When you are making changes to your mobile phone account, it is sometimes necessary to have the primary account holder approve the adjustment.

What would you do if your wife was the primary on the account, and the salesperson wouldn’t sell you a tablet without insurance unless you brought your wife in so they could try to sell her on the insurance?

That is what happened to the couple in this story, so when the wife arrived she went off on the salespeople for making things so difficult.

Check it out.

The primary account holder (wife) must complete the transaction for security purposes, AKA complying with a made-up policy.

This is more of a customer-deals-with-retail-idiots kinda story.

Both my wife and I share the same cellular account because cheaper family plans.

She’s the primary line on the account, and thus has final say on whatever happens on the account, and I’m merely an authorized user.

This is a pretty standard setup.

I can do most things myself without her needing to be physically present.

This happens when both of us decide to take a jaunt to the mall and I decide after paying off a previous device on our account to grab a tablet seeing as I’ve been wanting one for a while.

Now, most would assume in a lot of cases here that the husband is the person who’s savvy and will shut a salesperson down and the wife is the person that could potentially be talked into whatever.

At least, I think that’s what the rep we dealt with us thought.

Anyway, we roll into CarrierStore, I tell them what I want, present my ID and they pull up the account.

They haven’t yet figured out that my wife is the woman that’s with me and that’s whose account we’re dealing with.

Before they roll off to the back to grab the tablet, the rep asks me if I want to add the upgrade plan/insurance to this purchase.

I decline.

I don’t have a need for insurance on a tablet of all things.

He runs off to the back, grabs the tablet, comes back and tries to sell me on the insurance again, plus accessories.

I decline, again.

This time, he cuts in with the “are you sure? It’s a really good deal…”

Yes. I’m sure. “But you can upgrade every 3 months!”

No, I’m fine.

No means no.

That’s when a neighboring rep senses that he can maybe help his buddy sell, and starts reiterating that I really should buy the insurance.

NO.

How many times do I have to tell you.

After which the store manager notices, cuts in, and attempts to cancel the transaction unless I buy the insurance.

Normally, I should have walked, but this was at a time where I only had my two feet to get me places and this was the only store remotely close to me.

I argued that they couldn’t do that before the store manager looked at the account and noticed that this was my wife’s account, not mine.

(Here’s the malicious compliance bit.)

SM and the rep came to the conclusion that my wife must be an idiot, and they could convince her to override my decision, because as per policy, the primary account holder has the final say, right?

So, they demand to speak to my wife.

She doesn’t want to get involved.

She tells them no, I’m the one paying for this, and she’s not getting involved.

SM tries to say that my wife needs to finish the transaction for security purposes.

I protest, but at this point, I’m just like…okay, you really want to speak to my wife and let her finish the transaction so badly?

Fine. Have fun.

I tried to save you guys from getting massacred.

I know that the whole “the PAH has to finish the transaction for security purposes” is a fake, made up on the spot policy.

But you know what?

Fine. I’ll roll with it.

Because my wife is going to verbally smack you so hard you’ll kiss the moon.

She is not about to put up with their tactics.

She immediately flips the proverbial table in their faces, telling them that if they don’t drop the predatory sales tactics, back off, and sell the tablet without insurance, to call care from their in-store phones so she can cancel her account and switch to $OtherTelecom, because she won’t stand for being treated like this.

Further, she’ll be sending an email with every known exec email cc’d detailing the horrible experience we had today.

It doesn’t sound like much when I type this, but trust me when I say that I can count on half a hand in my 6 years with this woman that I have ever heard her speak with such disgust and anger but in a calm and collected manner.

They immediately processed everything and apologized profusely, because they didn’t anticipate that my wife works in sales and is very savvy to this type of tactic.

They probably expected to have it easy once they got past me, but…nope.

True to her word, she emailed corporate, and we got some huge bill credits for our trouble and that store manager and rep were never seen again.

Not sure if they got fired or shuffled off to another store, but we never saw them again at our local store.

Sometimes those high-pressure sales tactics can really backfire.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say.

Sometimes you have to just keep saying no.

Escalating to the CEO may be helpful.

This person suggests filing a complaint with the attorney general.

How rude.

This really was over the top.

High-pressure sales tactics should be illegal.

It must work for them, but dang.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.