I work as a customer service representative for a finance company. The company provides loans for home improvements, decks, sidings, bathrooms, and the sort.

Today, I received a call from a woman demanding to know who did her siding. This is not an uncommon situation; lots of customers call because they’ve lost the contractor information, and it’s usually an easy call to handle. All I need to do is ask for their loan number and verify the customer, and then I can provide the contractor’s information.

Me: “May I have your loan number?”

Caller: “I don’t have a loan number.”

I thought she just didn’t have the loan number handy, so I tried to look up her account by other means.

Me: “May I have your social security number?”

Caller: “I’m not going to give you my social. Why do you want my social?”

Me: “I’m trying to find your account. If you don’t have your loan number handy and don’t feel comfortable providing your social, may I have your address?”

Caller: “I’m not going to give you any information. I don’t even have a loan with you.”

When she said that, I thought I may have misheard her; why would she be calling us if she doesn’t have a loan with us?

Me: “You don’t have a loan with us?”

Caller: “I just said that.”

Me: “Then how can I help you?”

I thought maybe I was wrong about the reason for the call.

Caller: “I told you already; I just want to know who did my siding. Why do I have to keep repeating myself?”

Me: “I’m sorry, Ms. [Customer], but I don’t have a way of knowing who did your siding.”

Caller: “Why?”

I really couldn’t believe I had to explain this.

Me: “You don’t have a loan with us, so we don’t have a record of who did your siding.”

Caller: “But you guys work with the people who did my siding. They offered me to finance through you, but I decided to pay in cash instead of taking a loan.”

Me: “They are a different company. We are just a finance company; we provide loans for home improvements. We work with lots of contractors who offer their customers to finance through us. If you paid in cash, you didn’t do business with us, only with your contractor, and I don’t have a way of knowing who the contractor was.”

Caller: “So, I’m being punished for paying in cash instead of getting myself into debt. Wow!”

Then, she hung up on me.

I don’t even know how she remembered our company’s name and not the contractor’s name.

An older gentleman storms into the bank. 

Customer: “Your ATM isn’t working!”

Me: “What issue are you having with it, sir? 

Customer: “It’s not taking my card!”

He shows me the card.

Me: “The problem is with your card, sir, and not our ATM.”

Customer: “How can you know that?!”

Me: “Because your card is laminated, sir.”

I used to work in IT for a local credit union. One day, we start getting calls from several branches with roughly the same question.

Branches: “Hey, there’s a guy here from [Company], and he says he’s here to look at the printers. Is he cleared to do this?”

While this is following process for unscheduled visits, it happens to about five branches in the same area and it is the same tech showing up. We start talking to our manager, and just as he’s getting to a point where he’s going to have us tell the branch to call the cops, one of my coworkers gets off the phone.

Coworker: “Hey, guys, I was just talking to [Manager #2] at [Branch]. She said the tech gave her a card and he’s supposed to be doing this? Like, they’re actually a security company of some kind that does tests like this to make sure people are following protocol.”

Manager: “[Coworker] and [My Name], go talk to [Security Engineer] and see if he’s aware of this. For now, if we get any more calls, continue to have branches follow the process of turning him away. If [Security Engineer] isn’t aware, we’ll call the cops.”

My coworker and I head around the corner and into the engineer’s office.

Security Engineer: “Hey, guys, what’s up?”

Me: “We just wanted to check in because we’ve gotten calls from several branches saying they’ve got an unauthorized vendor onsite looking to inspect the printers. So far, we’ve told them to follow process and turn him away because we can’t verify the visit.”

Coworker: “But I just got off the phone with [Branch], and they said the tech gave them a card that showed he worked for a different company and that they did this kind of thing to test security.”

Security Engineer: “He wasn’t supposed to do that!”

[Coworker] and I just blink at him.

Security Engineer: “Yes, this was scheduled through us—” *meaning the security team* “—but the tech wasn’t supposed to tell him who he was! The branches were going to be notified at the end of the day. He should have hit all the branches we asked him to by now, but if you get any more calls, have them follow process.”

[Coworker] and I start walking back to our seats.

Me: “Did they send us any sort of notice that this was going on?”

Coworker: “I have no idea.”

We get back to our desks and tell our manager what happened. He starts looking through his email.

Manager: “They didn’t tell me.” *Heavy sigh* “All right, that’s fine. Like he said, if we get more calls, have them follow process. I’ll go talk to security and let them know if they do it again, they need to tell us.”

Me: “I mean, you’d think it would be smart to at least warn IT that this is going to be happening, so we don’t, you know, tell the branches to call the cops because there’s a random guy trying to get in!”

Manager: “Yeah, I know. I’ll handle it.”

We hadn’t had another instance like that by the time I left. But sometimes I wonder what was going through the security team’s heads that they thought NOT telling IT they were running this test was smart, especially since we were the ones who would get those calls in that situation and we would check tickets and system for visits. It would have been simple to send us an email that said, “Hey, we’re running an experiment/test, and if the stores call about an unauthorized vendor from [Company], he’s supposed to do this. Don’t tell them who he is; just remind them to follow process and turn him away.”

My husband and I have recently married. We are still waiting on our marriage license to be filed with the state and returned to us so I can legally change my last name. We have received checks as wedding gifts and want to deposit them.

My husband calls his bank and asks what’s necessary since a lot of the checks are written to Mr. and Mrs. [Husband’s Last Name]. The bank tells him he just needs to come in and they’ll take care of it. He goes in and he is told they can’t deposit them without my consent. He asks again what is necessary since our marriage license hasn’t been returned and they say all we have to do is have me come in.

This time we go in together. We are also going to transfer my bank account at a different union to his bank.

Teller: “I need both of your IDs.”

We hand them over.

Teller: *To me* “I need a current ID with your updated name.”

Me: “I don’t have that yet. We’re waiting for our marriage license to be returned so I can go in and officially change my name and then get a new ID.”

Husband: “When I came in the last time, all I was told was that [My Name] needed to come in with me. I asked about needing the marriage certificate and was told that it wasn’t needed.”

Teller: “I need proof that she is your wife.”

Husband: “So, what are we supposed to do?”

Teller: “Wait until she’s changed her name and has a new ID.”

Husband: *To me* “Call your bank and ask them what they require.”

I call my bank and ask them the same questions. They say it’s not a problem, especially if we are going to be joining accounts. I tell my husband this in front of the teller.

Husband: *To the teller* “Please close my account.”

The teller went and got their superior, who tried convincing my husband to stay with their union. He refused, and we drove over to my bank and had his account transferred over and the checks deposited within thirty minutes.

Bankers with impossible demands getting you down? Commiserate with these 23 Ridiculous Stories About Bankers You Just Can’t Bank On!

Customer: “Can I get some more checks?”

I start the process of trying to get this taken care of when I realize something.

Me: “Sir, you have several bounced checks.”

Customer: “Yeah, that’s why I need new checks. I need to pay her with one of the new checks I’m gonna get.”

Me: “No, sir, the issue is that you have no money in your account.”

The guy was twenty-one and completely clueless about how checks worked. He thought that as long as you had a checkbook, you could buy anything you wanted.

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