'You are never allowed in our store again': 20+ Workers who told customers to get out

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Jul 15, 2025 11:00 AM EDT

Retail workers wish they had more say over how customers are allowed to treat them. A lot of customers are just awful towards workers: they enjoy the power trip of shouting at a teenager who's making minimum wage and just trying to get through their shift. It's not like their problems ever get solved by throwing a fit, either. If something is out of stock, or they want to return an item 5 years after they bought it, there's just nothing to be done about it. That won't stop cranky customers from yelling about it until they're blue in the face, though. 

Keep scrolling to read a bunch of stories of people whose retail work led them to meet the most irritating customers in existence. These are those sweet, precious times where they actually told the customer to get out of the store (and some didn't even bother to tell them that nicely, and chose other phrasings instead). 

Next, read about some airline passengers who had very bad flights, like one person who realized that '[A passenger] was singing the SAME line over and over: "It's a small world after all."'

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  • 01

    "Retail workers... what was your 'GET THE **** OUT' experience with a customer?"

    Bootstrings A guy I knew who worked at Dunkin Donuts would use the line: "my manager says I only get to tell one customer to f off a year, and I'm not gonna waste it on you." Not quite the the right type of answer, but relevant.
    via u/Bootstrings
  • 02

    This must've been the craziest time to work there!

    fernyer I worked at McDonalds in 1997 and we had Beanie Babies as happy meal toys. at one point. It was insane. They literally had to buy a security cage to keep the toys locked down in the back. They were delivered with a security People were ordering "100 happy meals with no food"
    via u/fernyer
  • 03
    because we couldn't sell the toys by themselves. One day I heard a commotion up front and found my high school counselor reaching across. the counter grabbing one of the owners by the shirt because we were out of the pink flamingo. I'll never forget the look in her eyes.
    via u/fernyer
  • 04
    She had to be dragged out. It's scary how easy it can be to work people up into a frenzy.
    via u/fernyer
  • 05
    DarekLowbrow Worked at Radioshack for 6 months while in college. Pretty much had at least one terrible experience per shift. The one that stands out the most was a guy who wanted us to honor the warranty on his iPhone cable. The thing was a mutilated mess. It had clearly stopped working and he had tried to fix it himself by cutting the cable apart
    via u/DarekLowbrow
  • 06
    and attempting to solder two wires together. We calmly explained that we couldn't process a claim for an item that was willfully destroyed, and he starts screaming in our faces about how "Radioshack is a scam!" and "I'm going to sue all of you!" And then he tries to WHIP my coworker (a 5 ft tall non-threatening woman) with the cable! She managed to turn her head
    via u/DarekLowbrow
  • 07
    and catch the wire with her hand before it caught her in the face. Myself and another employee chased him out of the store and called the police but nothing came of it. Radioshack shoppers were the worst.
    via u/DarekLowbrow
  • 08
    Triangle_Graph Two women came into the store screaming at each other. As I'm coming out from the back, I gather from the yelling that one had nearly hit the other's car. Nearly, but no actually incident had occurred. It was a busy Saturday, people are starting to stare. I'm trying to gather my wits, thinking how best to handle it, when my manager came
    via u/Triangle_Graph
  • 09
    flying in from nowhere. She just yells, "Either come in here and shop like people or go outside with the rest of the animals!" One left, one stayed.
    via u/Triangle_Graph
  • 10
    GingerWon I worked at a ski resort when I was younger, fitting boots and sizing skis, etc, a ski rental shop. My first year I worked at basically the wal mart of rentals, the cheapest option and the biggest store. So the week of Christmas, there are lines out the door every single day. I remember seeing my two week paycheck after the two weeks around Xmas and
    via u/GingerWon
  • 11
    I worked 119 hours. It was absolute insanity. For another reference, the closest town had a permanent residency of less than 10k people, but during Christmas it jumped up to 70k people trying to enjoy their vacation in the same spot. So one of these days it's business as usual, a quarter mile line out the door, non stop craziness. I'm at the
    via u/GingerWon
  • 12
    bench closest to the door, helping a lady when this kid walks up to my bench. I asked if I could help him and he said he had reserved rentals online and he wanted to pick them up. I said this is our store name, if that's where you reserved you'll need to get in the back of the line and we'll help you as soon as we can. This 13 year old kid said "this is bulls in front of the customer I was helping. I
    via u/GingerWon
  • 13
    told him that quite literally every piece of equipment in our store was reserved, every single person in front of you has a reservation as well and we have to help everyone. He started insulting me personally, saying I was a stupid b and that he was going to report us to anyone he could because we weren't letting him skip hundreds of people doing the exact same thing he was doing.
    via u/GingerWon
  • 14
    I think what ped him off more is that I'm 6'3" and big. He was maybe 5' something and 120 lbs. so when he called me a stupid b I, I literally laughed in his face. I was at no point threatened by this child, and at first it was funny. The First Lady left, I'm ignore- laughing at this kid and asking the next person to come up and he starts yelling cuss words at me because I'm not helping him.
    via u/GingerWon
  • 15
    Up until this point, my manager had been a complete and I was not a fan of him. But he'd had enough of the Christmas rush as well and it was a perfect person to let off some steam on. I went and got my manager and told him this kid was personally attacking me and yelling cuss words in front of customers, so he walks up to the kid and says "I'm sorry for the confusion,
    via u/GingerWon
  • 16
    what's your name so I can take a look at your reservation?" And the kid lights up thinking he finally beat the system and he gets in front of everyone for throwing a b fit. My manager goes and finds his reservation (it's digital but I'm pretty sure he printed it off for the added dramatic effect), comes back and says "I found it." He proceeds to rip it in half in
    via u/GingerWon
  • 17
    front of his face, "don't ever treat someone that's trying to help you like that, you are never allowed in our store again, and with every other store in town also being completely 100% booked on equipment, good luck skiing this week." I still didn't like the guy, but I respected him one point more for the rest of the season for standing up for me.
    via u/GingerWon
  • 18

    This is a legendary fail that the employees will laugh about forever

    Lucasaurusaweso... I worked in a T-Mobile store. A lady comes in screaming about how she bought a phone the previous day, didn't buy insurance and dropped it in a pool. She was demanding I give her a new phone for free. But, she wasn't even our customer.
    via u/Lucasaurusawesome

    They'll tell stories of this woman around the campfire (or, you know, the break room table). And be warned, terrible customers: the bigger of a fit you throw, the harder the employees will roast you later on. You will never win in their eyes. 

  • 19
    She was a Verizon customer. She screamed at me for about ten minutes demanding I call our manager. She then started yelling at other customers about how awful we were. Called the cops.
    via u/Lucasaurusawesome
  • 20
    Fiber_fan This tale takes place roughly 22 years ago at a community college bookstore. As with any college bookstore, the start of the semesters were incredibly busy. In order to help ease the insanity in our small store, we set up a table outside the front door for doing returns. And that's
    via u/Fiber_fan
  • 21
    where I was stationed for the day. People got in line. The got to me. I processed the paperwork for their return and sent them inside for the cashiers. This is an important point. I had no cash, no ability to process. cards. Just me, a table, a stack of paper, and some pens. That's it.
    via u/Fiber_fan
  • 22
    Well, a middle aged lady gets to me. She is obviously not lacking in funds. Her son has dropped all his classes and she is returning his books. Ok. Cool. I do all the paperwork, hand her back the document and direct her inside. And she goes BALLISTIC that she has to wait in line again. I mean starting nuclear wars ballistic. The customers in line behind her
    via u/Fiber_fan
  • 23
    actually went to my manager to file formal statements about her behavior. Not mine. Hers. Because they knew..... I take a break and shake it off. Everyone has bad days. And I know that I have the customers's statements to back me up. A few days pass and the manager gets a call.
    via u/Fiber_fan
  • 24
    It's the president of the college. With a complaint. THE WOMAN CALLED THE PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE TO COMPLAIN ABOUT ME. So my manager and I head off to a meeting with the president and the woman. We walked in calm and polite. The woman tells her tirade, still screaming and cursing. My manager pulls out the statements and without a
    via u/Fiber_fan
  • 25
    word, hands them to the president. The president calmly read them. I don't remember exactly what he said, but I do remember watching the woman turn more and more red. I do remember the word "entitled" used a whole lot. And I do remember him saying "Don't waste my time ever again." before he showed her the door.
    via u/Fiber_fan
  • 26
    not... I worked at a a couple years. We had a customer shop for a chainsaw which turned up stolen and was confiscated by police which causes the store to lose money and police to be aware that he is a known thief. He came back something close to three months later
    via u/notsurethepoint
  • 27
    to something else. I didn't recognize him right away. I asked him if he had pawned anything before and he said yes, so I asked his last name and entered it into our computer system which promptly said STOLEN. First I thought, "Really? You came back here?"
    via u/notsurethepoint
  • 28
    | I gave my boss (it's literally a two person store) our not very frequently used signal to discreetly call the police. Meanwhile, I started acting like I was working on his loan and stalled a bit. Just a couple minutes later, a couple police cars pulled up and officers quietly walked in and he immediately gave up.
    via u/notsurethepoint
  • 29
    I didn't really have to say anything to him. The handcuffs spoke for themselves.
    via u/notsurethepoint
  • 30
    gsg4n1 It couldn't have been more obvious that a guy was trying to return stolen merchandise. He "lost" the receipt, didn't know when it was purchased, paid with cash so we couldn't just easily look up the transaction on a credit card... He said he would call his friend to ask if they knew
    via u/gsg4n1
  • 31
    when it was purchased, and then he took out his iPhone and without pressing a button started to talk on it. I was like...I can clearly see the home screen with no call happening.
    via u/gsg4n1
  • 32
    When he "got off the phone" I got a little bold and in my best retail manager voice said something to the effect of, "oh that's cool! Is that a new update where you can talk to someone without actually calling them?" He left after that.
    via u/gsg4n1
  • 33
    Tumbling-Dice When they try a quick change scam. Here's how it works There are many variations on it. It happened to me once. After the transaction, something didn't feel right about it so I called my supervisor. We reviewed the security footage and I was in fact taken for $20. The guy came back two weeks later
    via u/Tumbling-Dice
  • 34
    and tried it again with another employee and she was tricked as well. He came by a third time and his trick didn't work since we were all wise to it now. The owners and my supervisor immediately rushed downstairs and chased the guy for a couple of blocks.
    via u/Tumbling-Dice
  • 35
    any_means_neces... I used to work for Qwik Lube in Alaska for a boss named John who was a decent manager and enjoyed handling customers. He was professional and kind and knowledgeable but LOVED to tell the couple stories of customers he told off. The coldest move was a customer who was berating him. Customer reached out
    via u/any_means_necessary
  • 36
    and stuffed a business card into John's shirt pocket, demanding to SEE THE BOSS RIGHT NOW. John said he took the card back out, shoved it THAT guy's pocket, and said "the buck stops here get the f out of my shop". I've carried that as a reminder that professionals take sh as part of their job, but nobody should take too much.
    via u/any_means_necessary
  • 37
    thi... I worked at a BBQ restaurant for my first job. We had a take out area where the customer can watch you cut the meat and pack the side dishes. The girl at the register rang up a quart of potato salad when the customer asked for pasta salad, so I pack potato salad. When the customer received his order he look through it and flipped sh
    via u/thisisinput
  • 38
    when he saw potato salad and started screaming at me go figure. Unbeknownst to all of us the owner of the store heard the commotion and was on the other side of the swing door behind me which had a small window. The angry customer decided to throw a quart of potato salad at me which I ducked to avoid. It splattered against the window on the swing door as the owner
    via u/thisisinput
  • 39
    was looking out of it. He burst through the door (he is 6'4 and very built), grabbed this scrawny dude by his shirt collar and he had straight fear in his eyes. My boss literally threw him out the door. Went back to the register to ask the girl what his totally was, grabbed the cash, and tossed it out the door at the angry customer as he was collecting himself off the ground. It was an awesome scene.
    via u/thisisinput
  • 40
    TL;DR My former boss threw a customer out the door after the customer threw potato salad at me.
    via u/thisisinput
  • 41
    [de... Was a supervisor in a store where people could trade in goods for other second hand stuff. One guy stands out and I had a lot of imbeciles I dealt with over my seven years there. This guy had previously brought a phone from us and came back demanding we give him his money back or a new phone as the one
    via u/[deleted]
  • 42
    we sold him had a crack. As it's secondhand we may have missed the hairline crack during our testing, no biggie, so we swapped it. Thought that was the end. About a month later he's the first customer of the day, and he is cussing us out because his phone isn't working. He has a warranty so we take the phone, open up the casing, and what do we see. The phone is water
    via u/[deleted]
  • 43
    damaged. 100% not how we would have sold it since that is the first thing checked during a test. We tell him his warranty is void. Him and his wife freak out and start shouting, saying they'll stay there all day and tell others to not shop with us. I'm like you're wasting your time, at least I'm paid to be here. Obviously doesn't like that but he also slips up by saying:
    via u/[deleted]
  • 44
    "If I had known it was water damaged don't you think I would have pulled the sticker off so you guys wouldn't notice." Guy straight up confirms. he's a fraud. Keeps demanding his money back. At this point I call centre security, tell them what's up. They come in and say he has to leave. He's like this is a public place. I decide to chime in and state this is
    via u/[deleted]
  • 45
    private property, he's banned, and he can GTFO. Guy won't leave when security demand it so they get on the radio to the cops as the guy is now technically trespassing. His dumb harpy of a wife screeches at him, and they both hightail it out. All before I'd had my morning tea.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 46
    msblackwine He got in my face, physically, to intimidate me. When I didn't back down, he resorted to telling me I'm fat and unpleasant. All because he wanted a free replacement of a 15 year old item that he'd used to hl and back. Things is, if he'd be a normal human and not put his weasely face kissing distance from mine while
    via u/msblackwine
  • 47
    yelling and spraying his spittle everywhere— I'd have worked something out for him. Instead he has a life long ban from my whole a company. Like, what made him think he could run up on me? Like that would work out for him in some way. I don't know how I had the strength not to Hit him.
    via u/msblackwine
  • 48
    Lady_Of_The_Sha... I had a customer threaten to call the cops because I wouldn't give them 50% off of a CHARITY bear on boxing day. 100% of the proceeds from these teddy bears went to the Make A Wish foundation and they were only $15. The store had a 50% off everything sale for boxing day, but it didn't include the CHARITY bears.
    via u/Lady_Of_The_Shadows
  • 49
    I add capitals because it's a charity bear...it's purpose is right in the name! I basically just kept saying "ma'am...it's a charity bear..." because I didn't know how else to explain that the point of the bear was to raise money...that seemed...obvious. People in line were starting to get really upset with her and she just started to freak right out and was starting to dial 911.
    via u/Lady_Of_The_Shadows
  • 50
    My boss, so upset (she lost a son early in life to cancer so make a wish was important to her) just gave her a bear and told her to never come back. A bunch of familiar customers of ours were so upset they pitched in the $15 without us even saying anything which was super kind of them. It was a restoration of faith in humanity, but what a nightmare for no reason. Especially on boxing day!
    via u/Lady_Of_The_Shadows
  • 51
    Vit cer GET OUT
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • 52
    SpewsHate I work at a movie theater. There were 4 preteen boys who were causing trouble. Sneaking into movies, one wouldn't put a shirt on, and they took an empty popcorn container and went to me for a refill as I was closing the popcorn counter. They had been asked to leave multiple times. "Give me a refill."
    via u/SpewsHate
  • 53
    "I'm not giving you a refill tonight." "Why not?" "You were asked to leave here already. I'm not going to give you any popcorn." "Just give me the popcorn." "No." He looked at me and chucked the popcorn container at me.
    via u/SpewsHate
  • 54
    I looked at him and screamed in my most convincing angry mom voice, "don't throw things at me and get out of here right now!" It got the attention of the other manager who was able to call security to them out.
    via u/SpewsHate
  • 55
    zombiedinosaur5 I used to work at a gas station. My first shift, this large man comes in and starts yelling for some reason and my manager on duty ejects him from the store and the man is hollering that he's never gonna buy gas from the company again. A different
    via u/zombiedinosaur5
  • 56
    time, this small lady was mad that we wouldn't accept a return with out a receipt (theft was a major problem and the company wouldn't accept returns without a receipt over $10 when it used to be $25). So this lady decided to grab the register and throw it at us working at the counter. Police got involved in that one
    via u/zombiedinosaur5
  • 57

    I'd be the upset customer here too... you can't just expect people to deviate from the norm like that without getting confused and upset

    SilentDis Owned my own restaurant. I'd kick people out weekly. "I want a burger combo and a coke" "Ok, burger combo and medium coke, $4.33." "It says $2.85!" "Yep. $2.85 is for the burger and fries. Medium Coke is $1.25. Tax is $0.23. Total is
    via u/SilentDis
  • 58
    $4.33." "The drink comes with the meal!" "No, it does not. We've got a lot better things than soda instead, so it's just burger and fries. Ever had a chocolate phosphate?" "Soda comes with the meal! Let me talk to your manager!"
    via u/SilentDis
  • 59
    Turn to my left 180 degrees Turn to my right 180 degrees "Hi, I'm the manager. Soda doesn't come with the meal." "I don't believe you, you're lying!"
    via u/SilentDis
  • 60
    "It's nice you don't believe me. I am not lying. Would you prefer to talk to the owner? Fair warning, guy's a bit of a "Don't talk to me like that! Get me the owner right away!" Turns 360 in place "Get the f out of my store."
    via u/SilentDis
  • 61
    AudioDope562 Building materials store. B2B so not much retail I guess. Guy comes in with his son, wants to buy a $2K air tool. I pretty quickly recognize he's going to attempt check/card fraud. Not a big deal, we get tried 2-3x a week for the same thing. But this guy wasn't very good at it.
    via u/AudioDope562
  • 62
    Hands me a crop looking card. Test the chip and doesn't work (I can key in the numbers and process the sale if I want). So I know for sure now its fraud but I never accuse them so I ask for cash. Most fraudsters can read my face and understand I know what they're doing. Usually they say they will go to the bank real quick and then they get lost. This guy starts
    via u/AudioDope562
  • 63
    getting aggressive. I'm fed up so I look at his son. I ask him what his name is. Juan. Then I say Juan, when you grow up you don't want to be stealing sh like your daddy. And sucking at it too. Hoo boy.
    via u/AudioDope562

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