binki
Premium Subscriber
Yesterday I was thinking about all of the crazy customers we have had over the years. Here are a few that I always get a chuckle from.
School Teachers. We do work for a lot of school clubs. One particular club teacher after given a price and asked for 50% down asked if we accepted purchase orders. Yes we do. Just go to the school or district and have them issue one. She paid the deposit. I don't think she understood the concept of what a PO actually is.
Schools. We had a deal with a local high school football team (we are alums of this school). We would provide banners for their sponsors during the games if we could set up a booth at the games. This worked great for a number of years until the management of the school changed to some dillweed vice principle that had no clue about the school, the history of the school or why we were there. We explained it to him and he let us stay for the season with a review post season with us to work out details. Mind you, the head coach 'had no clue' he had made the arrangement with us. Just protecting his job. The real villain was the student store. They had started producing swag and wanted to sell at the games. Now, this was the very reason we started doing it because they didn't have anything. So they show up at two of the five games with a card table with 20 hats. That is it, 20 hats. Then they only stay until half time and leave. In the end I have the meeting with the VP and offer 10% of sales to the student store and he listens and thinks it is a good idea. At the start of the next season we get a letter telling us we were not allowed on campus. Go figure.
Non Profits. We are in the People's Republic of California (PRC) and because of that everyone pays sales tax except for the state and entities with a sellers permit issued by the state but only for items for resale. So I can't just go to U-Line and buy garbage bags and not pay sales tax. That means everyone else pays sales tax. Non Profits believe that they shouldn't pay sales tax if they give us a letter. Well, I don't want an audit from the state so they get an education for me. This happens at least once a year.
Speaking of sales tax, we had one guy insist sales tax was optional. We just raised his price, didn't show him the sales tax, changed his invoice afterwards for recording purposes and everyone was happy. Looking back I should have just tossed him out.
Crazy People. We had someone call the police on us for not producing an order for him. He never ordered from us and was known to be crazy but the police have to answer the service call and do a report. Go figure.
More crazy people. We have fired a number of customers over the years. Some threaten lawsuits, some write bad reviews but these three were the worst.
- Crazy 1 would come to us for sports uniforms. Not the entire order but the fix problems that her first vendor screwed up. We did the first two because we were hoping to get her full business. When she came back in for number I referred he back to the original vendor. At that point she became irate and threatened to sue us. Never heard from her again.
- Crazy 2 was a quote on jerseys. They went with a cheaper vendor. Not less expensive, cheaper. One of the moms came in and showed us the jerseys. They were red with white screen printing. Well, the vendor didn't use a color block and the white turned pink before they ever got to use them.
- Crazy 3 was a customer that used us much like number Crazy 1 but did give us more work. At one point her demands outstripped our patience and we fired her. Well she went postal and refused to leave. I had to push her out the door to get her to leave. A few hours later we had a bad review on a review site. Not from her but from someone else who worked at the (Chamber of Commerce). Interesting. Looking at all of the posts from this person it was clear it was a representation of a position from the COC. I contacted the review site to remove the review explaining this 'customer' never was a customer of ours. I also contacted the president of the COC and insisted it be withdrawn. The president was an attorney and explained the employee did this on their own time. After I pointed out all, yes ALL reviews from this person represented the COC the review was promptly withdrawn. As a side note, we had been a member of the COC and had ended our membership after 2 years because there was nothing to gain from it. They were quite upset with us which may have played into this.
The general customer. Asks for a quote, gets the quote, adds on more specs and gets upset with the quote goes up. Get this one monthly.
Happy New Year! Looking forward to a great 2026.
School Teachers. We do work for a lot of school clubs. One particular club teacher after given a price and asked for 50% down asked if we accepted purchase orders. Yes we do. Just go to the school or district and have them issue one. She paid the deposit. I don't think she understood the concept of what a PO actually is.
Schools. We had a deal with a local high school football team (we are alums of this school). We would provide banners for their sponsors during the games if we could set up a booth at the games. This worked great for a number of years until the management of the school changed to some dillweed vice principle that had no clue about the school, the history of the school or why we were there. We explained it to him and he let us stay for the season with a review post season with us to work out details. Mind you, the head coach 'had no clue' he had made the arrangement with us. Just protecting his job. The real villain was the student store. They had started producing swag and wanted to sell at the games. Now, this was the very reason we started doing it because they didn't have anything. So they show up at two of the five games with a card table with 20 hats. That is it, 20 hats. Then they only stay until half time and leave. In the end I have the meeting with the VP and offer 10% of sales to the student store and he listens and thinks it is a good idea. At the start of the next season we get a letter telling us we were not allowed on campus. Go figure.
Non Profits. We are in the People's Republic of California (PRC) and because of that everyone pays sales tax except for the state and entities with a sellers permit issued by the state but only for items for resale. So I can't just go to U-Line and buy garbage bags and not pay sales tax. That means everyone else pays sales tax. Non Profits believe that they shouldn't pay sales tax if they give us a letter. Well, I don't want an audit from the state so they get an education for me. This happens at least once a year.
Speaking of sales tax, we had one guy insist sales tax was optional. We just raised his price, didn't show him the sales tax, changed his invoice afterwards for recording purposes and everyone was happy. Looking back I should have just tossed him out.
Crazy People. We had someone call the police on us for not producing an order for him. He never ordered from us and was known to be crazy but the police have to answer the service call and do a report. Go figure.
More crazy people. We have fired a number of customers over the years. Some threaten lawsuits, some write bad reviews but these three were the worst.
- Crazy 1 would come to us for sports uniforms. Not the entire order but the fix problems that her first vendor screwed up. We did the first two because we were hoping to get her full business. When she came back in for number I referred he back to the original vendor. At that point she became irate and threatened to sue us. Never heard from her again.
- Crazy 2 was a quote on jerseys. They went with a cheaper vendor. Not less expensive, cheaper. One of the moms came in and showed us the jerseys. They were red with white screen printing. Well, the vendor didn't use a color block and the white turned pink before they ever got to use them.
- Crazy 3 was a customer that used us much like number Crazy 1 but did give us more work. At one point her demands outstripped our patience and we fired her. Well she went postal and refused to leave. I had to push her out the door to get her to leave. A few hours later we had a bad review on a review site. Not from her but from someone else who worked at the (Chamber of Commerce). Interesting. Looking at all of the posts from this person it was clear it was a representation of a position from the COC. I contacted the review site to remove the review explaining this 'customer' never was a customer of ours. I also contacted the president of the COC and insisted it be withdrawn. The president was an attorney and explained the employee did this on their own time. After I pointed out all, yes ALL reviews from this person represented the COC the review was promptly withdrawn. As a side note, we had been a member of the COC and had ended our membership after 2 years because there was nothing to gain from it. They were quite upset with us which may have played into this.
The general customer. Asks for a quote, gets the quote, adds on more specs and gets upset with the quote goes up. Get this one monthly.
Happy New Year! Looking forward to a great 2026.
