A Storm Of False Pretenses

I work for a bank. We have just had a major flooding event — the third 500-year flood in two years. Unfortunately, a post office roof collapsed, and that particular post office processes most of our mail.

We receive notice that mail will be seriously delayed, and a lot of it was destroyed. We have notices up online and in our lobbies, and we have tried to tell people verbally, back-date payments which may have been mailed during that time, and issue new checks to people who may have been mailed a check during that time. It’s been stressful, to say the least.

Caller: “I mailed a payment check almost a week ago. Why has my account not been updated?”

Me: “I do apologize. The major post office on [Street] had a roof collapse, and our mail has been seriously affected. However, I—”

Caller: “Unacceptable. What are you going to do about this?”

Me: “Well, as I was saying, if you’d like to pay a different method, I can effective date your paym—”

Caller: “No. I want to pay with the check that I mailed. You probably have it and threw it out.”

Me: “I can assure you that I did not. Now, if you pay a different way, I can back-date your payment. If we do get the check, we can shred it—”

Caller: “NO. I demand to be compensated.”

Me: “I’m sorry, compensated how?”

Caller: “Just waive this loan payment for my inconvenience.”

Me: “No, I’m afraid that can’t happen, but there are several other methods of payment that I can help you with, and I assure you there will be no late charge added.”

Caller: “Y’all should have thought better before you used a post office that is just going to collapse with the first little rain.”

Me: “…”

Caller: “Whatever. I’ll just pay online.”

After we hung up, I looked at the loan payment history and realized that every single payment ever has been paid online, this person has never mailed us a check before now, and they are always trying to dispute late payments. I seriously think they saw our mail delay notices and decided now was a good time to get a late fee waived.