A lot of stores and brands have generous return policies where if you buy something and realize it’s broken, you can return it. But what if you buy something and accidentally break it? Can you still return it?

In this story, one teenager is in this situation, and he does in fact try to return the broken item. The store employee can tell that it wasn’t like this when the teen opened the box. He knows exactly what happened just by looking at the item.

Keep reading to find out what happens when the teen comes back to the store with his parents. It’s pretty impressive the way the employee eventually gets the parents to back off.

When the lawyer steps in to make everything better

Worked a decade as a salesman at a stereo shop.

I’ve had hundreds of people threaten to sue, not a single one has.

A few stand out, and I was just reminded of this gem.

One teen tried to return something that clearly wasn’t damaged before he opened the box.

Sold a kid (18/19 years old) a speaker, mentioned it has a manufacturers warranty against defects. If it’s not working, we just swap it out.

Kid comes back later that day, says the speaker doesn’t work, he wants a warranty replacement.

Open the box and the speaker has a gaping hole in it. He was screwing it in, slipped, and put the entire drill bit and chuck through the speaker cone.

It’s obvious that’s what happened. (The shape and position of the hole, the fact that not all the screw holes had marks from being used, etc)

Everything was fine until the teen’s parents got involved.

I gave him a “I’m sorry, but this is clearly physical damage, not a manufacturer defect. I can’t warranty this.”

He debates, I hand him the warranty information from the manual, he reads it and accepts his fate (it specifically notes “damage due to improper installation…accident” as not being covered). Walks out with his destroyed speaker.

Half an hour later, his parents are in the shop screaming that they’re going to sue us, it’s our responsibility to replace it, it has a warranty, we “formed a verbal contract with our client that we’d swap it out if there was an issue”.

Dad mentions he’s a lawyer a few times during his tirade.

OP asks the right questions.

Me: “Sir, have you read the warranty information?”

Him: “No, that doesn’t matter”

I cut him off to say

Me: “So you’re not a lawyer then?”

OP got the dad to accept defeat.

Him: “Of course I am! Are you accusing me of lying?”

Me: “Lawyers always read a contract before debating it. Misrepresenting yourself as an attorney in order to obtain benefit for another is a criminal offense sir.”

I pointed out the cameras, and mentioned they have audio.

He went silent, looked a bit shocked, and walked out with his broken speaker muttering something about how he’s never coming back.

This is funny!

My manager leaned over and asked

MGR: “Is that true? It’s illegal to impersonate a lawyer?”

Me: “Damned if I know, I’m not a lawyer.”

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The lie doesn’t matter if nobody knows the truth! He did a good job scaring the dad off and ending the argument.

Let’s see how Reddit responded.

Here’s what a business owner used to tell customers.

Another person weighs in on the question of whether or not it’s illegal to impersonate a lawyer.

Here’s something else to consider as far as the lawyer question.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who was passed over for a promotion, so got a job with the competition and quit immediately.

This person is impressed.

That was a clever way to get the dad to back off. I don’t know why he thought claiming to be a lawyer would help anything. The employee was clearly in the right, and the teen clearly broke the speaker.

Stores don’t give refunds for user error.