The utter stupidity of shop assistants never ceases to amaze me. A friend of mine bought a phone recently, but had to take it back when it didn’t work. The subsequent exchange went something like this
Friend - “Hi, this phone doesn’t work, can I get a replacement or refund?”
Assistant - “No, you’ll have to leave the phone with us for testing, we’ll call you when we’ve tested it.”
F - “I don’t have a phone as I’ve just brought it in here as faulty, you can’t call me, can you test it now?”
A - “We’ll call you when we’ve tested it.”
F - “I don’t have a phone! You can’t call me! I want a refund or replacement!”
A - “We have to test it before we can do that, we’ll call you when we’ve tested it.”
At this point my friend lost his temper and called the assistant an idiot. So she summoned security, who arrived with a police officer who happened to be in the building at the time. After much stress and explanation, the manager gave him a refund. It’s not so much that the store had a policy of testing returns before issuing refunds (to be fair, the entire chain is closing down - this isn’t standard U.K. retail policy) it’s more that the assistant was seemingly incapable of comprehending the fact that if someone returns their phone as faulty, YOU CAN’T CALL THEM ONCE YOU’VE TESTED IT BECAUSE THEIR PHONE IS IN FRONT OF YOU!
Oh and last time I checked, calling someone an idiot isn’t a crime…
Posted on 08/10/2005 at 11:45 AM 
In this case, being the idiot should be a crime…