It's taken me a while to get this one down electronically. There are so many examples of bargain hunters and bastards that I could write a book on them (and one day, I'd like to).

The biggest problem I had with the BH&Bs was that they'd somehow directly impact your pay. Money you could have, and should have, been making was taken away from you by these bastards.

Example 1. Sometime during my tenure at Sears, probably around the summer of '95, Sears went all out in their quest to get people into the store. In the weekly circular they started pushing a $188 19" color television. This was pretty exciting stuff back then, because 19" TVs were usually hovering around the $200 mark. So the people who wanted to save that extra $12 dollars were going to be sure to come to us. Oh, yeah, and the comission for that wonderful television was .5 percent. Which means, if you sold it, you got slightly under a dollar in commission.

Now I can't blame Sears for pricing a television that low. It was done to draw people into the store, pure and simple. And when they came in, you'd try to get them to buy a television that wasn't quite as... craptastic. I can blame Sears for the horrible commission rate on it. If we're going to get stuck selling it, and believe me, we'd do everything we could to not sell that television, at least give us the buck eighty eight for the effort.

Normally you could move people off the television. You could point out that for 12 dollars more, they could buy a much nicer RCA, with a nicer picture and a ton more features. And most people would jump to that, or even higher. Seriously, if 12 freakin dollars was that important to you, you don't really need a TV at all... do ya?

Unfortuately, this special would lead to the first type of bastard. The "I'm not going to spend any more money than absolutely necessary, you're not going to make any money, but yet I want to take as much of your time as possible" customer. The type of customer who would bring in the flyer, point to the television, and ask to see it.

Now this is where the craptastic bit comes into play. This was a really craptastic television. And you didn't have to sell televisions to see this. When you looked at the 6 button remote (power, channel up/down, volume up/down, mute) you should realize you're not getting the Cadillac of televisions. But without fail the customer would say something like, "Well, what's this TV have on it. What are the features?" And all you could really say was "It's color and it has a remote, sort of."

But that was never enough. You'd have to go on about the buttons on the front of it, which were essentially the same as the functions available on the remote. And you'd need to cover the remote batteries, because that's really important. And these people usually wanted to pay with either checks, cash, or livestock.

So you'd spend 15 minutes selling this TV, for less than a buck in commission, and during that time the other person you'd be working with would sell a high end TV ($45 commission), a DSS system ($25) commission, and a pack of video tapes to a really cute girl showing a lot of skin (priceless).

Example 2. The liar. I don't know what else to call this type of customer. And we got a ton of them. Liars.

They were really common during certain times of the year. Holidays and graduations always brought them out. They only wanted one thing.

A camcorder.

Camcorders were great to sell. The pay was decent on them, and all you really had to do was explain the features, and show people how to use them. By that point they were simple enough where anybody could charge them, click in a tape, and be good to go. Once a person decided between VHS-C or 8mm, they'd pick a model (usually panasonic or RCA) and, more often than not, a few extra videotapes. They'd pay, go home, and enjoy their purchase.

Not the liars tho. They'd always show up a week or so later, claiming to not be satisifed with their purchase and wanting their money back. Which meant that you'd lose the commission on that sale. Which means the half hour or so you spent demoing the item, showing the customer how to use it, was in the crapper.

And how do I know they were lying? When most people really want something, and don't like the model they bought, they'll get another model. Almost without fail.

The liars tho, would just claim some vauge reason for not wanting their camcorder anymore. The big tip off was the fact that they'd never return any blank tapes.

Why's that signifigant? Easy... they used the camcorder as a rental to record a holiday party, or a graduation. Almost every single one of them. And since they'd used the tapes to record the event, they weren't going to return them. Or even the packaging(which when people really had changed their minds, or weren't happy with the model, they always threw into the bag for some reason). With some questioning, you could always get that out of them. Most of them were so stupid that you could simply ask "Where did you try it out", and they'd flat out say that they had used it at a holiday party or graduation. And if they didn't, you could just present the evidence (lack of tapes, the fact that rider/tcnj had just graduated, the fact that it was a week after christmas/easter/thanksgiving), and they'd crack.

Their cracking meant that I was then free to slap a usage fee on them. It wasn't much money, and came nowhere close to restoring the lost commission, but I would always get satisifcation explaining the situation to them. And that usually gave you license to make comments, in a nasty tone, like "So in essence you *rented* a camcorder for us, and as a result you're going to pay a usage fee to us, because we can't sell this as new anymore". And they'd always try to slip in a few "thank yous" or something, just to try and establish that they were human, to which you could reply with "I'm not doing this because I want to", or "mmm-hmm...". You'd never reply back nicely. Because they were liars.