Pull 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.

cpeery7 , Tima Miroshnichenko/Pexels Report

Final score:

50points

Robert T 4 months ago

This works in the opposite direction as well. I bought a Father's Day card that had some embellishments stuck on it and was concerned that it may need a large letter stamp on it. Took it to the post office, who duly weighed, charged me for an ordinary first class stamp. My Dad got a note through the letterbox to say an item with insufficient postage was being held at the Post Office, with a penalty charge that needed to be paid. Robbing barstewards!

22points

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#22

30 People Share Scams They’ve Seen Customers Try To Pull 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'.

LastPhoenixFeather , Mathias Reding/Pexels Report

Final score:

49points

Brenda 4 months ago

She really thought she could get her stuff after 4 months!?!

21points

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#23

30 People Share Scams They’ve Seen Customers Try To Pull 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.).

beautifulsouth00 , m01229/Flickr Report

Final score:

46points

Sazan Kuros 4 months ago

All Keurig machines are s****y.

24points

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#24

30 People Share Scams They’ve Seen Customers Try To Pull 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.

anon , Mikhail Nilov/Pexels Report

Final score:

45points

Spannermonkey 4 months ago

Bradford....Ha!

5points

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#25

30 People Share Scams They’ve Seen Customers Try To Pull 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.

MostlyLurking2000 , Clem Onojeghuo/Unsplash Report

Final score:

44points

SkippityBoppityBoo 4 months ago

The thing about shoplifters and other people obviously stealing is that... They obviously don't care in the first place but it's why prices go up. The store/company has to recoup those losses somehow which means prices go up.

2points

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#26

30 People Share Scams They’ve Seen Customers Try To Pull 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.

Ranos131 , Athena Sandrini/Pexels Report

Final score:

43points

Tobias Reaper 4 months ago

even if they were given the wrong pizzas it was weeks ago and they already ate them so tough tatta really

29points

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#27

30 People Share Scams They’ve Seen Customers Try To Pull 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 👍.

OrthinologistSupreme , Khaled Hossain/Pexels Report

Final score:

38points

BewilderedBanana 4 months ago

I like Manager Lite - both their attitude and the job title :)

18points

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#28

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.

lookssharp Report

Final score:

36points

Freya the Wanderer 4 months ago

The more scams we learn about, the better prepared we are to deflect them. You have to give scammers their devil's due - they can be clever, and from time to time they win. However, in the long run crime doesn't pay.

17points

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#29

30 People Share Scams They’ve Seen Customers Try To Pull 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.

AppropriateInvite540 , Karolina Kaboompics/Pexels Report

Final score:

35points

quentariel 4 months ago

Do some stores just give money back without any receipt at all? I don't get it.

14points

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#30

30 People Share Scams They’ve Seen Customers Try To Pull 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.

anon , Tim Douglas/Pexels Report

Final score:

23points

Brenda 4 months ago

She debased herself for free coffee? Good grief! 🙄

19points

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#31

Used to work in a large grocery store.

Lady would look in the outside trash for receipts, get a cart and find all the items and wander around the store until shift change. Then she'd come up to a register and claim she was returning all the products because her mother had gone shopping earlier and gotten the wrong things.

First time I just went with it. It was less than $10, just one receipt, and I'd never seen her before. Second time she had multiple receipts with different customer information on all of them, and $50 or so in returns. I feigned a computer error with the register and called up my boss. He let her get away with it because he didn't know wat she was doing. After the lady left, I told my boss what was going on and he said to call him up to the register if she tried the same thing again.

Third time, I just called up my boss after she got done loading up all the products but before I processed the return, again feigning a computer error. Boss tells the lady that he knows what she's doing and that she needed to leave before he called the cops.

The best part was when she tried to act offended and said she would never come back to the store again.

TheBitchIsBack666 Report

Final score:

19points

Brenda 4 months ago

Thank you! Saves us the trouble of banning you!

12points

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#32

30 People Share Scams They’ve Seen Customers Try To Pull Had this idiot try to change the routing number of a paper check in front of me at a register. He literally had me stand there and he was like "let me change this to a 5" and then he tried to scribble the routing with a pen. He got banned from the store and later apprehended by security. They were stolen checks and he was dumb as a rock.

HumanNipple Report

Final score:

18points

DarkViolet 4 months ago

Nah, rocks are smarter. They know enough to stand still and be silent.

12points

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#33

30 People Share Scams They’ve Seen Customers Try To Pull Quickly ate his fries and came back and said we gave him food without the fries. Had to give him a free meal so it worked.

CoolHandLoser , Alena Shekhovtcova/Pexels Report

Final score:

18points

Ace 4 months ago

Eh? Why would you have given him a free meal? At best/worst, if you bellieved him, surely it would only be the portion of fries?

7points

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#34

Working as an internet installer you'll often have people call in claiming that you stole something of high value (iPhone, jewelry, ect) even if they don't have that item in their possession currently just so they can scam the company into "reimbursing" them for the stolen item.v.

Final score:

18points

ConstantlyJon 4 months ago

reimbursement scams are extremely common, especially people saying "Did you make this order on Amazon? No? Well give us your bank information and we'll send you a refund directly to your account." Or if they can get remote access into your computer, they can act like you're typing in a refund amount but oops, somehow you pressed too many zeroes and we accidentally refunded you $5,000 instead of $50. Now you need to pay us back the extra $4,950.

1point

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#35

I use to work in a floral department at a shopping center. We had these trays of flowers that were on sale for a dollar. So what does this woman do? She takes some nearby expensive flowers and switches them into the dollar pots. I mean actually switched them, soil and all. She thought she got away with it until I told her the total was $50 something. She argued up and down they were only a dollar until my manager walked up like a boss and told her you know what you did mam. I guess he saw the whole thing on camera and came to confront her.

OneTyler2Many Report

Final score:

18points

Joseph Dixon 4 months ago

The people who pull stuff like this would be the first to complain if the store closes.

6points

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#36

30 People Share Scams They’ve Seen Customers Try To Pull Pulled a big greasy bolt out of a caesar salad i had plated. (there was a car convention across the street that day).

anon , Jill Wellington/Pexels Report

Final score:

17points

DarkViolet 4 months ago

Ewwww.

6points

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#37

30 People Share Scams They’ve Seen Customers Try To Pull I used to work at a big blue hardware store. We once had a guy steal some expensive equipment by walking right out into the garden center during the middle of the day, push the items underneath a weak part of the fence, go back through the store and drive away. There was nothing we could do about it besides calling the police.

Then like 2 days later, the same guy comes in and tries to get a refund for his stolen stuff. Even after this he still wasn't caught cause the police took too long to show up and we had to let him leave.

Arcinbiblo12 , Alexander Isreb/Pexels Report

Final score:

17points

René Sauer 4 months ago

They should thank the guy for pointing out a weak point in their security 😁

9points

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#38

I used to work retail in the returns area. We would regularly get people trying to return tile saws after they used them for their one job or contractors bringin in batteries that didn't work only to find out they were over 5 years old. Our store used to allow paint with the customers color tint to be returned. Quite a few people caught on and they would buy a bunch of gallons of paint, return them and buy for half price the following week. It was a huge loss everytime that happened. We also had people return lawn mowers and snow blowers claiming they didn't start etc. And we would take them back if within the 90 days with receipt. They would get basically a free mower since they got their money back. Then the mower or snowblower would come back 30- 50 percent off after it was refurbished.

Final score:

17points

David 4 months ago

Years ago I was in a Best store as a customer and happened to be near the service counter when some old lady returned a coffee maker because the glass pot was cracked. After she walked away I heard the two employees discussing how it had been six months since she purchased it.

1point

#39

I used to work in a couple of different bars and the common trick was: customer orders a beer, I serve them, they “subtlety” take a sip and then ask for it to be topped up “because the foam died down”

Loved refusing those people, telling them that they didn’t have a problem when they took their first mouthful.

blake6993 Report

Final score:

16points

Savahax 4 months ago

I'm not liking this thread at all. Who?? Who could shamelessly lie like that for a sip of beer

7points

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#40

When I worked at 7-11 we had this thing called the Green Dot scam where people would call and pretend to be a Green Dot representative. You were supposed to read them card information over the phone, which would allow them to basically hack the register. I got a call one evening and told him he would need to come into the store, which is exactly what I was supposed to do. Not exciting, I know, but it did feel really good to thwart his attempt.

giantsninerswarriors Report

Final score:

15points

Brenda 4 months ago

What is Green Dot?

9points

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#41

First job at Harris teeter grocery.

They make roasted chickens that you can buy hot, but they have to sell by the end of the day or they get tossed :(. So at a certain time they put a discount sticker on it to help sell (like a dollar off). Dude would come in often late at night rigght before we tossed them, and take as many stickers off the other chicken containers as he could and put it on one roasted chicken. He would always approach the register with this sly look on his face, seriously the worst poker face ever.

First time it happened to me I knew what he had done and got a manager just because I didn't want to get fired. I could have cared less honestly just covering my own a*s. Managers told me that "ya he does that, we don't really bother with him anymore, just ring it up". So I'd scan all his tags and he'd get the chicken for like a dollar and be all happy and leave. I think he got to pull that little chicken scam for quite a while. HOnestly he probably needed it so good for him i guess lol.

mechanicalsam Report

Final score:

15points

Brenda 4 months ago

I've never seen more than one (store) discount sticker being allowed at a time.

19points

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#42

Way back in the age of dinosaurs, I worked in a gas station. This was back befor EBT cards and we had paper food stamps. People would come in and buy like a .03 cent piece of gum and use the change back to buy cigarettes!

ClubExotic Report

Final score:

15points

Brenda 4 months ago

This is why they changed the system. People also used to sell their paper food stamps for less than the actual monetary value & use the cash for items not covered (cigarettes or alcohol, for example). And other stuff, of course 😉

17points

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#43

Worked at a gas station in highschool. Lady came in to self serve and started putting diesel in her car I told her not to put that in that she needed regular gas and she said she knows what she’s doing. Her car broke down just a few minutes away and then she tried to sue the gas station. Also had a customer there use our air pump on their tires and overfilled their tires and their tires popped they also tried to sue us for it.

Final score:

15points

David 4 months ago

No regulator on the air compressor? If the regulator was set to say, 45 PSI, that would be more than most passenger vehicles would need. If I filled my 35 PSI tires t o 45, it would affect the tread wear, but it wouldn't blow up the tire.

2points

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#44

30 People Share Scams They’ve Seen Customers Try To Pull I used to sell Steak on a stick. People would come in and be like "I'd like 6 steaks on a stick".

We also sold cheese on a stick, which was deep fried cheese, on a stick. It was delicious. A common scam was people would quickly scoop out the gooey, hot cheese, then accuse me of selling them hollow cheese on a stick, and demanding a refill. The thing is if the cheese did fall out of the breading, there would be hot cheese floating around the fryer, and the coating would deflate. You could tell with their hot pink hand, visible cheese in their pocket, or hot mouth.

Once someone got pissed and wanted to fight me. Hot soup was thrown in the scrum, and someone spent the rest of the evening looking like they got a facial in the portojohn.

ooo-ooo-oooyea , Fotografia de Zaman |•DXB/Pexels Report

Final score:

14points

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#45

I’m an small independent business and yesterday someone tried to pay via Venmo and pretended to scan my phone. She said “okay paid you!” And then just zoomed away. Took a couple seconds to realize she didn’t actually pay me. It was for an over $100 transaction too.

Pamplemouse04 Report

Final score:

14points

Seadog 3 months ago

never give them the product until it's paid for. As for E payments. I'd never accept them because most of the time the person claims it's a false charge they just reverse it, no questions asked.

0points

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#46

Was working at a Games Workshop store. Guy returned a tank model still shrinkwrapped. The shrinkwrap was a different quality than what comes from the factory. Opened it up, he had filled the box with empty sprues (the plastic frames that you cut the model part off of). Banned him from GW and it got around to other gaming stores as well.

neverthesaneagain Report

Final score:

14points

#47

Years back I used to deliver pizza, and there was this one lady who would order a potato skin pie every Friday or whatever. She'd get the same thing every week, and every week she'd call and complain that something was wrong with the pizza. "Not enough bacon," "too little sauce," "too much cheese," whatever. The first couple times she got a refund, but she'd call and complain so consistently that it got to the point where the manager started making her pizza when she'd order, and then shut her down when she'd call to complain about it.

She was a horrible tipper to boot.

bguzewicz Report

Final score:

13points

Papa 4 months ago

I'm shocked that someone who tries to run a scam would not leave a generous tip.

7points

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#48

Worked for a bank in their printing operations where all bank statements are printed for entire customer base and all types of accounts. Call received from branch. Husband and wife had complained because husband had opened his current account statement to find his wife’s savings account statement also inside the same envelope. She had £1000 in the account and her husband didn’t know about it. He was ranting about how awful this was that the bank had made the error, that it had caused issues with his wife and was demanding Bank pay him the same amount in compensation. Branch manager called angry the error had caused this man to kick off too demanding to know what and how this has happened. One of the print managers very calmly asked the branch manager to read out the series of numbers in the top right hand corner on each statement then proceeded to explain what the numbers meant. That they’d been run off of 2 different printers at different times how print ops worked (account types run off and printed together) so couldn’t possibly have ended up in the same envelope. Branch manager called to apologise after few hours. Apparently on relaying the info to the customer and his wife it became apparent he’d opened his wife’s mail, she’d got posted at him and he blamed the bank instead of owning up AND tried to get compensation.

capitan_coco Report

Final score:

12points

Elchinero 4 months ago

"she’d got posted" fence post?

2points

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#49

I cooked at a hotel restaurant and on weekends I would be the buffet chef. The brunch buffet opened at 10am and closed at 2pm. Two older gentleman came in right at 10, got a bunch of food and ate it, and then sat at their table for around 3 hours, just talking. When it was near closing time, they got some more food, sat down, and ate some more while chatting. 2 meals for the price of 1. Genius.

Unfortunately we had to kick them out because they stayed way after closing and we had to close down the buffet but weren’t allowed to until all customers left 🙃.

thelilbel Report

Final score:

12points

Brenda 4 months ago

Not actually stealing or illegal. Just not ethical.

6points

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#50

In college I worked at a car parts store. Different parts had different warranties, some which were abused when customers would exchange them years later with regular wear and tear. That never really bothered us. What did were folks returning other items in the box for cash, especially when it was animal or even human waste. They just expected us to toss the box in the trash behind us and would take off for the door if you opened the boxes, which admittedly took some work to get into.

SaddestClown Report

Final score:

12points

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#51

Back when I was working in retail - a big consumer electronics chain to be precise - the company I was working for was going under, so in a desperate attempt to get some quick cashflow to try and cover costs, they offered gift vouchers for a 10% discount at a few big supermarkets and servos. We also happened to have another offer, not related to this, where we offered a one-off 10% discount for customers when they signed their email up to our loyalty program. These two guys had figured out that they could buy the store vouchers at 10% off at the supermarket, and then get a further 10% off each time they signed up to the loyalty program with a new email in-store. T’was probably intended by corporate as one of those “limit 1 per customer” types of deals, but my store manager didn’t give a s***e as it was our last week before we lost our jobs anyway. These two blokes walked in with massive grins on their faces and a massive bag full of $100 gift vouchers they picked up from the woolies nearby - one even brought in a laptop and proceeded to create Gmail accounts right in front of us as they made purchases - iTunes gift vouchers. They spent hours with me and my manager, creating a new transaction for each individual iTunes voucher they bought, as a new customer in our system - they even had fake names - which they assured us were friends of theirs (and the customer is always right, so who was I to question it, there was a chance for us to take in some serious cash just for the fun of it (all the store sales were still being reported, and we were told to sell everything we could that was left, right down to shelving and fixtures in the shop space that weren’t even owned by the company haha - anyway, these two guys were effectively getting the iTunes vouchers at 20% off. The funny thing is that my manager and I failed to mention that as we were under administration, a lot of the stock we had on the floor hadn’t been paid for by the company yet, as all the suppliers - including Apple - would have become “unsecured creditors” that the company owed money to… Apple most likely just cancelled the vouchers, rendering every single one of them completely worthless. Oops. Never found out how that one went for the two blokes though, as we closed down haha.

WorkingCalendar2452 Report

Final score:

11points

Tucker Cahooter 4 months ago

Translation for non-Aussies: "servo" = service (gas) station, "woolies" = Woolworths (supermarket chain), "blokes" = men (typically not ones of high social standing)

8points

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#52

Random person pulls into my drive through:

Me: *Tells them their total.*

Them: *Proceeds to throw the money on the ground and pretends I am the one who "dropped" it.*

Me: *Plays along, we are on a tight ship.*

Them: *Proceeds to grouse and complain ceaselessly before demanding free food.*

Manager had to fix everything and I almost had a meltdown from stress.

aFoxNamedMorris Report

Final score:

11points

Seadog 3 months ago

If there isn't a real one already there, but one of those fake cameras and stick it up after closing and next time just point to it and tell them you can prove they threw the money on the ground and they can pick it up and behave or get banned.

0points

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#53

You wouldn't believe the lengths people go to to try and get a free ride on public transportation...

Final score:

10points

Kyra Heiker 4 months ago

Yes, I would! Someone just got nabbed on my commuter train while I was reading this list, lol.

24points

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#54

I worked in retail for years in college before my current job in surgery. A woman came in, in a wheelchair, had me assist her with all kinds of clothing items. She took lots of time in the dressing room, of course, then handed me back clothes — she did not want them. As I was walked back to the bin, and started the put the clothes in the go backs — the censors fell all over the floor. Her husband had already wheeled her out. I couldn’t believe It. She most likely did not need the wheelchair.

Any_Comfortable6482 Report

Final score:

10points

Brenda 4 months ago

I thought those censors had to be removed with a specific tool so as not to ruin the clothes? How would she have obtained one?

3points

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#55

In high school I would frequently do the pettiest larceny of all - putting soda in the free water cups.

Decapitated_Saint Report

Final score:

10points

Mr. Jones 4 months ago

You're going to hell. I'll see you there.

6points

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#56

Tried to take advantage of our store's very lenient return policy to get free gift cards. Basically gave me enough trash and empty bags of chips to ring up a $120 refund, they tried to buy a Visa gift card with it, but you can't buy a gift card with store credit. I still feel like the loser in this because I had to handle what was basically rotten trash.

Bigred2989- Report

Final score:

10points

#57

I was working as a cashier and this lady gave me $3.43 in the form of 3 ones, 4 dimes, and three pennies. I put the exact cash because that’s what the item cost in the drawer and gave the receipt. She asked for her change so I had to explain this. She eventually drove off.

bowhunter178 Report

Final score:

9points

Kalikima Premium 4 months ago

I was at Del Taco and I was like, a penny short, and the drive thru girl made a big deal like I was trying to scam her. Next time I went thru, same girl, I paid and I should have gotten 2 cents back, and she took my money and just went about her business.. she saw me looking at her, opened the window and was all "oh, did you want your pennies back?" all snotty like.. I was all "yeah, I do! Wouldn't want to be a penny short like last time and have you yell at me again!" She practically threw the pennies and food at me.

6points

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#58

Big box retailer, call center, so I hear a lot, but here are a couple recent ones that come to mind.

We can offer a future use promo code for X percent off for a bad experience. Customer tells me that he had a bad experience and he talked to someone earlier and they offered him the code. (Found no record of the call, documented), but I asked my manager anyway. He asked me to check with customer about what # the customer used to call in on. I asked, apparently there was no record of the call, so no code for customer. He was pissed and hung up on me.

We have another special financing offer that offers a nice discount on the first order that you use that card with. The codes were incredibly misused when I first was hired, but they changed some things and it doesn't happen that much anymore, but.....people still try occasionally. There is even a subreddit on here for that code and people can buy one, but.....it's highly unlikely they will work but a few weeks ago, I actually had a customer tell me he bought the code and wanted me to add it. He wasn't happy when I said I can't do that.

Gift cards.... most of the time it's the consumer who gets scammed and some of those stories are incredibly sad, but then there are those who scam the company with them. I can't get into details of that one, but it involved hundreds of different orders and some really big bucks. A previous rep had noted something was off and she suspected fraud, but she had messed up in her documentation a bit, so the scam was still going on when I took a call related to it. After reading her notes and doing a little detective work with the phone #, I made sure to get it correctly documented. So many things about that call, were just off, especially the roosters doing their thing in the background.

I'm already cynical enough I suppose but I still think it would be interesting to work in loss prevention.

someonesomewhereinnc Report

Final score:

8points

David 4 months ago

"especially the roosters doing their thing in the background." LOLOLOLOL Remember those scammers who used to call saying they worked for Microsoft (one even said he "worked for windows') and they found a virus on your computer? Usually with an Indian accent. Anyway, one of those guys had rooster crowing in the background as he tried to sound official and "from Microsoft".

4points

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#59

Say that hid wife bought milk the night before when we didn't have milk for 5 days. He had no receipt, and was trying to scam us out of a gallon of milk. He made and scene and everything.

theonlyfrenchfry Report

Final score:

7points

#60

This happens all the time when I work. People will try and guilt trip me about the price being different. And if anyone knows that grocery chain common in the Chicagoland area, the one with a red logo that’s pretty much everywhere (I don’t want to cause issues for myself), they can be well-known for hard to read sale tags. I always have to call the people in the back to confirm prices before I alter it on the register and people will always try and get money off of it, even becoming aggressive.

girlbad23 Report

Final score:

7points

Mr. Jones 4 months ago

Huh?

1point

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#61

Parents pretending they are not together so they do not have to count their total income for childcare fees to be assessed.

HsbensDad Report

Final score:

5points

Brenda 4 months ago

Not sure exactly what this means. Are we talking about childcare assistance programs?

7points

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#62

Signed a rate contract and tried to say we won't be paying because we didn't have our expected software product at the end. Same people who rejected a clear scope/deadlines definition upfront and said we'll discover as we go and do "agile". Like f**k you. All of a sudden their a******s got tight and they wanted a finished product in two weeks, which is just a joke considering where we were based on their prior input.

serverballs Report

Final score:

1point

#63

Back in younger days group of friends were all broke but really enjoyed snowboarding which tends to be pretty expensive. Below is a list of scams that looking back were pretty stupid and could have had serious consequences. Do not recommend trying them.

1) Flights- Find someone that worked for airline or FedEx and get them to buy us employee tickets. Wasn’t bad but some times you fly all over the country before getting to your desired destination. Once we arrived, have local friend grab some of luggage before got to baggage. Wait around and then file lost luggage claims. Or just say items were missing/stolen from luggage and have friends that worked at shops provide receipts. Thousands and thousands of dollars claimed.

2) Lift tickets- On first day purchase regular lift tickets, there after buy single ride, half day, or twilight tickets and cut off type of ticket identifier off and retain date portion. Tape that over date of original purchased regular ticket. Or If we were lucky enough to have some weed ride the green pass.

3) Lodging- Same as flights, find someone that worked at hotel chain and use their employee privileges. Or rent room, but shortly after say have emergency and can’t stay requesting refund. Wedge some gum or paper in lock of room and return late night and stay or just have friends never leave in the first place. Key is to request high floor away from ice machine and elevators and if possible handicapped accommodation.

Hi_Their_Buddy Report

Final score:

1point

Jrog 4 months ago

Employee tickets typically require employee ID at boarding. Staged luggage theft is not a "scam": fraudulent insurance claims are a felony, and since happened over state lines it's a federal crime. Lift: implausible, the tampering would be evident. Since the 1990s ski passes have integrated electronic systems (first magnetic band, later RFID). Lodging: Receptions keep track of people passing through. Someone would have noticed a bunch of guys who came back after checking out. Also, typically rooms are checked shortly after check out for damages or missing items, so it would not work.

10points

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Justin Sandberg

I am a writer at Bored Panda. Despite being born in the US, I ended up spending most of my life in Europe, from Latvia, Austria, and Georgia to finally settling in Lithuania. At Bored Panda, you’ll find me covering topics ranging from the cat meme of the day to red flags in the workplace and really anything else. In my free time, I enjoy hiking, beating other people at board games, cooking, good books, and bad films.

I am a writer at Bored Panda. Despite being born in the US, I ended up spending most of my life in Europe, from Latvia, Austria, and Georgia to finally settling in Lithuania. At Bored Panda, you’ll find me covering topics ranging from the cat meme of the day to red flags in the workplace and really anything else. In my free time, I enjoy hiking, beating other people at board games, cooking, good books, and bad films.

This lazy panda forgot to write something about itself.

This lazy panda forgot to write something about itself.

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Auntriarch 4 months ago

My favourite was when a woman brought an expensive suit back to the shop saying it didn't fit and asking for a refund. Unfortunately the manager was behind the cashier, turned round to the woman and said "well I thought it fitted you perfectly at the wedding on Saturday"

17points

Brian Droste 4 months ago

Now that one was good.

3points

Load More Replies...

HTakeover 4 months ago

I had a friend who worked at a nutritional store (like GNC). Returns were common, particularly when people would buy multiple of an item, not like it, and return the unopened ones. They processed the returns by marking on the original receipt with a mark next to the ones returned so they couldn't be returned again. Scammers figured out how to whitewash the marker off and what they would do is buy stuff online from another retailer or in bulk for ultra cheap, then return to this store for full price for a tidy profit. I happened to be picking my friend up from shift when the manager was brainstorming with the employees about it. I laughingly told 'em to hole-punch the item returned & see the scammers try to whitewash that. Manager loved the idea; it ended up getting adopted across the district so I'm guessing he got a bonus.

8points

RedBadgerCan'tSwim 4 months ago (edited)

I used to work at a sporting goods/outdoor store. There was a 3 day fair held near us with lots of d***s and nudity and no showers. People would come in and buy all their camping supplies before the fair and then come back afterwards and try to return it all. Nothing they brought back was still saleable, it was dirty and stunk of d***s and sweat and other stuff. After three years, management got tired of it and put up signs before the fair saying no camping supplies will be returned if opened. I don't know why it took three years.

6points

Sophia Athene 2 months ago

I'm going to hell... I thought d***s was d-r-u-g-s as usual. But then it stunk of d***s and all I could think was that it stunk of d-i-c-k-s, esp. since there was lots of nudity too. I suppose it works both ways depending on which ones partake of...

0points

Load More Replies...

SoMrHarris 4 months ago

I used to work Security at a Supermarket, and would see all these and more. Best one I had was a guy came in, covered in bleach, claiming the bag ripped and bottle exploded. Reviewed CCTV and right under the camera had him changing out of his clothes into ones that were already bleached marked, pouring loads of bleach over his hands, face and body, and then smashing the bottle on the floor. He was demanding thousands in damages. Annoying part - Head Office paid him despite the CCTV.

6points

censorshipsucks 4 months ago

My story. When I first started my company I was doing webpages (this is like 20 years ago) and my policy was for small websites people could have the first month free so that they could get on their feet in terms of business. Thereafter the monthly hosting was about $5/mo. Not a lot to ask. This one guy phoned me solid for two to three months to not only build and edit his website, but every time I mentioned him paying, he avoided or promised or whatever. Eventually I said to him pay or your site goes down. When it went down (because he didnt pay), he had the cheek to phone me about bad customer service. FYOU BUDDY. BYE.

5points

Douglas Tucker 4 months ago

What is missing here are the great stories from Costco of folks returning items after many years/decades of use and misuse. Many stories are now coming out to the public on how lenient the Costco returns policy is and how some of these Costco returning customers should get an Academy Awards of Scaming.

4points

Sophia Athene 2 months ago

Perfect SNL skit!

0points

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Steve Kenney 4 months ago

I work retail in a well know store with numbers in the name. Had a guy come in to buy chips, didn't have enough, left. I figured he wasn't coming back. He came back an hour later tried to buy chips and claimed they were on another shelf with a cheaper price. I showed him the price where the chips were and he accused me of moving an entire shelf of chips to the other higher price just so he didn't get the cheaper price. On a Saturday night, by myself this is what he claims I spent my time doing while he was gone.

4points

Lace Neil 4 months ago

A couple attempted to steal diesel by filling up and driving off. Unfortunately, their car was a petrol car and their engine was totalled as a result. So they destroyed their car and got nicked for bilking.

4points

Blue Flower 4 months ago

We cleaned out our house because we had more stuff than we should, I called the Salvation Army to come and get all our stuff, they said they were sending a large enough truck to get all of it. To be fair, we were both professionals, very nice clothes, I had them dry cleaned before donating them and we had some really nice furniture and stereo equipment to donate. Salvation Army showed up, cherry picked through the things that were of most value and left. NEVER EVER AGAIN 😡

4points

Laserleader 4 months ago

That would never happen in my hometown. The salvation army moves their people around every few years, so it sounds like there was a bad set of Major's in charge. Next time just drop it off at the store, they can dump whatever they don't want.

0points

Load More Replies...

Richard Graham 4 months ago (edited)

I used to work at the Front Desk at a large Hotel. You would not BELIEVE the scams! Here is my favorite: Marriott allows employees and their immediate family members to stay for $35 a night. Word got out because every night I had a steady stream of people "My (Aunt/Uncle/whatever) works as a (housekeeper/manager/whatever) at the Marriott in (insert city at the other end of the county). Gimme my $35 room." I would require proof of the relationship or say I'm calling that hotel, and they'd sneak off. One night a teenage boy came in, plunked down $35 cash, and loudly told me he was the Regional Manager for Marriott. When I would not rent him a room for $35 cash he loudly demanded my name and said he would fire me right then if I would not give him a room. I offered him a room at the highest rate possible, and asked for his credit card. He reminded me he was the Regional Manager and I am about to lose my job. I called Security over and held firm. He held on for twenty minutes before leaving, yelling at me that he will fire me.

3points

Richard Graham 4 months ago

Marriott fixed this problem by offering the family rate only through a pre-paid reservation.

2points

Load More Replies...

Gonzo Henson 4 months ago

Yoinks ago, I worked in a home entertainment store as a slight-step-up-from-rock-bottom-clerk. One regular would come in frequently, in the middle of the day, and was suspected of tag-switching. His items would always scan at one price but would have a discounted price tag on them. Hmmmm..... He would always act surprised and lean into how respectable he was. A Doctor! (A gynecologist, even). And how nice he was to the cashiers, chatting them up, bringing them homemade cookies. (*cough* distraction techniques *cough*), Anyway, floor managers would always override the price discrepancy because they couldn't prove he was doing it and pricing clerks occasionally made errors. We hated it and we all had the ick. Finally, my boss had enough and said, "I don't care if we don't have proof. We need to get rid of him. But, I don't want to do it, so you do it. Just don't say why." So, I did it. I told him that we were "declining his business from now on."

3points

Gonzo Henson 4 months ago

He pretended to be confused but finally accepted it, the icked out cashiers were happy, and I got to go on break. And, no, nobody ever ate the homemade gynecologist cookies.

3points

Load More Replies...

Mr. Jones 4 months ago

I used to work at The Gap in the mid 90s. Horrible company. Horrible experience. Anyway, it was downtown Chicago and we had a few stores within a few city blocks of each other. At the time The Gap had a very lenient return policy and didn't require the receipts. If you returned it with a receipt you got all your money back. No receipt we would scan the SKIM code and give you what it was worth at the time of return. There was a scam group of employees helping their friends steal from one store and return to another. I caught on when I caught one of our employees helping someone steal. The security guard was in on it too. No skin off my back or money out of my pocket. That was one of the most toxic places I ever worked and every single employee was robbing them blind. I finally just walked out and I took all the clothes the staff was hiding in the stock room waiting for the prices to drop and put them back on the floor.

3points

kath morgan 4 months ago

I work at a non profit’s retail store and unfortunately people try to rip us off all the time. One popular tactic is to remove price tags, then ask for the price in the hopes I’ll quote something cheaper. They’ll also often hide priced stuff inside the bags of stuff sold by-the-bag. And… we recently had a member (who already get a massive discount) modify the date on their membership card to avoid paying for renewal. They got away with over $400 worth of goods before they got caught.

3points

Laserleader 4 months ago

Guy ordered Chinese food, we picked it up and tried to deliver, but he didn't answer door. We called him he said he was standing outside his door and "looking up the street" and couldn't see the address on his house, but the delivery driver was looking at the address on the building. Eventually he walked up from BEHIND HIS HOUSE to the driveway where he got his food and paid cash. Then called and tried to get the driver to pay him back $20 of the $110 bill because he didn't get all his food. We said we aren't the restaurant, and we can refund the $5 delivery if there was a problem with that. He said the delivery was fine but since the restaurant (which realized he was a lying scammer) hung up on him it was our responsibility to pay him. I told him I'm not making my driver pay him $20 out of their pocket, and he rampaged by text for a while before I blocked him.

1point

Auntriarch 4 months ago

My favourite was when a woman brought an expensive suit back to the shop saying it didn't fit and asking for a refund. Unfortunately the manager was behind the cashier, turned round to the woman and said "well I thought it fitted you perfectly at the wedding on Saturday"

17points

Brian Droste 4 months ago

Now that one was good.

3points

Load More Replies...

HTakeover 4 months ago

I had a friend who worked at a nutritional store (like GNC). Returns were common, particularly when people would buy multiple of an item, not like it, and return the unopened ones. They processed the returns by marking on the original receipt with a mark next to the ones returned so they couldn't be returned again. Scammers figured out how to whitewash the marker off and what they would do is buy stuff online from another retailer or in bulk for ultra cheap, then return to this store for full price for a tidy profit. I happened to be picking my friend up from shift when the manager was brainstorming with the employees about it. I laughingly told 'em to hole-punch the item returned & see the scammers try to whitewash that. Manager loved the idea; it ended up getting adopted across the district so I'm guessing he got a bonus.

8points

RedBadgerCan'tSwim 4 months ago (edited)

I used to work at a sporting goods/outdoor store. There was a 3 day fair held near us with lots of d***s and nudity and no showers. People would come in and buy all their camping supplies before the fair and then come back afterwards and try to return it all. Nothing they brought back was still saleable, it was dirty and stunk of d***s and sweat and other stuff. After three years, management got tired of it and put up signs before the fair saying no camping supplies will be returned if opened. I don't know why it took three years.

6points

Sophia Athene 2 months ago

I'm going to hell... I thought d***s was d-r-u-g-s as usual. But then it stunk of d***s and all I could think was that it stunk of d-i-c-k-s, esp. since there was lots of nudity too. I suppose it works both ways depending on which ones partake of...

0points

Load More Replies...

SoMrHarris 4 months ago

I used to work Security at a Supermarket, and would see all these and more. Best one I had was a guy came in, covered in bleach, claiming the bag ripped and bottle exploded. Reviewed CCTV and right under the camera had him changing out of his clothes into ones that were already bleached marked, pouring loads of bleach over his hands, face and body, and then smashing the bottle on the floor. He was demanding thousands in damages. Annoying part - Head Office paid him despite the CCTV.

6points

censorshipsucks 4 months ago

My story. When I first started my company I was doing webpages (this is like 20 years ago) and my policy was for small websites people could have the first month free so that they could get on their feet in terms of business. Thereafter the monthly hosting was about $5/mo. Not a lot to ask. This one guy phoned me solid for two to three months to not only build and edit his website, but every time I mentioned him paying, he avoided or promised or whatever. Eventually I said to him pay or your site goes down. When it went down (because he didnt pay), he had the cheek to phone me about bad customer service. FYOU BUDDY. BYE.

5points

Douglas Tucker 4 months ago

What is missing here are the great stories from Costco of folks returning items after many years/decades of use and misuse. Many stories are now coming out to the public on how lenient the Costco returns policy is and how some of these Costco returning customers should get an Academy Awards of Scaming.

4points

Sophia Athene 2 months ago

Perfect SNL skit!

0points

Load More Replies...

Steve Kenney 4 months ago

I work retail in a well know store with numbers in the name. Had a guy come in to buy chips, didn't have enough, left. I figured he wasn't coming back. He came back an hour later tried to buy chips and claimed they were on another shelf with a cheaper price. I showed him the price where the chips were and he accused me of moving an entire shelf of chips to the other higher price just so he didn't get the cheaper price. On a Saturday night, by myself this is what he claims I spent my time doing while he was gone.

4points

Lace Neil 4 months ago

A couple attempted to steal diesel by filling up and driving off. Unfortunately, their car was a petrol car and their engine was totalled as a result. So they destroyed their car and got nicked for bilking.

4points

Blue Flower 4 months ago

We cleaned out our house because we had more stuff than we should, I called the Salvation Army to come and get all our stuff, they said they were sending a large enough truck to get all of it. To be fair, we were both professionals, very nice clothes, I had them dry cleaned before donating them and we had some really nice furniture and stereo equipment to donate. Salvation Army showed up, cherry picked through the things that were of most value and left. NEVER EVER AGAIN 😡

4points

Laserleader 4 months ago

That would never happen in my hometown. The salvation army moves their people around every few years, so it sounds like there was a bad set of Major's in charge. Next time just drop it off at the store, they can dump whatever they don't want.

0points

Load More Replies...

Richard Graham 4 months ago (edited)

I used to work at the Front Desk at a large Hotel. You would not BELIEVE the scams! Here is my favorite: Marriott allows employees and their immediate family members to stay for $35 a night. Word got out because every night I had a steady stream of people "My (Aunt/Uncle/whatever) works as a (housekeeper/manager/whatever) at the Marriott in (insert city at the other end of the county). Gimme my $35 room." I would require proof of the relationship or say I'm calling that hotel, and they'd sneak off. One night a teenage boy came in, plunked down $35 cash, and loudly told me he was the Regional Manager for Marriott. When I would not rent him a room for $35 cash he loudly demanded my name and said he would fire me right then if I would not give him a room. I offered him a room at the highest rate possible, and asked for his credit card. He reminded me he was the Regional Manager and I am about to lose my job. I called Security over and held firm. He held on for twenty minutes before leaving, yelling at me that he will fire me.

3points

Richard Graham 4 months ago

Marriott fixed this problem by offering the family rate only through a pre-paid reservation.

2points

Load More Replies...

Gonzo Henson 4 months ago

Yoinks ago, I worked in a home entertainment store as a slight-step-up-from-rock-bottom-clerk. One regular would come in frequently, in the middle of the day, and was suspected of tag-switching. His items would always scan at one price but would have a discounted price tag on them. Hmmmm..... He would always act surprised and lean into how respectable he was. A Doctor! (A gynecologist, even). And how nice he was to the cashiers, chatting them up, bringing them homemade cookies. (*cough* distraction techniques *cough*), Anyway, floor managers would always override the price discrepancy because they couldn't prove he was doing it and pricing clerks occasionally made errors. We hated it and we all had the ick. Finally, my boss had enough and said, "I don't care if we don't have proof. We need to get rid of him. But, I don't want to do it, so you do it. Just don't say why." So, I did it. I told him that we were "declining his business from now on."

3points

Gonzo Henson 4 months ago

He pretended to be confused but finally accepted it, the icked out cashiers were happy, and I got to go on break. And, no, nobody ever ate the homemade gynecologist cookies.

3points

Load More Replies...

Mr. Jones 4 months ago

I used to work at The Gap in the mid 90s. Horrible company. Horrible experience. Anyway, it was downtown Chicago and we had a few stores within a few city blocks of each other. At the time The Gap had a very lenient return policy and didn't require the receipts. If you returned it with a receipt you got all your money back. No receipt we would scan the SKIM code and give you what it was worth at the time of return. There was a scam group of employees helping their friends steal from one store and return to another. I caught on when I caught one of our employees helping someone steal. The security guard was in on it too. No skin off my back or money out of my pocket. That was one of the most toxic places I ever worked and every single employee was robbing them blind. I finally just walked out and I took all the clothes the staff was hiding in the stock room waiting for the prices to drop and put them back on the floor.

3points

kath morgan 4 months ago

I work at a non profit’s retail store and unfortunately people try to rip us off all the time. One popular tactic is to remove price tags, then ask for the price in the hopes I’ll quote something cheaper. They’ll also often hide priced stuff inside the bags of stuff sold by-the-bag. And… we recently had a member (who already get a massive discount) modify the date on their membership card to avoid paying for renewal. They got away with over $400 worth of goods before they got caught.

3points

Laserleader 4 months ago

Guy ordered Chinese food, we picked it up and tried to deliver, but he didn't answer door. We called him he said he was standing outside his door and "looking up the street" and couldn't see the address on his house, but the delivery driver was looking at the address on the building. Eventually he walked up from BEHIND HIS HOUSE to the driveway where he got his food and paid cash. Then called and tried to get the driver to pay him back $20 of the $110 bill because he didn't get all his food. We said we aren't the restaurant, and we can refund the $5 delivery if there was a problem with that. He said the delivery was fine but since the restaurant (which realized he was a lying scammer) hung up on him it was our responsibility to pay him. I told him I'm not making my driver pay him $20 out of their pocket, and he rampaged by text for a while before I blocked him.

1point

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