When dealing with difficult customers, sometimes the easiest move is to follow their demands and avoid extra hassle.

So, what would you do if a customer demanded free items while simultaneously asking for all their data to be erased? Would you try to explain the contradiction? Or would you follow through exactly as they asked?

In the following story, a tech support representative finds themselves in this very dilemma. Here’s how it played out.

“Send me free chargers and delete all my data!” Ok

I worked with tech support for a phone brand some years ago, and we would sometimes send people free chargers and other things as goodwill.

It was nothing that we were forced to do.

We could just do it at our own discretion.

We would also log calls and ask customers for contact information and product information to do so.

One day I received a call from a customer who just excreted toxic energy from the get go.

He was mad that apparently someone had promised him a couple of free chargers for his trouble, but he had yet to receive them, so he demanded that I send them to him.

I asked for his phone number and email so that I could look it up, but he refused, stating that he didn’t want us to save any of his data and demanded that I would delete all the data we had of him in accordance with GDPR.

He can’t have it both ways.

I answered, “But sir, I can’t look up and see that we’ve promised you a charger, and I can’t process any data deletion of data I don’t have.”

He started cussing a bit, calling me unprofessional.

He then gave me his name and address which I noted down in a temporary document I created as he didn’t want any information in our system.

For some reason, he was okay with this, and I didn’t find anything in our systems with that information.

He then demanded that I send him the chargers for free and that I delete all his information right after the call.

I just happily agreed, we hung up, and in compliance with what we discussed, I deleted all the information from my document.

It’s a shame I no longer had his name or address and that I could send him those chargers. 🙂

Wow! He should’ve thought that through a little more.

Let’s see how Reddit readers relate to this situation.

Um, not sure how this is supposed to work.

Indeed, customer service can be brutal.

GDPR sounds like a nightmare.

Seems like these types of customers are pretty common.

Hey! He got exactly what he asked for.

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