A woman calls in. She placed an order that’s well past our free shipping threshold, but the item she’s getting is oversized and comes with an additional handling fee.

Caller: “Why aren’t I getting free shipping?! I want the shipping fees waived!”

Me: “Ma’am, as it is an oversized item, we have a set handling fee set by the shipping company that we cannot remove.”

I get halfway through explaining this when the caller suddenly starts screaming.

Caller: “MANAGER, MANAGER, MANAGER, MANAGER!”

It’s so loud that a coworker three desks away hears it. She keeps repeating it without taking a breath, so I place her on hold, contact my supervisor, and explain the call.

Supervisor: “Transfer her over so I can tell her the same thing.”

I have twenty seconds to process my retail job flashbacks before picking up my next call, putting on my customer service voice, and saying my “Thank you for calling [Company]” spiel. I’m no less than two seconds past my opening spiel when a familiar voice screeches into my headset.

Caller: “I WANT A DIFFERENT MANAGER! MANAGER, MANAGER, MANAGER!”

Guess she didn’t like what she heard.

I’m a customer service representative for a credit card company. It’s my first day.

Caller: “My card needs to be updated; my last name has a typo.”

He gives me the details, but I cannot find his account, which I tell him.

Caller: “It’s my wife’s card. Her name is [Wife].”

I get the account open and see that his name is not on it.

Me: “Can I speak with your wife?”

Caller: “She’s been dead for eleven years, but I still use her card.”

I transferred him to the fraud department!

I work in an ISP call center that revolves around fixing internet service. I’m the person that asks if you rebooted your modem.

Me: “Thank you for calling [ISP’s name]. My name is [My Name]. With whom do I have the pleasure of speaking with today?”

Caller: “I had a tech knock on my door. He wants to go into my yard to bury a cable from my neighbor.”

Me: “Yes, sir. That is usually standard protocol depending on where the tap is located. May I hav—”

Caller: “YOU ALL WILL NOT BE BURYING ANYTHING IN MY YARD. AND IF THAT TECHNICIAN KNOCKS ON MY DOOR AGAIN, I’LL BURY HIS BODY WITH THE THE REST OF THE DEAD BODIES IN MY BACKYARD!”

Just a heads up. Don’t threaten a technician or a company. We take that very seriously.

I put myself in an auxiliary state so I wouldn’t get another call and reach out to my supervisor. She immediately gets on the line with our security team. They reach out to the local sheriff’s office. They pay him a visit.

I later found out he didn’t have dead bodies in his back yard, but only after the local law enforcement dug up his backyard looking for them.

I’m a provider phone representative for an insurance company. I take calls from providers’ offices verifying benefits and claim status for their patients. Usually, you’re talking to the people at the front desk, almost never the doctors, but today I get a call from an actual doctor. After I verify her tax ID:

Doctor: “I’d like to check benefits for a patient, [Patient].”

Me: “Sure! Could I have his member ID, please?”

Doctor: “It’s [ID].”

The patient doesn’t come up. I ask her to spell his name, and I try looking him up that way. No matter what I do, I can’t find him. This doctor is losing her mind.

Me: “Are you sure he’s with [Our Company]?”

Doctor: “I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS! YES, HE IS! HOW CAN YOU NOT BE ABLE TO FIND HIM?!”

Me: “Doctor [Last Name], I’ve tried everything, and he’s just not found. I don’t know what else to tell you other than speak to him.”

The doctor rants and raves for another minute, and then, abruptly:

Doctor: “Wait, is this [Other Health Insurance Company]?”

Me: “No, this is [Our Company].”

Doctor: “Oh. I called the wrong insurance.” *Click*

No apology for her mistake or her behavior. Bearing her tantrum and wonderful listening skills in mind — I had TOLD her what insurance company she had called — it was more than a little ironic that she was a psychologist. Doctor, heal thyself.

As a bank, we take security very seriously. We have two levels of authentication that callers must go through to speak to a representative out of a choice of three: voice recognition if they’re signed up, confirming digits of a number they made up that we do not see, or security questions.

A caller is screaming and crying because she’s able to get through by ONLY using the two levels of verification. After somehow managing to calm her down, I decide to be nice and add a note onto the account that she would prefer to do all three types and then proceed to go through the questions with her even though I know it’s her. She isn’t happy with this.

No, she wants for someone to send in an IT ticket to get her specific account updated so that no matter what, she will have to go through all three authentications, and only on the automated line as she isn’t confident she’s speaking to someone who works for the bank, even though she is the one who called us.

Me: “I can’t do that, ma’am. Every customer is treated the same.”

She is adamant. Then, she breaks down in tears.

Caller: “My ex-husband hacked into my account and stole my money years ago and I’ve been really paranoid it’ll happen again!”

I feel bad for her but I cannot do what she wants me to do, nor can a manager, nor can IT.

Me: “Ma’am, there is something we are advised not to do unless the customer really wants it, which is to permanently lock all accounts so no one can access them over the phone and any query has to be dealt with face to face in a branch.”

She goes quiet for a few moments and I think at first she’s hung up, but then, I hear this in the background:

Caller: “They can’t do more than you can. Why did you tell me they could?!”

That’s when the penny drops; she is already in a branch speaking to someone about it. She isn’t happy with their response and has called us to see if we can do better.

Other Person: “I’m sorry if it came across like that, but I did say they might be able to do something else, not that they will.”

Caller: “But why can’t they? Anyone can access my accounts!”

Other Person: “You can have voice verification, you can have a unique number for yourself, you have security questions, and the only other option is to lock your account so anything has to be done face to face—”

Caller: “But why can I only have two?! I want all three, and not the last option, as that’s not convenient!”

Other Person: “I cannot change the entire security policy, I’m afraid, so unfortunately, those are your options.”

Caller: “Well, they’re not suitable if I can only have two, so lock my accounts. But how do you know I’m me?”

Other Person: “We always ask for ID, so we know it is definitely you—”

Caller: “But anyone can fake my ID and put makeup and a wig on to look like me, and they can then access my account!”

After this, she let out another loud sob before hanging up on me, leaving me stunned. I took a note of the account number and checked it two hours later to see what option she went with. If the notes the person in the branch left are to be believed, they offered to upload a bunch of random questions and she had to answer every one of them.

There are fifty questions. I feel for the poor person she next speaks to.