Who Gave This Person Money?!

I work with customers who are paying off loans. I am skipping my greeting, going over the various smallest to largest payment options, and ten minutes of this entire conversation repeating itself.

Customer: “I need you to tell me what is best for me with my account!”

Me: “Okay. Well, what’s your ideal goal?”

Customer: “That’s why I am asking you! You tell me!”

Me: “I can’t tell you what’s your ideal goal. That’s up to you to decide. Let’s start simple. Do you want to close the account quickly with the fewest payments, or do you want smaller payments knowing it will take longer to pay off the account?”

Customer: “I don’t know what’s best for me to make that decision! You tell me!”

Me: “I can’t tell you which is best for you because only you know what works for you.”

Customer: “Isn’t there anyone who can tell me what is best for me?”

Me: “There is no one that can tell you what is best for you until you have some idea how you want your payments to go.”

Customer: “This is all so confusing! I don’t know what I want! You tell me what I want!”

They eventually got frustrated that I couldn’t tell them what was better for their unique situation that they couldn’t tell me: quicker payoff with larger payments or longer payoff but smaller payments.