When things go smoothly I quite enjoy selling things and dealing with the general public, but sometimes I come across a customer who makes me want to laugh and pull my hair out at the same time. I also quite enjoy reading about others misfortunes with dealing with customers who appear to be on a different planet than the rest of us!

I think we should award a customer every month with a little trophy. It should be named 'Dumbass Customer of the Month - Congratulations on making it this far'. Of course I am open to suggestions for humorous titles. lol

Let me hear your stories

I served petrol to a woman with an old stylee Beetle. She was shocked when I opened the bonnet & there was no engine!

..seriously

Me: My developers think what you're asking for is actually impossible.

Client: OK we understand. So how soon can you do it because we need it urgently?

In the early 90's, working in a mining area, chap comes into the Estate Agent's office that I was working on. Property Market in the area deader than a dead whale.

Chap: Ayup, Your trying to sell xxxxxx for me.
ME: Aye sir, sadly no interest at all. It might be time to look at the price or doing something different with the marketing.
Chap; I agree. Know look here, son, this here article in the Sun, tells me that house prices have gone up by 2% in the last month. I want to increase my house price.
Me: You do realise that that's an average, and not everything you read in the Sun is true.
Chap: Aye. When will you print new brochures.....

We sell online a fair few different ranges of electrical fittings, dimmers, plug sockets etc, one recent question asked was " do I need to turn the power off to install this dimmer ?" As politely as I could we have to tell them maybe they should contact a qualified electrician to install it for them.

Another dimmer we sell is a digital one, it is imperative the live feed goes to the correct terminal otherwise at best it won't work at worst it burns out the circuitry, we point this out very clearly. We get regular phone call or emails, "my electrician as installed the switch but it doesn't work" we always ask for their electricians contact details so we can discuss the installation, to date we have not yet spoken to a qualified electrician.

Years ago I was a partner in a chain of carpet shops and one day had a bizarre phone conversation with an older lady who'd phoned looking for information on the types of animals we stocked. It took a full couple of minutes of me saying 'we don't actually stock animals, madam' and her insisting that we were advertising carpets before it dawned on me what was going on.

i had a customer wanting to return an item that his wife purchased on her credit card. i said she needed to be present in order to sign for the refund. deadly serious, he asked me if he could just forge her signature.

words failed me

Gentleman buying tyres from me asked if I could make sure I put new air in them as he suspected they had been on the shelf for a while and he wanted them to be as fresh as possible, also make sure I either add or remove air to get the pressures right.

When asked what he meant he said "well, I know tyres come with a certain amount of air in them from the factory" and he "just needs the air to be right as he has had trouble with flat tyres before".

Few years ago I used to repair mobility equipment. I got used to the elderly not understanding things, we are all going to get old, I never worried about it and 99% were very super people to deal with.

But one guy (not an old guy, about 40 but had lost a leg) got me - he'd had a mobility scooter for a couple of weeks, rang in to say it wouldn't work.
I went out and found the motor and electronic control box full of snow.
When I told him this he said that he had been told not to take it out in the rain but it was snow not rain.

Dealing with the old dears was easy but how do you tell a 40 year old that he is stupid?

Brake discs too small but fitted them anyway, pad only half touched disc and he returned after two weeks as they didn't seem right.
Guy welded a pad on as it didn't fit
Once increased the price of an item from £7 to £1007 to prevent a sale and someone bought it and paid(happened a few times but only once paid)
Guy tells me I've sent an item to his old address and asks why I'd do that, politely tell him it's the address he instructed us to send it to for him to tell me no it wasn't why would I do that when I moved 2 years ago. I said so how would I possibly send to your old address when this is our first transaction for him to tell me it must be a coincidence.
Guy buys an item Tuesday 9am and wants to know why he hasn't received it later that day(we are mail order using rm)
Woman returns an item to us that we don't sell, I explain we don't sell this widget would you like me to send it back or forward it on. She tells me to stop messing her around or she will go to pay pal and get her money back.
Guy started court proceedings over a £8 postal order he sent us which we never got, long story but it ended up being returned to him I presume by rm and he accused us of driving down and returning to avoid court.
Not a customer but a supplier, sent a blank purchase order sheet which I quickly corrected by sending correct purchase order. Company get second order and that arrives fine next day, following day 5 pallets turn up that ive. not ordered from same company. Company had seen first tab on the excel sheet called purchase order was empty so looked on second sheet called total ordered to date and send me all that. A £15000 order when at that point we was spending about £500 each order got sent unquestioned.