Unbelievable

I am still shocked at what happened on Saturday morning in the shop. It is just so unbelievable. There are actually people out there like that!

A couple came in with a list of books. The man said that he had phoned us and a guy had put one book aside for him as it was the last one. I gathered the other 4 books that they wanted together, but when I checked on the system, we had none of the one that he had said we had put aside for him. The weird thing was that the last time we sold one of those was in early March of this year.

I went back to him and said that we don't actually have the one book in stock. He immediately got defensive.

"But I phoned. Twice. He said it was the last one and put it aside for me. I've just driven for an hour and now you're telling me the book isn't here!"

"Who did you speak to?" I asked.

"I don't know who I spoke to! Someone that works here!"

My colleague (I will call him J) named all the employees and the customer was sure he had spoken to the one (I will call him T). We phoned T and he knew nothing about it. T's not stupid! He wouldn't tell a guy (twice!) that we have a book in stock that we don't.

For the next 10 minutes he shouted at us for not having the book in stock and how he had phoned especially, and his wife has to have the books for this course etc. J tried to tell them that we could try and get it from another branch for them, and then we would post it to them free of charge, but he wouldn't even allow J to even finish his sentences.

On a hunch I phoned the branch in Durban and the guy on the other line confirmed that a guy with that name had phoned for that specific book twice and they had reserved it for him.

Triumphantly I told the customer that the people in Durban had confirmed that he had spoken to them. To our horror and surprise, however, he just said:
"Now you tell me how I can dial an 033 number and get to Durban!"
(I don't know, maybe you're an idiot?!)
The cherry on top was when he said:
"You are in the same company. I don't care who I phoned. According to me the guy had the book in his hand and reserved it for me. Now you're telling me I drove all this way for nothing?"

J tried to make him see that he hadn't actually phoned this branch, thus could not blame us for anything, and couldn't expect his book to be here, as Durban and PMB are completely different branches. He just wouldn't see reason. Then his wife butted in and said: "You are not helping us at all!"
(Well maybe if you stopped arguing with us about something we didn't do we could come to some kind of resolution!).
And back the argument went to the whole How-do-I-dial-033-and-reach-Durban debate.
Exasperatedly, I said: "We're not lying to you about this!"

He looked at his wife and said it was her call whether to buy the rest of the books or not. She turned in a huff and they stormed out of here like Pamplona bulls.

J and I watched as they stormed in the wrong direction by mistake (hehehehe) and then had to turn around and storm in the right direction.

Unbelievable.