There are plenty of customer-service rules that feel arbitrary. Requiring proof that you are actually the person whose package you’re attempting to take home is not particularly high on that list.

One retail worker’s store serves as a pickup location for packages that delivery drivers can’t leave at customers’ homes. The policy is simple—and apparently important enough to warrant a large sign: customers must present a physical government-issued ID before an employee can release a package.

Most people can probably understand the logic. Names and addresses aren’t exactly state secrets, and “trust me, that’s mine” isn’t the world’s strongest security system.

One customer, however, arrived without an ID and asked whether providing her name and address would be good enough. The employee politely explained that it wouldn’t, and she left to retrieve it without much fuss.

About an hour later, she returned with the required identification.

Problem solved, right?

Not quite. Apparently, that extra trip had given her plenty of time to decide that the store’s attempt to protect her package was actually an insult.

Are you saying you don’t trust your customers?!

This happened yesterday and I’m still giggling. My store happens to be a package drop off location for when drivers can’t/won’t leave a package at the customer’s door.

There is a very strict rule of the customer presenting their physical government issued ID to us before we’ll give them their package.

Most customers understand why this rule is in place and are fine with it. This customer was not.

Oh boy.

Customer: walks in and sees the big sign say that they need their ID “I forgot my ID at home. If I give you my name and address, can I get my package?” Me: “sorry, no. You need your ID” Customer: “alright I’ll be back”

The customer didn’t seem upset when they left and I went back to cataloguing the merchandise that had been water damaged by a freak accident. About an hour later the customer returns.

Me: “Welcome back” Customer: “Give me my package. I don’t see why you wouldn’t give me it earlier. Who else is going to have my name and address?” Me: “It’s the rule. It’s to make sure that we’re giving the right package to the right person” I take their ID from them and go look for the package.

Just following the rules…

Customer: “Are you saying that you don’t trust your customers?!”

Me: walking back with the package and confirming as I walk that the information matches “I’ve never met you and don’t know you. We just want to make sure that you’re receiving the right package.” I hand the ID back and move to scan the package out

Customer: snatches ID from my hand “well that’s just stupid and poor customer service. Now give me my package” Me: “in a moment. I need to scan it out of our system first” Customer: Huff’s impatiently.

Sir, with respect…relax.

Me: has finished scanning out the package and gesture to the signature pad “alright last step, please sign and hit okay with the pen” Customer: “unbelievable. What are you going to do if I refuse to sign?” Me: “if you don’t sign, I won’t release the package ” Customer: angrily signs and throws the pen down

Me: making direct eye contact with them and hitting the okay button with the pen “alright. All done. The package is all yours” Customer: snatches the package out of my hand and stomps out the door

Boss: comes up from the back where they were dealing with the landlord over who is paying for the water damage “did she actually ask if we didn’t trust our customers?”

Everyone’s gonna have a good laugh about this.

Me: chuckling “yup”

Boss: shaking their head “how do you get to be an adult and still think like that?”

Me: “dunno but they’re probably also convinced that any day now a Nigerian prince is going to make them rich”

The employee and their boss were still laughing about the encounter afterward, and it’s not difficult to understand why.

The customer’s indignation seemed to miss the entire point of an identification policy. The store wasn’t accusing her of being dishonest. Employees simply had no way of knowing she was actually the intended recipient until she proved it—which is exactly why the same rule applies to everyone.

Her argument that nobody else would know her name and address wasn’t particularly convincing either. That information isn’t necessarily difficult for another person to obtain, and a package pickup location probably shouldn’t gamble someone’s belongings on the assumption that anyone who knows two pieces of personal information must be trustworthy.

Even after producing her ID, she continued fighting every step of the process, including asking what would happen if she refused to sign for the package. The answer was wonderfully straightforward: she wouldn’t get it.

Customer service doesn’t mean abandoning basic security procedures because a customer finds them annoying. If anything, she should probably appreciate that a stranger can’t walk into the store, recite her address and leave carrying her package.

This person has a good point.

This person fully agrees with OP.

And this person is spot on.

If the store trusted everyone who knew your name and address, you’d probably have a much bigger complaint when someone else walked out with your package.