Retail arguments can get loud fast when a customer decides the sale ad must be wrong instead of their interpretation.

One cashier calls a manager over a flag set, but when the customer starts shouting, would you keep explaining or let the boss take over?

The dispute grows until the owner arrives, hears the threat of losing a customer forever, and decides exactly how much that promise matters.

Let’s see how this pricing complaint played out.

“You’ll lose a customer forever if I don’t get this price!” Or, Why My Boss is Awesome

This happened last Friday, (May 16), but I ended up having to tell the story to so many people that I didn’t feel like typing it out till now. Anyway, here we go.

An older guy (let’s call him Irrationally Angry Man, or IAM) came storming up to my register on an otherwise normal Friday afternoon.

He had quite a few items, including a flag set (which includes an American flag as well as a pole and the screws needed to assemble it), and one of our recent sales ads.

He immediately demanded that I tell him each of the prices of the items he had as I rang them up, so that he could make sure each item he’d grabbed was correct.

No big deal there.

But the customer was upset about the flag set.

However, when the flag set rang up at $12.99, IAM got even more angry.

I called a manager up at this point because I assumed the flag set was ringing up at the wrong price.

The manager went to check, while IAM started ranting to me about how “you guys are terrible. How dare you not have the right prices up, that’s freaking ridiculous. You’re just terrible, and if I don’t get this at that price, I’m never coming back.”

IAM was not quiet about this, either.

IAM won’t seem to accept that it’s the wrong item.

Manager comes back, confirms that, no, flag set SKU does not match the SKU in the ad, prompting IAM to yell at the manager and demand to see the owner.

Luckily, the owner is in on Fridays, so the manager went to get him, once again leaving me alone with IAM.

IAM proceeds to continue with his rant about the store, and how we’re terrible.

One of my coworkers came up at this point, obviously hoping to help, and ended up simply stating “No, the flag in the ad isn’t the flag set, it’s just the flag”, irritating IAM even further.

The owner took over.

At this point I was done with IAM’s ranting, and moved to stand beside the cashier closest to me.

For whatever reason, the one thing that really makes me anxious is being yelled at, so I ended up tearing up a little bit (honestly I think it was just the stress of the whole situation) and went to sit in the back to calm down.

However, before I left, the owner did finally come up to talk to IAM, and the first thing out of his mouth was “No. You are not getting that flag set for the sale price. That is not the one in the ad.”

Apparently, after I walked to the back, IAM continued to yell at the owner, “You’ll lose a customer forever if you don’t give me the sale price!” to which the owner replied simply, “Adios.”

Demanding customers need to learn that they can’t get what they want by being rude. Losing a customer like that is not a loss at all.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person shares a similar story.

Sometimes people just need to vent.

The customer is NOT always right.

Perhaps someone who has studied psychology could explain this.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a client who regretted paying for a cross-country flight after the IT specialist just flipped a breaker.

This person shares another story about a horrible customer.

The customer kept yelling after learning the sale applied to a flag, not the full flag set he wanted.

When he threatened never to return, the owner simply answered, “Adios,” while OP stepped away to recover from the stress.

Commenters mostly rallied around OP, while the owner earned plenty of praise for refusing to reward the tantrum.

He threatened to take his business elsewhere, and the boss graciously showed him the exit.