I am helping train new folks. One day, I am sitting with a girl we will call Sophie and I have my headset plugged into hers so I can listen to her calls and give her feedback and help with answers she doesn’t know. 

Sophie: “Thank you for calling [Bank]. This is Sophie. May I have your name?”

Customer: “Hi, Jasmine, I’m [Customer], I’m locked out of my app.”

Sophie is confused about being called Jasmine but presses forward.

Sophie: “For verification purposes, could you confirm the amount of a recent transaction?”

Customer: “Oh. Um. Uh… Oh! I did a sixteen-dollar transfer to my friend — six for the sandwich and ten for the ounce of pot.”

Sophie gives me a startled look as I try to process that the dude just said that to his BANK.

Customer: “Oh, s***! Jasmine! Jasmine I’m sorry, please don’t turn me in Jasmine!”

Sophie does manage to get his online banking unlocked, with him begging “Jasmine” not to call the cops the whole time. Meanwhile, I am trying very hard not to laugh. Once the call is over, Sophie looks at me.

Sophie: “Uh… should we… do something with that?”

Me: “To be honest, I genuinely don’t know; having a customer tell their bank about their drug deal is new to me. You handled it well. Go ahead and keep taking calls while I check with the leads to see if we need to pursue this.”

They were just as entertained as I was, and none of them seemed to be concerned with reporting it. We all had a good chuckle at the ridiculousness of it all, and to this day I still say, “Don’t turn me in, Jasmine!” to mean, “The customers are at it again.”

I work at a bank. We’re dealing with a partial system outage. We can process transactions but cannot provide account balances. A customer comes to my window.

Me: “Hi! What can I help you with?”

Customer: “Just a deposit, please.”

Me: “Sure thing. I do have to tell you that we’re having some technical issues, so I can’t give you a current balance after deposit.”

Customer: “Oh, that’s no problem.”

I process his transaction and hand him his receipt.

Me: “Can I get you anything else?”

Customer: “Yes, my balance.”

Me: “Um…”

The customer groans and face-palms.

Customer: “And you literally just told me that you’re having technical issues and it’s not available. Never mind. That was stupid of me.”

Me: “Don’t worry about it. You’re not the first person to do that today. At least you realized what you were asking!”

Customer: “Long day of repeating yourself, huh?”

Me: “You have no idea.”

I live in both the US and France, and to avoid international fees, I have credit cards for both. I can’t remember my password to log in to view my statements for my US card, so I call them up.

Rep: “Oh, no problem. Just tell me the place and amount of your last transaction and we’ll reset your password.”

Me: “Well, I haven’t used this card in almost a year, so I have no clue.”

Rep: “Don’t you have a statement?”

Me: “No, it’s all online. I passed the security questions; isn’t that enough?”

Rep: “No, we need to make sure it’s you.”

I think, “Isn’t that what the security questions are for?” 

Me: “I just need my account balance. I’m not looking to make any transactions.”

The rep would not budge and we eventually hung up.

My husband called later for his balance and told another rep about my problems. Note that we do not have a joint account. All he did was give my name — the account was still in my maiden name — and she entered it and gave him my balance!

I told my father the story and he went into his local bank to talk to them about it. We also have no joint accounts. The bank gave him full details about my call, my account balance, and the fact that they had me marked as a “suspicious person.”

So, I give my name, address, birthday, and telephone number, answer two security questions, and give the number, expiration date, and CCV of my card, and I get marked as a suspicious person, but two men just give my name and absolutely nothing else and get my account balance!

I was recently diagnosed with IBS. One of my symptoms, when I eat a trigger food, is that I bloat up pretty bad. Today is one of those days. I’m still trying to figure out what my trigger foods are, so this has happened several times, usually at work. Therefore, I’ve taken to wearing loose tunic tops until I can sort the bad foods out.

A customer comes in, and despite my discomfort, I’m attempting to help her as best I can. Please note that I’m at a healthy BMI for my height.

Customer: “Oh, congratulations!”

Me: “I’m sorry?”

Customer: “You must be so excited.”

Me: “About what?”

The customer sighs heavily.

Customer: “When are you due, sweetie?”

Me: “Due? Oh! You must have me confused with someone else. I’m not pregnant.”

Customer: “Then you just have a large tummy, like me!”

I stare at her for a moment. She’s smiling cluelessly at me.

Me: “Ma’am, I have a medical condition that causes me to bloat up when I eat the wrong food. I’m neither pregnant nor fat.”

Customer: “Oh. Oh! I didn’t intend to… um…”

Me: “Here’s your receipt. Will there be anything else?”

Customer: “No, no.”

Me: “Have a nice day.”

She booked it out the door. I discovered after much trial and error that popcorn, of which I’d had a small bowl, is my primary trigger food.

I work at a bank in a very small town. The phone rings.

Me: “[Bank], this is [My Name]; how can I help you?”

Customer: “I need a balance.”

Me: “Sure thing. What’s your account number?”

Customer: “[Number].”

Me: “Thank you. I need to confirm some security details. Can I confirm your date of birth and the last four digits of your social?”

The customer gives me the right date of birth but the wrong social.

Me: “I’m so sorry, but that doesn’t match what I have on the system. I’ll need to ask you some additional security questions. I’d also highly recommend that you stop into one of our branches with ID so we can correct this.”

Customer: “No, you don’t! It’s me! That’s my number. This is absolutely ridiculous. I’m in there all the time. I just drove through your parking lot ten minutes ago! You saw me! GIVE ME MY BALANCE!”

Me: “Can you confirm—”

Customer: “NO!”

Me: “Then I can’t provide any information over the phone. You’ll need to come in with an ID.”

Customer: “You waved at me ten minutes ago! You live down the street from me!”

She continues screaming for a solid minute. I hold the phone away from my ear until I hear silence.

Me: “Ma’am, I think you have me confused with someone else. I don’t live in this town.”

Customer: “This isn’t [Coworker]?”

Me: “No.”

Customer: “FINE. What information did you need me to confirm?”

She answers every security question on my list, complaining all the way about how she can’t believe that I don’t know who she is, because she’s been banking there since before I was born, she shouldn’t be treated this way, etc.

Me: “Thank you. Your balance is [amount]. Have a nice day!”

I hung up and put a flag on her account stating that her Social Security number on our system didn’t match what she gave me. This will prompt anyone who accesses it in the future to automatically ask additional security questions. So, every time she calls, she’ll have to go through the same thing she did with me until she comes in to fix it.