Customer service horror stories - Let's hear them

Mike403Mike403
in General

Mine is with Comcast/XFINITY

I wanted to switch to them because they offer faster internet speeds than what I have. The tech that came out told me that it is not available at my location even though I used to have it when I moved in back in 2007. He then told me that the box outside was broken and he'll have to put a ticket in to get it repaired.

I get texts telling me to call XFinity to provide more info. I do and after they verify my address, they try to pitch other services such as their mobile phone service to me and they won't take "I'm not interested" for an answer. They can't get the service I signed up for working but will launch high pressure sales tactics to try to get me to sign up for more services.

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Comments

  • SoosonSooson

    Yea Comcast is a jungle. I actually never had an issue with a field rep. but the phone "support" is a different story. endless VRU menus that their only goal is to prevent you from getting to a rep. Poor communications between department, issues with scheduling / planning of neighborhood upgrade (text messages with wrong dates and times).

    As a side note: I used to cuddle a Comcast employee on another site. and she also complained about them...

  • Minestrone101Minestrone101

    I'm addicted to some YouTube channels that talk about real life horror or creepy stories. I might post a video soon.

  • [Deleted User]avebae (deleted user)
    edited December 2023

    Mine is from when I worked at Pacific Sunwear in 2018. I was a senior in HS and usually the only one working in the store as it was pretty slow. One night, a lady came in and stole about 3 shirts and a pair of pants. Not too unusual, but along with that, she left a puddle of pee and a used pregnancy test in the dressing room. It was negative. Good for her I guess.

    Edit: I thought this thread was like general horror stories from working in customer service LOL reading is fundamental 💔 I haven't ever really had an issue w customer service though. But I hate when I'm trying to contact a company and they have me either talk to a robot or have no phone number 😑 Or when I walk into a store and the employees just look at you like: 😐

  • SunsetSnugglesSunsetSnuggles

    Ugh, I once went to a restaurant in Florida and after dropping off the menu, the waitress never came back. I waited and waited and had the menu on the edge of the table, clearly ready to order. No water, nothing, and when she finally appeared, it was to gush over two huskies that walked into the restaurant with their owners. Not service dogs, clearly pets. She knelt down and was petting them and talking to the owners for ages. I was the only other person in the restaurant. When she was done getting dog fur everywhere, she still never came over. I finally called her over and ordered...shocker, the food was terrible. 😆 I had to, again, call her over after waiting and waiting and waiting for the check. I thought about doing a dine 'n dash for the first time in my life, it was such a craptacular waste of time and unprofessional experience. It was the only time I've ever not left a tip.

    ~ Sunset Snuggles

    🦄 Enthusiast 🏞 Travel Fiend 🐘 Animal Lover

  • Mike403Mike403
    edited December 2023

    @SunsetSnuggles - That happened to me out an Outback Steakhouse. The manager eventually came over and said they were taking care of dinner for me so I didn't have to pay. I wonder if that came out of somebody's paycheck.

    edit: being ignored that is... no dogs in my experience.

  • JohnR1972JohnR1972

    @Minestrone101
    Are you referring to Mr. Ballen and Mr. Nightmare?
    My daughter and I watch the new Mr. Ballen video every Sunday night. For my birthday she bought me a Mr. Ballen hoodie and a ticket to his 1st livestream event.

  • NickWkNickWk

    Don’t even get me started with Comcast. I tried them once, had a whole bunch of services ported over and get billed by them and my former provider. Long story short, they showed up to my house installed a bunch of stuff, left the old equipment alone and it continued to work and never finished the port. Well, for months Comcast is billing me and I am on the phone at least once a week as they threaten to send me to collections if I refuse to pay. I can’t say how many different people I talked to but no one was able to help. Took a FCC complaint to have someone figure it out and call me to apologize.

  • PsycadelicDreamPsycadelicDream
    edited December 2023

    Im at rite aid... I'm checking out(during christmas Holiday).. The lady who is checking me out does not speak English fluently.. Then I finished checking out with my EBT card. Then she looks at my EBT balance then says 'wow that a lot of money' ... First of all EBT pays at max $300 per month,.per person and my balance was like $134 at the time. How is $134 in EBT a lot of money... Maybe if it said $1 billion then I would be like yeah thats kinda a lot of money ... Anyways I felt humiliated.. I went to the manager and I was like your employee doesn't speak fluent English and read my EBT balance out loud. I told the manager I live in extreme poverty and that what she did was embarrassing... then another coworker comes over [angry] gets in my face about it... Just starts unloading her own issues on to me, during the Christmas holidays knowing I live off EBT... Then I leave the store... None of the employees apologize. The next day I walk to buy a drink and there is [someone] stealing from the store... They didn't care... The didn't approach the person... [other people] worked there and they didn't care... But when I walk in with an EBT card, all hell breaks loose. […]

    Reported and reviewed. Removed references to different races and ethnic groups, as well as a religious reference. Please manage the way you speak on here. I know you are frustrated but still… [CharlieBear]

  • SunsetSnugglesSunsetSnuggles

    @PsycadelicDream That method of payment should not be acknowledged verbally by store employees, and you may file a complaint of discrimination, here:

    https://www.usda.gov/oascr/filing-program-discrimination-complaint-usda-customer

    ~ Sunset Snuggles

    🦄 Enthusiast 🏞 Travel Fiend 🐘 Animal Lover

  • JustPlaneCuddleJustPlaneCuddle

    I could go on about AT&T for eight pages. TLDR version : It took three years to get a phone line fixed after we got hit by lightning. It took a year for them to fully do away with our fax line. When we asked them to cancel our landlines, they canceled our mobile lines and we lost access to the only phone numbers work contacts and doctors had to get a hold of us. BIG mess. Never again.

  • [Deleted User]SmokyQuartz (deleted user)

    I worked at Dollar General in grad school. Making $7.25 an hour.

    My manager, at closing asked me to come to the men’s restroom. It was cover in feces. I mean covered. The toilet, the walls, the door handle. Smeared everywhere. He asked me to clean it before leaving.

    I quit that second and left.

  • KamikaziNinja86KamikaziNinja86

    Went to an IHOP once with a big group (20+) of people. Our waiter was obviously a new kid but after taking the order we waited over an hour for our food and saw multiple table come and go before we ever got it. Then when we finally did get it they brought out the 4 kids (ranging from 2-7) food last. The only thing the manager said was that it took so long because we were a big group.

    That is the only time I have not left a tip.

  • DaringSprinterDaringSprinter

    @KamikaziNinja86, I feel your pain. I too have taken a gigantic group to a restaurant and loaded up a newbie with 20+ orders only to be affronted by the fact that the massive amount of food thus ordered didn't arrive rapidly enough or in the order I wanted!

    It's terrible that customer service workers dare to act like they have human limitations. Really, what do they think they're being paid for?

  • i_gallivanti_gallivant
    edited December 2023

    Three months ago I deigned to visit a nearby Burger King. It had been many moons since my last visit, which was an altogether unpleasant affair; the food was of a poor quality, and the service abysmal. And yet, I felt compelled to return. Perhaps it was an imp of the perverse that spurred me to action. In any case, upon my arrival, I exited my palanquin and strode into the eatery with confidence that things would be better this time. How wrong I was.

    The door shut behind me, and none of the young serfs greeted me in the proper manner. That is to say, no fanfare announced my arrival; the rings adorning my delicate fingers went unkissed; my bare feet went unwashed. I clapped my hands expectantly, and the poxy waif at the register only cocked her head, perplexed. "What do you want?" She blurted.

    I scoffed. "Is it not your function to anticipate my wishes? To see that my deepest desires come to fruition? I thought that my longings would be made manifest here, plucked from the realm of fantasy and given shape in stark reality—have I come to the wrong place?"

    "Yes." She said. I harrumphed.

    "I'll have an Improbable Burger."

    The clerk blinked in confusion. "Do you mean an Impossible Whopper?"

    I laughed, "Surely not, young lady. I expect very little of this squalid eatery—the impossible is quite beyond any of your capabilities. No, no, I see that I must content myself with the improbable."

    "Great. That will be eight dollars."

    "Hugh! Hugh!" I called, ringing a little bell. One of my servants who had been hauling my palanquin hurried into the Burger King with a sack full of coinage, which he plopped onto the counter.

    "How many francs does that come out to, dear woman?" I asked.

    "Eight dollars."

    "Mayhaps you would prefer Deutschmarks? You have something of the brute about you."

    "I would prefer eight dollars."

    "Hugh, pay the girl. And then attend to the condiment counter. I will require twenty little cups of thickened tomato puree. You may have two, but no more."

    The Improbable Whopper took an astounding amount of time to produce. Four minutes. I felt as if all of Greenland had melted away between my order and the food being deposited at my table—which lacked a silken cloth, candles, and even the most miniscule trace of silver. I had my boy, Hugh, chew for me, as he so often does.

    "Despicable." I said, after Hugh transferred the morsel into my mouth with a cacophony of gurgles and grunts. "Truly abominable."

    I finished the quasi-beef Wellington ensemble, and departed, making sure to leave the place another poor review on my computational device.

  • BearBear

    @i_gallivant nice story. I now know what a palanquin is. Sure it wasn’t at the Renaissance fair this happened.?

  • lesmis33lesmis33
    edited December 2023

    @i_gallivant @DaringSprinter :lol: the sardonic wit. I love it.

  • Mike403Mike403

    Seems about right:

  • KamikaziNinja86KamikaziNinja86

    @DaringSprinter

    Have you ever worked in the food industry? Doesn't matter how new you are, common sense says you always bring out the kids food first, especially if the people have been waiting that long.

    Yes, new people make mistakes. But when it takes over an hour to get food at IHOP that's only half full, that's a big one.

  • DaringSprinterDaringSprinter

    Exactly right, @KamikaziNinja86. It's simple common sense! Every human on earth knows instinctively that, in a group of 20+ people, the orders of the ones under ten years old should be prioritized. No one could ever forget that.

    And imagine taking care of smaller, faster groups rather than focusing all your efforts on the huge one! Everyone knows that large groups get tired of waiting faster than small groups. The boredom of having 20+ people to interact with as you wait really cannot be overstated. Furthermore, consider the gall the kitchen staff must have had to act like a huge batch of orders all at once was any kind of strain!

    Everyone knows things never go wrong in IHOP kitchens. The staff don't get burns or cuts, ingredients don't run out or go bad, nothing ever breaks.

    Even if it did, they're restaurant staff! They're paid to give you exactly what you want without letting their humanity impact your experience! The whole point of going to a restaurant isn't to have someone else do the cooking: it's to have your food magically appear as though a Star Trek replicator were fulfilling your order.

    How dare they have a bad day? You were absolutely right to penalize them financially.

  • cocoabombcocoabomb

    Customer service horror stories are on both sides.
    I went to a local sit down pizza chain last Saturday night about 9 pm.
    All alone.
    Only a few tables had people, maybe 10% of the room.
    Seated immediately.
    Great staff.
    Table across from me had 7 people— 2 adults, a teen and 4 kids under 10.
    It took them an hour to get their 8 large pizzas.
    Their drinks and shared pastas and appetizers were out earlier.
    Nobody starved.
    The guy was still fuming.
    The staff had told them before being seated there was just an order of 50 pizzas placed.
    It would be a wait.
    No surprise.
    He still got their entire order free.
    Staff boxed up his leftovers into 2 large bags.
    The manager really just wanted him out.
    He started sniping to me about the staff.
    I finally told him to shut up and leave me alone.
    He swore at me for disrespecting him.
    Then he became belligerent when his wife tried to shush him.
    Staff went to manager.
    Manager told him to leave as a police car pulled in the lot.
    He didn’t leave a tip for his server.
    She’d been taking care of his table for 2 hours.
    I could never be waitstaff.
    They are constantly abused.
    Customer service horror stories are on both sides.
    ((The server was taken care of, that is all.))

  • TheFunCartelTheFunCartel

    Bravo @cocoabomb. Too many entitled people these days with a few George Washingtons in their wallet that feel that entitles them to boss around and abuse workers of all stripes. These places are understaffed now days and people act surprised. No one really wants these jobs for the stress and abuse you endure versus the amount they are paid.

  • KamikaziNinja86KamikaziNinja86

    @DaringSprinter you must not have kids, considering you still act like one. If you don't want to hear people's bad customer service stories why come to this thread?

  • DaringSprinterDaringSprinter

    @KamikaziNinja86, once again you hit the nail on the head.

    Yes, having children is what grants maturity! No one without kids is mature and no one who has them is immature. Having children and having maturity are essentially synonymous—you can absolutely tell whether someone has children by judging their maturity.

    And again, you are absolutely right in assuming that a thread titled "Customer service horror stories" contains only stories of the affronts received by the people involved in customer service—the customers, not the service drones (who are, after all, only NPCs).

    That you punctuate your point with an ironic meme broadcasting its own uselessness is merely the icing on the cake.

    How are you so unrelentingly, wittily correct about everything? I applaud you, sir.

  • quixotic_lifequixotic_life

    @KamikaziNinja86 ~ I think that it's kinda on your party of 20+ for that one. When I've been in large dining groups we call ahead to make sure there are enough staff on hand to take care of us. At one, they called someone in just to help for our duration.

    Because if you think about it, they're staffed to cover their average clientele base. If an average table is 2 to 4 people and it takes X amount of time to seat, get silverwear, menues, waters... then X amount to take the orders, input them (and any modifications) into the system, fill drink orders, do appetizer prep... and X amount to actually prepare and plate each meal, get the correct order to each person (while still at appropriate temperature)... etc

    Take each of those times and multiply by 5. I think then you'll see that you were actually served in a timely manner overall, especially given that there was only one waiter, and they were new.

  • KamikaziNinja86KamikaziNinja86
    edited December 2023

    @quixotic_life you think over an hour to get food cooked at an IHOP for 20 people is normal? Especially when other people are coming in and being seated, ordering, getting their food, eating eat and then leave, just to have that same table seated with new people who proceed to get the done and leave before we get our food.... Blows my mind how people don't realize how restaurants work.
    No where did I say that he was the only waiter. He was just new and had the manager helping him as well. There were plenty of other servers around, we just happened to get seated in his section.

    @DaringSprinter you still have not answered anything, you've just used your wittily childish naivety to show how mature you are.

  • sunnysideupsunnysideup
    edited December 2023

    I guess I'll give one story from the perspective of an employee and one as customer.

    Once as a server at a restaurant, I delivered a several hundred dollar catering order with multiple trays of food, but received only $5 upon delivery.

    At a Gold's gym, I cancelled my monthly membership at the front desk before moving out for college. Upon coming back from college, I had discovered that multiple charges accrued on the account. I called to ask them for a refund for the absent months. Since I didn't ask for any confirmation paper or email at the front desk initially, they said they couldn't refund anything. It was my mistake for not confirming that the membership was actually cancelled, but the front desk staff's mistake for informing me incorrectly and also they showed zero sympathy for my loss of money. I told them I would be cancelling my membership and finding another gym to go to. I may or may not have disputed the charges with the bank, but I can't remember.

    @SmokyQuartz Can't blame you, that does not sound to be worth $7.25 at all. The manager should have cleaned it or hired a cleaning service to get it. It would also be nice if the public were more respectful of using establishment's restrooms.

    As far as the controversy with IHOP story, a party of 20+ is pretty big for them and would be enough to cause some chaos, particularly if the large party did not call ahead. However their order should have been prioritized above tables that arrived later unless the big party ordered a lot of complicated stuff. Like in @cocoabomb's story, perhaps a disclaimer that there would be longer than normal wait time could have smoothed things over

  • JohnR1972JohnR1972

    @KamikaziNinja86

    Blows my mind how people don't realize how restaurants work.

    I am very familiar with how restaurants work and I have to agree with @quixotic_life

    She is 100% correct about restaurants staffing for historical average customer demand. I can’t say for sure about iHop but I know some restaurants will work in smaller (normal sized) orders for 1-4 customers rather than making those customers wait on the mega order.

    How many 20 seat tables does iHop (or any restaurant) have compared to how many 4 seat tables? That is because 4 (or less) is the normal party size and a party of 20 is very rare in comparison and restaurants don’t normally staff for that.

    Do you seriously think your server let your party’s food sit on the counter for 30+ minutes or is it more infinitely more likely the delay was due to issues in the kitchen? Then why take it out on the server by not leaving a tip for the person who served you?

    In the words of Dave Ramsey, “How you tip says much more about you than your server.”

  • sunnysideupsunnysideup
    edited December 2023

    @JohnR1972 Agreed on the tipping bit. Sometimes, people leave poor tips to servers at restaurants if the food is bad or came out slow. But all this does is mainly punish the server who is usually guilt-free about these things (unless they forgot to put in the order, which can happen sometimes, but there is no way to know this). If punishing the restaurant is the goal, you can do so by just not returning, or if the food is that bad possibly asking to speak to a manager for a refund (but this takes extra effort)

    @SunsetSnuggles That sounds like an appropriate time to not leave a tip. Being ignored at restaurants is a really bad feeling for some reason.

  • KamikaziNinja86KamikaziNinja86

    @JohnR1972 I live in Utah, home to the baby factory Mormons who have big families. It's normal here for big groups of 10, 15 or 20 people.

    I've been to many other restaurants (with actual food to cook) with groups just as big and got our food with appetizers in half the time.

  • quixotic_lifequixotic_life

    @KamikaziNinja86 ~ Apologies for not being clear. I figured there were other wait staff, I meant just the one for your 20+ party.
    And whether that many people is a reoccurance or not, if you call ahead, you (and the establishment) will be better prepared for your visit.

    And fwiw, you lose out on respect & empathy when you make it personal (presuming to know what ones knowledge, work history, or lived experience might be), and change your narrative to try and seem correct/make a point.

    Really, if it's a crap idea to you, just don't use it. I was merely commenting to offer another perspective as well as to make a suggestion that's worked for me more than once (and was always appreciated when I worked in the industry - which just so happened to be in Utah).

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