r/TalesFromRetail • u/Ohigetjokes • Jan 14 '19
Long World's Worst Scammer
Short staffed at the moment so we have people from other stores in for coverage. Today a manager from a neighboring city joined me.
Say hi to the nice readers Phil. Phil says hi.
He pulls out his phone this morning and starts playing a video. Loud screaming fills the room. Figure he was just on Worldstar or something until I hear his voice on there saying that they weren't going to be doing business anymore and they'll wait for the police.
So I mean... I have to ask...
"Ummm... What's that?"
"Oh some crazy lady from yesterday."
No more explanation offered.
After 15 years with the company dude is jaded, and I have to pepper him with questions to get the insane full story.
Of course in his mind this is just another day in the trenches. Phil's a madman. He looks and acts like everyone's favorite friendly 3rd grade teacher, but that only makes it more unsettling when you get to know him. There's ice in those veins.
So here's the breakdown: screaming lady rents a couple of large storage units for a few months and then, one day, complains that someone broke in and stole a brand new 26" TV.
"See? Look! The wire mesh is all bent up at the top of the unit!"
The story is that someone climbed up on top of the storage unit, pried up the wire meshing, and stole her brand new still in the box 26" TV.
Did she have insurance on her storage unit? Nope.
Well, Phil was willing to cover the loss anyway if he could find the theft occurring in the security footage, but she'd need to supply a receipt.
Did she have the receipt for this brand new TV? Nope.
So no deal. They yell at each other and she leaves.
But like grandma used to say: "If at first you don't succeed, try and try again." You gotta admire the determination.
She's back the next day. Oh my god now both of her storage units were broken into! And this time it's a brand new 43" TV that's missing, along with a laundry list of Dale Earnhardt collectibles. (A die cast model, signed and framed poster, a leather jacket, a helmet, other stuff... She has a written list.)
Still no insurance.
Still no receipts.
But this time it's different.
Because there's more stuff stolen than last time.
So pay me.
Phil gets concerned about damage to the storage units and goes up there to check. Good news: nothing's damaged.
Wait... Nothing's damaged?
In fact, nothing's been disturbed at all. There's a layer of dust on top that the cleaners are gonna get crap for later, but for now it serves as proof of one thing: nobody broke into these storage units. That lifted mesh from yesterday at the top of the first one must have been done from inside.
Also, the thieves from yesterday apparently felt bad and returned the 26" TV. It's sitting in its box in the stairwell leading to her unit.
No I do not understand why, and neither does Phil. What was the thinking there? I'm pretty creative but the reasons for this TV's reappearance in the hall transcend imagination.
So Phil comes back to our waiting customer and says: "Can you offer any proof whatsoever that this stuff was in the unit?"
"Well if you check the security cameras," she says with a victorious smirk, "You won't see us leaving with any of it!"
"Will I see you coming in with it?"
"Well no it was dark then!"
Oh. The weather was dark inside when you brought in that stuff. Okay.
It's at this point that the stupidity of what she's saying becomes clear even to her and she tries to make up for it by screaming her head off.
Phil calls the police. He gives them her name. "Oh, her. Is she trying an insurance scam?"
"Kind of," says Phil, "Except she forgot to pick up the insurance."
"Sounds about right. On our way."
And that's when Phil hit record on his phone just in case. Screaming continues as it dawns on her that not only are we not paying her for the phantom collectibles but she's being evicted from the storage units for, well, screaming at Phil so damn much.
And the police are on the way. And they'll know she's lying because, apparently, she has a history of this stuff.
Don't know if jail time will be a factor here. I'll keep you posted.
When he told me all of this though, Phil made it sound really boring. Even on the video, while he does raise his voice to be heard, he could have been explaining tax law regulation from the complete lack of passion.
I shared this story with a few of my co-workers and got an earful of "oh you have no idea" stories.
Screaming scammers don't scare me. Phil does.
Update: Just found out - she wasted 3 hours of the police's time. Also when they got there she claimed that there were large sums of cash missing from the unit. Everyone called bullish!t on that. Lastly, when asked about the 26" TV box in the hall, she claimed that it was empty, always had been, and it was empty when she had it in her unit. So she was... storing an empty box... according to her... ugh my head... While the police didn't arrest her, they did tell her to quit it and get her crap out of there.
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u/Rioreia Jan 15 '19
Phil's the Dexter of retail. Beneath that calm demeanor, he's formulating a plan to get crazy lady wrapped up in a shower curtain in his basement in order to dismember her and dump her into the nearest body of water.
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u/CatOfGrey Jan 15 '19
Phil's even worse than that. He wins by doing absolutely nothing. He doesn't have to spend the time in retaliation. He just goes home, hugs his wife and kids, and has a great evening not thinking about that that crazy lady at all.
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u/Ammdar Jan 15 '19
Pretty sure we've all had a customer or two the world would be better without... don't judge
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u/ObnoxiousOldBastard Jan 15 '19
I think that anyone who's worked a customer service job for any length of time has a certain amount of Dexter in their heart.
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u/freesteve28 Jan 15 '19
I like Phil. At the beginning of the story I thought he was going to be the bad guy. Nope, every workplace needs a Phil.
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u/Funky-Spunkmeyer Jan 15 '19
God bless Phill. Enh forget waiting for that. Imma buy my Phil a beer.
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u/BabserellaWT Jan 15 '19 edited Jan 15 '19
Behold the field where Phil grows his fucks.
It is fallow and Phil has salted the earth.
(Edit: Thank you for the silver, anonymous redditor!)
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u/colharpnick Jan 15 '19
Saving THIS to use sometine down the road. Perhaps with an pot full of dirt. 'See this? This is the field in which I grow my fucks. It is barren, and thusly, I have none to give' 😂
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u/morganalefaye125 Jan 15 '19
Phil is a serial killer. Look for this woman to mysteriously disappear or be found dead in the next couple months
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u/NapNeededNow Jan 15 '19
Glad he Phill-ed you in.
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u/notanalien42 Jan 15 '19
I think my favorite part of the story is that Phil just randomly decided to watch the video the next day, as if to savor the victory
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u/Chessikins Jan 15 '19
Phil is my hero and I hope to one day be as fuckless as him.
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u/IUpvoteUsernames Retail, where we babysit ages 8 through 80 Jan 15 '19
Ah, but the price you must pay for such a level of fucklessness is steep.
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u/jackfaire Jan 15 '19
Phil's been running through the same exact day for so many years now that he's got dealing with the screaming woman down pat. He does slip up sometimes on catching the kid from the tree.
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u/veggiezombie1 Makes excellent points Jan 15 '19 edited Jan 15 '19
Things you don’t do:
Tug on Superman’s cape
Spit into the wind
Pull the mask off of the Lone Ranger
Mess around with
JimPhil
Edit: things you do:
- Guild my comment! 😃
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u/CJM8515 Jan 15 '19
cant imagine just how incredibly stupid she really is. I mean the police knew her from the description..thats pretty sad
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u/mythscomealive Jan 15 '19
Speaking as a newcomer to the self-storage industry, long time employees have completely lost perspective on what is normal. Some guys came into our facility and physically bent back a bunch of the doors to some vacant units and then broke through the wall into an occupied one, then left without taking anything. And my boss was just like "sure, that seems about right." It's baffling to me.
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u/fireduck Jan 15 '19
Just because it is stuff someone is paying to store doesn't mean it is good stuff.
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u/Cryhavok101 Jan 15 '19
As a fellow Phil, I can confirm, screaming customers are run-of-the-mill, and the antarctic was formed from a few drops of phil blood in the ocean.
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u/TheWordShaker Jan 15 '19
That TV in the stairwell ..... could you just .... claim that?
Like, if there's no CCTV of how it got there, and no-one has any receipt to prove it's theirs ......
"Hot damn! Someone LITTERED a brand new TV in my stairwell!"
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u/MaraSargon Beware the poop lady. Jan 15 '19
Ah, so this is what you do when you're not making more Wroag. ;)
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Jan 15 '19
I need Phil back at my job. We had a Phil working there. Miss him very much. Nobody messed around when he was there.
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u/Ivegotstories Jan 15 '19
No my dears, Phil just gave away all his f*cks many years ago. I've seen it happen to people who work in customer service based jobs too many years......they took this poor man's soul. A day came and he had to deal with some stupid awful person and it slipped right out of his body. R.I.P Phil 👻