Unfiltered Story #146062

I worked in customer support for a big telephone company, and got quite a lot of stupid calls. One thing that customers often complained about was the 19 SEK administrative fee for sending out their bills to them by mail. We were instructed to advice our customers that they could avoid that fee by paying their bills online through their internet bank, or to have the bank set it up so that the bills would be paid automatically every month. Some older people distrust these modern methods, as they are afraid of phishing. One man in particular had his own solution to this problem:

Me: “I’m sorry, but there’s no way that we can remove these administrative charges.”

Old Man: “They have done it for me before!”

I read the notes on the man’s account and see that he’s called once a month for the past year trying to get us to remove the fee, and that we should not allow this anymore.

Me: “Well, that may be, but we are not allowed to do that. If my coworkers have made a mistake, that’s their fault, but I can’t remove this fee for you, it’s against our rules.”

Old Man: You know, considering that I spend so much time going through my bills, writing out the sum and mailing to the bank to get the bills paid, I think YOU owe ME 19 SEK in administrative fees! You can take that off of my bill!”

Me: …”Yeah, I’ll pass that suggestion on to my supervisor. In the mean time, you have to pay the administrative fees.”