His “Dignity” Must Have Worked Out To “About $5 Per Serving”
“When I waitressed at a steakhouse, we had a guy who came in about every two weeks to order our smallest, cheapest steak medium-rare.
He’d eat about three-quarters of the steak, then complain that it was too well-done in order to get another.
It was a chain, though, and corporate was generally not inclined to support chucking customers out (even idiots). Finally, one of the managers just didn’t care whether the scammer complained up the chain of command or not.
He pulled it a good five or six times before the manager banned him for life. I’d estimate that the price of his dignity worked out to about $5 per serving.”
The “Old Popcorn Witch”
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“When I was a teenager, I worked at a movie theater.
There was this old woman who we called the ‘old popcorn witch.’ She would always order a BUCKET of popcorn for herself, then when it was almost empty and you could see the bottom, she would come back and complain that there was to much salt and demand a free refill. She was always mean when we told her that we SAW her pouring salt onto it and that she had eaten most of it.
My managers got sick of arguing and told us to do it. It makes me so mad. She would do it every week that I worked there and no one ever stopped her. Sometimes she would literally be stuffing her face with popcorn as fast as she could when she went to hand it back to us.”
Nothing Says A Good Time Quite Like Rancid Mayonnaise
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“On the midway at a NASCAR race, Helmans was throwing individual packs of mayonnaise into the crowd by their booth. People were knocking each other over as if they were $100 bills.
And then those people who caught one would presumably carry it around until they got home later then eat this rancid mayonnaise. This was a July race in Florida, so it was pretty nasty.
There were some people who would pour the mayo into large jars and bring those to their seats. I’ve actually seen people make sandwiches in their laps in the stands and whip out full jars of mayo and bottles of mustard.
All in all, those people were disgusting. They would be three sheets to the wind long before the race started, and we would have to ask them to clean up their empty cans from under our seats following the race. They also looked like they hadn’t bathed in a week. Then they broke out the sandwich supplies.”
Nothing Was Off The Table For This Grandma
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“My grandmother took me to Burger King when I was a kid. We went through the drive-thru but had to drive across town, which was about 45 minutes.
When we got home, she had pickles on her burger and had specifically asked for no pickles. So she called Burger King to complain and was on the phone for half an hour before the manager apparently offered her a free burger on her next visit. She said: “We’ll be right there.’
So we drove 45 minutes back to Burger King, she got her free burger, and we drove 45 minutes back home.
By the time we got home, I was hungry again.”
What WOULDN’T A Broke College Kid Do For Free Chicken?
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“Nandos was offering free half-chickens to new university students. I had the voucher printed, got on the free university bus, which would come every 15 minutes as opposed to a regular bus which cost less than a dollar and came every three minutes, and reached Nandos after a 10-minute walk from the bus stop.
When I got there, I was told that the promotion wouldn’t allow me to ‘eat in,’ at which point I got the half-chicken as takeaway, and walked 10 minutes to the bus station.
I waited for the free student bus again, got back home, and had my free half chicken.”
When A Free Meal Isn’t Enough
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“My dad manages a restaurant where they have little tablets at each table so that people don’t have to get up to pay.
This lady paid her bill through it but swiped her card multiple times so she was charged multiple times. She complained, which was fair, so the restaurant dropped her bill completely and she got a free meal.
But that wasn’t enough. She asked for $50, started yelling for this money. Of course, she was told no and asked to leave.
Some people are just so weird.”
It Was “A Matter Of Principal”
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“OpenTable has a program where you earn one point for dining at a restaurant reserved via their website. Twenty points equal out to $1.
A friend of mine made a reservation, showed up, dined and paid with cash. For whatever reason, she was marked as a no-show, so she didn’t receive a reward point. She spent an hour on the phone with OpenTable customer service, another half with the restaurant (who she claimed to have marked her as such to dodge the fee), then another with OpenTable again to get her $0.05.
She makes at least $75,000 a year and just bought a $2 million house with her boyfriend. She’s done this several times with numerous businesses for very little money… in the name of ‘a matter of principle.'”
Everything Was A Competition With Those Guys… Even Scams
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“In high school, I went to a burger restaurant with friends. By chance, we were sat next to some guys we knew (who weren’t really fond of us for no reason). All my friends and the guys next to us ordered giant burgers and fries, but being a hungry person, I elected to order a soup that came with all you can eat salad bar. I figured I could get my fill of protein from the hard-boiled eggs and (real) bacon bits.
I guess the place was busy, so I had eaten several plates of salad/pasta salad/salad meats before all their burgers came. As the guys next to us made fun of my meal option, I pointed out that I was guaranteed to eat my fill and that those burgers might not even fill them up (also big eaters). That shut them up for a while. When it came time to pay, one of the guys next to us started complaining about random things (cold burger, didn’t see employee wash their hands in the restroom, slow service) so much so that the manager comped their meal just to not deal with it.
Before they left, they stopped by our table and said: ‘You might be full, but we got a free meal.’
I think they always felt the need to one-up us.”
The Tried And True Chips And Salsa Scam
“I used to work at a Chili’s. If you sat in the bar area, you got ‘free’ chips and salsa.
Technically, they weren’t free. You got one bowl with each entree purchased. But typically the bar had parties of two or four, and most people don’t out eat their entrees, so it was never really an issue.
This lady came in one day with her four children. She had to have been about 250 pounds. She ordered water for everyone and chips. They devoured the first plate, I brought a second, they devoured that, I brought a third.
I asked if I could take an order and she told me they’re waiting for some more people. At this point, I knew something’s up and while I was in the back, I saw her kids stuffing chips into Ziplock bags.
I had to have brought out something like 10 refills on the chips before they tried to leave.
My manager intercepted them before they got up and dropped a $50 tab on their table (each bowl was $4.99).
She starting yelling about how the chips and salsa were supposed to be free. He called her out on the ziplock bags.
Long story short, she had no money on her, cops got called, she got arrested (or at the very least kicked out of the restaurant).
We didn’t honor her scam and we never saw her again.”
What’s More Important – Free Food Or Your Pride?
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“This happened a couple of weeks ago.
This woman came through the drive-thru and ordered a meal and two sandwiches. Her total was $8.10. The time was 3 in the morning.
She pulled to the window and handed me $4 in dollar bills. Then she started rooting through her purse for the rest. She apologized and said that her wallet had been stolen. I didn’t say anything, but internally I sympathized. In college, I put my wallet down somewhere and walked off without it. It had my cash and ID (which had meal plan money on it). I had nothing to pay with and realized it right at that second, and the cash worker saw that and let me have it. Why didn’t I let her have it? She said it was stolen at work, meaning she knew what she had before she pulled in my drive-thru. Then she said she hoped she wasn’t holding up my line because she wasn’t going anywhere until she paid it all. She managed to scrape up another dollar bill.
Oh, it’s going to be like that, eh? Challenge accepted.
Three minutes had gone by at that point. A car came up behind and ordered a drink. no problem. But she was waiting behind this one woman who couldn’t find her money. By this time, she had enough to pay for just the meal. I told her this. No, she insisted, she had to have the entire thing. Fifty cents and another minute go by. She asked if there was anything I could do. I told her no, I offered her a solution and she didn’t take it. A quarter, two dimes and a nickel appeared and another minute elapsed. Since she wouldn’t move and insisted on paying for what she ordered, I could see where this was going. I told my guy in front who handed out the food to go out the back door and give the second car her drink. He did that and got her money. I rang that order out and the second car drove off. The lady at my window started complaining that she spent her day wiping butts and how bad it was she couldn’t pay for her food. I said nothing. Seven minutes had elapsed at this point.
This lady was digging through her console for change and came out with a dollar in coins. Then she started asking me how much more she needed. So I told her. The digging continued. Now she was coming up with pennies. She was coming to her endgame now: now she was asking if I could comp the rest, ‘for all the times I ask for extra sauce and it isn’t there or when I ask for cheese on my chicken sandwich and it isn’t there?’ I told her no. Here’s why: even if we had that capability of comping for condiments, my drawer would still be short. Most places have a strict limit of how much more or little your drawer can be. Some are as tight as around $.50… others are as wide as $2. This would have put me down a dollar. Also, employees are NOT supposed to put their own money to pay for customers orders. Some do it anyway. I don’t have that kind of walking around money, plus I could tell this woman was going to do everything she could to not pay. I hate people insulting my intelligence and I was not going to help her monetarily in any way. She asked for the manager. I told her I was the manager. She wanted my name. I gave it to her. There was anything I could do? I told her no. Resignedly, she sighed and reached to grab an unwrinkled dollar bill. I took the bill and handed her the extra unneeded change.”
There’s Always A Sub Story
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“I work at Subway. People go through a lot to get free food… Such as one guy who came in after eating his entire footlong and complained that there weren’t enough jalapeños and demanded a free sandwich. Or the guy that came in a few hours after purchasing his food with only a small bit of sandwich left with a huge moth in it, saying it was in our spinach and we just didn’t notice that we’d put it in the sandwich.
The best part was he showed all of us pictures of moths on his phone that he found in his house. He demanded 15 free footlongs and kept bragging about how great he was for not suing.
A younger kid came in with a knife bigger than his sandwich, saying he took a bite and ‘found it in there.’ We also used to give out free cookies on Sundays, and it would always be two random less popular flavors.
One day, a lady called the store three times within an hour to angrily tell me how much she did not like the flavor of free cookie she got. Ended up having to give her a free cookie of her choice.”
Fish And Chips With A Side Of Cheap
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“I used to work at a fish and chips restaurant that had an ‘all you can eat’ option, as well as all the other typical options. I wasn’t in school at the time, so I worked a lot of day shifts. Maybe once every two weeks, we had this family come in of – I fool you not – 15-20 people, depending on who shows up that week, and they would constantly try to get the all you can eat meal to share. They would order a children’s all you can eat option for all the kids to share, and then they would order the adult one. It wasn’t as if they weren’t familiar with the system, seeing as they came in so regularly, and we would literally have to bring out the manager or owner every time they came in and would argue for much too long until they finally agreed to order properly.
Then there was always the group of people who ordered one drink with a ridiculous amount of side cups. Of course, they were expecting that they could share one ‘bottomless’ cup with the whole table. No, sorry, it doesn’t work that way.
My personal favorite was again at the fish and chips restaurant. it was a super relaxed job and none of us really cared, seeing as our boss was such a prick, we didn’t really care about people cheating too much. One Friday night, my coworkers and I were sitting at the staff table after finishing work, and this restaurant only had 22 tables, so we had a pretty good view of the rest of the tables. There was a group of guys sitting at one of the tables, eating their all you can eat meal. They were bigger guys, which accounted for the massive amounts of food they are ordering, but they had been there for a while and we were just waiting for them to head out so we could close up the restaurant.
One of my coworkers nudged me and I looked over to see one of these guys putting the fish and chips into his shirt. Sure enough, that’s what they had been doing with the majority of their food. We were laughing at them (they hadn’t realized they’d been caught at that time) and were trying to figure out where all that fish was going. Eventually, they left and we looked outside to see these guys, just ecstatic with their feat, stripping off their outer layers and displaying disgusting, grease-soaked, fish and chips filled t-shirts tucked into their pants.
That last one would usually bother me but it was quite frankly pretty funny to watch. I’m not sure how appetizing that food would be after having to ‘fish’ it out of your shirt. I wonder if they ended up eating it.”
The Scams People TRY To Pull At The Movies
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“I work at a movie theatre. We get calls once or twice a week from people trying to get free tickets. And let me just say, they are the most RIDICULOUS claims.
My favorite might have been the time someone called up and claimed they were in a movie being ‘harassed.’ I asked them what movie it was, and they said ‘Scary Movie 5.’ That movie wasn’t due to come out for another week. When I told them this, they quickly said it was ‘Charlie McCloud.’ I told them we hadn’t had that movie for over a week. They hung up.
Or the time someone called up and claimed that people in the movie were ‘making fun of her for being fat’ and ‘throwing food at her during the movie.’ After stringing her along for awhile asking her how many people were with her, and how many people were harassing her, I promptly told her that the movie she claimed to be in was empty all day. Not a ticket sold. She got angry and hung up.
Just this past Sunday, a woman called up and claimed she had sat in ‘cat poop.’ I asked her how exactly she knew it was cat poop. She muttered something incoherently so I humored her by saying that if she brought up the ‘cat poop pants’ and their ticket stubs, I would give them passes.
Before they were demanding a refund on the pants (at a movie theatre?) and free concession.
They still haven’t shown with the poop pants.”
So THAT’S How The Rich Stay Rich
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“I hostess in a 5-star restaurant in a well-known luxury hotel chain. Most people think such low budget behavior wouldn’t occur here, but it’s rampant. The managers will comp items or entire meals for the most absurd of reasons.
As a manager was doing a quality check at a table soon after the couple sitting there had finished, they explained how annoyed they were by a fly throughout their meal. They threw such a big enough stink that the manager comped their entire meal. These people chose to sit outdoors mid-summer in south Florida.
Another example would be the woman who is a regular and has not once eaten something off the menu. She requests whatever she feels like eating to be made by the chef and because of the 5-star status and the expectation from a restaurant such as this, we bend over backward for her.
No matter how precise to her description the food is made, she dislikes a majority of it and complains. The managers knock off large portions of her bill. I don’t plan on working in hospitality, and to watch these things go down makes me sick and gives me little hope for humanity at times.
The types of people who frequent places such as these KNOW how to work the system and the management creates these monsters, letting the cycle continue.”
Someone Finally Did The Right Thing
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“I work at a family owned Japanese hibachi restaurant. The meals are a bit pricey, but they have a deal for your birthday to get a discount. This older couple came in with their son and who I was assuming to be his girlfriend and her daughter. We had another ‘kids eat free’ promo that day. It was one of their birthdays, so I told them if they had separate checks, I could do both promos, and they were fine with that. The kid’s meal was covered, all but $2 (there’s a limit to the free) and gratuity was added due to promos used (house policy on coupon they brought in). When they got the bills, they were very confused.
The kid’s meal wasn’t free and why did it cost more than the other times they came in? They were mad. We comped the $2 for the kid’s meal and I went through and explained every single charge and how it added up – there was nothing wrong with it but they couldn’t accept that answer. They said they came in all the time and got the same thing and they paid less than that. Every time they were given a valid answer, they made up something else to be mad at until finally, they told me they wanted the gratuity taken off because ‘they already tipped the chef,’ although, I still have to tip him out, so I would be paying to have waited on them.
I was more than nice to these people and so was my manager. They told me, ‘If you don’t remove the tip, we are never coming back again.’ I got my manager, assuming he would remove it, and he went out there and told them they had to pay it! I was so glad he stood up to them instead of giving in.”
