Black Friday really brings out the worst in people. These stories are the worst of the worst!
A Woman Commits Assault Over A Toy
“When I was in college, I worked at a toy store, and it was the year of the Furbies. They were really hard to get, and our site only got 10 of them.
We were instructed to pass out numbers rather than the actual toys to the first nine customers in line (one was donated). I was the lucky one to pass out numbers.
When we opened our doors, it was pretty organized because we had set up lines, and it was also a high-end neighborhood. I gave the first person their number, and then all of a sudden I am tackled from behind.
This woman slammed into me and knocked me to the floor, and ripped the tickets out of my hand, breaking two fingers. All for stupid numbers.
How dumb was she? The store refused to give her a Furby for her numbers and was trying to detain her until the cops showed up, but she decked our manager and walked out.”
It’s A Good Day To Make Money
“A guy came for our Black Friday sale not to buy stuff but to sue us. He intentionally spilled food on the floor and walked back over to slip in it. He gave himself a concussion and started throwing up. He tried to sue until we showed his lawyer the video.”
The Violence Is Awful!
“I worked Black Friday three years ago at Best Buy. I saw a guy get out of his car and literally stab another guy over a parking spot. Had to give a witness statement for that one. The Same day, I saw one lady punch a pregnant lady because the pregnant lady got the last of the $200 TVs. Thank goodness it was a punch to the face, not the womb. And also in the same day, a gentleman grabbed one of the chairs from the Geek Squad counter and threw it at my coworker, because my coworker informed the man that we sold out of the iPad 2, four-five hours prior. And I had to work it, even though my Grandma died the day before (on Thanksgiving). It was the worst 15-hour shift I’ve ever had to work; the blackest of Fridays. Screw Black Friday. That nonsense should be illegal.”
A Woman Fakes A Sickness To Skip The Line
“My first day working for Best Buy was on Black Friday, eight years ago. I was controlling part of the line since I had zero training to do anything else. I had a lady saying she was going to faint. She kept saying, ‘please just let me pay so I can get to a doctor.’ I knew she was lying and called my manager over so he could talk to her. He said, ‘ma’am, they told me you were in need of medical assistance, I’ve got an ambulance on the way.’ She freaked out and started yelling at my manager about the line being too long and how it was his fault she was feeling sick. She looked at me and said, ‘This is all your fault you little jerk. If you would have just let me cut the line, we’d be out of this mess.’ I couldn’t help but smile. My manager told her to leave and if she didn’t, he would call the cops. She tried to stay until a random cop came in to check out the crowd. She left so quick. That was my first of five Black Fridays with Best Buy.”
People Will Fight Over Anything
“Two women got into a fistfight over $10 waffle irons in 2010.
Last year two men got into a fight in the parking lot. Over a shopping cart.”
A Customer Is Really Upset With A Cardboard Cutout
“When I worked in retail, I was working at a small hardware store. We opened at 7 a.m. or something on Black Friday which is an hour early. There were several cardboard cutout people that we had to advertise for paint. One was a purple man that was about 6 feet tall.
I’m standing at my register at 6:30 a.m. because we had to be there early, even though we didn’t open for another 30 minutes. We all knew the owner would open the doors a little before 7 a.m. and let people in. Well, there was no line at 6:30 a.m. One person shows up right around then, while I’m counting my register. He proceeds to do the usual, ‘I want my cheap stuff now! Not later when you’re open!’ thing.
Early Customer (EC) – “Hello?! ARE YOU GUYS OPEN?”
At this point, everyone else was in the back of the store setting things up, and I was alone up front out of view of the door, but I could look over this window ledge and see him. I didn’t really want to deal with him but I started to walk around from my register (after closing it of course) and was about to say something to him when he starts talking again.
EC – ‘I know you’re in there! I can see you! What? Are you not even going to say a word to me? This is terrible service, you’re incredibly rude.’
I have no idea what’s happening, I’m not within view of the guy yet. Finally, I realize he’s talking to a large purple cutout of a man. I proceed to go open the doors and try to explain this to him.
Me – ‘Sir, I’m sorry we won’t open for another 15 or 20 minutes. (Trying to ignore the elephant in the room; him talking to cardboard).’
EC – ‘Why won’t that guy acknowledge me?!? Why is he being rude, he could have just as easily told me that you weren’t open yet. I should get a coupon.’
Note: The purple dude was maybe six feet from the door. It’s not like he was yelling at a silhouette across the store.
Me – ‘Um. Sorry, that’s just a display advertisement for our paint sale today.’
EC – ‘Well that’s stupid, you shouldn’t be able to put things up like that, they might scare people. It’s really rude, you guys should know better than that.’
EC proceeded to berate the other employees throughout the store over the hour or so he was picking up the cheapest items he could get his hands on. Finally tried to bargain for 20 percent off on account of the ‘rude cardboard guy’ (his words not mine). My manager says “Ah, no.” (Direct quote). The guy wasn’t old/senile, but apparently, he needed glasses, badly.
Using An Toddler To Commit Theft
“My worst Black Friday experience would have to be the time a husband/wife combo used their daughter to steal some video games. The wife would go to the bathroom with their infant, and the husband would slide games into the diaper bag, and then send their toddler daughter to the bathroom with the diaper bag so she could crack open the cases and take the games.
We didn’t catch them on Black Friday. It was a few weeks later. But we certainly found them out that day. I remember when we saw them come in weeks later and called the cops in advance. Just wait them out. They did their thing, and when she tried to leave, the cops were waiting. The daughter’s scream as her parents were being arrested made my blood run cold. How do you use your kids like that?”
The Family That Steals Together, Stays Together
“Target, two years ago. I just go to watch the gore – had a great vantage point. This family of yokels with like a dozen kids is right in front of me, way down the line- no way they are getting the big ticket items, right?
These kids were trained. They fanned out across the store, ducking and weaving. They located the tv specials hidden in the women’s clothing section and PHYSICALLY BLOCKED THE PILE until their parents got there with the cart. It was beautiful.”
Scamming The Scanner
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“A guy came through my check lane. He had a huge TV that I knew would be about $300 to $500. After I scanned it, I looked at my screen and it showed up as $20. I told him there is no way this TV is $20. He was insisting it was $20. Upon closer inspection, the name of the item on my computer screen was definitely NOT a Samsung TV. So I looked at the barcode and noticed it was taped on! This guy taped a $20 barcode on a huge TV. I called over security and the guy was brought to some back room.”
A Fight Saves A Boring Day
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“I work at a Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Not freaking Bath and Bodyworks for all you idiots who can’t read a sign on a building.
This happened last year, and I had the early shift from our opening time of midnight to 8 a.m. This particular year, it was completely dead for all but maybe one hour of my shift. We didn’t have enough employees to fill the full-time slot, so we had to open an hour after the rest of the mall. Well, some time goes by and we are all bored. All the rooms are filled, swept and vacuumed, and all of the sales that are happening for the day were prepped and refilled as needed. We ended up taking displays off of the shelves and were cleaning the shelves in every room of the store it was that slow. Well about an hour into this extra cleaning, a small group of customers come into the store and start shopping. About 30 minutes after this group, two very angry women with some kids come storming angrily into the store. I assume they missed their ticket for another store or something along the lines of they didn’t get an item they wanted. The typical reason of grumpiness other than lack of sleep. Well, these two groups meet in the front of our store and a fight breaks out, as the larger of the women, with the kids, starts slapping the stuffing out of the man for being with the other women. Yelling and screaming about cheating, money, excuses. Well, the man with the build of a scrawny kid, pushes said woman to the ground and then both groups start hitting, pulling hair, stealing shoes. All while the kids are just shocked at what is happening in front of them.
I signal to customer service to call mall security as I take the kids who had been struck during the ordeal over to customer service. The ‘adults’ are eventually all rounded up, shoes on the floor, weave in hand and eventually the lady who started the fight was led away by police officers once they arrived. As far as the kids go nothing too bad other than a slight bruise on one of them from the wild swings. We ended up giving them both a free soda and a candy bar of their choice while they were also questioned on who had hit them. None of this happened near the entrances where the cameras were located, but seven eyewitnesses were enough for the cops to haul the lady who started it all off to jail. It was a bummer for the kids but it was interesting to watch for awhile.”
Some People Just Go Crazy For Fun!
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“My first Black Friday, we had a guy camp out for days. He bought a bunch of stuff then returned it an hour later. He told us he just does it for the thrill…. Weirdo”
A Woman Is Stabbed And Doesn’t Care
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“When I was in New York for university I worked at Bath & Body Works for a little extra money. There was Lady1, who grabbed the last of some lotion, and Lady2 went totally crazy. Lady2 started yelling and screaming, while Lady1 is trying to pay and get out of there. Lady2 was mad at Lady1 because she was ignoring her, and she pulled out a freaking Swiss Army knife. Lady2 then STABBED Lady1 in the arm, and Lady1 didn’t even flinch. She literally pulled the knife out her arm, threw it at Lady2, and left without paying. We didn’t even try to go after her. She deserved that travel-sized lotion for free.”
Furbies Really Made People Crazy
“I have two Furby-related Black Friday stories. My second-best Furby story involves being at work one day when my manager, who had just arrived for her shift, pointed out a teenage couple to me.
‘See those jerks?’ she said.
‘Yeah,’ I said, kind of stunned, as she was highly religious and that was major swearing for her.
She went on to say ‘I passed them as I was walking in. The guy said ‘I’m going to go in and ask them if they have Furbies, and rage when they tell me they don’t.”
Having not noticed my manager passing by, despite being in her uniform, he had gone up to the first worker he saw after he and his girlfriend stopped laughing over his plan. Which had turned out to be my manager. The fellow came up to the counter, slammed his fist down, and demanded a Furby.
‘I told him I heard what he’d said to his girlfriend.’ my manager said, ‘And he tucked tail and went out with his lady.’
My best Furby story involved someone trying to assault a child for one.
I was covering at a different store, one that was a higher-grosser than my store, so the District Sales Manager had been ensuring it got Furbies when they were available to keep their numbers high. So it was a few days before Christmas that we got in several cartons of Furbies special delivery. As per procedure, we had a limit of one per customer, and you couldn’t reserve a Furby.
We sell through most of them, but somehow we still have some an hour before we close. I get a phone call from a frantic young woman who is questing for a Furby. Being young, honest, and dumb I tell the woman we have them, but we can’t hold them for you. The years have hazed my memory on the exact words of the conversation, but it went like this.
Me: ‘I can’t hold a Furby for you.’
Psycho: ‘You will have a Furby waiting for me’
Me: ‘I’m afraid I can’t do that. It’s company policy.’
Psycho: ‘When I arrive you will have a Furby waiting for me.’
Eventually, she tells me she’ll be ‘right there,’ and hangs up. A half-hour passes, and we’re down to one Furby. Like something out of a bad movie, this little girl steps into the store, with eyes normally only found on children in velvet paintings and talking with a lisp, asking me if we have Furbies as she shakes her fist filled with crumpled bills. I sell her the last Furby and hand it over to her in its bag when Psycho arrives, boyfriend in tow.
Psycho is about 5’5 with jet black hair, unblinking eyes, and a predatory expression that says ‘Sociopath.’ Her boyfriend towers over me, and he’s built in a way that would put professional football players to shame. His face is a blank mask, which all these years later personal experience has taught me is a side-effect of a long-term relationship with crazy. The little girl has barely walked away from the register when Psycho steps up.
‘I’m here for my Furby’ she says in a tone that shows she’s used to getting her own way.
I point to the departing girl. ‘I’m sorry, ‘ I said. ‘She just bought the last one.’
The words had barely left my mouth and she pivoted in place and headed straight for the girl. The boyfriend stepped forward and grabbed her by the shoulders, holding her in place. She kept trying to pull away from him, and he just kept holding on to her. What added to the creepiness of the situation was that neither one of the said a word, like him having to physically restrain her from attacking children was such a regular part of their relationship that it needed no words.
The store had all-glass frontage, and we all watched the girl until she disappeared from our field of view. It was about another minute before Psycho just stopped struggling like a switch had been flipped. Her boyfriend took his hands off of her, and she slowly walked out of the store, ramrod-straight. He looked at me over his shoulder, a sad look that I now know to mean ‘I’m sorry you had to see a brief snippet of the madness I endure every day of my relationship.'”
A Manager Gets Choked
“I worked at Old Navy in college. We would usually have several items on one table, but only one would be on sale. It was clear though. It would be like t-shirts, skirts, and sweaters, and the sign would say ‘t-shirts $5.’ One guy got super angry that not everything on the table was on sale and started flipping out about false advertising. We wore lanyards, and he grabbed my manager’s lanyard and started choking her. We were all ready to call the police, but she was a pretty awesome older woman and got him to stop (and made him feel like a major jerk)”
A String Of Violence Around A Store
“I watched a very large man trample several people to the ground and throw over his shoulder as many $1 towels as he could to his waiting family members.
I watched a guy get tased because he pulled a knife on the Wal-Mart’s store manager. The guy was angry because he was told he had to get into a line.
I saw a girl get trampled over $3 dvds. Shoe prints on her face and arms. The inhuman jerks saw they were standing on a person and just grabbed dvds anyway.
Black Friday sucks.”
Another Woman Uses Her Child
“One time at Walmart, I saw a woman tell her kid (who looked to be around 5 years old) to go over to the electronics and start screaming bloody murder that he couldn’t find his mommy. Surprisingly, people actually stopped to help the kid, and an employee got on the PA saying, ‘Will so-and-so’s mother please come to customer service?’ They held his hand and walked him to the Customer Service desk.
While everyone was focused on the kid, the mom stacked her cart with stuff; even taking some things out of other people’s carts. It was freaking ridiculous.”
Women Go Nuts For A Nintendo
“The year the Nintendo Wii was released, I waited in line in front of a Target all night to get one. Target team members came in maybe an hour before the store opened and handed out tickets to maybe a dozen of us and told us to come back when the store opened and that they would honor the tickets until noon. My friend and I decided to just wait it out in front.
While we were waiting, all these mothers just started rolling in with their Starbucks asking about the Wiis the store was getting. They were all excited about ‘camping out’ at the store. I just laughed and told them that everyone with tickets had been there since midnight. Some of them just thought we were lying about the vouchers as part of a plan to keep competition away. Others just offered to buy my voucher from me. One woman, in particular, told me I should give her my ticket for free. She claimed she deserved it more than me because I was buying the console for myself, but she was buying it as a gift for her little precious snowflake. They just kept lining up in front of the store, getting ready to rush the doors for the Wiis that were already spoken for.
Finally, the doors open up, and they all make a mad dash for electronics. One of them was holding an infant, almost under her arm like a football, sprinting through and checking people to be the first person there. It was one of the most ridiculous things I ever witnessed. Those of us with tickets just casually walk back there. All these women are lined up giving the poor electronics guys all this guff while another one takes care of the rest of us at the register. I walked out with the box under my arm in plain view, feeling a hundred feet tall. I’ve never done a holiday shopping thing like that since. I just prefer to watch the antics on YouTube. People are crazy.”
Even On The Phone People Have No Patience
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“I remember Black Friday when I was working electronics at Target. Needless to say, we were swamped. Someone called and asked if we had any Nintendo DS in stock. I figured we were probably ou,t but told him I’d check and to hold on but it might take awhile. Well, I physically couldn’t check the case for another 10 or 15 minutes. I found out that surprise, surprise, we were out! I managed to make my way back to the counter and told him we were out. The guy was furious that I took so long and told me, ‘you know what, screw you!’ And I was like, ‘okay’ and hung up. It was freaking Black Friday what do you freaking expect?”
Even In The Military, There Is No Discipline On Black Friday
“I used to work at a military base PX, and without fail, there will be someone, or someone’s family attempting to pull rank/position to obtain something in limited supply and would attempt to get us glorified Walmart employees to enforce their will.
Nobody cared, and the PFC would justly leave with the Captain’s TV. The next days would be filled with people’s wives coming up the complaint about their treatment to customer service and attempt to get a rain check on everything they had ‘stolen’ from them and even go as far as to demand apologies from staff, to which management was all too happy to oblige.
The example that comes to mine is when LED TVs were the new hotness. There were a few GIs, mostly E-3s that had pooled up to buy a big 55-inch LED TV and were nice as could be as I processed their cards and got things sorted. We were supposed to have five but only had one. We promised rain checks to the remaining four customers. Of course, some first sergeants wife took offense when we denied her a rain check as well and then tried to coerce the other customers out of their tickets using her husbands rank. It rolled downhill until she had to be threatened with calling the MPs to escort her out. She came back for weeks and escalated the issue until our management meekly asked us all to sign some kind of apology letter.”
A Mosh Pit Forms Around Cheap Computer
“I worked at Circuit City before the economy tanked. One year, our best deal was on some crummy Compaq laptop for $200. We handed out dibs flyers to the first 10 people in line that wanted one, but naturally, half the people who rushed the doors came for that thing. So as I’m carrying one to a customer with a flyer, people swarmed me and tried to yank it out of my hands, so I instinctively raised it over my head to avoid being jacked. Well, this caused a frenzy and I had to basically mosh my way through a pack of crazy-eyed people grabbing at it like freaking zombies going for brains. I’ll never go shopping on Black Friday.”