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So I was "manager-on-duty" the other day, which meant mostly that the tellers came haunting my doorway whenever a customer was being beyond what they should have to deal with. And they had a few fun ones for me:
Customer the first
SCs mother deposited $40 in her savings account from a remote branch so she could come by our branch and retrieve it. The bad news: customer's checking account is overdrawn by over $300 and has been for more than 25 days, plus she has a loan payment overdue by over 30 days. So guess what: the savings gets a nice fat block on it. Cue SC throwing a FIT on the teller line and teller getting me.
As soon as I appear, SC proceeds to berate me in a loud voice about how her kids won't eat if she can't get this money, and she's in a hurry, and how could we do this to her, and so on and so on. I manage to get her to come to my office, releasing the teller to take care of others. Eventually, when she allows me to get more than two words in edgewise between her complaints of being so much in a HURRY, I am able to get the fact that I'm actually trying to help her through her head.
The facts are that, while her account has been negative for almost a month, she has a smallish bi-weekly direct deposit that has paid back over half of the original negative. There was also a cash deposit towards the negative only a week ago. Being that she was a member in good standing before this past month and, while she hasn't done the smart thing and actually TALKED to us about the negative and overdue, she has been making payments on it herself so we can work with her. BUT she has to talk to our collection department long enough for them to get a plan set up for under what schedule she will be able to get her account back in order. Something that, once she was willing to get on the phone with them, took all of 2 minutes, and I was able to get the savings released for as long as she follows the plan she agreed to with collections. I got her the cash from her account myself.
She then continued to complain to me for the next TEN minutes about how she didn't have time for all of this and how she's stressed out and can't deal with all of this and she has to get to her job NOW and doesn't have time for all of this...
I understand the stress, but seriously. Why is it that those in a "hurry" always seem to take the most time to complain?
Customer the second
Signed in for a manger to begin with and got me. Lucky him.
Because he was trying for a fee refund (again), and while I have sympathy for mistakes, I do not for those who try to intimidate their way into repeated refunds.
BUT, I'm not going to assume that just because he's coming off like a a$$hole and has an account full of no more refunds warnings, that there might not be something legitimate that he has an issue with. Anyway, it kills the wind in many sails if you listen politely and sympathetically through their entire spiel, then tell them a firm no anyway.
His complaint this time is the debit card overdraft fee. Overdraft options can be confusing, but account notes say he's had them explained to him in detail. His problem? When he purposefully turned ON debit card overdraft (it defaults to declining the debit card at NO fee, and you have to sign a form to turn the overdraft for a debit card on), he says no one explicitly stated that the charge, which he was aware of, would be per transaction while his account was in the negative.
Because, see, he also purposefully took his account negative. But he expected... one fee. Total. For 3 days and 11 transactions after he no longer had any money.
This is not someone who had one big transaction clear first and then a bunch of little things hit (which we do NOT do on purpose... transactions clear as they post, except in the morning when all deposits hit before we start the withdrawals). This is someone who used up his money on little crap while on vacation and purposefully decided to keep using his debit card on little crap even after he KNEW the money wasn't there. And because HE decided that he wanted overdraft to be allowed on the debit card, the transactions continued to be approved.
I printed out the overdraft sheet and showed him the bolded line that stated the overdraft fee and that it would charge per transaction. To his credit, he did admit that it was there and that he probably should have seen that.
I asked him if he would like me to remove the debit card overdraft, which he declined, because he still wants to be able to let the debit card keep working when he's out of money.
Intimidation having not worked, he starts trying to bargain for a refund. Wanted to go half and half with the bank. I let him know that the account notes that I was looking at were from my branch manager when she stated that she went over the overdraft policy in detail with him and that he was to be given NO more refunds.
He wanted me to ask the branch manager if there was any way she could help him out. Poor him. Fixed income. (note that the overdrafts were from over-spending on a vacation. out-of state vacation where he and a couple of others rented out a beach house) Well no. Branch manager is not here right now, and I simply cannot and will not authorize any further refunds.
He's gone polite at this point,being one of those people who gives up on a tactic when he realizes it isn't going to work for him this time. Regales me with a story of his past life, before he retired, when his income was higher and his wife hadn't left him and took half his stuff.
Finally departs, cordially enough.
The next day, he talks to branch manager. She refunds 2 of the fees. *sigh* At least it wasn't half of them.
Customer the first
SCs mother deposited $40 in her savings account from a remote branch so she could come by our branch and retrieve it. The bad news: customer's checking account is overdrawn by over $300 and has been for more than 25 days, plus she has a loan payment overdue by over 30 days. So guess what: the savings gets a nice fat block on it. Cue SC throwing a FIT on the teller line and teller getting me.
As soon as I appear, SC proceeds to berate me in a loud voice about how her kids won't eat if she can't get this money, and she's in a hurry, and how could we do this to her, and so on and so on. I manage to get her to come to my office, releasing the teller to take care of others. Eventually, when she allows me to get more than two words in edgewise between her complaints of being so much in a HURRY, I am able to get the fact that I'm actually trying to help her through her head.
The facts are that, while her account has been negative for almost a month, she has a smallish bi-weekly direct deposit that has paid back over half of the original negative. There was also a cash deposit towards the negative only a week ago. Being that she was a member in good standing before this past month and, while she hasn't done the smart thing and actually TALKED to us about the negative and overdue, she has been making payments on it herself so we can work with her. BUT she has to talk to our collection department long enough for them to get a plan set up for under what schedule she will be able to get her account back in order. Something that, once she was willing to get on the phone with them, took all of 2 minutes, and I was able to get the savings released for as long as she follows the plan she agreed to with collections. I got her the cash from her account myself.
She then continued to complain to me for the next TEN minutes about how she didn't have time for all of this and how she's stressed out and can't deal with all of this and she has to get to her job NOW and doesn't have time for all of this...
I understand the stress, but seriously. Why is it that those in a "hurry" always seem to take the most time to complain?
Customer the second
Signed in for a manger to begin with and got me. Lucky him.
Because he was trying for a fee refund (again), and while I have sympathy for mistakes, I do not for those who try to intimidate their way into repeated refunds.BUT, I'm not going to assume that just because he's coming off like a a$$hole and has an account full of no more refunds warnings, that there might not be something legitimate that he has an issue with. Anyway, it kills the wind in many sails if you listen politely and sympathetically through their entire spiel, then tell them a firm no anyway.
His complaint this time is the debit card overdraft fee. Overdraft options can be confusing, but account notes say he's had them explained to him in detail. His problem? When he purposefully turned ON debit card overdraft (it defaults to declining the debit card at NO fee, and you have to sign a form to turn the overdraft for a debit card on), he says no one explicitly stated that the charge, which he was aware of, would be per transaction while his account was in the negative.
Because, see, he also purposefully took his account negative. But he expected... one fee. Total. For 3 days and 11 transactions after he no longer had any money.
This is not someone who had one big transaction clear first and then a bunch of little things hit (which we do NOT do on purpose... transactions clear as they post, except in the morning when all deposits hit before we start the withdrawals). This is someone who used up his money on little crap while on vacation and purposefully decided to keep using his debit card on little crap even after he KNEW the money wasn't there. And because HE decided that he wanted overdraft to be allowed on the debit card, the transactions continued to be approved.
I printed out the overdraft sheet and showed him the bolded line that stated the overdraft fee and that it would charge per transaction. To his credit, he did admit that it was there and that he probably should have seen that.
I asked him if he would like me to remove the debit card overdraft, which he declined, because he still wants to be able to let the debit card keep working when he's out of money.
Intimidation having not worked, he starts trying to bargain for a refund. Wanted to go half and half with the bank. I let him know that the account notes that I was looking at were from my branch manager when she stated that she went over the overdraft policy in detail with him and that he was to be given NO more refunds.
He wanted me to ask the branch manager if there was any way she could help him out. Poor him. Fixed income. (note that the overdrafts were from over-spending on a vacation. out-of state vacation where he and a couple of others rented out a beach house) Well no. Branch manager is not here right now, and I simply cannot and will not authorize any further refunds.
He's gone polite at this point,being one of those people who gives up on a tactic when he realizes it isn't going to work for him this time. Regales me with a story of his past life, before he retired, when his income was higher and his wife hadn't left him and took half his stuff.
Finally departs, cordially enough.
The next day, he talks to branch manager. She refunds 2 of the fees. *sigh* At least it wasn't half of them.
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