While going over my credit card bills, I notice a payment for around $100 listing a company I do not recognize on the one issued by my bank; however, this is just after Christmas and I shopped online, so this could be a legitimate charge. After investigating, I manage to track down a phone number for the company and work through the “how much” and “when” with the representative.

Representative #1: “That’s for a [product].”

Me: “What on Earth is a [product]?”

Representative #1: *Laughs* “I have a sneaking suspicion this won’t match, but would you mind confirming your address for me?”

Me: “Sure. It’s [address].”

Representative #1: “Any chance you have a friend or relative in Belize?”

Me: “Nope. Definitely not my purchase.”

Representative #1: “No surprise at all. Anyway, if you are willing to wait a couple of days… maybe a week… we can notify [Bank] and resolve this without a chargeback.”

Me: “That’s fine; I will check my statement then. And just to confirm, your name was [Representative #1], right?”

Representative #1: “Yes, sir. And thank you for your understanding.”

Sure enough, a few days later, the transfer is gone from my history on the website and my balance is corrected. I put the whole adventure out of mind… until my next statement comes in, and the charge is back.

This time, I call the bank and explain the phone call, complete with the product, the representative’s name, and the date and time of the call.

Bank: “Yes, we got the request to withdraw the charge, but then we got the request for the same charge a few days later. If you want, we can do a chargeback to resolve this.”

Since the first person was helpful, I decline, instead giving the company another chance. I get a different person, but I relay the entire interaction.

Representative #2: “I can see from our notes that [Representative #1] did push everything forward. However… without getting too specific, the person who did make the purchase is a frequent buyer of ours, and this is the first dispute on the account. I can’t tell you what I’m thinking, but based on the notes, if it’s not malicious, I think I know exactly what happened to cause a second charge to you. If you’re willing to give us another chance, we can resolve this without the nuclear option.”

Me: “I’ll give you guys one last shot. After this, you can fight [Bank].”

Once again, it is all fixed. Once again, the charge come back. This time, I do file the dispute and then request a new card. Despite this, the charge is once again reapplied.

This time, I go to my bank in person and demand the manager.

Me: “How the h*** did they charge a card that’s been canceled?”

Manager: “This is the charge from the old card. They challenged your chargeback and won.”

Me: “And what did you guys do to fight back? Did you list my calls with [Representative #1] and [Representative #2]? Give them all the details to look it up? Prove my address doesn’t match? Go over the actual buyer’s history? Anything?”

Manager: “Um… it looks like we didn’t appear.”

Me: “‘Didn’t appear’? So, you knew they challenged it, and you did nothing?”

Manager: “…”

Me: “Here’s what we’re going to do: you’re going to dispute it again, and if they challenge again, you’re going to fight.”

Manager: *Spins the monitor* “There; all done.”

Me: “Now, you’re going to cancel the card and close my accounts.”

I settled into a new bank fairly quickly after that. But the tale did not end there, as my old bank sent me a notice that there was still a $100 charge unpaid. That led me to a lawyer to get this mess cleaned up. The fun started when a lawyer representing the company reached out to my lawyer and spoke of cooperation. I learned the reason for the second charge was the result of auto-complete and an inattentive worker.

The interesting reveal was that the company never challenged the formal dispute; they got hit with the full weight of a chargeback and sought to rectify it by pursuing legal action against the recently fired individual who caused this mess by thinking a client’s credit card information could be stored through their web browser. That left us with the question: who was demanding my $100?

The bank very quickly agreed to pay everyone’s legal fees and waive the charge, and they gave a few tens of thousands in compensation to each of us provided we withdrew the case and kept quiet.

I am an insurance agent. Most of my colleagues knew about my plight and that this bank was not being helpful. A lot of people like to refinance and use electronic transfers for automatic payments. I may not have told the full conclusion of my story to anyone and did not start it with anyone new, but we did tell anyone looking for a mortgage that a certain bank had been giving us a lot of problems.

After about two years of needling people away, this stopped being a personal story; this became the only bank unwilling to check the integrity of the policy or notify anyone that they did not receive the new declarations page or invoice.

Sadly, they are still in business, but pretty much everyone we know is aware that this bank is not the sterling company it used to be.

Related:
Cash Back Attack, Part 18
Cash Back Attack, Part 17
Cash Back Attack, Part 16
Cash Back Attack, Part 15
Cash Back Attack, Part 14

I work in a call center for a bank. Every customer who calls us must answer a few verification questions. If they hang up or answer wrong, we need to block their access to the call center assuming it was an attempt to use someone else’s account. Then, if they call again, every employee will see that their access to the call center is denied, and to do anything with their account, the caller has to personally go to the branch to unblock the access.

One time, I was talking to a very rude customer who demanded that everything be done immediately.

Me: “I will happily do everything you’ve asked for, but first, you need to answer some verification questions.”

He started yelling even louder, called me names, said I was unprofessional, and hung up.

So, I blocked all of his accesses. Now, he will be forced to go to the branch to unblock it, and only then he will be able to do what he wants. And oops, he mentioned that he was abroad and couldn’t go to the branch, which is why he’d called us.

He thought I was unprofessional, so I made sure I did everything according to our procedures, so he should be satisfied.

My dear customer, enjoy not being able to use your money for a looong time!

I’m a teller at a bank. A man comes in with $5,000 cash.

Customer: “Can I please put this into my account?”

Me: “Absolutely. What are the account details, please?”

He hands me over a piece of paper with an account number written on it.

Me: “Is this your account?”

Customer: “No, it’s my friends.”

Me: “What’s the money for?”

Customer: “I don’t actually know.”

Me: “Oh? So, just a favor, then?”

Customer: “I don’t know. People keep giving me money.”

Me: “What do you mean?”

Customer: “People keep giving me money and telling me to go put them into different accounts, and then I can keep some for myself. I don’t understand it all myself.”

Red flag!

Me: “I… see… How often do you do this?”

Customer: “Oh, three or four times a week, I’d say.”

Me: “And you do this for a friend?”

Customer: “Well… for my cousin. I get a cut of what I put into the account, which means I don’t have to take more shifts at the grocery store, so I get more time to play on my phone! Score!”

Me: “Right. Do you mind if I just check something with my manager real quick?”

Customer: “I don’t mind.”

I go over to my manager to let him know about this very possible money laundering operation going on. I tell him I am convinced that the poor guy at my counter is either too ignorant or too stupid to be aware of what he’s actually doing. My manager checks the account number provided and notices some suspicious activity.

Manager: “Excuse me, sir, you said you’ve helped your cousin deposit cash into multiple accounts. Do you know those other accounts?”

Customer: “Oh, actually, yeah! I wrote them down as I’m not too good with numbers. He told me not to, but I always make mistakes, so I did.”

Manager: “Can I see those accounts? It will help us out!” 

Customer: “Sure! I don’t understand all this banking stuff, personally. I hope my cousin asked the right person to do this!

Manager: “Oh, no, sir, he asked the absolutely best person for the job!”

The poor guy was beaming with pride while my manager reported each and every account to the fraud department.

Criminals out there: never trust a job to your dumb cousin!

An elderly couple calls our banking website helpline.

Caller: “We’re having some issues with our online banking.”

I start to go through verifying them to help them directly when they cut me off with one statement.

Caller: “Satan is in [Bank].”

Me: “Pardon?”

I’m at a total loss as to what they mean, but they’re speaking with such convincing tones, like they truly believe the devil is occupying our software.

We have some back-and-forth questions, and their frustration grows as they hiss out increasingly confusing things like:

Caller: “We’ve seen the mark of the beast on your website! Satan is here!“

Me: “Can you please describe what you’re seeing?”

This couple was down in Florida, and by then, I’d started to hedge my questions around some contextual clues, like, “Does anyone else use this computer to look things up?”

It turned out that they were using our search bar, but every time they went to click on it to search for something, these phrases were dropping down as suggested search items.

The couple had no idea what it meant to clear their cookies or cache, but by the time we got to that point in the conversation, they were too frustrated to listen to my directions. The best I could do was pass it along to my supervisors at their request so a “God-fearing soul could cleanse things and put it all to rights.”

As far as my coworkers and I could guess, it seemed like maybe a mischievous grandchild had been down to visit and decided to f*** with their grandparents’ heads.

I’m a teller at a branch of a small regional bank chain in Michigan. I get the joy of helping this middle-aged woman one day.

Me: “Hi, welcome to [Bank]! How can I help you today?”

Customer: “I need to put a travel notification on my account. I’ll be traveling abroad for the first time!”

Me: “Awesome! I can help you do that.”

She verifies her account information, and I get to the point where I need to put in her travel details.

Me: “What dates will you be traveling?”

Customer: “June third to the twelfth.”

Me: “Okay, and where will you be traveling?”

Customer: “Arizona and Utah!”

Me: “Okay… wait. Umm… ma’am, can you repeat that for me, please?”

Customer: “Arizona and Utah.”

Me: *Trying to be tactful* “Ma’am, you don’t need to put in a travel notice for travel within the United States. I see that you’re signed up for text message fraud alerts, so you might have to respond to the text if the system wants to confirm a transaction on your account. Is that what you meant by a travel notification?”

Customer: “My friend told me I need to put in a travel notification before my trip so my account didn’t get locked.”

Me: “Yes, that’s true for international travel, but Arizona and Utah are both US states.”

Customer: “But we have to fly there, so it’s abroad.”

Me: “Ma’am, ‘traveling abroad’ means traveling internationally, or outside the United States. If you’re traveling to another state, it’s not ‘abroad’.”

Customer: “Hmm. I don’t know about that. My friend travels a lot, so she knows what she’s talking about. I’ll just stop in at my regular branch and get someone who knows what they’re doing to put in my travel notification.” 

I tried, folks. I really did. Hopefully, she enjoys her first trip “abroad” with her friend.