Merrily we roll along

Double post today because it's cold, it's sleety and no one is out and about today leaving me bored and cold, and yet strangely un motivated to redo the front window.
Which is really what I ought to be doing.

So I was flipping through Ronn's blog at Futures Antiques and thinking about some of the funny, weird, odd and enlightening things that have happened at the store over the years. I have a FAQ on our website that outlines the to dos and not to dos of maintaining a working relationship with a dealer who has the goods that you just love. A lot of it is simple two way street respect, easy stuff, but still worth a read through.

Ronn posts 'stupid customer stories'. So I'll tell the tale of "Dumbass-the Super Special Architect" He's been BANNED from the store and that takes a lot of work:

So three years ago during the summer renovations, D-SSA walks in. "Sorry we're closed for renovations" He smiles and says "I just really really want that chair, can I buy it?"
Seems like a simple enough request and the register and cc machine were still hooked up so yeah. "How much is it?" 110.00
A cute little 60s Selig, low to the ground seagull style lounge chair. I told him it needed a back cushion hence the low price for a groovy lounge chair. "oh, well-whats-your best price?"

Best price is an annoying question for a variety of reasons but asking best price on a piece of furniture priced way below fair(or on sale) is just rude. Asking someone to stop what they are doing and open their store especially for you just to haggle is also rude.

I just want him to make a decision so I can get back to dropping tile in the back room and I'm not going to get around to the back cushion anytime soon, plus he claims to be 'in the trade'... more on that later. So fine, 10% off and it's yours.

"I don't pay tax" great, fill this out I say, handing him a resale form. "Oh well I don't actually have a tax thing, can't you just back the tax out?" No. Now I'm annoyed. "I can show you how" Are you kidding me? "Well can you use someone elses tax id, I'm sure you have some on file"
OK, he has now crossed the line into scumbag territory and I want him o-u-t.

You don't do that. You don't ask for a store owner to pay your tax for you, people who don't charge tax do it because they aren't paying tax or have pre rolled the tax into their pricing which doesn't allow for discounting.
And pretending to work for a tax exempt or resale firm is the quickest way to the top of the blacklist. And yet this isn't what put this guy on the blacklist. It just put him under the heading of jackass.
After wanting a to the trade discount and being a yutz about paying tax, he was still has 'customer status'.

3 MONTHS later (we were closed for two weeks so three months was quite a stretch) he comes in and tells me that his 99. chair is "broken" and he needs store credit. I think he may have actually thought I'd take his word for it and just credit it without any need to involve the chair in question.

Like most vintage and antique stores we do not accept returns and we don't do exchanges. There are rare circumstances where this is perfectly rational and it does happen, however 3 months is quite a bit beyond the time frame for this happening.
After explaining this, he looks at the sign behind the counter outlining this policy and says the sign wasn't there when he bought the chair. This is true, the counter AND the sign were BOTH on the other side of the store at the time.

Like a dumbass I offer to take a look at it for him on the off possibility that something is loose and the laws of physics stopped applying. The chair sits about 8 inches off the ground on a tulip pedestal the same diameter as the seat and he's claiming it tips over every time he sits in it. Tipping this chair over is a physical impossibility. So I already knew he was full of it.

So he rolls up a few days later with the chair, he has not replaced the back pillow. Without a back pillow the chair was not comfortable and was priced accordingly. With a back pillow the chair was selling for 275. in Austin.
I show him that it does not tip, I show him that it is not possible for it to tip. I remind him that the back pillow is missing. I check the screws on the base. I know he is, in a word, a liar.
He wants a refund. He's like an annoying broken record. This is first thing in the morning and I haven't had my coffee yet.

Had he shown up and said 'hey I bought this and it's really cool but I'm not going to get around to getting the back pad made, would you be willing to purchase it back?' It might have gotten him pretty far. But no, he wanted to be a jerk. He had to accuse me of selling him a dangerous tipping chair. He 'knows people in the industry and word gets around' (what are you, the godfather of Austin architects?) Then he had to pull out the integrity card, telling me I had none.

Really bad idea. There are a lot of dealers with integrity, will tell you if something is a good buy or not, will go out of their way to point out scuffs and dings, and will not stoop to selling shoddy merch as quality, and I'm one of em. There are a hell of a lot more with none, so adding me in with that lot was the last straw. The integrity card was the very last one he should have played.

Ska-rew you, I thought as walked back into the store and pulled the cash drawer, "Here's your refund, give me the chair and leave. "well, I really like this other thing...." "Buddy, you have got to be kidding me. Do us both a favor and don't come back."

I have to stress that it was not because he needed to return an item. It was his general skeeviness. The combination of "I work in the industry, I get a discount, I don't pay tax, put it on someone else's account, this item is broken, you lied to me, I know people in the business"
Seriously, just gross.

And in 5 years he is the only person I've actually officially banned from the store. Getting blacklisted from a store is hard work. You can be a butthead all day, everyday and still not make the list.
You can be 'that annoying guy who has to tap everything with his keys' 'the lady with the 4 ADD kids' 'the weird guy who stares a lot' 'the barefoot creep' 'the annoying haggler' any combination, but it really takes a colossal amount of effort and energy to get officially blacklisted.

Dealers share stories all the time, we chat about how nice or sweet or charming some of our favorite customers are and we also share 'freakfest stories, getting blacklisted at one store can make dealers all over town know you as 'that guy who got bounced from so and so's store' this is nothing to be proud of.