My WORST customer HORROR stories!!

What happens when your dream client turns into a nightmare? In this solo episode of Business Class, Vicky Owens dives into the anonymous client, customer and business horror stories that prove one thing: if you own a business, at some point, something will go spectacularly wrong.

From difficult clients and unpaid invoices to legal disputes, employee theft, shoplifting, dodgy collaborations and some truly unbelievable customer behaviour, this episode is packed with the kind of business stories that will make you laugh, cringe and probably check your contracts twice.

Vicky also shares some of her own experiences, including dealing with difficult clients, being burned by people she trusted and the importance of keeping a paper trail in business.

Plus, she discusses some seriously worrying business scams, including an entrepreneur who lost over £20,000 after scammers impersonated a supplier, how AI-generated images are being used to fake damaged products, and why changing bank details should always be verified directly.

In this episode:

• Anonymous client and customer horror stories
• How to deal with difficult clients
• Business scams and supplier fraud
• Losing £20,000 to a sophisticated scam
• Why business owners need strong cybersecurity
• Legal disputes and the importance of contracts
• Keeping evidence and paper trails in business
• Employee theft and broken trust
• Shoplifting and protecting a retail business
• AI-generated images and fake product damage claims
• The problems with “collaboration” and working for free
• Crazy customer complaints and unrealistic expectations
• Why Google reviews can tell you more than website testimonials
• Setting boundaries with clients and customers
• Knowing when to slow down and say no in business

And, of course, there are some stories that are so ridiculous you genuinely have to question whether they're real — including the customer who claimed she could detect dairy in coffee “by the energy” and left a one-star review because the coffee's aura was disappointing.

If you're a business owner, freelancer, entrepreneur, creator or anyone who works with clients or customers, this episode will probably feel far too relatable.

🎧 Listen to Business Class for honest conversations about entrepreneurship, running a business, growing a personal brand, business mistakes, mindset, success and everything in between.

Produced by TAEPodcast www.taepodcast.co.uk

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome aboard to business class. The only place to be if you are on your journey to success. I'll be showing the ups, the downs, and everything in between. Just a disclaimer that this is all my own advice and what if someone works for me as a first-time business owner. So please take everything I say with a pinch of salt. So take your seats, drop in, and welcome aboard to business classes. Hello, Monday, and welcome to a solo episode of Business Class. I am so excited for today's episode. And it's going to be a little bit more of a cozy, slow-down episode in comparison to what I usually post and guest episodes. I think sometimes I do really enjoy breaking up the guest episodes with a cheeky solo where it's just a little bit more slower-paced, easy to listen to. And today I've got you at home, you listeners, to write in with some of your craziest client and customer horror stories. Because I think we all forget that this happens to all of us. And there is no business in the world that has never had an unhappy customer. And I think things like this just bring me so much comfort. And also, all of them are going to be anonymous because I want you to feel like you can share whatever you need to share. Because I think there is this whole stigma of, you know, you can't come online, you can't speak about the fact that you have unhappy customers when newsflash, it happens to every single one of us. So before I get into my horror stories, because there is a lot, and I've tried to get you to go into as much detail as possible. Um, let's go through my takeoff and departures as per usual. So my takeoff this week is that this is kind of a controversial one to say in business, and I'm just gonna say it. I have been slowing down because I have had from January up until pretty much July the busiest work schedule I have ever had. Like every single week I've had an event on, uh, a collaboration, a work opportunity, just so much on. And I think although it's been amazing and I've achieved so many things, like I've had I've been on Forbes, I spoke at SXSW, I got to travel, I got to go to Cannes, like so many amazing things. I think I'm like the rest of the year, I'm kind of okay with not really doing anything else. I know that probably sounds really bad. But I just want to focus on my business a bit more. Most of it was to do with my personal brand and me as a person. I have got a couple of things lined up, but I've just really been enjoying just slowing down the past couple of weeks and saying no to things. Um, I do feel the pressure to say yes to a lot of things. So I've tried to really just be like, is that actually gonna bring me any joy? Because I had one of my business class founders in us recently and we were speaking about how the best way I make decisions now is I think, is it gonna look good for social media or am I gonna feel good when I'm there? And if I'm only doing something because I think it'll look good on social media, it's usually not for the right reasons. And yes, I do think that side is important perception-wise, because it is good to create, you know, a perception of yourself and the type of brands that you work with. But sometimes it does lead you to be being burnt out. I've got a lovely juicy cold sauce smack dab right in the middle of my face, like literally sat on my Cupid's bow. I think that's a sign that the girl needs to slow down a little bit. Um, my departure, I would say, is I'm finding it really hard to find time to exercise. Um, and I feel like not many people actually speak about this, but I think when you're a business owner, you have got to be exercising because you have so many things you deal with day to day, like head up energy, and it needs to come out somewhere, otherwise you will get burnt out. And I really, really struggle to find a routine and I really wonder if anyone else has felt this before. So for me, I've got obviously like the morning time. I have established I'm not a morning person and I never will be. I like my mornings to be pretty slow. So I could do it in the morning, but that's when my consistency falls off because there are some mornings where I'm sorry, but I'd rather be asleep. Um, then I've got like the day at the office, and then the evening is when my partner goes to the gym and I take Toby, our dog, back home. Um, and then I'm like cooking my tea, doing all my evening bits, and I've tried a couple of things where I'm like, oh yeah, I'll just do yoga at home. I don't end up doing it. I've bought gym memberships, I'd never go. Um the closest I've ever come to a routine was I was a member at a yoga studio and I would go there every morning, and that was great. But now I've moved house and it's further away from me, and there's not really any other yoga classes near me that have times that are convenient in my schedule. So that's what I'm struggling with at the minute, and what I'm craving is like a daily exercise thing that I can stick to. But I've learned with me, if you're listening, you're thinking, oh, I'm gonna DM Vicky with a suggestion, it only works for me if it's something I've paid for and I have to show up for. If you're asking me, oh, just do something at home, it's just, I'm sorry, but it's just not gonna happen. It has to be something that I've paid money for or reliant on someone else. So, like if I know I'm meeting a friend for like, I don't know, a walk, I'm not just gonna cancel on them. Whereas if I say to myself I'm gonna go go for a walk, I can cancel that very easily. So I just wonder if anyone else has felt that before. That's my query of the day for you. So anyway, I'm gonna jump in with this episode. I am so excited. I wish this was like a more of a Halloween episode. Maybe I'll do another one towards Halloween time and make it like client horror stories themed. I think I'm just blissfully, wishfully thinking that it was Halloween because I think I said in one of my previous solo apps. I'm so over summertime. I am such an autumn-winter queen. Honestly, I am. Um, and I'm just sick of being hot all the time and sweaty. And I'm also sat in a hot studio, so I think I'm just wishing time away at the minute, which isn't great. Anyway, let's get into today's episode, which is kind of horizontal. Okay, so I actually thought this is not right for me to read out some of yours if I can't share any with you. And my best advice for knowing whether what you can and can can and can't share online is really sharing from the scar, not from the fresh wound. Um, so things that I speak about are things that happened years ago, and I am a hundred percent sure none of these people would listen to the podcast, let alone probably even remember working with me. But I'd say one of mine that I think I've shared before ages ago when I first started the podcast, was when we had just onboarded a client and they were so fresh to working with us. And we'd like fully onboarded them, they were really excited, they seemed really nice. Um, and then I remember I was in a meeting and I had like an unknown number pop up on my phone. And I was like, oh, and just so you know, I never answer unknown numbers ever. I'm like, if you need me that bad, you'd be in my contacts or you can leave me a voicemail. Um, I just think there's too many scams and things like that. So I I never, I never listen to unknown numbers. So I let it ring. Um, then I was still in the meeting. I got two more from that number, thinking, wow, this person is really persistent. And it was kind of throwing me off my game because I was on a call. Um, so then anyway, one of my teams said that it was this new client and she wanted to speak to me. And I was really concerned because I don't know how she found my phone number. We later on found out that it was still on the World Wide Web somewhere uh from when I first started my business when I was 21 years old. I think I put it on my Facebook page or something and forgot to take it down. So she did her research to find my phone number, and I've since changed it and it's not online anywhere. Um, anyway, so the member of the team said, Listen, you know, I'm free if you want to speak to someone. She was like, No, I want to speak to Vicky, which I get a lot because I'm the face of the agency, and that is something that I do find really hard is people always only ever want to speak to me, which is kind of annoying sometimes. Um, and then anyway, she said, Vicki's in a meeting, like we don't give out personal phone numbers. Please don't call her. She'll book in a meeting with you straight after. This client called me 11 times in a row, which I just think when you've been told no as well to persistently call 11 times in a row, unless someone's dying, it's never that urgent. So we were kind of a bit annoyed at this point, being like, what is so important? And the worst part of the story was that she just wanted to check how we were getting on with things, which just could have been an email. Um that was, I mean, that was not one of the worst stories that I've got. That was probably one of the tamest ones that I can share. I've had many people that I've worked with that you as a listener would know that have been a nightmare to work with or like refuse to pay. Um, legal disputes. I've just had a lot, okay. I've really been through the ringer with clients. But I thought I would start off by sharing something because I'm like, you guys can't share with me your craziest stories if I can't share something with you. I really do wish that I could anonymously share a crazy client story, but I don't know if I'll ever be able to do that. So I'm gonna start off by dipping my toe into the shallow end. I did a question box on my Instagram yesterday just to see what people had to say. And I got a couple, one or two, maybe three liners from people, which I'm just gonna read out first, and then I'll go into the juicy, full story times. So dipping our toes in, we've got someone said, Where do I even begin? My first retainer client would only work with me during her luteal, during her luteal phase of her cycle, but still wanted results and blamed me every time we didn't achieve something. I actually refuse to believe people like this exist. Someone else said, a male client asked me every time he saw me if I had a boyfriend yet, and why not? Guys, I'm sorry, but men, they they give us they give themselves a bad reputation. And I know that there's great men out there, and I've got one as a partner, but why have that why have we got to have creepy boundaries being crossed like that? Someone else said, um, contract cancelled because I wouldn't cross a professional line. That's the PG version. Oh god, why? Again, this is a man as well. So those were like some little dipping our toes in. And then some of the people that had great stories, I was like, please can I message you and hear the full story? So that is what we're gonna dive in with now. Okay, so first story. I have a photographer who we subcontract and use for client photography. So hopefully we all know what that means. Because sometimes it takes me a minute to be like, wait, what? What does that mean? Um, okay. She also has her own photography business. She asked me to manage her in her Instagram for a few months during the busy wedding season. A message popped up today in her DMs. It was someone who sent her my reel from today, followed by, is this her? God, I have actually had something really similar to this that I'll maybe share in a minute. This is gonna reignite client horror stories for me. To which my photographer sent a voice note saying, yeah, and that's her real voice. The lady then replied saying, dull. And my photographer said, Yeah. I haven't posted myself on camera for a while. I finally do it, and someone described me as being dull, including the photographer who I thought liked me, and I see her and I use her services regularly. Do you think I should say something? Do I find a new photographer? Should I stop posting reels? I know I'll get better in front of the camera. I know it isn't perfect. I posted it to get the first one out of the way, but God, people can be so mean. Also, do you not think like someone is logged in? And also, my rule with everything is digital footprint. Not that I am someone that wants, I mean, I'm sorry, but who people do love a bitch now and then. Sometimes you need to let stuff off your chest. I would never write anything. I wouldn't want screenshotted on text message or DMs. I feel like that's just like the most basic rule of being a human being. If you want to let something off your chest, meet up with your friends, have a glass of wine, do it that way. Let's not be typing it because you just don't know what people can see or what people can screenshot, and you don't know who you can trust either. Um, that has rang a bell for me. One of my very, very, very first social media management clients, um, she was paying £100 a month for daily posts, which is crazy. Um, and I remember I was obviously logged into the account and someone I think replied to one of the posts I'd made and was like, Did your new social media girl make make this? And they were basically saying how bad the work is. And she was like, Yeah, I've only got I'm only gonna use it for a few more weeks, and then I'm gonna get rid of her. She isn't that good. Um, and I was in bits about it. Like I was crying, I was beside myself about this issue. Um, I think obviously this was a good five, maybe more years ago now. I think I did pull her up on it and she was like, Oh, I was speaking about someone else or something. He was like, Yeah, sure. Um, but yeah, I think people do get fished out of the DMs a lot more than we might think. Someone else said, Hi, Vicky, this still makes me feel physically sick to talk about because I genuinely thought I was too switched on to ever fall for something like this. Basically, I run an e-com business and we've just had we just had our biggest month ever. Things were manic. I was juggling suppliers, hiring staff, and moving into a bigger warehouse. I was barely sleeping. On a Tuesday afternoon, I got an email from what looked exactly like one of our overseas suppliers. They had the same logo, the same email signature, same writing style. Even the email address looked identical apart from one tiny letter that I obviously didn't notice until weeks later. It basically said they'd changed the bank and asked us to update their payment details before the next invoice was due, which was nothing unusual, I thought. Businesses changed bank accounts all the time. I even replied, asking them to confirm the details. They replied within about 10 minutes, had perfect English, everything looked completely normal. A few days later, I authorized a payment of just over 32,000 pounds. I personally thought nothing of it. About a week later, my actual supplier emailed asking why I hadn't paid the invoice. I remember replying saying, we did, we paid it last Thursday. They had no idea what I was talking about. My stomach dropped. I went back through the emails and started comparing them side by side. The fake email address had an extra I in the company name. That was one tiny letter. I rang the bank immediately. It was too late. The money had already been moved through several different accounts and disappeared. I honestly didn't, I honestly don't think I've ever felt panic like that in my life. I kept thinking about how I was going to tell my team. I was convinced I was going to make have to make people redundant because of my stupid mistake. The police got involved. God, girl. The police got involved, the bank investigated, there were cybercrime teams that were getting involved, and it ended up going on for months. The worst part wasn't even just losing my money. I was so embarrassed. I didn't want to tell anyone outside my family because I felt so stupid. I'd always been that person saying, be be careful of scams. We always say that. I genuinely thought scams only worked because people weren't paying attention or weren't clever enough to understand them. It turns, it turns out they work because scammers are unbelievably clever. Apparently, they've been sat inside our email chain what? For weeks watching conversations before they struck at me. How do people do this? This terrifies me. They knew exactly when invoices were due. They knew exactly how we spoke to each other. They knew which supplier to impersonate. In the end, the bank managed to recover a small amount, but we still lost over £20,000. It took us nearly a year to financially recover. Now we've got a rule in the business that no bank details are ever exchanged from an email. I don't care if it's my own mum emailing me. If details change, we pick up the phone and call the number we've always had on file. That one decision would have saved me 20 grand and about six months of sleepless nights. I still think about that email sometimes and wonder how I didn't spot it. Then I remember that's exactly how these scams work. That's terrifying. I actually had, I feel so annoying being like, I actually had, but this actually does spark a lot for me. Um, when I was going to buy my first house, well, my house that I'm in now, um, on, so we were due to basically send the payment, the down payment, like, you know, the mortgage, um, on I think it was the Friday. And then on the Thursday, they emailed us saying, could we send it today? And I was, I didn't think anything weird of it. I was just like, well, I want to send it on the Friday because me and my partner were going to go out for like a meal, like physically send the money together and then have like a little chink of champagne and like celebrate. So I was like, oh, well, you know, I want to do it on the Friday because that'd be really special together to like move all that money over. And they were like, oh, like we need it today for something. And they sent us our new address, they sent us our old address, they said, like, just to confirm, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, Yeah, all correct. Um, and then I was ringing my partner, like, oh, like they want us to do it now. Um, and I know it sounds really silly looking back, but it it was believable. And then anyway, I decided to put my foot down and said, um, actually, no, we're going to be sending it over tomorrow. Because I was like, I really want that special moment of sending it while we're out for dinner and celebrating together. Um, and then I remember they were getting a little bit not majorly rude, but they were like, we really need you to send it today, like, you know, quite desperate. So I then just left it. And then I think half an hour later, we got another email saying that the um what is it called, who you buy houses with, not a broker, I can't think of it. House agent, estate agent. The estate agents were saying, we've been hacked and please don't send any money over. But people would have already sent that money over. And if you've ever bought a house, it's not cheap. Like you have to put down, I mean, it depends how how big of a house you're buying, but you put down like tens of if not hundreds of thousands of pounds that you know we'd saved up in our bank accounts for years and years and years. If we would have gotten rid of that, we wouldn't have a house. I probably would have had to get a bank loan. Um, because yeah, it had taken us such a long time to to do that. And I'm so lucky that I stuck with my gut on that day because we would not be in the position that we're in today. So it's it does happen to anyone. And we've really thought a lot about security in our business of like the passwords that you use and who knows those passwords, the information, things like that, which is crazy. I feel like that was gonna was that gonna spark another um story in my mind. I can't remember, but I feel like that yeah, please take that on board if you've never thought too seriously about security, because it literally can happen to anyone. Okay, the next one says, Hi, Vicky, I've never shared this publicly because it's on it's honestly been one of the worst years of my life. I feel like business owners need to hear this story because sometimes you can absolutely do everything right and still end up in a legal nightmare. I run a branding agency and landed at the time was my biggest client. It was worth just over £40,000, which for my business back then was huge. Everything was done properly. We signed the contract, paid the deposit, agreed on the timelines. Every single revision was reproved, approved over email. I was paranoid about getting everything in writing because I'd heard horror stories. The project took about six months and they loved it. They couldn't have been any happier. We finished the project, had a final sign-off meeting. They thanked the whole team and even said they wanted to work together again the following year. About three weeks later, I sent the final invoice and there was absolute silence. I chased them, heard nothing back. A month later, they suddenly came back saying they weren't paying because we'd failed to deliver what we'd promised. Oh my god, just I've just had this so many times. I was completely blindsided. I'd pulled together every email, every Zoom recording, every single approved signed document, every WhatsApp message, everything. It did not matter. A solicitor's letter landed on my doorstep saying they were actually considering suing me for damages because our work had supposedly caused them to lose revenue. This gives me traumatic flashbacks. This is what I mean in business. Like you just don't, you can just be dealt such bad cards, and people are just ruthless when it comes to money. Anyway, I genuinely thought I was going to lose my business. For nearly 14 months, my life became spreadsheets looking at evidence and being on endless meetings with solicitors. I'd be on holiday answering legal emails. I'd wake up at 3 a.m. thinking about going to court. I even stopped taking on bigger clients because I was terrified of it happening again. The craziest part was that while all of this was going on, they were still using the branding that we created for them. Their website, their logo, brochures, social media. They were publicly using everything we'd created while privately arguing that it was worthless and had caused them a loss. Eventually, after what felt like forever, they settled. Not because we'd actually done anything wrong. But because the evidence was so overwhelming that their solicitor basically advised them that they weren't going to win. The money eventually came through, but by that point I'd spent thousands on legal fees, and to be honest, had probably aged about 10 years. This is what I mean. I am actually 46 years old, but you wouldn't think it. People think the ending is the most interesting bit of this whole story, but it wasn't. To me, it was about how lonely it was. When you're in the middle of something like this, you convince yourself you've failed, even when everyone around you keeps telling you you've done nothing wrong. To this day, if someone tells me they don't need a contract or haven't got contracts in place, I physically feel my stomach drop. I feel stressed just reading that. And it's so scary that this can happen to anyone. My best advice would be when you do have a smaller business, people love to threaten a lot of things about taking you to court or any sort of legal proceedings, and it's terrifying. But a lot of the time it is empty threats. And even if you do have to go through that process, if you are really clear and set on your evidence, the evidence does speak for itself. Um, we've had it a couple of times. It will continue to happen when you're dealing with large sums of money, where people threaten to take you to court, to small claims court, and we've won because the evidence, and I keep track of every conversation, email, meeting, WhatsApp, because if you need to present evidence, you've got the evidence there. So that's my best advice well is keep keep paper trails of absolutely everything. But that is absolutely terrifying and makes me sad that good people have to go through things like this. Okay, moving on swiftly to the next one. Hi, Vicki. This one makes me laugh because the confidence of some people actually needs to be studied. It really does. I own a little lifestyle shop that sells homeware and gifts. That sounds really cute. What a dream. Probably not if you're writing in, but um, one Saturday we had this woman come in who spent about 45 minutes wandering around. She was lovely. Well, she probably seemed lovely, chatting to the staff. She was asking us questions. She picks up a basket and was filling it with little bits, candles, mugs, notebook, notebooks, things like that. She got to the till and realized she'd forgotten her purse and she said, Oh my god, I'm so embarrassed. Can you just put this behind the counter? I'll be back in 20 minutes. Of course, we said yes. People forget their wallets all the time. Do we say wallets or purse? I think maybe this is an American person because UK, we say purse. I'm just picking that up as I'm reading it. About 10 minutes later, one of the girls said, didn't she have two candles in her basket? We checked. She had originally picked up four, but only two were in the basket behind the till. We looked at the CCTV and it was impressive. While she was walking around the shop, she'd been putting products into a massive tote bag she had folded inside her handbag. And she wasn't rushing or acting suspicious. She was casually chatting to the staff while helping herself to our products. The basket she had brought to the till was a decoy. This is kind of clever. Obviously, not giving her props, but how do how do people think of these things? She deliberately left about 60 pounds worth of products with us. So we'd think she had been intending to pay. But she'd already walked out with nearly 500 pounds worth of stock hidden in that bag. We reported it and thought that was the end of the story. Oh, there's more. Three weeks later, she came back in the shop with the same handbag. What? Even one of even speaking to some of the same staff members, she walked in like she'd never been there before. This time one of the girls recognized her straight away and quietly radioed everyone. Radio. Oh my god, I'd love to have radios at work. I'd be literally, I would never shut up if I had a radio. So instead of confronting her immediately, we just watched her. She started doing exactly the same thing. Picking things up, looking around, sliding them, sliding them into the hidden handbag. The funniest part was when she came to the till with a 12-pound notebook. She asked if we offered a loyalty card. A loyalty card for a shop she'd already stolen hundreds of pounds from. As soon as she'd paid, security walked over and asked her and asked if she'd mind opening her bag. I have never seen someone's face change so quickly. She tried to say she bought all of the products from home, but unfortunately for her, half of them still had our security stickers on. And one of them was literally a display item that had a big not for sale label stuck underneath it. The police ended up finding she'd apparently been doing the same thing to loads of local businesses across the area. It wasn't even about needing the money. She'd just become really good at it because most small businesses don't expect someone who's smiling, making conversation, and buying a small item to actually be walking out with a bag full of everything else. It's changed how we train staff overnight. And now if someone's overly chatty whilst constantly moving around the shop, everyone's radar goes off. It's just insane. I used to work at Hollister in Manchester. So many people would steal. You'd have people that come in, they'd grab a whole stack of jeans, just run out and try their luck. You'd have people that you would never expect, like the most just like normal citizens, just like everyday people. Sometimes I feel like people can look a little bit sketchy. Um, and sometimes I'd be like, I'll I'll not judge, you know. Sometimes you're having a rough day and you want to come for a shop at Hollister. But then there would be people that just look like they were just having a normal little stroll, even with their friends. People will be sliding things into their bag. Um, people would put tin foil over the security tag so that the security system wouldn't go off. It's absolutely insane. And that terrifies me with product-based businesses. Okay, the next one says, I run an online homeware business, and I swear AI is actually becoming my biggest headache, and no one else is speaking about this. A few months ago, we started getting loads of emails saying products had arrived broken, which is nothing unusual. This does happen in delivery. We'd obviously apologize, send a replacement, and just move on. It started happening more and more and more. One week we had seven people all claiming different products had arrived smashed. Every single email included really clear photos, too. We could see broken mugs, cracked vases, split plant pots. That's really hard to say. And it all looked really genuine. We were replacing everything because customer service is really important to us. Then one of my team noticed something really weird in one of the pictures. The cracks in one of the mugs didn't actually follow the shape of the ceramic. It's hard to explain, but they looked almost painted on. So we started looking a bit closer. One photo had a spoon floating slightly above the table. A different one had a shadow going in different directions. Another one had flowers that seemed to disappear halfway through the glass, things that you'd never notice unless you were really looking for them. Out of curiosity, we asked one customer if they could send us another photo from a different angle because we needed it for our courier insurance claim. And they completely disappeared. They didn't reply, we didn't hear anything back. So then we started asking everyone. Funnily enough, about half of them suddenly stopped replying. I love it when you can outsmart people. The really unbelievable part was someone who'd supposedly received one of our ceramic bowls completely shattered. Except the bowl in the photo wasn't even one we'd ever sold. It had our logo on it, but the shape didn't even exist. It looked like AI had tried to recreate one for our website and just guess what the rest looked like. Now we've completely changed our returns process. We ask for a short video instead of just photos. And suddenly the number of broken deliveries has dropped by about 80%. It's honestly terrifying how convincing some of these AI-generated images are becoming. A year ago, I'd have spotted them instantly. Now sometimes now, even we get fooled sometimes, and it's literally our own products. If you're product-based, please take that on board because I have, I think, I don't want to name them just in case, but someone I had on the podcast recently who sold products said this has started to happen with them as well. What is wrong with like what is wrong with people? Like the especially when you're ordering from small independent businesses as well. Like it's insane. And then it's really sad when someone does have a genuine issue as well, and you've just got to like ignore them. Okay, the next horror story we've got, I think seems to be more team-based, but we'll absolutely run with it. Um, hi Vicky, I've never actually told this story to anyone before, but after seeing your story, I feel like business owners need to know that this can happen to literally anyone. So about two years ago, I hired someone who was probably my favorite employee I'd ever hired. Everyone loved them. Clients would email saying how amazing they were. They would come first in, last one out, bought everyone coffees, remembered birthdays. If you'd asked me who I trusted with my business the most, it would have been them without any hesitation. After about eight months, I started noticing really odd little things. Nothing major, just small bits that didn't quite add up. Clients were saying, thanks for squeezing us in yesterday when we hadn't seen them. Wait, what does this person do? Has she said that? Maybe not. Um, invoices I'd never created were showing up as paid. Little stock shortages that I blamed on us, just little stock shortages, oh, that I had blamed on us being just just being disorganized. I genuinely thought I was losing my mind. Then one Friday, one of our long-term clients rang me and said, I just wanted to check why I have paid twice this month. Straight away, I knew something wasn't right. I went through months of bank statements, and it turns out this employee had been sending customers their, oh my god, their own bank details instead of the business account. Not loads, just enough that nobody would immediately notice. Sometimes it'd be £80 or £150. They'd tell customers there was a temporary issue with the payment system and ask them to transfer it directly to them instead. Some clients genuinely thought they were helping us as well. When I added everything up, it happened over nearly six months and we'd lost just over £14,000. What the actual hell? I couldn't sleep for weeks. I kept thinking about the fact that I'd failed as a business owner. When I confronted them, they didn't really deny it. They just looked at me and said, I always meant to pay it back. Like somehow that made it all seem okay. What are people all right? It worries me. The people that we have to share this planet with. I remember sitting in my office after they'd left and just crying because I wasn't even upset about the money. I felt sick because someone I trusted completely had looked me in the eye every single day. Oh my god, this makes me feel sad. Knowing exactly what they were doing. It genuinely changed how I'd hired people after that. I still hate that because it makes me more suspicious of good people because most employees are brilliant, but once you've had your trust completely shattered, it's really hard not to question everything. Oh my god, that's insane. I'm very lucky that I have not, you I don't want to say yeah, but I've not experienced stealing. I really hope that that is something that I don't have to experience. Um the ex the next DM says, I had a woman who claimed to be an event planner and wanted to work with me. She said it, she said it, oh sorry guys, it's a Wednesday and I feel like it's a Friday. She said it was to be a collaboration, and I was skeptical at first as I don't do any work for free. But I believed in what she was doing and thought it would be great for my business, so I agreed to be her decorator. Over the past two months, I worked for her. I ended up having to design her signs, which I didn't mind because I do that for clients anyway and provided mock-ups. Every time I sent the documents, she'd complain about something saying I didn't understand her vision. The cheek of people as well, when it's a collaboration. When I asked her about her vision, uh, when I asked her what her vision was, she couldn't give me a straight answer. Over time, she became more demanding, and I was doing more work for her than my actual highest paying clients. She kept changing her plan and kept saying she can't visualize it until the day, which was not helpful and made me question what kind of an event planner she was. I went to set up the night before at the restaurant and I was there for four hours and then came back in the morning to finish off. Oh my god, just the fact you're doing this all for free makes me upset. An hour before the event, she finally arrives, walks in and says everything is wrong to the restaurant manager and then to me. When I ask for the solution to something, she's when I ask for a solution to something she said was wrong, she would ignore me. So I solved it my way, and then she would say, No, I don't like it, but still wouldn't provide a solution. Oh, just communicate. I mean, half the people problems is just a lack of communication. In the end, the decor looked okay, but it wasn't my best work. After the event, I was so mad because I was so mad but didn't show it because I didn't want to be unprofessional. As guests started to leave, I started to pack up and the woman left, not offering to help clear all of the decor at all. A couple weeks later, I posted the content I took from the event, and within five minutes, I got contacted by people who had worked with her in the past. This is why your your um invisible PR is so important in business, because if you have a bad experience with one person, everyone will come out and tell you. We had all had the same experience. She would oversell her events, name drop brands she worked with in the past, even though she had damaged the relationships we she had with them at the previous events she hosted, treat you like her employee, all whilst claiming this is part of the value-led partnership. So I did some research on her. She has no Google Business profile, all the reviews on her website, not Facebook page. All the reviews are on her website, not her Facebook page. And she has no evidence of the events she did for those people, only the events she hosts. All her images on her website are stock images that are used by thousands of people. That is one thing I'll say that I notice now as a business owner is that when someone has good reviews on their website, like it's all good and well, but you can choose your best reviews. Like go onto someone's Google, like, like if you want to read our reviews, you can go onto like Socially Speaking Media, Google Reviews, and that's all five stars, obviously. That's where you can see genuine people leaving reviews. So if you're on a website and you're like, oh well, the reviews look really good, find the trust pilot, find the Google reviews, and like that's where you'll see what people actually think of the business. Um, so I worked with, so I worked for an event planner who had been doing this for 10 years. She has no proof for working with clients just hosting her own events. She didn't just get me for free, she got everything for free: the restaurant, food, music, content creator, photographer, but claims to not make any money from the ticket sales. But over 80 people bought tickets for this event. Just this whole era that we're in of um gifted things and collab things, I just find so difficult. Um, and that is coming from someone that is a creator. I get everything offered to me as a collaboration or a gifted thing. Um I just think it's just I feel bad because it's people's time and money that you're taking for free. Um, and you're not giving them a proper return on that. I have a friend that has a product-based business, and we were talking about how she gets messages from influencers really big that you would know. Um, and they also expect to not pay for anything either. They'll let message you'll be like, Oh, I love this. It might be notebook. I love this notebook. And it's like, well, buy it then. If you like it, buy it. It's like people expect everything to be gifted or in collaboration, which is insane. Okay, next one we got says, Hi Vicky. I've got one for you that gets brought up every Christmas when my family asks, Have you had any more crazy brides this year? So I photographed this wedding about three years ago. The wedding itself was perfect. Everyone was super lovely. The couple were obsessed with the photos. The bride hugged me before I left and actually cried because she's seen a pre- a few previews on the back of my camera. A week later, I sent over a little sneak peek gallery. Her exact message said, Oh my god, this is in all capitals, oh my god, I'm obsessed. I've looked at them about 40 times. Lovely, all right. Fast forward about six weeks when the full gallery goes out, silence from her. Then I got this email. Hi, I've noticed you've made my husband look shorter than me. Okay, honey. Apparently, because in some of the photos she'd taken off her heels for dancing, and others she had been wearing them. She thought I'd somehow edited her husband's height to change throughout the day. She genuinely believed I'd shrunk him in Photoshop. I explained that people, you know, move in pictures, and she didn't buy it. She asked if I could make him around four inches taller in every single image. There were about there were over 900 photos. I politely explained that wasn't exactly possible. This is the part you actually have to speak to people like children sometimes. That's not exactly possible, my love. Then she asked if I could make her shorter instead as a compromise. Not really a compromise, it's asking the same thing. Then things got even weirder. She started sending screenshots from guests' Instagram stories saying things like, in this one, my left arm looks bigger than my right, or my cousin looks prettier than me here. Can you make my aunt look less orange? I swear I'm not making this up. She asked if I could remove every single glass of wine from every table because she didn't want any future children seeing alcohol in the wedding photos, not empty glasses, every drink, every bottle. There are about 300 guests. It would have taken me about two solid weeks. When I quoted her for the extra editing, she emailed back saying, I just expected this level of service considering how expensive wedding photographers are. About six months later, she tagged me on Facebook and said, couldn't recommend enough, five stars. Then underneath, if anyone books them, just make sure you ask them not to make your husband shorter.

unknown 40:47

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 40:49

To this day, people still occasionally ask me if that's something photographers actually do. I mean, even though I just said look at the reviews, I feel like you can tell a lot from reviews and also the way that people respond to reviews. I've seen in hotels before, and I always look at the Trustpilot or Google reviews of hotels. I know there is bad reviews, but there'll be so ridiculous where you'll be like, listen, I'm not even gonna put that down to the place. Like that was just a crazy person. Okay, we'll finish on one that I read this morning, which I actually can't tell if this is genuine or made up. I don't know whether people just like to have their story read on the podcast or what, but I'm gonna read it anyway. And if you're listening and it actually happens to you, I apologize. I just think this is crazy. So I own an independent coffee shop. It's nothing glamorous, just me and my husband and three girls who work on the weekends. On a Saturday morning, a woman comes in, she ordered an oat latte, takes a sip, walks back over and said, This doesn't taste like oat. I apologized immediately and made her another one. She even watched me make it. I literally opened a brand new carton of oat milk in front of her. She had her hands folded and watched every move that I made. She took another sip and said, No, that's definitely dairy. I was confused because I'd physically just opened the oat milk. Then she said, I have a gift. I said, a gift. Yes, I can detect dairy by the energy. I thought she was joking, but she wasn't smiling. She then asked me if I had any negative staff members that were working for me at the moment because apparently their energy can actually contaminate drinks. Again, she did not seem to be joking. She made everyone in the queue wait for her while she stood in the middle of the cafe with her eyes closed, holding the cup in both hands. Eventually, she opened her eyes and points at my husband and said, It's him. He's affecting the coffee. What is going on? I feel like I'm in a dream. She said she wouldn't drink anything whilst he was behind the counter. So my husband, who you can imagine was absolutely loving this by now, goes into a different room, takes his apron off, walks into the kitchen, and comes back out wearing sunglasses, which she said was much better. She genuinely believed the sunglasses had blocked his energy, and she happily drank her coffee, finished the whole thing, and left us a one-star review saying the coffee was lovely, but the aura was disappointing. I still have the screenshot. And to be fair, she has attached a screenshot. How do people like this exist? I wonder. And how do you best deal with them? I think a lot of them do come out when you work a public-facing job or like a retail job. Like I had experienced so many things in Hollister. I can't think of any at the top of my head. I remember I was working once in the changing rooms, and this man who I don't remember how old he was, he had in me a like a plastic Ziploc bag with dentures in it, like fake teeth, like full, you know, like when you think of fake teeth that old people wear, it was them. And he was like, Would you mind putting this in the bin for me? And I was like, Oh. I found all sorts of things in the changing rooms, honestly. Um, but I think everyone has to work in that sort of a job at one point in your life because that will toughen you up and you'll be prepared for anything the public throws at you. I have really enjoyed today's episode. I honestly have so many more that I could read through. So let me know if you want a second part to this. Um, and if you've got anything equally, please send it in. Obviously, I love a voice note. If you've got a voice note, if you've got a message, be as detailed as possible. I feel like this works so well because they were literally five out of five stories. So if you've enjoyed this episode, please give us five stars on Spotify, Apple, wherever you listen to. If you're watching on YouTube, give this video a thumbs up and subscribe. Also, if you are a listener of the podcast and you didn't know, I've started weekly vlogging. Um, so there's a couple of vlogs up on my YouTube that I've done just to show you what average weeks look like in my life because they are crazy. And I find them really therapeutic to do. I recently just put one out about how burnt out I am and just documented what a week of being burnt out looks like. So if you enjoy those, they're over on the business class podcast YouTube channel as well. Um, that is all from me this week. I will see you next episode on business class. Have a lovely rest of your week.