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So, about 8 months ago the corporate honchos decided to rearrange who deals with certain issues. Several issues which my dept used to deal with were given to other depts to handle. It just so happened that several of these issues involved some of our craziest calls and situations. Corporate wanted us to deal with the one main issue we're supposed to be dealing with: catching fraudulent transactions. It's been pretty quiet since then. There was much rejoicing in our department. 
Fast forward 8 months. Corporate has caved in to a long cascading waterfall of complaints from these departments over these issues and the calls they generate. So what did corporate do? Did they restructure certain things to lessen the number of times these issues come up? Of course not! They simply started sending the calls back to us.
My department has been psycho again for a week now and today I overheard the dept manager asking the supervisors just below her why everyone's break times have shot up.
Here are a pair of psychos I had to deal with this week.
The Saga of Mr. Gomez
I was "fortunate" enough to be the first person to speak with Mr. Gomez. It started late Friday evening, shortly before my shift ended. Mr. Gomez came through my line wanting to put time on his phone. However, his order was not going through because the address he was giving us did not match his card, so the bank was not accepting the charge from us. He insisted repeatedly this was the correct address.
Enter here a long angry diatribe from Mr. Gomez about how long all this is taking and how dare we do this to him. It shouldn't matter what the address is, he wants to put minutes on his phone and we damn well better let him do it.
So I offer to do a security verification on him, which will allow me to override the AVS (address verification system). But to do that I would need to ask for the last 4 digits of his social security number. Oh Horrors! What a terrible question to ask! This gets me a long insulting rant about what terrible people we are and how stupid must I be to harass him like this.
So I offer to call his bank instead and let them verify him and we can also verify the address at the same time. Mr. Gomez eventually grudgingly agrees to this. We get a bank rep on the line who, horror of horrors, asks for his date of birth. Mr Gomez has an apoplectic fit. The bank rep and I both disconnect after several warnings for language. I cancel his order, and about 20 minutes later, I leave.
The next afternoon I come strolling in and am regaled with tales from multiple coworkers about how Mr. Gomez called back, every 30 minutes, for the next FIFTEEN HOURS STRAIGHT. Every person on graveyard shift spoke to him at least five times. Most of the morning crew got at least one call from him as well. He was repeatedly hung up on for his constant screaming, obscenity-laden tirades that began as soon as the rep answered the phone. And the dept that used to deal with this issue and still does related issues? He managed to get transferred to them numerous times, where they got to hang up on him as well.
Finally Saturday morning, one of the leads from my department decided he didn't want this guy slowing our dept down any longer. So next time Mr. Gomez called in, he got transferred to Alan, and Alan called the bank and managed to complete some basic verification and figure out the address problem. Mr. Gomez screamed and spewed obscenities the entire time and Alan ignored him. Finally he was done and Alan started receiving congratulatory instant messages from grateful reps.
20 minutes later who calls in again? Mr. Gomez!
This time, he doesn't want minutes. He simply wants to abuse us some more because it took him so long to get an order through. Of course, he gets hung up on again. So he calls back. Again. And again. And again. And again. And again!
Finally some poor lower rung corporate schmuck who has to come in on Saturday shows up and is bombarded by supervisors from every department begging him to give the permission needed to permanently block Mr Gomez from calling in. Bewildered, he gives it. And there was much rejoicing.
The kicker? This whole thing was caused by the fact that Mr. Gomez transposed the last two digits of his zip code. Yes, THAT was the address issue. Two little digits.
Crazy Bank Lady
So a lady calls in wanting to use her new checking account. The account number is not coming up in the Star-check system (the system which tells us if a checking account number is a valid number or made up, or if its been shut down for abuse or anything else). This is not unusual with brand new accounts, it can take up to 2 weeks for a new account to show up in Star-check.
Unfortunately, this lady's bank is one of those banks with a very strict no merchant policy. They will not deal with a merchant in any way, shape or form. They won't even verify for us if it is a valid account number that we can draft an electronic check on. I advise her that in this case, she would be better off paying her bill this month by going to one of our stores with cash, and to try to use her account with us next month, as it will probably be in Star-check by then and will go through without a problem.
Does crazy bank lady take my advice? Of course not. No, what she does is drive down to her local branch, march in and order the branch manager to speak to us and verify the information for us. She then calls us back on her cell while standing in her bank, and of course I end up with her. She gives me the direct number to the branch and orders me to call and speak to Ruth, the bank manager. So I call, and Ruth is very polite to me, but very firm. This is major corporate policy at her bank and she cannot override it. I thank her, go back to crazy bank lady and tell her what Ruth told me. So what does crazy bank lady do?
She stands in the middle of her local bank branch at 4pm on Friday afternoon, while holding her cell phone in one hand (with me on the line so I can hear everything) and lets forth a stream of language so foul it would make sailors run for the hills, all directed at Ruth. "You effing c**t, I want my account verified with them RIGHT NOW and you're going to talk to them if I have to shove this phone up your a$$ and stomp your face into the ground! This bank is all a bunch of effing b*****s"....etc etc etc.
I can hear Ruth in the background telling her to calm down and then ordering her out of the bank. I finally said "All right, I am disconnecting now" and hung up.
I had to take a break after that one.
Fast forward 8 months. Corporate has caved in to a long cascading waterfall of complaints from these departments over these issues and the calls they generate. So what did corporate do? Did they restructure certain things to lessen the number of times these issues come up? Of course not! They simply started sending the calls back to us.
My department has been psycho again for a week now and today I overheard the dept manager asking the supervisors just below her why everyone's break times have shot up.
Here are a pair of psychos I had to deal with this week.
The Saga of Mr. Gomez
I was "fortunate" enough to be the first person to speak with Mr. Gomez. It started late Friday evening, shortly before my shift ended. Mr. Gomez came through my line wanting to put time on his phone. However, his order was not going through because the address he was giving us did not match his card, so the bank was not accepting the charge from us. He insisted repeatedly this was the correct address.
Enter here a long angry diatribe from Mr. Gomez about how long all this is taking and how dare we do this to him. It shouldn't matter what the address is, he wants to put minutes on his phone and we damn well better let him do it.
So I offer to do a security verification on him, which will allow me to override the AVS (address verification system). But to do that I would need to ask for the last 4 digits of his social security number. Oh Horrors! What a terrible question to ask! This gets me a long insulting rant about what terrible people we are and how stupid must I be to harass him like this.
So I offer to call his bank instead and let them verify him and we can also verify the address at the same time. Mr. Gomez eventually grudgingly agrees to this. We get a bank rep on the line who, horror of horrors, asks for his date of birth. Mr Gomez has an apoplectic fit. The bank rep and I both disconnect after several warnings for language. I cancel his order, and about 20 minutes later, I leave.
The next afternoon I come strolling in and am regaled with tales from multiple coworkers about how Mr. Gomez called back, every 30 minutes, for the next FIFTEEN HOURS STRAIGHT. Every person on graveyard shift spoke to him at least five times. Most of the morning crew got at least one call from him as well. He was repeatedly hung up on for his constant screaming, obscenity-laden tirades that began as soon as the rep answered the phone. And the dept that used to deal with this issue and still does related issues? He managed to get transferred to them numerous times, where they got to hang up on him as well.
Finally Saturday morning, one of the leads from my department decided he didn't want this guy slowing our dept down any longer. So next time Mr. Gomez called in, he got transferred to Alan, and Alan called the bank and managed to complete some basic verification and figure out the address problem. Mr. Gomez screamed and spewed obscenities the entire time and Alan ignored him. Finally he was done and Alan started receiving congratulatory instant messages from grateful reps.
20 minutes later who calls in again? Mr. Gomez!
This time, he doesn't want minutes. He simply wants to abuse us some more because it took him so long to get an order through. Of course, he gets hung up on again. So he calls back. Again. And again. And again. And again. And again!
Finally some poor lower rung corporate schmuck who has to come in on Saturday shows up and is bombarded by supervisors from every department begging him to give the permission needed to permanently block Mr Gomez from calling in. Bewildered, he gives it. And there was much rejoicing.
The kicker? This whole thing was caused by the fact that Mr. Gomez transposed the last two digits of his zip code. Yes, THAT was the address issue. Two little digits.
Crazy Bank Lady
So a lady calls in wanting to use her new checking account. The account number is not coming up in the Star-check system (the system which tells us if a checking account number is a valid number or made up, or if its been shut down for abuse or anything else). This is not unusual with brand new accounts, it can take up to 2 weeks for a new account to show up in Star-check.
Unfortunately, this lady's bank is one of those banks with a very strict no merchant policy. They will not deal with a merchant in any way, shape or form. They won't even verify for us if it is a valid account number that we can draft an electronic check on. I advise her that in this case, she would be better off paying her bill this month by going to one of our stores with cash, and to try to use her account with us next month, as it will probably be in Star-check by then and will go through without a problem.
Does crazy bank lady take my advice? Of course not. No, what she does is drive down to her local branch, march in and order the branch manager to speak to us and verify the information for us. She then calls us back on her cell while standing in her bank, and of course I end up with her. She gives me the direct number to the branch and orders me to call and speak to Ruth, the bank manager. So I call, and Ruth is very polite to me, but very firm. This is major corporate policy at her bank and she cannot override it. I thank her, go back to crazy bank lady and tell her what Ruth told me. So what does crazy bank lady do?
She stands in the middle of her local bank branch at 4pm on Friday afternoon, while holding her cell phone in one hand (with me on the line so I can hear everything) and lets forth a stream of language so foul it would make sailors run for the hills, all directed at Ruth. "You effing c**t, I want my account verified with them RIGHT NOW and you're going to talk to them if I have to shove this phone up your a$$ and stomp your face into the ground! This bank is all a bunch of effing b*****s"....etc etc etc.
I can hear Ruth in the background telling her to calm down and then ordering her out of the bank. I finally said "All right, I am disconnecting now" and hung up.
I had to take a break after that one.
applied liberally to the head and crotchal regions.
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