Me: “Hello, thank for you calling [company]; how can I hep—”
Customer: “YOU ARE DISCRIMINATING AGAINST ME!”
Me: “I’m sorr—”
Customer: “MY ACCOUNT STATEMENTS ARE ONLY ONE SIDED! MY FRIEND GETS DOUBLE SIDED STATEMENTS! THIS IS DISCRIMINATION!”
(I work for the USPS help line. It’s 6:30 am, and the Postmaster General has just announced that they are cutting delivery of regular mail to five days per week, and packages to six.)
Me: “This is [post office]. How can I help you?”
Customer: “I was listening to the radio station in Cleveland. WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME USE EMAIL?!”
Me: “I’m sorry?”
Customer: “The radio in Cleveland says that this Saturday, all mail is getting thrown out and you aren’t going to deliver mail no more!”
Me: “Well, sir, that isn’t what—”
Customer: “They said it’s because all us old folk have to use EMAIL! I’m 75 years old and I can’t use email! It’s not fair!”
Me: “Sir, I assure you that mail WILL be delivered, so you don’t only have to use email.”
Customer: “GOOD! The people who died for their country on the Pony Express want you to know how disappointed they are that you use email!”
Me: “Thanks for the input, sir.”
(I work in a call centre for a bank, and one of the security questions we use to verify cardholder identity is a memorable date. Some people try to get clever with you. I generally give them no reaction at all and just ask a different security question.)
Me: “Can I ask you to confirm your memorable date there for me sir?”
Customer: “Ah yes, June 9th, 1979. I met this lovely blonde woman in a bar in Soho, absolutely beautiful. She drank cocktails and we went back to mine and the things she could do kiddo, you could only imag—oh wait memorable date? Oh s***, I thought you meant…”
Me: “Ha, that’s alright, sir; do you have it there?”
Customer: “What’s your memorable date? You sound nice; you must have one.”
Me: “My boyfriend surprised me with a trip to Paris for my birthday last year. That was pretty memorable I guess.”
Customer: “Jeez, your generation sucks. Paris!? You can’t beat a roll in the hay in the back of a third hand car in Charing Cross. I’d show you that!”
Me: “Okaaaaaaay anyway, moving on.”
Me: “Good morning, [company name]. How may I help you?”
Customer: “I’ve been waiting to speak to you all afternoon.”
Me: “I’m sorry for your wait; we’ve been really busy today.”
Customer: “I’ve been waiting for 60 minutes!”
(I can see our call queue, and I know that the longest wait anyone’s had all day is about eight minutes.)
Me: “As I’ve said, we’ve been unexpectedly busy. I’m really sorry about that. How may I help you?”
Customer: “I want compensation for having to wait for so long. You’re victimizing me. You can’t get away with treating people like this!”
Me: “Sir, everyone is in the same position. Unfortunately, you’ve called us during a busy time. If we have more calls than staff at any one time, some of our customers need to wait until someone’s available to handle their call.”
Customer: “But I’m not just one of your customers. Don’t you know who I am?”
Me: “No, sir, you haven’t provided me with any of your details for me to try to help you today.”
Customer: “You can’t get away with this. I know about these things. I know! I’m going to the government! This is illegal!”
Me: “It’s not illegal for us to be busy, sir.”
Customer: *hangs up*
(I work for a bank call center.)
Me: “Thank you for calling [bank]. How may I help you today?”
Customer: “Yea, I tried to f****** withdraw my paycheck out of the ATM, and it won’t let me! You people are crooks! Get me my d*** money!”
(I look into his account and see that the customer has both a checking and a savings. I look at the history of the card, and notice that the savings has about $5, and the checking has about $300. In the card history, I see that he’s been trying to withdraw using the savings account.)
Me: “Sir, I noticed that you have two accounts linked to your debit card. It looks like the savings account was selected at the ATM as the account to withdraw from; are you near an ATM?”
Customer: “Did you f****** fix it yet?! You d*** thieves!”
Me: “Sir, I understand your frustration. If you’re near an ATM, I would be happy to hold on while you try it again. This time, when it asks what account to withdraw from, you need to choose checking rather then savings.”
Customer: “It can’t be that easy! I’m not that stupid!”
Me: “I didn’t say you were stupid; I’m only trying to help. Now please humor me, and try it again if you can.”
(I can hear the customer cursing under his breath about me. I can see on my screen that he makes the withdrawal out of the checking account this time. He then comes back onto the line.)
Customer: “Oh, I guess it was that easy. You people should make it more clearer next time!”
