I recently lost my debit card. I locked my card and went to a banking location to ask about temporary cards.

Me: “Hi. I recently lost my debit card, and I was hoping to get a temporary one as I am going on a trip in a few days.”

Banking Assistant: “Unfortunately, we don’t do temporary cards anymore, but you can get your card on your phone now.”

Me: “I have my card locked as I lost it. I was looking for a temporary one until a new one comes in.”

Banking Assistant: “If you unlock yours, you can activate a digital card through your app and use that.”

Me: “I don’t want my card to be used by anyone else, which is why I locked it.”

Banking Assistant: “But if you unlock it, you can still use it as a digital card.”

This went on a few rounds before I finally was able to say, “No, thanks.” I don’t know how she didn’t understand that if I unlocked my card to use the digital one, then my lost card could be used if someone found it. I ended up rush-ordering a new one before my trip.

Customer: “I don’t want these checks! I want a new checkbook but without my account number on them.”

Me: “You can’t have checks without your account number on them, ma’am.”

Customer: “But what if someone steals my identity?!”

Me: “Well, we have—”

Customer: “And while we’re at it, get rid of my name, too!”

Me: “We can’t—”

Customer: “Actually, can’t I just use pieces of paper with IOUs? You have letterhead paper, right?”

Me: “…just… no.”

I decided to leave my bank and go to a new one. They had been doing a lot of things I didn’t like, but the final thing that prompted me to change was a stupid thing: they’d ditched a logo that I loved. It’s petty, but it was the straw that finally pushed me to do it.

The bank I’d chosen to move to looked like everything I wanted. I signed the paperwork so they could legally take over and transfer my accounts without me having to do a bunch of in-person changes at my old bank. The biggest, most important fact in this all is that, despite the old bank trying every year, I had never taken a credit card out with them, or a loan, or even an overdraft, so they didn’t generally make money from me beyond standard account fees. I remain bad at confrontation, as well, or this call would have ended much sooner.

The old bank called, and I answered.

Me: “Hi, [My Name] speaking.”

Representative: “Hello, [My Name]! This is [Representative] from [Old Bank].”

Me: “Hello, [Representative]. What’s going on?”

Representative: “We have just had a request from [New Bank] to transfer your account and wanted to make sure this was correct.”

Me: “Ah, yes. That is correct. You should have the paperwork from them with my ID and signature.”

Representative: “Oh, yes, but I would like to see if you would stay with [Old Bank].”

Me: “I beg your pardon?” *Pauses* “Are the transfer papers not clear? I am going to [New Bank].”

Representative: “What if I offered you $2,000?”

Me: *Slight pause* “$2,000?”

Representative: “Yes, a $2,000 credit.”

Me: “A credit, as in an amount I would have to pay back?”

Representative: “Not right away, but you see, you could get so many things right away with that and not have to worry.”

Me: “Hang on. Are we talking $2,000 as in cash that would be mine, no strings attached, or $2,000 as credit I would have to pay back?”

Representative: “Credit! I could even get it as high as $4,000. What do you think? Would you like to stay with [Old Bank]? Haven’t we been good to you over the years?”

Me: *Pauses again* “You can see my account history, yes?”

The representative makes a noncommittal noise.

Me: “Can you note how many times I have asked you all to stop sending me credit card offers? How many times I’ve turned down overdraft offers? Offers to upgrade my account to where I would have to pay you more for no benefit to me? And you think, at this point, I would accept credit on my account to stay?”

Representative: “But it’s $4,000.”

Me: “Of credit that I have explicitly told you not to offer me.”

Representative: “But haven’t we been good to you?”

Me: “I am going to [New Bank], and that is final.”

Representative: “But we could give you cre—”

I cut him off by hanging up the phone and never got called by the retention team again. Somehow, I think they were losing a lot of people with this strange final straw.

My new bank has never attempted to sign me up for a credit card, and when I finally did decide to get an overdraft for various reasons, they made sure it was for an amount I was happy with and had no fees associated. I am very happy with my new bank.

To this day, that retention call still makes me feel grumpy about how hard they once again tried to push me into credit I didn’t want.

I work for a bank a major high-street bank in the UK, specifically in the fraud department. In 2018, a customer called in because we wouldn’t let him access his account. Normally, we only restrict accounts if there are security concerns or if we think they’re a fraudster. I pulled up his account and notes, and I could tell something was off, mainly because of the twenty pages of notes, each with ten notes a page.

The more I read, the more gobsmacked I became. For the last three years, this customer had been under the impression that he was in a relationship with Rita Ora. That’s right — the actual singer-songwriter Rita Ora. At every opportunity, this customer had sent money to numerous destinations at the request of his “girlfriend”, and no matter what he had been told by staff or police, he still did not believe that he was a victim of a scam and was being robbed. (We had to get the police involved because we could only assume a person so duped had to be a danger to themselves.)

He told us that he had met her family and been to their houses. Unfortunately, he had never met Rita personally because she had such a busy timetable.

As I’m sure anyone would, I felt pity that someone was so deep in an illusion and being taken advantage of. Surely, you’d think, this person was vulnerable, perhaps a low-income gent late in life, and this was the only joy to which he clung.

No, this man was twenty-six. I have no idea what his job was, but it pulled in a cool £8,000 (around 9,900 USD) a month after tax. Granted, most of that was sent to “Rita”. He started trying to hide his dealings when people tried to stop him, but as far as we could confirm, in total, he had sent her over £250,000 (over 300,000 USD) over these years.

I later found out that we had no choice but to close his account down; even after the highest head of my department physically went to this person with all our evidence of him being robbed, he still wouldn’t see the light.

Six years after I finish my BA degree, I start a new job as a Senior Investment Advisor at one of the largest financial institutions in Canada. Unlike my previous job, I get to have my own office which has my nameplate — also reflecting my position — on the door.

One day, I gave to stay a bit past office hours (9:00 to 5:00) to finish up some tasks. Just when I start getting ready to leave, the night shift janitors arrive to service our floor. Among the cleaning staff members, I recognize one of them as someone I went to university with. I do not approach her to say hi because: A) we just had one class together and we barely even spoke to each other, B) it has been a very long time since I last saw and heard of her, and C) she was a “mean girl” back then and enjoyed tearing people down.

I particularly remember [Cleaner] because, one time, the professor asked me an opinion-based question, which I answered. [Cleaner] disagreed with me and even said my answer was s***ty in front of the entire class. It did affect me, but not for very long because I eventually moved on and put the situation behind me.

Most people, like me, leave their office doors open. We have never had an incident where someone has reported something missing from their office. As I head out toward the elevator, I can see that [Cleaner] has reached my office to clear my garbage bins. I don’t think anything of it because it is part of her job to step into my office to do her work. When I am getting ready to pull out of the parking lot, one of the junior advisors calls me.

Me: “Hey!”

Junior Advisor: “Hi, [My Name]! I’m sorry for calling after hours. This might be a long shot, but are you still in the office?”

Me: “Well, I just got into my car at the building’s parking lot. But yes, technically, I’m still at work. What’s up?”

Junior Advisor: “I just noticed that my card case has been misplaced. I checked my bag and looked everywhere in my apartment, but it is nowhere to be found. If you can, would you mind terribly going back upstairs and checking my workstation and drawers? I would greatly appreciate it.”

Me: “Of course, that’s no problem. I am heading back up right now and will give you a call when I’m done.”

Junior Advisor: “Thank you so much! Lunch is on me next time whether you find my card case or not!”

Me: “No worries. Talk to you later.”

Junior Advisor: “Okay, bye!”

When I am back upstairs, I go straight to [Junior Advisor]’s desk. Unfortunately, I do not find the card case, but I decide to let one of the janitors know and ask them to hand it to the lobby’s security if someone from the cleaning team finds it.

As I make my way out, I notice that [Cleaner] is still in my office. From where I am standing, it looks like she is snooping around my desk. I manage to quietly sneak into my office and stand there for a good ten seconds. She opens one of my drawers, so at this point, I can confirm that she is snooping.

I wait for [Cleaner] to turn around and give her a “surprise”, but she is too focused and is taking her sweet time going through my stuff. I decided to break my silence.

Me: “Can I help you find anything?”

Cleaner: *Startled* “Oh, geez, you scared me! You’re too quiet. Oh, my God, [My Name], it’s you! I saw your name on the door but didn’t know that it was the [My Full Name] from uni. It’s so great to see you! Not sure if you remember me, but I’m [Cleaner’s Full Name]. We had a class together.”

Me: “Oh, hi, [Cleaner]. I can see that you have already done your job, which was clearing up my bins. Can I ask what else you were doing?”

Cleaner: *Nervously* “Oh, yeah, because I saw your name on the door… And I was looking to see if you have any cleaning supplies so I could wipe down your desk and disinfect your keyboard and monitors. You know, I want to go the extra mile with the service so I can get positive feedback.”

Me: “Uh-huh.”

I know she is lying. From what I’ve heard, the janitors are not supposed to be wiping up the staff’s desks and equipment. This is an add-on service that is not covered, and if someone from the building wishes to do this, they must submit a request form, and it must be approved by the property manager. The policy she is violating could lead her to dismissal.

Cleaner: “Look, I didn’t have to do this. I was simply being nice to an old friend.”

Me: *Firmly* “Right. Well, I’m going to ask you to stop. You already cleared the bins, and I don’t need you to do anything else.”

Cleaner: “Wow, okay. You don’t need to be so b****y about it. No good deed goes unpunished.”

I decided not to waste my time with her and just went home. I also called [Junior Advisor] to let him know I didn’t find his case card.

I don’t have any valuables in my office, so I wasn’t worried about stuff going missing. The next day, I told my boss about what had happened, and she agreed that [Cleaner] was only supposed to clear the bins. My boss emailed the property manager about the incident. They responded promptly.

Weeks passed, and my boss told me that the cleaning company addressed the situation by letting [Cleaner] go. Apparently, I was not the only one who had complained about her. Other tenants saw that she was taking office supplies from their units, and her own coworkers said that she would often help herself to anything in the fridges of the units her team was assigned to service.