Unfiltered Story #259183

I work for a national, virtual bank. We service vehicle loans, and unlike most national banks, we actually take customer calls.

(Most of the time when you call a large national bank, even if you are transferred to the “title department”, you are actually talking to a customer service rep following a script — we can tell because when we call these banks, the csr promises to “mail” an electronic title, etc., promising things we know are not physically possible due to our knowledge base; so we know you usually don’t get to talk to the individuals who are doing your title work.)

So I am fielding a phone call from a loan officer, and the customer wants to remove an ex-boyfriend from her vehicle title. I’m actually the second person in the department to discuss this with the loan officer. I know the state in question is going to charge sales tax, because they are not family, and the state in question will consider the loan amount to be the sale price. The title clerk she was just speaking to is literally sitting right next to me, so I wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention beyond “so-and-so is getting one of those change name on title” calls. But once I got the call, and saw their notes, I realized it was the same loan.

So I explain again that the state in question is going to charge tag, title, & taxes. “Okay fine.” The tax rate in this state varies slightly between municipalities, but is pretty high across the entire state. I could tell this loan officer was not getting it.

Finally around the fourth or fifth time we advised her that tax would be due, she finally exclaims “What do you mean ‘she’ll owe sales tax’ means ‘she’ll owe sales tax”?

My snark is going to get me in trouble one day. What I wanted to tell her is “maybe the dmv reps are holding the title hostage cause they want banana bread, or maybe she actually owes sales tax”. What I actually told her was to repeat the entire explanation again for what must have been the sixth or seventh time, between my co-worker and myself.

Mentioned the call to one of my co-workers as I was photocopying everything I was mailing out that day.

Found out later that co-worker also got a call from the loan officer, for a whopping third attempt, to get one of us to tell her state law did not apply to her customer.