She Demanded an Immediate SIM Swap Without Photo ID—Then Returned Two Hours Later to Scream at the Owner
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When you start a new job at a new workplace, one of the first things you’ll have to learn is the company policies. This can be anything from the dress code and absence procedure to lone working policies and security information. All this is because until you understand the requirements and obligations of your new workplace, you can’t be deemed fit to work there – because a lot of this stuff isn’t just about the company’s image, it’s about staff, customer, and business security too.
For the mobile phone store manager in this story, security was paramount. After all, their store was handling many thousands of dollars worth of products at any one time. And one of the key customer-facing policies was that mobile phone orders could only be collected by a person with ID matching that on the order receipt – a logical policy designed to keep their stock and customer orders secure. However, one family who placed an order in store really did not understand this.
Read on to find out why.
Family wants me to forego ID verification
I manage two franchise locations of a chain of mobile stores.
Because of the expensive cost of products sold and the nature of our services, ID verification is extremely strict from our company.
I get a lot of people who give me a hard time about this, often people wanting to use expired ID or a health card.
Here’s what happened today.
Let’s see what unusual situation this manager happened upon.
I get a call from my colleague when I’m opening, saying an iPhone that’s coming today has already been paid for by a girl yesterday, and to call her when it comes in.
No biggie, until the phone comes. I leave her a voicemail, and a few minutes later an older male comes in claiming to be her dad.
The guy said, “I am here to pick up my daughter’s phone.”
I replied, “No problem sir, I just need to see the receipt and some ID.”
But this was just the start of the problems.
The man pulls out both, but his ID doesn’t match the name on the receipt, which I presume is his daughter’s.
I told him, “I’m sorry sir, but in order to release the device the account holder has to be present as I was given no prior permissions to give it to somebody else.”
He gets visibly upset, saying, “I came with my daughter yesterday, we share the account under her name and the phone is for me. I will call her.”
I replied, “Even if you call her sir, I cannot verify her identity over the phone.” (This is true, store agents cannot do anything with account details over the phone because we do not have the proper training to do so).
But the guy wouldn’t take no for an answer.
He calls her anyway, and she starts screaming at me on the phone to give the phone to her dad.
I will also add here that they have different last names.
I explain the situation to them, and they said that because they came in yesterday together it should be good enough.
But I was not working yesterday and did not see either of them before.
Let’s see how this situation progressed.
I explain that if they wanted the pickup to be done by another person they had to give that kind of info in advance, especially since we couldn’t guarantee that the same employee would be working.
Daughter came in for the phone but she was super rude about it and told me she wouldn’t be back.
I really can’t wrap my head around why people get mad over us keeping their purchases secure.
It’s crazy that folk put their own convenience over policies that are designed to protect them.
Like, what if the guy was someone who had just picked up the receipt she’d accidentally dropped, and was now able to claim the phone she’d paid a lot of money for.
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Then she’d really be unhappy.
Let’s see what the Reddit community made of this.
This person had had similar experiences.
While others thought it was crazy that people got so frustrated with measures designed to protect them.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who gets problematic overtime changes reversed by pointing out how it will harm the company’s bottom line.
While this Redditor had seen such measures annoy people trying to collect even more precious things.
The family really have to realise that this measure is designed to protect them. And sure it can be inconvenient to have to go down to the store yourself to pick something up rather than just sending a loved one whose schedule is a bit more flexible, but you have to realise that just handing your phone to someone on the basis of just their word really isn’t a policy you’d actually want a store to abide by. For their own insurance they need to have strict rules in force, but it’s a matter of your own trust too – do you really want to find out that your thousand dollar phone has been handed to some random because they said they had your permission?
Really, we just need to be more patient and understanding across the board. Because yelling at a store worker and taking out your frustration on them simply is not a nice way to treat anyone. They didn’t make up these policies, but they could lose their job if they don’t enforce them. So why not cut them a little slack, and try to be a decent person at least?
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