Being a consumer always means taking a leap of faith that the product you are advertised is the product you will receive.

But in this story, one woman has no such faith… and she goes to extremes to try and prove the existence of a product, at the expense of an employee’s time and reputation.

Was the employee wrong to humor her, or was the customer wrong to talk the employee into breaking the rules?

Let’s unbox this.

Woman demands to open product, won’t buy it afterwards because it’s opened

Lady (L) comes into my craft store to buy a calligraphy set as a gift. She picked out a €50 all included set. Then the following occurred:

L: I’m gonna buy this, but… it’s hard to believe everything pictured is in this little box.

Me: If it says it’s in the box it should be. If not, you can bring it back for a refund.

Great, easy, sold! Right? But it seems like the conversation continues…

L: But it’s a gift! I want it to be just right. Are you SURE? The box doesn’t look big enough for that pen.

The pen is in fact small.

So at this point I pull out my two personal fountain pens from the apron and show her the one that’s the same size as the pen, compared to a more regular sized one.

She still insists it cannot all fit in the small box.

I mean, maybe this lady has poor spatial reasoning? Tough to say… Will she take OP’s word for it?

L:If I could just open it to make sure…

Me: I’m sorry but I cannot do that, because if you don’t buy it I cannot sell an opened box.

L: But I will buy it! I just need to confirm that it’s all in there.

Me: I assure you it’s all in there.

L: It’s for my grandson…

OK, grandma, sweet of you to buy him something but also… have you ever been to a store before?

We went back and forth until I studied the box, realized it wasn’t sealed and I could probably very carefully open it.

Besides, 18 year old me believed she would buy it once I proved this… so I very carefully opened it.

Ah, to be young and dumb. Will OP’s trust pay off?

L: Huh, it’s all there! Well excellent, I’ll take this one here then, I don’t want to gift my grandson a used item.

She then grabs a new one from the shelf and bolts to the register before I could protest.

She obviously knew how rude this was cause she got out of there as fast as she could.

I ran for my favorite manager, who got mad, ran after her, but she had already paid and left…

That’s messed up, L. Hopefully OP gets some sort of vindication…

I ended up selling the used set to the cutest couple, who saw the whole thing as they waited for my help choosing pens.

The boyfriend was really experienced and probably didn’t need a beginner’s kit, but they sure made my day lifting my spirits afterwards.

Happy ending after all. Good to know that for every rude customer, there’s a kind one too. OK, maybe the ratio isn’t one to one. But the good ones are out there!

What do the comments on Reddit think about this rude switcharoo?

One person says, ugh those customers are the worst!

Another poster says, happens all the time.

This person says, yep, they open it up, they leave it for dead.

Someone else says, people really open up to them. In a bad way.

Someone else says, shocking how often this happens.

This gives unboxing a whole new meaning.

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.