When a guest books a room using only points, there’s no room and tax receipt that we give to the guest. The only receipt that we were giving at that time was for incidentals. Now on to the story.

A guest comes up to check out. I’m the night auditor, almost at the end of my shift.

Guest: “Yes, I’m checking out, and I need a receipt.”

Me: “Well, sir, you’ve paid using points, so there’s no receipt to give. So, you’re all good to go.”

Guest: “Well, I need to turn in something for expenses. Can you just make a receipt showing the rate from last night so that I can turn it in?”

Me: *Thinking that I almost made it an entire shift without this BS.* “Come again?”

Guest: “Yeah, just make a receipt showing the room and tax.”

Me: “Sir, I can’t do that because you used points.”

Guest: “Yes, you can. It’s been done for me at other properties.”

Me: “I’ll be right back.”

I then go and ask the assistant general manager, knowing what the answer already is. Her literal answer was “H*** no!”

Me: “After speaking with the manager, there is no way that we can do what you’re asking us to do.”

Guest: “I guess I’ll just have to go to corporate.”

Me: “You have a good morning, sir.”

I wish I was making this up!

I work in a call center for a bank. This bank finances auto loans, so most of our calls pertain to car payments or our website.

Had a lady call in earlier today. As she calls in, an account pops up with a male name attached. I quickly learned that it’s her son’s car and loan. He had previously called in at the beginning of this month to permanently authorize her on the account, meaning I have permission to speak with her. 

She calls in, and I do my standard greeting. I’m cut off about halfway through with:

Caller: “Yeah, yeah, I know. The call is recorded. I’ve heard it before. I’ve been on hold forever, and we need to fix something right now.”

Great. This should be fun.

I glance over the account quickly while she’s verifying the information. I notice the account is only a few months old, and there’s already a late payment marked on the account (meaning a payment went over a month past due, so we reported it as late to the credit bureaus). Sure enough, after verifying the account, she hits me with the old:

Caller: “We made a payment on time, and your company screwed up, and now it’s affecting my son’s credit. He’s trying to buy a house and he can’t now…” *Blah blah blah.*

It’s very common for customers to blame us when a payment is late. They think we don’t keep records of our calls.

Caller: “My son called in a week before his first payment was even due. He made a payment using his checking account. You must have taken down the numbers wrong, because the payment never came out!”

She explains how a month went by, and that’s when they realized the account was behind. They got it caught up, but it’s too late. The damage was done. She wants that credit mark removed since we messed up, according to her.

Now, even if that entire story were true and we took down the numbers wrong, the chances of us doing anything about the credit mark are slim, for multiple reasons, but I decided to humor her a bit.

Me: “Ma’am, I’ll pull the call from that day, review it, and if you’re correct and we took the information down wrong, I can pass along the account.”

I made sure to mention that even if that was the case, I can’t promise anything.

So, I pull the call and listen. And boy oh boy.

To start, it wasn’t even the son (the account holder) calling in. It was VERY CLEARLY the same woman I had just spoken with. However, this was BEFORE her son had authorized us to speak with her, so she lied about who she was and claimed to be the son. The son has a gender-neutral name, and the mom was able to verify his birthday/social, so the representative believed her. But regardless, she lied about her identity. That’s considered fraud.

Strike one.

Secondly, she did not call in early. The account was actually over a week behind on its first payment, and it was made clear to her within the first thirty seconds of the call. The representative specifically told her it was a week behind and asked why that was the case. The mother made various excuses. So, she lied again about when she tried to make the payment.

Strike two.

Third, during the processing of the payment, the representative specifically read back both the routing number and the account number for the checking account. The mom confirmed the information was correct. So, her main claim about us taking the information down incorrectly was also a lie. She GAVE us the wrong information.

Strike three.

On top of all of that, we called her son’s phone every day and left messages. We sent bills stating the account was past due. The son had the account registered online and never bothered to log in to check that his first payment went through, and they clearly never checked the bank account to make sure the payment had come out. This is literally 100% on them.

I had the pleasure of calling the woman back to inform her that the waiver request was denied. That call may be good for a separate story all by itself, but she did not take it kindly and demanded to speak with the manager, who listened to the call. Imagine her shock when I let her know that I had listened to the call myself.

For those wondering, the son definitely knew about the loan. Not only would he have had to have been at the dealership to sign the contract, but there were notes in the account that we spoke to both the son and the mom during the call, where the son authorized her on the account.

My mom bought a house in 1974. The mortgage lender changed hands numerous times.

My mom was old school and would keep every single canceled check in shoe boxes. In the old school paper trail world, banks would stamp checks when they cashed them, and you could receive these “canceled” checks with your monthly mailed statement (not sure if it was automatic or optional, but it probably depended on how much you were paying for your checking account).

The checks were cashed, not voided or otherwise stopped, so whoever cashed them in was still paid; they were just canceled so they couldn’t be cashed a second time, and kept as a paper trail.

She did this for thirty years.

When it finally came down to a few more months left, the last lender sent notice that a bunch of months had never been received, and they now owed thousands in arrears.

She simply copied the checks in question and sent them to the lender, along with a note stating that they expect to be sent the deed within thirty days of the final payment of the last check, and then got on with her day, completely unbothered.

The lender reluctantly sent her the deed with one day to spare.

Years ago, we had moved from one state to the next. About a month ago, some lady had managed to find an old checkbook or something of my dad’s and managed to clear out his entire savings. My dad tried to buy groceries and thought his card was broken, went to order a new one, and was shocked when he found out that all of his money was gone and tried to clear it up with the bank. He said to me later that there should have been noticeable red flags to the bank when going through that check.

We were out of state, the check that the lady cashed was pretty old (about five to six years old), and my dad recently had a divorce about three years ago and had to make a new account. They require to check signatures and I’m not sure how they managed to pass that; it should have been suspicious at the start since it was cashing out the entire savings.

The bank apologized and said that the banker handling the situation will be disciplined, the police will be called (she was found and arrested later), and that his money will be returned in two to three days or today, and a $40 transfer fee was required. I’m not sure how the entire conversation went exactly; here is the breakdown:

Dad: “Why a transfer fee?”

Bank Lady: “That’s for our policy, sir.”

Dad: “I’m not paying for something you guys messed up on. I literally have no money, let alone cash.”

Bank Lady: “I’m sorry if we aren’t up to your expectations at this time.”

Dad: “Can you please talk to management and see if you can get it in by tomorrow?”

Bank Lady: “Hang on.”

My dad was put on hold for thirty minutes until he was put on the phone with a manager who wasn’t much help.

Dad: *Still trying to be nice at this point.* “Can you at least put in the money tomorrow?”

Manager: “I mean, I can try, but that would still be $40.”

Dad: “No.”

Manager: “Then you have to wait for four days.”

Dad: “I’m not paying for some idiot’s mistake.”

Manager: “If you don’t like our service, then you’re welcome to go somewhere else.”

My dad hung up and called me over to help him drive to another bank. He didn’t tell me what he was doing until after he made an account. When his funds were back, he transferred all the money to his new account.

I was working the customer service desk when a customer came up with a TV box taped at every seam with duct tape. I try to be as accommodating as possible, but there is only so much I can do as a cashier who is regularly treated like dog poop.

Me: “Hi, how—”

Customer: “This TV sucks. I need my money back.”

Me: “Do you have your receipt?”

Customer: “Look it up.”

Me: “Sure. I can use the UPC on the box, I just need some additional information from you.”

Customer: “I just want my money back.”

Me: “I understand completely. How did you pay for it?”

Customer: “I don’t know.”

Me: “When did you buy it?”

Customer: “June.”

Me: “Okay, so two months ago… hmm, do you remember the day? Or maybe if it was a weekend or—”

Customer: “—No. Just—why is this so hard for you?”

Me: “The receipt system goes day by day. Without knowing—”

Customer: “Get your manager. F****** idiot.”

The manager steps in and takes over. He logs in the system and looks up the serial number, something I can’t do at my level. I can see from his facial expression that something is off.

Manager: “Ma’am, you bought this TV two years ago.”

Customer: “In June.”

Manager: “Yes, two years ago in June. It’s well outside the return window.”

Customer: “There’s a three-year warranty.”

Manager: “You would need to go through the manufacturer.”

Customer: “I’m not leaving without my refund.”

Manager: *Sighs.* “Ma’am, the only thing I can do, which is against policy, by the way, is to give you the current sale price for this product on a gift card.”

Customer: “Fine, I guess.”

Manager: “Okay, this TV is currently for sale at $89.”

Customer: “I paid way more than that.”

Manager: “And like I said, the only option—”

Customer: “—Okay! Fine! But you both owe me an apology for your attitudes.”

Manager: “I apologize, ma’am.”

Customer: *Looks at me.*

Manager: “[My Name], please.”

Me: “I’m sorry you thought I had an attitude.”

Manager: *Gives me the stink eye but says nothing.*

Customer: “That’s better. You know, a little humility goes a long way. You should start learning now before you get a real job.”

[Manager] gave her the gift card. She took it and then tried to leave with the box, but [Manager] took it behind the counter.

We opened the box and found that it contained a small computer monitor with a bunch of garbage. Unfortunately for the customer, she chose to put several pieces of mail in the box, so we were able to file a police report for defrauding the store.

I don’t know what happened after that, but corporate sent out a memo saying that all electronics had to be opened and verified before a return would be considered.