Not always right

[MoogleViper]

I've had someone show me an old (expired) passport with a photo of them as an 8 year old. I'm sorry, but even if the name matches other things like their debit card, an old passport can't be taken as ID, it has to be current - otherwise you could pass old ones on to people who look vaguely similar to you and then they can just claim it's an old photo.

 

Agreed, but if it's a few months out of date, and the photo is clearly that person, then I think it would be a bit of a dick move for the cashier not to accept (unless they were just covering their own arse, but if they were just being an unnecessary stickler).

[EEVILMURRAY]

Agreed, but if it's a few months out of date, and the photo is clearly that person, then I think it would be a bit of a dick move for the cashier not to accept (unless they were just covering their own arse, but if they were just being an unnecessary stickler).

It's not that they're being a stickler, it's that it'd be against the law to accept it as a valid form of ID. Sure, it may be seen as nitpicking when buying alcohol/tobacco. But if you need ID for something more official I wouldn't be surprised if they stuck to it more rigidly.

[Sheikah]

Yeah but I get the drivers licence expiring - you may have lost your marbles since way back when you first got your license or sustained some kind of injury that makes you not drive well. Or in the case of a country club license you could have not paid your membership fees.

 

But with a driver's licence purely for age reasons...your age is never going to change. Even if you were almost a vegetable, so long as you're above 18 you're still allowed to buy alcohol.

[Beast]

So, a guy comes into the store the other day and is talking to me and my colleague, who i shall name jim. jim is quite a feminine guy but identifies as straight. The customer is quite a blokey-bloke. Jim walks away from the conversation briefly and then bounces back over to us and basically does a little pirouette and jazz hands to announce that he's back in the conversation.

 

customer: woah! that was... the CAMPEST thing i've ever seen.

 

the customer then goes on to tell this C&B story about how, when he was a policeman he outed one of his fellow workmates by noticing little "telltale signs" in his mannerisms - he goes on to explain that gay guys smoke in a certain way - he thinks they hold their cigarettes lower down than "normal people" and they also do a little head flick away from the cigarette when they finish a drag - he demonstrates with his index and middle finger and an imaginary cigarette. the conversation is clearly upsetting my colleague and making him pretty uncomfortable since it was directly followed by the customer saying how "camp" his mannerisms were... jim takes it that the customer is implying that he's "secretly" gay

 

jim: w- well, *i* don't smoke like that...you can't honestly think you can tell-

 

me: (in a voice SO tinged with deadpan sarcasm Wednesday Adams would've been proud) no, no - that's totally correct - how people smoke a cigarette is a totally accurate way to tell if they're gay or not - my lesbian friend... when she smokes, she goes like this:

 

i hold up my two fingers with an imaginary cigarette, go to take a drag, but instead stick my tongue in between my two fingers. jim nearly falls over laughing and i just give the customer a "do you see how stupid your theory was?" look. i don't know if he got it, but at least i made jim feel better and diffused a potentially REALLY bad argument.

 

The bolded made me so proud! Team Wednesday!

 

Ugh, people like that make me mad. I'd love to give 'em a smack! How does a man being feminine or a woman being masculine determine their sexuality. It's all bollocks if you ask me...even though nobody was but I thought I'd put my two pence worth in!

 

Got another funny one today. I was in hysterics at it.

 

Mother comes in with her kid.

 

"Hey ya, you alright, mate? I was wondering if it was too late to pre-order COD!"

 

"Really?"

 

"Yeah, I mean you'd sell it, wouldn't you? My son loves it" (fun sidenote, her son was around 7-ish)

 

"I'm afraid not, no"

 

"What games do you sell?"

 

"I...Erm, we don't actually sell any games here..."

 

*At this point, the woman is shocked*

 

"What? Since when, this shop is Cash Converters, isn't it?"

 

"Nah, this is a shoe shop"

 

"Oh right, when did this turn into a shoe shop then?"

 

"This has been the only shop that's been here, no other company has ever taken it"

 

"Oh, okay then" (turns to her son) "Sorry Jamie, I can't get you the game"

 

====

 

Seriously, sometimes I think I'm on Punk'd or something!

[jayseven]

@EEVILMURRAY a "valid form of ID" in relation to working in a store simply means it has to come from a list of validated forms of ID. The ID in itself does not need to be current. Similarly you cannot stop even underage people from purchasing large quantities of mixers. You can stop them from buying the alcohol, and if you suspect they're minors with older guys with valid ID you can prevent the older guys buying alcohol.

 

The PASS hologram obviously isn't on drivers licence or passport, but many connexions (student) cards do have one, which is why it's useful for uni students to get one, as well as their regular student ID.

[EEVILMURRAY]

EEVILMURRAY a "valid form of ID" in relation to working in a store simply means it has to come from a list of validated forms of ID. The ID in itself does not need to be current.

S'what I meant, when I said valid form I meant from Tesco's not so rigid list.

Similarly you cannot stop even underage people from purchasing large quantities of mixers. You can stop them from buying the alcohol, and if you suspect they're minors with older guys with valid ID you can prevent the older guys buying alcohol.

I didn't stop her from buying the mixers (did I say I did? :S). I used it as evidence to fist her argument that she wasn't going to drink any of the following purchasers of alcohol. But after I refused the sale of the alcohol to her friends she suddenly didn't want all that cranberry juice.

[Agent Gibbs]

yeah your original post reads like you stopped her buying the Cranberry juice

 

Its a shame she didn't buy £20 of mixers only for everyone to refuse the alcohol, THAT would have been funny! they'd be having an antioxidant party rather than an intoxicated party

[EEVILMURRAY]

yeah your original post reads like you stopped her buying the Cranberry juice

 

Its a shame she didn't buy £20 of mixers only for everyone to refuse the alcohol, THAT would have been funny! they'd be having an antioxidant party rather than an intoxicated party

It did? Well shit. Sowwie everyone.

 

I could've put the mixers through and then ID'd them afterwards, but that'd equal to more of a ballache for me when the booze is refused - I suppose it might inconvenience them as well ¬_¬

[jayseven]

To be fair, I've only ever experienced the ball-ache side of things when it comes to the whole selling-alcohol-to-minors. I've always looked fairly old. and it's just a pisstake when I'm in a bar with people younger than me and they all have ID and I don't... so the 18 year old kid behind the bar refuses to serve me. Luckily I'm bearded and fairly jovial, and I just smilingly ask them to send the manager over to repeat the decision. Not ONCE has the manager upheld the nonsense. There's long been a ridiculous disparity between the intentions of the legislation and the actual effects of teaching disposable staff how to deal with the worry of being charged a buttload of money for accidentally selling alcohol to minors (phew long sentence!).

 

Similarly, it's illegal to sell minors smoking paraphernalia, however matches have always been exempt from this because their 'primary' function can be to do with lighting stoves, etc. I remember I was sent to the shops to get milk, bread, a newspaper and matches, and the newsagent guy refused to serve me for any of the items because I wanted the matches. Clearly the guy was vastly misinformed. It was a very entertaining saturday morning for 9-year-old me when my mum angry-faced it up to the shops to complain.

[ReZourceman]

This afternoon (just before finishing) I had an absolute....

 

CUNT.

 

A lot of people get annoyed that we ask them for identification documents. Its not like terrorists and criminals target financial institutions to launder money though, so you can understand their annoyance.

 

But, I accept I can understand it being slightly annoying to some people.

 

Anyway, we asked this woman for I.D. documents, three times by letter in 2011. Because she wasn't using her account, she ignored the documents (free country).

 

Now she has decided she wants her money, she wants to withdraw it, but we need to verify her. (We do try to electronically verify customers, and it usually goes through).

 

She started off very sarcastic. I told her we need a bank statement as one of our requirements for identity, she says she doesn't have a bank statement. I tell her we need one, she says her bank account is "online only", I said if they have a branch she can go into a branch and get one from there, she re-iterated its an online bank account, so as she didn't spell it out, I asked if it was an online account with no branches, she confirmed it was. (Somewhat unusual....I had not come across this before) so...I asked her who it was with. Her response;

 

I don't know. I don't have the documents to hand.

 

So you have opened a bank account with a company you don't know the name of. I obviously realised she was lying, attempting to find a way around it, so I reiterated we need a bank statement and that the only option would be to print one (we don't accept non-originals), and we would refer it to compliance on receipt. She said she has no printer and no printer at work (lol), I asked if it would be possible to go to a library, she said she works 9-5 Monday to Friday, so it would be a big inconvenience (she made this call at 4:30pm by the way).

 

She then said (at this point it had been about 15 minutes of her being a sarcastic little bitch, trying to goad me and catch me out), that she has moved from the address we have. I said "Oh that will be why we were unable to electronically verify you then", and she then saw this as me showing weakness or her catching me out or something. She said "How do you know I've changed my address" in a cocky tone. I replied that I didn't know, she then said that she would send in documents in a different address so how is that secure etc - I confirmed that in these instances, we update the address and then attempt to electronically verify her. She then said "Who gave you permission to do that?!" I said "You did, as you agreed to our terms of business".

 

I then informed her of the importance of keeping us informed of changes to her details, and when she was saying how this is annoying and she needs her money urgently I re-iterated that it is cases like this why it is important to tell us if she moves, and again confirmed that we sent three letters to her requesting I.D. two and a half years ago, and she hated that lol. She said "Oh, so it's MY FAULT?! Well that's Customer Service", (I should note at this point that I am one of the best customer services people in the company. I am getting constant praises from my manager, and but yesterday the head of department e-mailed me to say she had seen my PDR and told me how fucking incredible I am basically), all this time I was being absolutely calm with the customer.

 

It went on for a touch longer, me confirming our requirements etc, and her trying to catch me out and failing, and she eventually hung up.

 

I wrote up details of the entire call on the system, and logged the complaint - so she did steal 15 minutes from me (I went over time) but....she's a cunt. Just such a lying little bitch, spiteful little whore.

 

Not surprised that she was a 42 years old and still living with parents just a few years ago, can't imagine anyone would want to spend long periods of time with her.

 

 

OH. God.

 

On top of all that, they put me on reception today with a little cunt in my department. She's an incompetent little slut. She bitches about EVERYONE, moans after every call, is an idiot and a manipulative bitch. E.g. "This customer is such an idiot, trying to login online when obviously they don't have num lock on". "Actually thats a problem with IE11, I sent an e-mail about it on Friday". She also tried bitching to me about one of my fucking friends....

 

"Do you like X? Surely you think she's annoying!!!? I feel so sorry for anyone in her Christmas meal group."

 

"No, I like her. She's really nice."

 

*10 minutes of awkward silence*.

[jayseven]

@ReZourceman I TOTALLY feel for you re: proof of id/account/address. Fact is it's for THEIR protection that such measures are in place, otherwise pretty much anyone could withdraw her funds!

At my workplace we action a lot of DSARs and wrong addresses are a very frequent issue. Legislation means banks have to be secure and must have stringent internal procedures to protect the data (and of course funds) they hold. The specifications for the internal procedures are, largely, left for each firm to set themselves.

 

There are specific banks which have definitely got overly stringent procedures that seem to be set out to discourage customers from complaining.

 

In this particular instance; our client had a joint policy with a bank, with her ex-boyfriend. The bank were refusing to communicate with us, essentially saying we couldn't pass basic security. We ended up asking our client to call them and pass security etc -- she failed security! Apparantly she got her own birthdate wrong. Turns out they have the birthdates mixed up on their systems for the policy holders. So basically if she, or us, contacted them with a non-factual DOB for our client then they would liaise with us. But because we failed security they provided us with a request -- they asked her for proof of id. Simple. Drivers licence or passport! But... our client doesn't have either... Now legally there are other forms of ID and, in some cases with some banks, you can use, say, a birth certificate in combination with proof of address and a written statement from someone in a position of authority, to prove your ID in stead of a license or passport. However, because this firm's internal procedure requires that we adhere to their SPECIFIC request... she's a bit fucked.

 

And fucked because of a mistake THEY made.

 

Luckily I love my legislation and I found a tasty morsel in the principles of the data protection act, where a bank has a duty to hold factual information (hence why ReZ needed proof of change of address to update their systems in order to protect the customer). In my situation the bank was refusing to do any work towards fixing this situation - they could've looked at initial applications in order to see if there was a manual input error at some stage, for example.

 

So the next step, which I'm not paid to do, is to raise a separate complaint to what we normally deal with, and complain against principle 4 (iirc) of the Data protection act 1998, whilst providing birth certificates for BOTH policy holders. If the bank even just fails to acknowledge this complaint they can be liable to some fun court summons stuff.

 

So thanks to the bank's overly stupid way of working (i.e. strict adherance to internal policies rather than to the legal legislation) we're just being put back several months. The PLUS side is that if we have to go to the ombudsman we can definitely use this as evidence that the bank didn't uphold the basic duty of care plus several other FSA guidelines in appropriately dealing with a complaint.

 

BOOYA, essentially. Even though it doesn't sound liek it. And it sounds boring as fuck, right?

 

 

tl;dr my job is dull.

[Jon]

I absolutely agree with it being illegal for someone over 18 to purchase alcohol with the purpose of giving it to a minor, good job law.

 

Now what is totally fucked up is that fact you can't sell an age restricted game or DVD to a minor but they can quite happily in front of you call over an overage guardian and have them buy it for them right in front of you, whilst smiling like a fucking banshee.

 

There shouldn't be any disparity in age restricted items, whether it's alcohol or a game. They're both age restricted for a reason.

[tapedeck]

I remember working for First sport and was given a promotion by my manager to trainer manager.

I was naturally ecstatic at the time as I was just a skivvy - so accepted the post. The next day I turned up keen as mustard, ready to learn about management and me and the manager walked around the store as I discussed the things I had been thinking about to improve sales and the store layout etc.

 

Then he led me over to the shoe section and pointed to a small section of sports shoes...

In a tone which I can only describe as 'Napoleon Dynamite-esque', he told me that this area was my responsibility and that managing the training shoes was a post that could open up future opportunities with the company.

 

The absolute twat...I left shortly after and used the story in another job interview (which I got).

[jayseven]

@Jon I do agree with you to a large extent. That kind of scenario reeks of ignorance on behalf of teh parents. If a parent has played through a game, understands what they'd be exposing to their kid, and feels they've brought their kid up with a mature outlook/respect for the content in question then sure, buy the game for the kid... but if the kid's just saying "i want this!" thten you're not going to presume such a background exists. An automatic solution would be to treat it like alcohol, however I do believe alcohol is way worse for minors than some brain trauma in the form of shocking scenes (though society could be worse if general standards lower, etc).

 

I genuinely think the solution would be fairly easy. First off -- the sales person says "are you buying this game for yourself or for others?" then if they say others; "please be aware that this game contains heavy/light/frequent emphasis on sex/drugs/crime/killing, and is rated [whatever]"...

 

Of course a) if this happened then the sales person would probably skip it or b) the parent would just answer whatever, or c) people would quickly learn to just answer "IT'S FOR ME" rather than go through the questions again... in which case I guess the REAL answer would be a massive marketing campaign in the vein of "you wouldn't steal a car..." only "you wouldn't let you child watch THIS..." or whatever.

 

Interesting topic, though. I was always brought up allowed to watch 'older' films once my parents had seen it and decided whether it was a sensible idea or not.

 

@tapedeck ... that's... a joke, right?

[tapedeck]

@teedee.

 

I wish it was a joke at the time. Now made me realise he was a goon and I wasn't gonna be working for them much longer.

There are always individuals who will look to take the piss...retail seems...full of them.

[Agent Gibbs]

@tapedeck......i can't believe you are serious! what a complete nob that guy was! was he actual serious that, that was a post? or was he doing it to get shot of you?

 

@jayseven as boring as you think that sounds.....can you give us updates to any resolution?I actually find that really interesting as I worked in GE capital and encountered stuff like that all the time, though it was about 7 years ago now so my memory of specifics is becomeing hazy

GE was the sort of company that only wanted certain ID's and we weren't supposed to change things even if it was a manual input error without proof...........I on the other hand disregarded such policies and if the original application was on file, or something in the history indicated the data had been changed i'd just correct it, after asking further security on the account

 

day in day out i'd have third parties ring up wanting information on accounts they didn't hold, i remember someones mother ringing up to make a payment on the account (which was fine as she didn't need info from the account) but then after she paid she wanted balances, what the son had bought etc and went bananas after being refused, it sticks in my mind because it was one of the few times i couldn't resolve the issue myself and had to get a manager.

 

I do remember one time at Mc donalds when i worked

during rememberance day i was working on the front counter and it approached 11 and the 2min silence

(you all can probably see where this will head)

The radio was always played over the PA system and the presenter of Radio Aire ( i think) anounced we were coming up to 11

There were a few customers in the store sat on the seats near the counter and there was a woman in, reasonably dressed, middle aged and had a child with her

Along comes the anouncement over the radio for the 2 min silence, the music stops and everyone stops to show their respect

I'm stood there behind the counter like everyone else in silence observing the show of respect, and we must have been halfway through the silence when this woman comes over

"excuse me can i have xxxx"

And i ignored her as you do its a 2min silence, but i did old up a finger to guesture 1 min

"EXCUSE ME i asked for xxxx"

"Don't ignore me you can hear me, where is your manager?"

she chuntered on like that for the next say 30 seconds

When it was over i was quite curt with her, telling her it was rememberance day and explained the silence to a woman maybe 10/20 years older than me, and said something like i'm more than "happy" to help her now

It didn't go down well, the customer is always right blah blah blah i should have dropped everything

My manager had heard the exchange and came over...

"Excuse me Madam but can you kindly take your ignorant ass and fuck off out of the store"

she left and he told me i should have told her to fuck off "If they can't repect the fallen, don't show them any respect" or words to that effect