World's first angry customer: How, nearly 4,000 years ago, a man complained about poor-quality copper on a clay tablet and created history's oldest customer complaint

Long before one-star reviews, complaint emails and social media posts, an unhappy customer in ancient Mesopotamia left behind what is widely regarded as the world's oldest known written customer complaint. Dating back to around 1750 BC, the remarkable clay tablet records a buyer's dissatisfaction with poor-quality copper and poor customer service, offering a rare glimpse into consumer rights and business disputes nearly 4,000 years ago.

The complaint, now housed in the British Museum, has fascinated archaeologists and historians because it shows that concerns over product quality and merchant accountability existed long before the modern marketplace.