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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.".

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.

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.

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".

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

"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.

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.

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.