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CL: crazy lady
Me:
I'm really not certain if I can do this conversation justice. The customer appeared very calm and collected. She kept her voice even. You would think she was being perfectly reasonable. Except she would not tell me the problem. She kept insisting that someone was taking money out of her account. Except she had no transactions to dispute. I printed out 18 months of transaction records for her and there was not a single charge that she did not do...
(...actually, I'm wrong. Sort of. Her debit card was charged monthly for her MSN account and had been for the past year. She wanted to object to this charge because her debit card was supposed to be canceled last year--and by last year I mean 12 months prior--but she did NOT want to dispute the charges, because they were for her own MSN account... she just wanted to object that they were coming from her debit card which she said she'd canceled.
We canceled the card for her. Who wants to bet next month she'll be yelling about why we are refusing to pay her MSN bill? But this wasn't the main thing she was in about...)
Anyway, there were no transactions to dispute, but "someone" was stealing money from her account. So I offered to help her to balance her checkbook. Only she doesn't KEEP a record of her transactions, she just "knows"that someone is taking money from her account.
CL: I need to speak with your fraud department! Someone at the bank is changing my records. They've been taking my money and changing the computer so that the statements don't show it.
Me: Well, ma'am, maybe we could start with what amount you think should be in your account. [with the records you don't keep]
CL: around $****
Me: *blinks* Ah, ma'am... that is your account balance.
CL: But my mortgage company says I haven't paid them!
Me: Are you needing proof of payments that have cleared your account?
CL: That's what I've been asking for.
[It is? This is the first time you've mentioned it to me.]
Me: Do you know what the check numbers were that your wrote to them?
CL: names three check numbers
Me: Okay, I have those check images. They are cleared checks to your mortgage company. One from two months ago, one from December and one from last November. Are those the payments your mortgage company said they missed?
CL: They say I'm 13 months behind! I know I've made my payments. They're going to foreclose on my house! Someone is stealing from me, either someone here or there!
[13 months! Are you serious?]
Me: Okay, lets find all of your mortgage payments that have come from this account over the past year.
She does not have any other check numbers. The amount of her payments differ. She writes checks in random orders from multiple different checkbooks. She only has a few of the carbon copiesbecauuse she throws away her checkbooks once she's used them all.
So, I offer to pull up EVERY image from the past year and print out the ones made payable to her mortgage company. She decides at this point that she is busy and must get going, but will pick up the check images tomorrow. She also wants the images going back to 24 months, which is fine, but I have to order them from imaging as we only have direct access to the past 12months.
I go through the past twelve months and find a total of 7 cleared checks to her mortgage company. Three of them are for amounts lower than what she says her monthly payment is. Imaging goes further back and shows a similar spotty payment history. So, either her mortgage company/post office is losing more than a third of her payments, she's paying some from another account, or she's NOT making all of her payments.
As she leaves, she tells me (again): someone's stealing from me. I'm not making any more payments until they stop stealing from me!
Um...ma'am... this is your house. That might not be a good idea.
And she never came back in to pick up the check images.
Me:
I'm really not certain if I can do this conversation justice. The customer appeared very calm and collected. She kept her voice even. You would think she was being perfectly reasonable. Except she would not tell me the problem. She kept insisting that someone was taking money out of her account. Except she had no transactions to dispute. I printed out 18 months of transaction records for her and there was not a single charge that she did not do...
(...actually, I'm wrong. Sort of. Her debit card was charged monthly for her MSN account and had been for the past year. She wanted to object to this charge because her debit card was supposed to be canceled last year--and by last year I mean 12 months prior--but she did NOT want to dispute the charges, because they were for her own MSN account... she just wanted to object that they were coming from her debit card which she said she'd canceled.
We canceled the card for her. Who wants to bet next month she'll be yelling about why we are refusing to pay her MSN bill? But this wasn't the main thing she was in about...)
Anyway, there were no transactions to dispute, but "someone" was stealing money from her account. So I offered to help her to balance her checkbook. Only she doesn't KEEP a record of her transactions, she just "knows"that someone is taking money from her account.
CL: I need to speak with your fraud department! Someone at the bank is changing my records. They've been taking my money and changing the computer so that the statements don't show it.
Me: Well, ma'am, maybe we could start with what amount you think should be in your account. [with the records you don't keep]
CL: around $****
Me: *blinks* Ah, ma'am... that is your account balance.
CL: But my mortgage company says I haven't paid them!
Me: Are you needing proof of payments that have cleared your account?
CL: That's what I've been asking for.
[It is? This is the first time you've mentioned it to me.]
Me: Do you know what the check numbers were that your wrote to them?
CL: names three check numbers
Me: Okay, I have those check images. They are cleared checks to your mortgage company. One from two months ago, one from December and one from last November. Are those the payments your mortgage company said they missed?
CL: They say I'm 13 months behind! I know I've made my payments. They're going to foreclose on my house! Someone is stealing from me, either someone here or there!
[13 months! Are you serious?]
Me: Okay, lets find all of your mortgage payments that have come from this account over the past year.
She does not have any other check numbers. The amount of her payments differ. She writes checks in random orders from multiple different checkbooks. She only has a few of the carbon copiesbecauuse she throws away her checkbooks once she's used them all.
So, I offer to pull up EVERY image from the past year and print out the ones made payable to her mortgage company. She decides at this point that she is busy and must get going, but will pick up the check images tomorrow. She also wants the images going back to 24 months, which is fine, but I have to order them from imaging as we only have direct access to the past 12months.
I go through the past twelve months and find a total of 7 cleared checks to her mortgage company. Three of them are for amounts lower than what she says her monthly payment is. Imaging goes further back and shows a similar spotty payment history. So, either her mortgage company/post office is losing more than a third of her payments, she's paying some from another account, or she's NOT making all of her payments.
As she leaves, she tells me (again): someone's stealing from me. I'm not making any more payments until they stop stealing from me!
Um...ma'am... this is your house. That might not be a good idea.
And she never came back in to pick up the check images.
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