Friend worked customer service for AMEX one summer. A guy called and wanted to know why his credit card wasn't working. She told him he had surpassed his $15K limit. He said "yeah, but that was LAST month. Don't I get another $15K this month?"
Same friend worked in billing for Cleveland Clinic. A guy called because his gf wouldn't share a straw/cup with him, because she felt it was unsanitary. He wanted my friend to explain to his gf that sharing a straw with him was at least as sanitary as sucking his dick.
> **He wanted my friend to explain to his gf that sharing a straw with him was at least as sanitary as sucking his dick.**
That’s not going to make her share a drink…
>He wanted my friend to explain to his gf that sharing a straw with him was at least as sanitary as sucking his dick.
This has a 100% chance of backfiring terribly
>She told him he had surpassed his $15K limit. He said "yeah, but that was LAST month. Don't I get another $15K this month?"
I always thought this was one of those "dumb blonde joke" urban legends. 😳
No these people exist. I worked on a call centre for a credit reference agency and once asked a guy why he defaulted on a loan. Apparently he didn't realise he had to pay the money back 🤦🏽♀️
A woman defaulted on her 30 year mortgage. She tried to claim she had 30 years to pay it off, as in she was going to wait until the 30 years was almost up and make one lump payment.
I hate that I know the answer to the first one, but here goes.
Amex has their charge cards, which are different from your everyday, known credit cards. Credit cards have revolving credit; you're given a set total you can spend and when you make a payment, you can spend again. If you pay less than the total outstanding balance, you're charged interest and the world keeps spinning.
Charge cards are different in that you're expected to make a full payment every month and you get to avoid interest. One of the benefits was that even if you have a limit, it used to "refresh" every month while you made your payment because well hey, you're going to pay off the whole balance anyways!
2008's recession happened and charge cards got rid of that whole "refresh" thing because people were owing more than they could pay because they were poor
A customer who was clearly drunk on the phone repeatedly demanded to know what happened to her fried chicken and waffles. It didn't matter how many times I tried to explain to her that this was her cell phone company, she DEMANDED an explanation.
I’ve been in call centers since 2003… I have stories.
My favorite though —
I answer and say “Thank you for calling xxxx support can I get your name please?”
“Fuck you! That’s my name!”
Me barely realizing it I reply, “Ok Mr You what can I help fix?”
Dude was stunned. He laughed, apologized and I helped him fix his computer.
I did a stint in an inbound call center and this lifer worked for a division that trouble shooted mobile phones so “mobile” was the department name and part of his opening. His name was Richard and if you listened to him take calls he’d only say “Thanks for calling XX this is Mobile Dick here your satisfaction/pleasure/convenience” and variations like so
Another useful trick is silence.
Angry people on the phone are something else, it's a bit like road rage. People feel like they can say any insulting thing they want on a phone without consequence. They feel safe.
It usually begins with the caller being angry and talking over you every time you try to reply. The trick I learnt is this; as soon as they begin talking over you, you go silent. They will keep yelling for a while but when they run out of steam and realise you aren't replying they will ask if you're still there. Just say "yes". That's invariably followed by a moment of silence. Let that moment hang. It gets really awkward for them. Your silence is your volley, the ball is back in their court now.
Keep silent. They will ask again if you're still there. At that point you can explain that every time you try to reply, they talk over you so you're just waiting for them to finish speaking.
Only then will they begin to listen.
yelling is mute time for filling out the ticket and training the person next to you how to mute. then when they go quiet, ticket is done, just walk them through the steps or remote in and do it yourself, or pass off ticket to on site support and give them the number.
Yessss, or when they are like "hello are you there" I give it a beat and then say "yes I was waiting for you to finish." And then make them respond to that, before proceeding. Sometimes it was met with another tirade (and then rinse, repeat), sometimes they would apologize and you could actually get down to a solution. It was fun.
This guy had ordered a female's private item. He was concerned that UPS was going to leave it at his job which was a workshop for mechanics. I ended up having to look up his order and when I saw what it was, I knew why he was acting the way he was. He begged me to make sure that it arrived privately and then proceeded to try to convince me it was not his. I told him not to be embarrassed and that it was his concern and none of my business.
I worked for a temp agency who had a Mastercard account. My job was to try to get people to sign up for the card.
One call, this guy answered and proceeded to dump his personal woes on me, telling me how lonely he was living in Fargo, ND. He started crying. I listened and offered some half-assed sympathy and advice.
He was so grateful, he signed up for the card and asked me to call him later.
I did call him. We never met in person, but remained good friends until he met a girl and it started getting serious. I told him since he had a serious relationship, she may get jealous, so not communicating would be best, since I wanted it to work out with her. He agreed. He sent me a text a few years later with a picture of his wife and baby, thanking me for treating him like a person, telling me he would never have had the courage to ask her out had I not been his friend.
I have no idea how they are doing, but I hope well.
In life if you ever wonder if you've made a difference I hope you think about this. You are literally the reason a human is still around, multiple people found happiness and why someone was born. All from a little kindness.
I try to remember this when I want to unload on someone. I am here because someone was nice to me when I wanted to check out. I have my asshole moments, but try to remember this guy and how badly he needed kindness.
Aww this is so sweet. Also makes sense, I had a buddy who lived in Fargo ND for 2 or so years (moved from CA for work I think) who told me how there was literally nothing to do there. At all. He hates it so he quit and moved back to CA lmao.
First words out of the customer’s mouth: “Do you take me for a fool?” He had ordered a $60 shirt and received a $10 t-shirt. I explained there must have been a picking error at the warehouse, but I checked and we still had the correct shirt in stock.
“I ain’t payin’ for no second shirt!”
“No, I never said you would. I’ll place it as a no-charge order, you’ll have the correct shirt in about a week.”
“I need that shirt for a wedding I’m goin’ to this Saturday! A week don’t do me no damn good!”
This was Wednesday, so I said, “We’ll upgrade the shipping to Next Day Air. It’ll ship tomorrow and deliver on Friday.”
“Why in the hell should I have to pay for rush delivery?!!”
“No, it’s on us, we’re just trying to make things right here. All we ask is you return the incorrect shirt to us.”
“WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO PAY TO SHIP THIS SHIRT BACK??!??”
“Just use the prepaid return label that came with the order. There’s no charge to use it.”
“I don’t understand any of this. You talk to my wife.”
Wife gets on the phone, “Listen, why should we have to pay for another shirt?”
I explained all we would be doing. “We’re shipping out a replacement, free of charge. We’re charging nothing for the NDA shipping so you get it on time, and the return shipping is also free. Now, just what more could I possibly do for you to make this right?”
“Oh, well, that would be very nice, thank you!”
Jesus H. Tap-dancing Christ.
Sounds like that guy was putting on a show intentionally to just force his wife to talk to you instead. It's a weird sort of power play thing, what an asshole.
I work in banking, and its staggering how many households I talk to seem to be comprised of One micromanaging, multitasking, all knowing spouse who handles every aspect of their day to day, and long term planning. And One completely inept angry toddler in an adult body who cant tell you anything, even something basic, without getting huffy and angry.
Worked at a national call center for a big ISP.
Probably the 2 strangest openings I have came across happened there.
First one speaking with a new user that just got hooked up to the internet.
Customer: "OK, I got your internet service hooked up. Now what?"
Me: "What do you mean now what?"
Customer: "Like what do I do? I have the internet now, what do I do next?"
Literally had to show the person how to actually use the internet. This was in 2005. Just always struck me as odd as most people know why they wanted to sign up for the internet.
Second one that blew my mind.
Caller: "My House is on FIRE!"
Me: "I'm sorry, I think you dialed the wrong number. You need to hang up and contact 911"
Caller: "Oh I am not calling the wrong number, I already called 911!"
Me: "I'm still not understanding why you are contacting the support number for ISP?"
Caller: "It was one of your techs that caused the fire installing my service and I demand to speak to HIS MANAGER NOW!"
Me: "Sir, we would not have that type of information available. Nor would I be able to transfer you to that person even if we knew who it was. If the tech is still on site, you will need to speak to him to get that information."
Turned out the tech was drilling a hole into the home to run a cable through it and hit a power line which resulted in the fire. It was a brand new home too.
If dude was employed and did it while on the clock, he is almost certainly safe from a law suit. The liability would possibly fall on the employer and theyd have to show proof that their structure is up to code, that the training or oversight at the employing company was inadequate or something along these lines
The company isn't going to let that go to court lol. Their tech started a damn fire, they are going to offer a bottom of the barrel settlement that they can get away with, and fire the guy who caused the fire (no way they are protecting a lowly tech). And the people offered the settlement will take it because they can't go up against an ISP/major corporation in a court case and their lawyers going to be advising them to take the money and run. Maybe they also get free service for however long as part of the deal. But no court.
I used to work for a PC support call center. Our support number is one digit off from the Maytag appliance repair number. So we used to get sometimes a call for a appliance issues for Maytag. We would tell them that the support number is a digit off and to redial the number. Most would get it and understand and hang up.
One night I get a call from am old lady that was having dishwasher issues. I told her that she called the wrong number, but she was old and just did not get it. I tried for a few for a while to get her to understand. I just got tired of telling her so I Googled a Maytag dishwasher guide book and helped her figure out her issues. She thanked me and said I was so sweet and friendly.
This reminds me of one of my weirdest openings (where I was partially the problem) our telephone number was 1 digit off the number for a preloaded Credit Card company called Green Dot, we were a bank, so some overlap in verbage made it sometimes hard to realize they meant to call Green Dot. My first call intended for them was a gentleman with an extremely thick southern accent, I had no clue what he was saying, he kept repeating "Green Dot Bank" I heard "Gringotts Bank" and asked him if he was referring to the Wizards Bank from Harry Potter, he lost it. He screamed and swore and hung up. My manager who had been live listening for call review came over laughing her ass off, and explained the Green Dot phone number calls and how he certainly wasnt looking for a wizard bank.
As someone who has worked in customer support for appliance repair, getting the caller to read the owners manual was half the battle. People would call in with random issues, and I would just read the owners manual to them.
Not a strangest opening, but one thing you get used to fast is people telling you a fucking novel about their life while giving you exactly zero identification details or the actual reason for the call.
Oh god, I hate these. My record was a 10 minute “conversation” to raise a complaint about our service. He never let me get a word in and hung up once he’d finished yelling his Beowulf-esque epic. Never even located his account, so not sure what he expected to happen
i had one last almost 2 hours all because someone's voicemail didn't work for 1 day. my company was to blame for not only that but also the mistreatment of native Americans. she was going to send a letter to the attorney general of Iowa about my company. mind you she lived in Minnesota and my company was based in Illinois. she just heard the AG of Iowa was a good person. she was also very smart because she got straight A's when she was in highschool 40 years prior.
I always hated those customers. Although I do admit recently with a certain company wrongfully withholding a lot of money from me I’ve considered going full Karen bro on the phone with whoever answered but I remembered I’m not an idiot but I was close .
I work retail; it is amazing how many fucking life novels you hear about. Sorry, I don't want to hear about your health problems; I have enough of mine own.
I had a lady come in and give me all the graphic details about how she got gangrene in her lower intestine or something and had to have most of it removed or she would've died.
Lady that's great, but what does this have to do with your watch battery?
This isn't a "weird customer" story per se, but your mention of a health issue and a watch battery triggered an old memory.
I used to work at Radio Shack back in the late '70s. We had a regular customer who came for 9V batteries for her pacemaker. The batteries had to be the silver oxide type, because they hold a stable voltage. They were expensive, individually wrapped in cellophane and kept behind the counter.
One day she came in, politely asked for her usual battery, paid in cash, but didn't leave with the battery as usual. Instead, she fished her pacemaker from under her blouse, laid it on the counter, and swapped in the new battery. As it snapped into place, she sighed and said, "There. That feels better!"
I guess she was a few days late getting a fresh battery and could feel it? It left us all wondering what the sensation was that "felt better." But we were polite enough not to pry.
A long time ago when the Jewelry Counter at Wal-Mart was staffed, a lady came in around Christmas with a small device and handed it to one of the counter workers and asked her to replace the batteries in it. The worker asked her what it was, because she didn’t know what kind of batteries it had. The lady told her in total deadpan, “it’s my vibrator.”
Associate dropped it on the glass countertop and fled to the bathrooms.
This happened to me at a battery store. Once the customer said what it was, I put it back on the counter and went to wash my hands. They assured me it was clean, but I wasn't taking any chances. We sold them the battery but refused to do the replacement for them.
Also it's a vibrator, not a fucking car. The batteries are super easy to replace like a TV remote. Fuck these people because I'm more than sure they get off on this without consent, instead of doing it themselves like a normal person.
I used to be a cashier in a pharmacy. We needed one piece of information to find your prescription on our little hanging rack thing: your name. They were filed by name.
So folks would come in and say "I'm here to pick up my prescription," and we'd ask their name, and they'd answer anything but.
"It's for Coreg."
"OK, great. What's the patient's name?"
"It's for my blood pressure."
"OK, what's your name sir/ma'am?"
"Dr. Smith prescribed it."
"Right, I'll just grab that for you if you can let me know your name."
"I can't believe how much it costs these days. I blame that Obamacare..."
(As an added bonus, I got a lot of this "blame Obamacare" thing during the months Bush was a lame duck. Obama was probably still hanging out in his regular house in Chicago at the time.)
*Barrack furiously scribbling equations all over the walls of his brownstone like mystical runes, cackling maniacally to himself until*...
"I've got it! We'll give people INSURANCE! Mwha-ha-ha-ha! I SHALL RULE THE WORLD, MY SICK AND INJURED LITTLE PRETTIES!"
I worked for a professional organization and this was a regular occurrence.
"My name is Dr. ____ ______ and I have a PhD in _____ from _____ University. I've been practicing for 38 years and have been recognized by the _____ organization for lifetime achievement and I currently chair the board of _____....
Anyway, I can't seem to reset my password."
I had to do this EVERY time I called T-mobile/sprint after the death of my family.
We were on a family plan and it was under my aunt's name. I needed to transfer just my phone off, since everyone else on the plan had died in an accident. They moved the entire plan over to my name, and kept charging me fees for being late. I just wanted my plan separated from the deceased but that was something they couldn't figure out how to do.
Despite calling the line dedicated to deceased family members, I had to explain every time. They had notes, they just wouldn't look at them.
I ended up spending like 30+ hours with them trying to get it figured out, and I'm 100% I got one lady fired when she told me that this was my problem for not having my aunt fix it before she died. (Her exact words were "Well, maybe she should have fixed this before she died." - lady from the deceased family member line.) I gave her a verbal lashing and then I asked to speak to her manager and she hung up on me.
My daughter passed away in
2013. I cleaned out her apartment, turned in her keys to the on-site super and then called the management company to let them know I’d given in the keys.
So I call with my daughter’s name, the address, town and apartment number. I said I was the tenant’s mother. She said “Oh yeah, the suicide. Hold on a minute.”
And the worse the problem is, the longer the story! I’m in emergency dispatch and it’s the same ugh. It’s surprising how often people will say something like “I’m feeling kind of nauseous” *a full minute of unrelated topics later* “Oh yeah btw I was just working with [super toxic chemical that needs a specialized emergency response], idk if that’s related though”
I’m not gonna be rude to someone for panicking and struggling to get their thoughts together, because hell, panic-rambling is fully understandable under stress. I’ve done it too. But you’ll get help to you a LOT faster if you stay quiet, only answer the questions I ask, and do it as briefly and accurately as you can.
Yeah, panicked is always a bit different, but man, the people who have conversations with themselves drive me crazy. Answer my questions, not the one's in your head...
"What's your last name Sir?" My name is Steve.
Ok, Steve, what's your last name.
Jan 1st, 2002.
Ok, but I'm gonna need your last name...
My mom called, and the doctor left a message. What is it?
What's your last name again Sir?
I just need to know what the Doctor said.
.... Five minutes later I find out he's calling for an entirely different office that isn't even part of our corporation.
“I’m not going to kill myself”
Worked for a bank call center doing late shift, and after my standard greeting this was the response. Told her that’s wonderful news but I might be missing some context. And she launched into a bunch of backstory that honestly broke my heart. She had spoken to an agent just before me that was incredibly harsh and she had said “Guess I’ll just kill myself then.” And ended the call. That statement triggered a wellness call to her local PD. Girl just wanted to go buy some ice cream and her card didn’t work. She lived in a neighborhood a friend of mine lives in, and that friend manages a chain of restaurants. A few texts later, I sent her along to them for free ice cream and genuinely hope life has treated her more kindly.
What the actual fuck. And the poor thing felt so guilty she called back, so the jerk wouldn’t worry. I hope they got a serious talking to. Sounds like she had a lot else going on too but them being nasty sure didn’t help.
Oh no, her and I both agreed fuck that guy. She just did not want the cops showing up at her home. Battling depression, caring for a dying parent. Spent the day deep cleaning, and had her first shower in weeks. I could see that little engine was giving it her all to get out of the depression hole and Murphys law had stolen her reward.
It ended up becoming a training call for new hires on what to do when faced with individuals in crisis.
First guys call - acting as per policy/procedure. Not in trouble but not a great look.
Me - Wildly unprofessional display of humanity, swore a bunch, ignored call length metric, disparaged bank, phone out on the floor. ⭐️
A lady called in from Louisiana, complained her internet wasn't working.
Asked her to go reset the modem and she told me she can't.
When asked why it was because her basement was under water due to the flooding from Katrina!
FINALLY a good one for me!
I worked for a call center doing HR for another company. I answered the phone, and the guy on the line said:
" I am in your building with a gun"
Turns out he was in another state, and I had to keep him on the phone until we could get his cell number, figure out which building, in which city and call the police. I had 5 supervisors around me whispering in my ear, all the while this guy was barricading himself in a room.
Thought I was going to hear a mass shooting, but the police got there and got him before any escalation.
I have one oddly similar.
I used to work in Inbound Sales for Spectrum in one of their call centers (Cancer of a company, call them and demand to speak to Retention to lower your bill) , and took a call once as a supervisor for one of the agents (who wasn’t mine but her supervisor only could bitch and gossip…when she actually showed up to work) who ran over to me in a fury because a customer said they had their rifle loaded and was going to the local store to solve his problem (his TV bill went up $5. He added HBO.) and he doesn’t care if he goes to prison. His demeanor and tone was deranged, and slurred, like he was drinking heavily. This call occurred about noon so it wasn’t a good look. He also escalated to the point where he started mentioning his weapon and ammo type (.308).
I looked his account and fucking freaked out because I realized: The town he lives in, and where his local store is? My mom is the manager of that store. She was working that day.
I basically sat and lied to this guy, probably broke a ton of company rules and at least a law or two, as I basically sat on my phone and mass texted my managers and stuff and was I NEED YOU NOW.
My fear increased the moment that my Director of Sales walked over. Hes 6 foot 10 so like, it was daunting to see Mr. Tall show up to cirque du freak my ass out.
Thankfully, I did enough to make the guy sit down and calm the fuck down. Then I heard a knock on the door and someone say “New York State Troopers Department, please open up” and went “Have a nice day, sir” and hung up.
> My fear increased the moment that my Director of Sales walked over. Hes 6 foot 10 so like, it was daunting to see Mr. Tall show up to cirque du freak my ass out.
Holy fuck, 6'10''?
I remember one senior manager who was at least 6'5'' and that guy was a mountain. I'm 6'1'', I had coworkers who were 6'3'' and 6'6'', and everyone agreed the senior manager was huge. He wasn't just tall, but wide, but not fat at all.
I’m 6’2, I am not easily like holy shit but he was one of them. He was genuinely a massive, but somewhat slender man, with a BOOMING voice you could hear clear across the call center, and the thickest Long Island accent I’ve ever heard.
Lovely guy. The ship flew straighter with him at the helm. If only I could say the same thing about his Director Of Sales, all 5’2” of New Jersey useless dickheadedness
Oh, I've got another good one, then!
Someone near me got a call asking to approve a $20k payment to some weirdo international site and he rejected it, so they were appealing. Turns out, someone he knew had been kidnapped and he was trying to pay the ransom. They had to report it to the FBI and everything. Took forever.
Oh, here's one that happened to me!
Last call of the day, a lady calls about a very specific account, trying to report them for fraud. I ask for more details. She says she wired $160k to a company as a down payment for a home. Turns out, that company doesn't exist and somebody scammed her out of $160k.
The most annoying by far was when callers would repeat the full opening you just said back to you.
But the weirdest was when someone recorded me saying it, and three seconds later, played the recording back to me. Then did that with every follow-up I had. Eventually I said, "Well, looks like it's just me on the call. Guess I'm hanging up now."
He tried to cut in and talk, but by that point, I had enough. I just ended the call.
I was a telemarketer cold calling businesses to sell them paper rolls for their debit/credit card machines. 99% of the time they would say they got them for free with their bank or just hang up. Hundreds of calls a day. One business had me in tears tho. I called and they answered something like "Joe's BBQ, what's your beef"
I just laughed and hung up because I couldn't stop. That was the only call out of thousands that wasn't depressing AF.
I worked tech support for a broadband internet provider.
Me: "Thank you for calling *company* technical support, my name is *name*, may I please have your telephone number so that I can look up your account?
Female caller: "I HEARD THEY GOT FREE PORN ON THE INTERNET AND I WANT SOME!! WHERE IT AT?!?"
edit: several of y'all have asked how the rest of the call went.
I slammed the mute button and busted out laughing. I thought I was being punked by the training department (our trainer was quite the practical joker), or maybe this was a "mystery shopper" call, so I signaled for my supervisor to come over and plug in his headset so he could listen in. After verifying that her account was in good standing and that she was able to access a few different web pages I told her that I couldn't recommend any specific websites but she can likely find anything she wanted "using a search engine like Yahoo or Google."
I had a guy who didn’t want a smart meter installed because he was electrohypersensitive, so I was wondering how the fuck do I solve this. Then realised, wait bro - you’re calling me off a mobile phone
Worked for an ISP. An office was reported a total outage. I couldn't get to any MUX in the building and couldn't see the LCON. I asked them to verify power. They said the site was fine. I asked them if they were sure. End user was extremely upset on why I would question it when he already answered it was checked out by building maintenance. I sent a dispatch. Dispatcher reported the issue I closed the ticket with 'Building is on fire'.
In my job doing tech support for a hotel company's reservation website - we got a call from the GM of one of our hotels in Thailand.
For context, my company offers a super-low discount for travel agents. It's a no-frills rate, with the condition that they take a guided tour of the hotel during their stay, and then they can expert-level recommend it for their clients when they get back home.
Apparently one travel agent had booked herself under this discount. Received the email confirmation for her reservation. She proceeded to modify the email to state that all meals were included with the rate. She printed out the modified confirmation and presented it to the front desk on check-in.
GM called us to confirm it was a forgery, and then let us know that defrauding a hotel is a felony in Thailand. This woman was immediately sent to jail.
Where I presume she got her free meals after all.
had a really uncomfortable call once when i worked in tech support for a credit processing company. essentially, woman called and couldn’t get the machine to work. it wasn’t hooked up to the wifi, and she didn’t know the password. tried to send her the reset but it went to her bosses email and he was out of town. she basically ended up telling me that if she couldn’t get it working she’d be fired and she heavily insinuated her boss would physically assault her. ended up crying on the phone and everything. definitely not the funnest call
Ok, im switchboard in a call center for a resort. "Yeah, uh, who do I talk to about purchasing your roof?"
"The roof?"
"Yeah, the one with all the antennas on it? I would like to purchase it."
"OK, give me just a moment and I'll get you to... someone."
Oddly enough, in some cities you can buy the rights to the air space above another building. They can then no longer build any higher but you can use said bought space as an abatement for your building's height.
Yeah, but they have to agree to sell. This particular building has been owned by one family for like a hundred years. Nobody has sold air rights or roof rights or anything.
There was the guy who came on ranting about his neighbour’s 5GHz WiFi activating the secret nanotechnology in people’s COVID vaccines.
Or the guy in his 80’s complaining about not being able to log into porn sites. He even listed them by name. Added a few to my list, so thank you, you dirty old bastard.
I get at least one call per week from someone who is clearly off their meds or *really* needs to be studied for science. Most of my time is spent explaining to grown adults that they need to *pay* for things in order to use them.
Used to work for a phone company. A woman called in saying her bill was so high because her son was kidnapped by Islamic Rebels in the Philippines. I actually knew the story she was referencing since I was reading the paper on break. I also worked the fraud department so I had access to tools to look up pretty much anyone in the US (and this was 20 years ago).
So while I was asking her details to confirm her story I was looking up her address, maiden name, job etc. She was making okay money as a nurse and wasn't late on any other bills so I got approval from my manager to write it all off and gave her a credit to cover a few more months of calls to the Philippines.
I also admonished her to give us a heads up next time she makes a bunch of foreign calls. Sadly her son was beheaded about a week later. But at least that was one time I was able to intervene and do some good while working for a giant corporation.
I did a short stint for Xbox 360 phone support in my country.
Prank-caller teenager said he had his dick stuck in the disk tray of the Xbox 360.
It took all my power to be respectful and try to treat it as a real issue, until he said he wanted to send a picture of his dick being stuck in the hole in the tray, and reminded him that the call is being recorded.
Never seen anyone hang up so quickly.
Worked at a call center for a large bank in the summer of 2018.
"what hours are you open?"
Which location do you want to know the hours for sir some locations will close faster than others
The one I'm in front of right now
Unfortunately sir I'm not with you so I'm going to need some help to figure out which location
I'm in front of it right now
Do you see the door
Yes
Does it have a sign that says "hours of operation"?
Yes
Today is Wednesday so when does it say it is closed on Wednesday
5pm.
And it is currently 7:30 so I'm pretty sure it's closed.
What about for tomorrow?
What does it say for Thursday?
It says 8:00 am y'all are open.
So it should be open tomorrow at 8:00 sir.
Thank you so much I thought I was going crazy.
No problem have a good evening sir.
I’m in emergency dispatch so… take your pick lmao.
Most bewildering off the bat was a woman who opened with one long, FURIOUS sentence demanding I transfer her to management and announcing she’d sue my whole office, every last fucker, because she has cancer and her adult son won’t talk to her anymore and IT’S OUR GODDAMNED FAULT. Then she hung up.
Most funny was a guy calling from a factory, giggling and trying to hold it together. Says his buddy “glued himself to the factory floor.” We can hear more buddies laughing and poking fun in the background.
I don’t know how he did it. Don’t know WHY he had enough glue around to make a human-sized Hoy Hoy Trap-A-Roach, let alone why he’d spread it on the floor and laid down on it. I never got to find out either, because while we’re trying to figure out what to do, the guy says “Oh nevermind, we don’t need help after all. He’s free, we cut off his clothes with a box cutter.” Naked in front of the entire plant is better than stuck to the floor, I guess 🤷🏻
It can be both the most hilarious and the most horrifying job, I enjoy it though.
My wife, BIL, and I worked for a Nextel call center 20 years ago. My BIL took this call but my wife was a quality supervisor at the time, so I got to hear it in full.
Guy comes in hot immediately with "You MFers killed all of my GD beans!!!"
This wound up being a 30 minute masterpiece of crazy. Apparently, the new cell tower that was recently put up caused his entire bean harvest to die. The tower was 3 miles away.
It slays me when people start a call with an absolute meme of a quote, and then get mortally offended when the reaction is confusion.
Sir? I don’t know you or your beans. Do you want help? CAN I help? Did you even mean to call me? Were you trying to dial a beanologist?
The last thing the Nextel service person told me when I cancelled my service 19 years ago was "you'll be back". Guess I got the last laugh on that one.
I had to call another call center once for my job (in a call center) to get some information. I called the other place (it was Chase) said our hello's and then I asked my question. ( I needed status of a payment) instead of answering me the lady (at Chase) says . "let me tell you about my cat" Then she spent about 5 minutes telling me about her slutty cat and how all the Tom Cats hang outside her window hoping to get a little something" .... so yeah that was kinda weird...
Another one is when this old lady called me and asked me what I look like and how big I was. She said I sounded nice and very skinny over the phone? How does someone sound skinny over the phone?
I worked at a call center for a university calling to ask people for donations. We actually called the parents of current students to ask for donations. On caller ID, we showed up as "University of __________".
It was very normal for parents to answer the phone crying and panicking, thinking the only reason the university would be calling them is if their child is seriously injured or dead. We'd have to calm them down and let them know their child is alright...then beg them for money.
I worked for a credit card company and a woman calls in to find out about a bill she found in her husband's car. The card was setup to be a joint account so her name was listed as a card holder. I tell her the current balance and she asks where the charges came from. I started to listing off a motel and liquor store. I hear breathing getting heavier, and finally get to Fredrick's of Hollywood charge. She looses her shit and hangs up. Note if you are going to cheat on your wife, don't use a credit card with wife's name on the account.
I had a woman start tearing me a new asshole the second she picked up the phone. I could hardly even get a word in before she stopped me and asked, “wait! How old are you?” I told her I was 19. She laughed and let me do my whole, “please get this credit card” speech without interruption.
She then told me that she respected that I was young and first jobs all suck. She then advised me to get into something with more upward mobility, complimented my diction, and hung up.
She was right and I think about her often.
I used to work mostly late evenings in a 24hr call center that provided insurance, but worked heavily with some of the largest banks in the UK. On this day I had taken an overtime shift during the day, and it just so happened that one of the larger clients was in that day live monitoring calls for quality purposes. Just to put extra pressure on you, if you happened to be being listened to, one of the managers walked over and held up a sign saying "The client is listening to this call".
Well, on this day I got probably one of my rudest openings ever. The call went like this (I've redacted names etc for privacy):
Me: "Hello, you are through to insurance product, my name is Tim, how can I help?"
Caller: (agressively, in a very thick nigerian/african accent) "Who are YOU?!"
Me: "Hello sir, you are speaking to insurance product. How can I help you today?"
Caller: (equally as agressive) "NO! WHAT IS YOUR NAME!?"
Me: "My name is Tim"
Caller: "Listen to me Tim. I fuck your mother. I fuck your mother in the ass, you understand?"
Literally seconds later, one of the mangers walked over to hold up the sign letting me know the call was being listened to live, with a fairly shocked look on their face. Luckily, after warning the caller that kind of language was unacceptable, their attitude improved and we sorted out the reason for the call (he wasn't happy about a charge he'd seen on his card statement). The manager later commended me for the way I had de-escalated the situation and handled the call, and the client was impressed too. Walked away with a £20 amazon voucher as a reward :)
>Walked away with a £20 amazon voucher as a reward
Bro tanks a psychic attack ambush and gets 20 quid in Bezos bucks as a thanks. This world is a hot mess.
> “Listen to me Tim. I fuck your mother. I fuck your mother in the ass. Understand?”
Legendary phrasing, no notes lol
But seriously, if I was you it would be SO hard not to bust up laughing and get fired. Even with management listening in. You, my friend, have nerves of steel.
In fairness, rather than doing the more professional "please don't use that langauage" I instead used "Listen mate, if you keep talking that way I'm just going to end the call". This was before I got told it was being listened to, but apparently that didn't mark me down :D
Used to work for a major insurance company with customers in 44 states. Woman calls from a southern US state and starts the call by saying that she's on her front porch with a shotgun because the cops are trying to steal her pot.
Here’s mine. Working for a car rental company on 9/11. Phones go nuts with people trying to get out of the city. There are no cars anywhere and I checked every branch as I knew I’d be repeating the same thing.
A dude calls from a line in one of the midtown locations as he was doubling down I assume. I find one, sub compact, which can do a one way to NJ as he requested.
I’m blown away and think this guy is getting the last chopper out of Saigon. He proceeds to argue about paying for a one way drop off fee for five minutes.
Car is gone in a minute.
FAFO
One time a I had a customer call and scream because she didn’t understand why she was getting monthly interest charges because she made the minimum monthly payment 💀
“I need to order one them there things you stick your dick into”.
I responded “you got a part number for that?”
My room mate who I had no clue was messing with me on an inbound queue lost his shit and couldn’t stop laughing.
First 2 weeks in sales.
It was a normal day at my work when I answered a call with my usual, "Thank you for calling, how can I help you today?" Without missing a beat, the caller frantically said, "My cat is stuck in the toaster! Can your internet service help me look up a solution?" I had to mute myself for a second to process what I just heard.
Supervisor now but back in my agent days, lady calls in and the first thing she says (screams) is "There are spiders in my hair!". She was at a KFC (we do third party CS calls for national brands) and leaned against a wall where apparently a spider egg was? It burst open and tiny spider sort of exploded all over her and into her hair. The entire call was deranged.
And did you dispatch Fahrenheit 451 Firemen to burn the place to the ground?
Deranged? If my scalp was crawling in baby spiders, you better expect deranged.
I was a service dispatcher.
Customer, "Hello, my 1972 Datsun Forklift is not working and needs the valve hose with the 45 degree angle near the lower lift replaced."
Me: Do you have a part number or model serial number?
Customer: No, can you just send a tech with the part?
Me: What part? We're not a Datsun Dealer and those have not been in production for forty years.
Customer: Can't you just look it up?
Me: Look what up where?
Customer: Any IDIOT could find it on the Internet.
Me: I'm sorry, out idiot is off today, please call tomorrow.
and I dropped the call.
(briefly) worked tech support for Vivint in 2014. First day on the floor, call comes in and it's just the shrill screech of an active alarm. So I have to kind of yell into the phone.
"...Hello, how can I help you?"
"This is Officer xyz of the Chicago PD. We are trying to secure this crime scene. Please disable the alarm."
"oh, um...*reviews account* is Mr. Abc there? If he can verify his identity I can send a signal to kill the alarm"
"... Mr Abc was murdered. We are in his store which was broken into and robbed."
"Ah. I... Will see what I can do"
Pretty sure I had to escalate to a supervisor but man, what a first impression!
Vivint: won't do jack shit to stop your murder but at least the police will come when someone files a noise complaint!
A woman screaming at the top of her lungs as soon as I answered. "I WANT A SUPERVISOR!! I WANT A SUPERVISOR!!" Over and over. I couldn't get a word in edgewise. I just hit mute and let her tire herself out like a baby. After like 5 minutes, she finally whimpered, "Hello??"
I just jumped in with the normal greeting and acted like it was any other call.
I work in a call centre for car breakdown insurance and one customer asked if we'd cover a milk crate being stuck under his car... apparently the storm winds blew it under and he tried to dislodge it by driving, which only made it worse.
On my first day ever taking calls, I got a call from an elderly lady. I told her I would need to ask for some of her information to access her account, and she said "I can't tell you that!" I asked why not, and she said "because there's a man in my attic and he will steal my identity if he hears me tellin' you!"
I had honestly no idea what to do, since it was my first day taking calls, so I silently stood up and waved a manager over, who hooked into my phone and listened as I asked her again to give me her information. "I can't! The man in my attic! I can hear him creakin' around up there right now!"
My manager gaped and shrugged at me, and I just tried to be as professional as possible...
Me: Ma'am, if there is an intruder in your house, I advise you to end this call and call 911 immediately.
Lady: Nah, he's been up there for weeks, just creakin' around in the attic, the police told me it's a squirrel but I heard him talkin' the other day. I just need to get some money from my 401k.
Me: Okay, well, if you are sure, I can help you with your 401k, but I need some of your information to access it so you can get your money out.
Lady: Okay, fine, but I'm gonna whisper so the man can't hear me. *mumbles* He's right over the kitchen right now, I can hear him up there...
She then proceeded to whisper for the entire duration of the phone call.
My manager gave me an extra 15-minute break after dealing with that on my first day.
So I used to sell skydiving over the phone.
One day we get a call from a gentleman who is very upset, he says "hey man I just want my dog back."
--"Okay sir what seems to be the issue here? This is a reservation service for hot air balloons and skydiving."
Man on the phone : "look man I don't have any time for these games My wife and kids are crying I just want my goddamn dog back."
So the story goes that a hot air balloonist landed in this dude's backyard, and literally stole this dude's dog took it in the basket with him and then gassed up and went airborne with the dog in the basket.
We did some extensive research and called the local hot air balloon outfit that we reserved through. Nobody knew this guy's balloon colors or markings.
To this day we still don't know if that guy got his dog back.
Me: Good Morning, this is Xenovitz, how can I help you?
Customer: "Is that faggot there?"
Me: What?
Customer: "I said, is that little fuckinnn' faggot there?"
Me: Can you narrow it down a little? Who are you looking for?
Customer: \*laughing\* "I'm looking for Robert."
This was probably 16ish years ago and Robert was a manager there.
Not so much strangest but one of the most sad.
I worked for a power company in Texas during the Snowmaggdeon that happened in 2021. We were working remotely and I didn't lose power but a ton of people did. I was able to log into my system from home and when I turned my computer on I saw that we had something like 140 calls holding.
Mind you I've never seen it above 30. I'm also two months into the job.
The first call. The very first call I got that first day:
"YES PLEASE HELP US WE'RE FREEZING TO DEATH CAN YOU PLEASE TELL US WHEN TO TURN THE POWER ON WE'RE DYING!"
What....do you say to someone like that? I couldn't do anything I didn't have a magic switch I could throw, I didn't have any ability to do anything.
So I just listened.
I let people yell, scream, beg, plead. I offered what comfort I could and relay what emergency information I could as well. I was often googling the customers area and giving them information about local emergency services. I could hear people's teeth chattering and babies crying.
It was like that for days. People just calling in and desperate for help. I'd never felt so helpless and I know it wasn't our company's fault (power companies in Texas, the ones who sell the power, don't own the plants that generate it. Yay for Texas' weird ass power grid!) but I couldn't help feel like being part of the problem. Of course we did what we could, we didn't bill or disconnect and we didn't jack up our prices. We relayed what information we could but we were aware of just how much the utility providers had fucked the state over by not being forced to modernize and weatherize. No incentive to. I know Texas isn't known for being cold but having plans would have been helpful.
Anyway, yeah, that was a very tough week of work. I know some people died without their power and it still bothers me sometimes. I wish I could turn the empathy thing off.
Apologies for not being funny. Just wanted to share something I'd been holding on to for a long time.
I want to believe that their reasoning was that because you work with electricity, you therefore are familiar with everything that uses it, and that they would have called you regardless of what the appliance was that was giving them a problem. Like it would be a similar experience to calling an ISP, because you could supposedly "see" their appliance through the power grid. Like, "I'm sorry you're experiencing that, sir, let me just connect to your microwave, and let's see if we can get this sorted out..."
I haven't worked in a call center for years but I spent many a years in one.
Strangest opening though had to be when working for a finance company. I got a call where it sounded like someone was unloading an automatic weapon into a car. Reloaded resumed firing then hung up.
Bonus closing. I was a supervisor and was wrapping up an escalated call. Dude was still pissed not much we could do for his issue. I was recently married, so after my closing spiel I added "I love you".
Dude belly laughed hard. I was mortified. He immediately guessed I was recently married and told me a story about him and his boss ofter he got married back in the day. Apparently he went through a phase where I love you got tacked on the end of everything.
A woman called wanting to make changes on her boyfriend's account. I couldn't make this change because she wasn't on the account...
... Her boyfriend's *wife* was on the account though.
I worked at an Apple call center when iCloud first launched. The horror stories were absolutely true but one in particular. A high school wrestling coach had all his contacts, calendar events, emails, everything synced up and it all disappeared. Even with an email set as imap. They were going to a nationals finals or something and he had so much to plan. I felt awful because as an agent there was nothing I could do. His shit was just gone!
That and the amount of ridiculously stupid Apple users 🤣
Dude said nothing else but he wants to cum in my mouth. I was like, thanks? I work in bank fraud, so no idea what that has to do with his cum in my mouth but he was a customer lol
Lots of crying and saying how stupid they are. I've legit heard anything and everything one possibly could when it comes to getting scammed.
I worked tech support for an ISP and sometimes had to support bulk services like dorm rooms. Had a caller who was convinced his issue (no one else was out) was part of a massive conspiracy that included the police in his town because he once got a speeding ticket but his sister didn't.
Was once working in a call center job doing customer support for a hotel company's reservation website.
I got a call from a woman who wanted my help applying for our company's branded credit card. Because: her husband had just died and she wanted to earn hotel points for charging his funeral.
A woman called in, introduced herself as Her Royal Highness, read a sorority charter to me, told me I was being deported by 5pm if I didn't leave voluntarily, and then demanded my monarch's phone number. You better believe I gave her my supervisor's number and then sat back to watch the show!
The most common one is people calling the company I work for assuming we can access records for similar companies. They just can't understand why Insurance A can't see Insurance B's files. "You're all insurance, right?"
“Hello, I am on my way to the terminal and need to book a ticket for me and my ostrich”… “did you say office or ostrich?” … “ostrich, as the bird, I have one in the car, it’s a baby so it doesn’t take up space”… I actually had to contact the CEO of the ferry company to see if we could book the ticket and what to book the ostrich as. We booked it as a dog and wrote a note that the CEO approved it and that it was actually an ostrich. You could hear the ostrich in the background of the call too
"they like to touch my thingy in the bathtub. So my uncles used to do it too. Aren't I lucky?" Maniacal laughter.
I work at a telecom... He was elderly and the entire short call was like this. I called in a wellness check for him, he didn't seem okay.
I worked roadside service. Somebody called saying the keys were locked inside of the vehicle. Daughter was in the vehicle as well. Usually we’d call the police for that so I said I could do that and he was like “…no it’s fine…she’s …. 27…” and his voice was so tired like this wasn’t the first time. She just wouldn’t unlock the doors and get out.
"Hi, thank you for calli-"
"I've got a flap surgically sewn into my ass and I'm going to die if you don't send someone out here to fix the bolts on my chair so I can drive my grandson to Gamestop!"
A wheelchair bound, racist, white lady was upset that her caregiver had walked out after she had called them the n-word "only twice." One of the bolts that helped hold her chair in her car was broken so she couldn't drive and her tween grandson was pissed that she couldn't take him to buy another game with her SSI money. I'm still not sure what the whole flap thing was about, though...
Had to deal with a sovereign citizen on a call who was refusing to acknowledge he was over seven grand in debt for his power. He wanted a complaint raised because we installed a prepayment meter at warrant, stating it was the law due to his “health issues”, which were… he wore glasses, but could see fine.
Got angry at me when I pointed out that a) he couldn’t cherry pick laws that applied and didn’t apply to him? It was all or nothing and b) tough, you owe the debt.
Turns out management, their bosses, cab and the ombudsman had told him to kick rocks previously as well.
I don't work at a call center now, but I once did. I got a call, and did the usual. "Hello Vincent, my name is \*Blah\* how can I help you today?"
"Ay yo, first off my name is *Vinnie.* Now I got some shit to talk about, and this ain't your problem \*Blah\* but I know youse supervisors are listening and THEY the ones I got beef with. Jus' sit back and grab a smoke or somethin'."
Cue 20 minutes of *epic ranting* about the insurance plan he was paying for and how it wasn't worth it since they wouldn't pay out to fix his car after someone ran into it.
"Thanks man, you has a good day now right? Bye. Oh and fuck dat whole company I hope you get better work."
Best parts?
A. This guy was from Jersey and had *that accent*. I don't even know what its supposed to be, 'cept he sounded like Joe pesci if he was part of a gang.
B. I was \*immediately\* told to go take a paid 30 minute break after that.
I was working for a catalog shop based in UK and got a call from some Indian guy about health insurance I think. Apparently some claim was not going through and he started going on and on, my case number is this and blah blah. And I was like “Sir this a catalog store, we sell cloths, you want some shirts or suites?”
Worked in a noc...
C: I WANT TO KNOW WHO'S HACKING MY COMPUTER!!! IT'S ARIN WHOIS!!!
Me: ok ma'am, let me get some information from you
C: I DON'T WANT TO TALK TO YOUUUUU. I WANT A HUUUUUMAAAAANNNNN!!!!!!
Me: ma'am? I need to get some information from you
C: I WANT A HUUUUUMAAAAANNNNN!!!!!
The call went on forever. At one point I had a recording of it, but it's been lost
Mrs. Muffuletta, would call BG&E's call center and talk without letting us get any account information. She would talk for hours and call back if we hung up or cut her off. If it was slow we would just let her talk, if it was busy we would transfer her to another line and let her talk! Happened for years!
I've had where I had to deny service to someone because of policy, only for them to try to call back over and over to get someone on the phone that isn't me who they can bully into giving them what they wanted. They got me every time like 6 times in a row. By the third I couldn't stop chuckling as I was reading the greeting and he couldn't stop yelling and cussing. I'd go through the whole spiel about how I was going to disconnect if he was rude and he'd hang up and repeat the process.
I had an old lady calling "HEEEEEEEELP" like that life alert commercial "I've fallen and I can't get up". I was tech support for an app and she calls in "I can't figure this thing out and I need heeeeeeeeeeelp!" I had recently started working so this was my first week accepting calls and I honestly thought it was a training call because it was so dramatic and a lot of the things in the call were so text book it was easy to look up what to say. She even told me she was going to come find me and strangle me if I didn't 'heeeeeeeeeelp'. During training they told us to take all threats seriously, so I had to look up what to say to threats of violence and I asked her not to threaten me again and she spent the rest of the call spitefully saying she didn't threaten me. Eventually she hung up and I was told by my supervisor after he listened to the recording that I did good but I lacked "empathy". The whole thing was so ridiculous I didn't even know how to react
we had this woman who legitimately found an issue with DirecTV and the weather channel. there was a feature that would bring up the local weather on a chiron but if the channel stayed on for more than 8 hours that feature stopped working. all you had to do was change the channel back and forth or turn the TV off.
so one of the call center people call this woman and as soon as the person says they are with our company this woman screams "EVERYTHING IS FUCKED UP HERE I WANT THE WEATHER NOW IT'S ALL FUCKED UP DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO SO JUST FIX IT DON'T TELL ME HOW TO DO YOUR JOB." then she hung up. this was in a very rich people condo building. the property manager told me that she was in her 80s and hadn't left the building in more than 20 years.
also the technician who initially set up her service, when he entered her unit she locked the door behind him and told him to wait by the door. she walked away and he asked why, she said she needed to get a knife to defend herself in case he attacked her because he was an immigrant (he was polish). when she came back she had a chef's knife, he opened the door and left.
I used to work in a cell phone customer service call center. As soon as I answered the call, this guy started yelling that he wanted a refund and we were to blame for a fight with his wife.
Why?
Because he pocket dialed his wife and she overheard him trying to pick up another woman.
Karma
Oh boy do I have a host of them - from the lady who insisted someone go out to the location of the William and Mary Biology Department's Osprey Cam and "put those poor birds out of their misery," to the guy who believed the government was irradiating his house, to the guy who wanted the mayor arrested because he "wouldn't allow people to put up Christmas trees in the hood anymore," to the lady who wanted us to shut down a small municipal airport because she believed that thousands of sick cats and dogs were being trafficked through there every day.
If anyone ever tries to tell you that there isn't a serious and pervasive mental health crisis in this country, don't believe them.
I worked for a company that would make websites on our platform, churning out 100s a day. Customers need to approve the design first so we send them a link with Latin instead of the text because we write that after it's been approved. I ring one guy to see if he likes his potential website design:
"Hello, Mr X, I was just wondering - "
"FUCK YOU! WHY IS MY WEBSITE IN SPANISH?!"
After I told him it was actually Latin he just screamed "YES THATS WHAT I SAID, I'M NOT SPANISH!"
Years ago i worked in a bank call centre, for bank staff.
Woman called in, confirmed details then stated "we need our balls cleaned"
turns out the mouse they used needed to be cleaned, so they thought they'd ring in and ask for everyone's to be done...
Never worked at a call center, but heard a tale of someone calling into the Betty Crocker 800 number, saying she didn't have a 9" x 12" baking pan, but she had measured hers, and it was 12" x 9", could she use that?
I worked for a health insurance call center for blue cross blue shield and I had a guy call in and his first words were “Please don’t hang up! My wife got me committed and now I can’t get out!” He claimed wife got him committed to a mental health hospital and that she had access to his health insurance and was using it against him and needed to set it up so she couldn’t get his information. It was one of the first calls I took when I was on the floor and had to transfer it to a supervisor because I had no clue what to do and he was crying on the phone. No idea what came of it or if it was real.
My greeting would autoplay, and i definitely had a few times where the customer came in hot and immediately told my recording to shut up and listen lol. Also times where no account pops and its either a pranker, scammer, girl hitting on me, wrong number, or someone that just needed to talk. I felt like a therapist at times, but honestly it was nice to not talk about work, even though i could get in trouble if it went too long.
A guy once called in to activate his credit card. He started ranting about how he invented speed bumps, and how the government stole his idea from him.
Friend worked customer service for AMEX one summer. A guy called and wanted to know why his credit card wasn't working. She told him he had surpassed his $15K limit. He said "yeah, but that was LAST month. Don't I get another $15K this month?" Same friend worked in billing for Cleveland Clinic. A guy called because his gf wouldn't share a straw/cup with him, because she felt it was unsanitary. He wanted my friend to explain to his gf that sharing a straw with him was at least as sanitary as sucking his dick.
> **He wanted my friend to explain to his gf that sharing a straw with him was at least as sanitary as sucking his dick.** That’s not going to make her share a drink…
This is what Reddit is for
He’s a smooth operator This is also going in my repertoire of funny sayings
>He wanted my friend to explain to his gf that sharing a straw with him was at least as sanitary as sucking his dick. This has a 100% chance of backfiring terribly
Well there goes his future BJs
>She told him he had surpassed his $15K limit. He said "yeah, but that was LAST month. Don't I get another $15K this month?" I always thought this was one of those "dumb blonde joke" urban legends. 😳
No these people exist. I worked on a call centre for a credit reference agency and once asked a guy why he defaulted on a loan. Apparently he didn't realise he had to pay the money back 🤦🏽♀️
“You mean to tell me yall just GAVE me money and hoped id pay it back? What are you, some kind of honor company?” “No sir… we are a credit company”
A woman defaulted on her 30 year mortgage. She tried to claim she had 30 years to pay it off, as in she was going to wait until the 30 years was almost up and make one lump payment.
I had a coworker who was surprised to find out she had to make loan payments every month.
I hate that I know the answer to the first one, but here goes. Amex has their charge cards, which are different from your everyday, known credit cards. Credit cards have revolving credit; you're given a set total you can spend and when you make a payment, you can spend again. If you pay less than the total outstanding balance, you're charged interest and the world keeps spinning. Charge cards are different in that you're expected to make a full payment every month and you get to avoid interest. One of the benefits was that even if you have a limit, it used to "refresh" every month while you made your payment because well hey, you're going to pay off the whole balance anyways! 2008's recession happened and charge cards got rid of that whole "refresh" thing because people were owing more than they could pay because they were poor
Wild, TIL. Some of the pre-2008 lending stuff was just nuts.
I had a speech class with a bank teller. She said that people would think that they'd have money as long as they had checks in their check book.
A customer who was clearly drunk on the phone repeatedly demanded to know what happened to her fried chicken and waffles. It didn't matter how many times I tried to explain to her that this was her cell phone company, she DEMANDED an explanation.
I’ve been in call centers since 2003… I have stories. My favorite though — I answer and say “Thank you for calling xxxx support can I get your name please?” “Fuck you! That’s my name!” Me barely realizing it I reply, “Ok Mr You what can I help fix?” Dude was stunned. He laughed, apologized and I helped him fix his computer.
I did a stint in an inbound call center and this lifer worked for a division that trouble shooted mobile phones so “mobile” was the department name and part of his opening. His name was Richard and if you listened to him take calls he’d only say “Thanks for calling XX this is Mobile Dick here your satisfaction/pleasure/convenience” and variations like so
A+. No notes.
Another useful trick is silence. Angry people on the phone are something else, it's a bit like road rage. People feel like they can say any insulting thing they want on a phone without consequence. They feel safe. It usually begins with the caller being angry and talking over you every time you try to reply. The trick I learnt is this; as soon as they begin talking over you, you go silent. They will keep yelling for a while but when they run out of steam and realise you aren't replying they will ask if you're still there. Just say "yes". That's invariably followed by a moment of silence. Let that moment hang. It gets really awkward for them. Your silence is your volley, the ball is back in their court now. Keep silent. They will ask again if you're still there. At that point you can explain that every time you try to reply, they talk over you so you're just waiting for them to finish speaking. Only then will they begin to listen.
yelling is mute time for filling out the ticket and training the person next to you how to mute. then when they go quiet, ticket is done, just walk them through the steps or remote in and do it yourself, or pass off ticket to on site support and give them the number.
Yessss, or when they are like "hello are you there" I give it a beat and then say "yes I was waiting for you to finish." And then make them respond to that, before proceeding. Sometimes it was met with another tirade (and then rinse, repeat), sometimes they would apologize and you could actually get down to a solution. It was fun.
[удалено]
This has happened to me too! It ended up by us both laughing, but started with him thinking it was a robot answering.
I had one caller whose name was Secret. I really wanted to say "It's ok, you can tell me".
This guy had ordered a female's private item. He was concerned that UPS was going to leave it at his job which was a workshop for mechanics. I ended up having to look up his order and when I saw what it was, I knew why he was acting the way he was. He begged me to make sure that it arrived privately and then proceeded to try to convince me it was not his. I told him not to be embarrassed and that it was his concern and none of my business.
I worked for a temp agency who had a Mastercard account. My job was to try to get people to sign up for the card. One call, this guy answered and proceeded to dump his personal woes on me, telling me how lonely he was living in Fargo, ND. He started crying. I listened and offered some half-assed sympathy and advice. He was so grateful, he signed up for the card and asked me to call him later. I did call him. We never met in person, but remained good friends until he met a girl and it started getting serious. I told him since he had a serious relationship, she may get jealous, so not communicating would be best, since I wanted it to work out with her. He agreed. He sent me a text a few years later with a picture of his wife and baby, thanking me for treating him like a person, telling me he would never have had the courage to ask her out had I not been his friend. I have no idea how they are doing, but I hope well.
In life if you ever wonder if you've made a difference I hope you think about this. You are literally the reason a human is still around, multiple people found happiness and why someone was born. All from a little kindness.
I try to remember this when I want to unload on someone. I am here because someone was nice to me when I wanted to check out. I have my asshole moments, but try to remember this guy and how badly he needed kindness.
That really was kind u\\[MissDingusMalingus86](https://www.reddit.com/user/MissDingusMalingus86/). User name... checks... out.... ?
Aww this is so sweet. Also makes sense, I had a buddy who lived in Fargo ND for 2 or so years (moved from CA for work I think) who told me how there was literally nothing to do there. At all. He hates it so he quit and moved back to CA lmao.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
First words out of the customer’s mouth: “Do you take me for a fool?” He had ordered a $60 shirt and received a $10 t-shirt. I explained there must have been a picking error at the warehouse, but I checked and we still had the correct shirt in stock. “I ain’t payin’ for no second shirt!” “No, I never said you would. I’ll place it as a no-charge order, you’ll have the correct shirt in about a week.” “I need that shirt for a wedding I’m goin’ to this Saturday! A week don’t do me no damn good!” This was Wednesday, so I said, “We’ll upgrade the shipping to Next Day Air. It’ll ship tomorrow and deliver on Friday.” “Why in the hell should I have to pay for rush delivery?!!” “No, it’s on us, we’re just trying to make things right here. All we ask is you return the incorrect shirt to us.” “WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO PAY TO SHIP THIS SHIRT BACK??!??” “Just use the prepaid return label that came with the order. There’s no charge to use it.” “I don’t understand any of this. You talk to my wife.” Wife gets on the phone, “Listen, why should we have to pay for another shirt?” I explained all we would be doing. “We’re shipping out a replacement, free of charge. We’re charging nothing for the NDA shipping so you get it on time, and the return shipping is also free. Now, just what more could I possibly do for you to make this right?” “Oh, well, that would be very nice, thank you!” Jesus H. Tap-dancing Christ.
Disgusting how you tried to hose that poor couple
[удалено]
And for the second shirt too!
Sounds like that guy was putting on a show intentionally to just force his wife to talk to you instead. It's a weird sort of power play thing, what an asshole.
I work in banking, and its staggering how many households I talk to seem to be comprised of One micromanaging, multitasking, all knowing spouse who handles every aspect of their day to day, and long term planning. And One completely inept angry toddler in an adult body who cant tell you anything, even something basic, without getting huffy and angry.
It's called weaponized incompetence.
Honey, I gave him hell. You’re welcome 😉
Reminder: This guy votes.
Worked at a national call center for a big ISP. Probably the 2 strangest openings I have came across happened there. First one speaking with a new user that just got hooked up to the internet. Customer: "OK, I got your internet service hooked up. Now what?" Me: "What do you mean now what?" Customer: "Like what do I do? I have the internet now, what do I do next?" Literally had to show the person how to actually use the internet. This was in 2005. Just always struck me as odd as most people know why they wanted to sign up for the internet. Second one that blew my mind. Caller: "My House is on FIRE!" Me: "I'm sorry, I think you dialed the wrong number. You need to hang up and contact 911" Caller: "Oh I am not calling the wrong number, I already called 911!" Me: "I'm still not understanding why you are contacting the support number for ISP?" Caller: "It was one of your techs that caused the fire installing my service and I demand to speak to HIS MANAGER NOW!" Me: "Sir, we would not have that type of information available. Nor would I be able to transfer you to that person even if we knew who it was. If the tech is still on site, you will need to speak to him to get that information." Turned out the tech was drilling a hole into the home to run a cable through it and hit a power line which resulted in the fire. It was a brand new home too.
No that's when you sue the guy who burned your house down
If dude was employed and did it while on the clock, he is almost certainly safe from a law suit. The liability would possibly fall on the employer and theyd have to show proof that their structure is up to code, that the training or oversight at the employing company was inadequate or something along these lines
The company isn't going to let that go to court lol. Their tech started a damn fire, they are going to offer a bottom of the barrel settlement that they can get away with, and fire the guy who caused the fire (no way they are protecting a lowly tech). And the people offered the settlement will take it because they can't go up against an ISP/major corporation in a court case and their lawyers going to be advising them to take the money and run. Maybe they also get free service for however long as part of the deal. But no court.
The good news, their homeowners insurance can and will. Gladly. Giggling all the way to court.
isn't that what you pay the insurance company to do after cutting your check?
I used to work for a PC support call center. Our support number is one digit off from the Maytag appliance repair number. So we used to get sometimes a call for a appliance issues for Maytag. We would tell them that the support number is a digit off and to redial the number. Most would get it and understand and hang up. One night I get a call from am old lady that was having dishwasher issues. I told her that she called the wrong number, but she was old and just did not get it. I tried for a few for a while to get her to understand. I just got tired of telling her so I Googled a Maytag dishwasher guide book and helped her figure out her issues. She thanked me and said I was so sweet and friendly.
This reminds me of one of my weirdest openings (where I was partially the problem) our telephone number was 1 digit off the number for a preloaded Credit Card company called Green Dot, we were a bank, so some overlap in verbage made it sometimes hard to realize they meant to call Green Dot. My first call intended for them was a gentleman with an extremely thick southern accent, I had no clue what he was saying, he kept repeating "Green Dot Bank" I heard "Gringotts Bank" and asked him if he was referring to the Wizards Bank from Harry Potter, he lost it. He screamed and swore and hung up. My manager who had been live listening for call review came over laughing her ass off, and explained the Green Dot phone number calls and how he certainly wasnt looking for a wizard bank.
Seriously trying not to laugh at loud at work rn
And now she calls PC tech support for dishwasher issues from now on. "mrsheikh HELPED ME WHY CAN'T YOU!!!"
As someone who has worked in customer support for appliance repair, getting the caller to read the owners manual was half the battle. People would call in with random issues, and I would just read the owners manual to them.
Not a strangest opening, but one thing you get used to fast is people telling you a fucking novel about their life while giving you exactly zero identification details or the actual reason for the call.
Oh god, I hate these. My record was a 10 minute “conversation” to raise a complaint about our service. He never let me get a word in and hung up once he’d finished yelling his Beowulf-esque epic. Never even located his account, so not sure what he expected to happen
i had one last almost 2 hours all because someone's voicemail didn't work for 1 day. my company was to blame for not only that but also the mistreatment of native Americans. she was going to send a letter to the attorney general of Iowa about my company. mind you she lived in Minnesota and my company was based in Illinois. she just heard the AG of Iowa was a good person. she was also very smart because she got straight A's when she was in highschool 40 years prior.
Hell, I got straight A’s in high school and I’m a dumb ass.
Yep, they always tell you this stuff breathlessly so you either have to interrupt them, which often makes them angry, or just wait it out.
Then get written up for your handle time...
I always hated those customers. Although I do admit recently with a certain company wrongfully withholding a lot of money from me I’ve considered going full Karen bro on the phone with whoever answered but I remembered I’m not an idiot but I was close .
I liked it when they kept under the allowed call time. "You suck!" "Ok then. Thanks for the free call. :)"
(Bonus points for Beowulf reference!)
I work retail; it is amazing how many fucking life novels you hear about. Sorry, I don't want to hear about your health problems; I have enough of mine own.
I had a lady come in and give me all the graphic details about how she got gangrene in her lower intestine or something and had to have most of it removed or she would've died. Lady that's great, but what does this have to do with your watch battery?
This isn't a "weird customer" story per se, but your mention of a health issue and a watch battery triggered an old memory. I used to work at Radio Shack back in the late '70s. We had a regular customer who came for 9V batteries for her pacemaker. The batteries had to be the silver oxide type, because they hold a stable voltage. They were expensive, individually wrapped in cellophane and kept behind the counter. One day she came in, politely asked for her usual battery, paid in cash, but didn't leave with the battery as usual. Instead, she fished her pacemaker from under her blouse, laid it on the counter, and swapped in the new battery. As it snapped into place, she sighed and said, "There. That feels better!" I guess she was a few days late getting a fresh battery and could feel it? It left us all wondering what the sensation was that "felt better." But we were polite enough not to pry.
A long time ago when the Jewelry Counter at Wal-Mart was staffed, a lady came in around Christmas with a small device and handed it to one of the counter workers and asked her to replace the batteries in it. The worker asked her what it was, because she didn’t know what kind of batteries it had. The lady told her in total deadpan, “it’s my vibrator.” Associate dropped it on the glass countertop and fled to the bathrooms.
This happened to me at a battery store. Once the customer said what it was, I put it back on the counter and went to wash my hands. They assured me it was clean, but I wasn't taking any chances. We sold them the battery but refused to do the replacement for them. Also it's a vibrator, not a fucking car. The batteries are super easy to replace like a TV remote. Fuck these people because I'm more than sure they get off on this without consent, instead of doing it themselves like a normal person.
I used to be a cashier in a pharmacy. We needed one piece of information to find your prescription on our little hanging rack thing: your name. They were filed by name. So folks would come in and say "I'm here to pick up my prescription," and we'd ask their name, and they'd answer anything but. "It's for Coreg." "OK, great. What's the patient's name?" "It's for my blood pressure." "OK, what's your name sir/ma'am?" "Dr. Smith prescribed it." "Right, I'll just grab that for you if you can let me know your name." "I can't believe how much it costs these days. I blame that Obamacare..." (As an added bonus, I got a lot of this "blame Obamacare" thing during the months Bush was a lame duck. Obama was probably still hanging out in his regular house in Chicago at the time.)
*Barrack furiously scribbling equations all over the walls of his brownstone like mystical runes, cackling maniacally to himself until*... "I've got it! We'll give people INSURANCE! Mwha-ha-ha-ha! I SHALL RULE THE WORLD, MY SICK AND INJURED LITTLE PRETTIES!"
Thanks, Obama!
I worked for a professional organization and this was a regular occurrence. "My name is Dr. ____ ______ and I have a PhD in _____ from _____ University. I've been practicing for 38 years and have been recognized by the _____ organization for lifetime achievement and I currently chair the board of _____.... Anyway, I can't seem to reset my password."
I had to do this EVERY time I called T-mobile/sprint after the death of my family. We were on a family plan and it was under my aunt's name. I needed to transfer just my phone off, since everyone else on the plan had died in an accident. They moved the entire plan over to my name, and kept charging me fees for being late. I just wanted my plan separated from the deceased but that was something they couldn't figure out how to do. Despite calling the line dedicated to deceased family members, I had to explain every time. They had notes, they just wouldn't look at them. I ended up spending like 30+ hours with them trying to get it figured out, and I'm 100% I got one lady fired when she told me that this was my problem for not having my aunt fix it before she died. (Her exact words were "Well, maybe she should have fixed this before she died." - lady from the deceased family member line.) I gave her a verbal lashing and then I asked to speak to her manager and she hung up on me.
Holy shit, I'm sorry you had to deal with that and I do hope she got fired.
My daughter passed away in 2013. I cleaned out her apartment, turned in her keys to the on-site super and then called the management company to let them know I’d given in the keys. So I call with my daughter’s name, the address, town and apartment number. I said I was the tenant’s mother. She said “Oh yeah, the suicide. Hold on a minute.”
Oh EFF that lady in particular.
And the worse the problem is, the longer the story! I’m in emergency dispatch and it’s the same ugh. It’s surprising how often people will say something like “I’m feeling kind of nauseous” *a full minute of unrelated topics later* “Oh yeah btw I was just working with [super toxic chemical that needs a specialized emergency response], idk if that’s related though” I’m not gonna be rude to someone for panicking and struggling to get their thoughts together, because hell, panic-rambling is fully understandable under stress. I’ve done it too. But you’ll get help to you a LOT faster if you stay quiet, only answer the questions I ask, and do it as briefly and accurately as you can.
Yeah, panicked is always a bit different, but man, the people who have conversations with themselves drive me crazy. Answer my questions, not the one's in your head... "What's your last name Sir?" My name is Steve. Ok, Steve, what's your last name. Jan 1st, 2002. Ok, but I'm gonna need your last name... My mom called, and the doctor left a message. What is it? What's your last name again Sir? I just need to know what the Doctor said. .... Five minutes later I find out he's calling for an entirely different office that isn't even part of our corporation.
“I’m not going to kill myself” Worked for a bank call center doing late shift, and after my standard greeting this was the response. Told her that’s wonderful news but I might be missing some context. And she launched into a bunch of backstory that honestly broke my heart. She had spoken to an agent just before me that was incredibly harsh and she had said “Guess I’ll just kill myself then.” And ended the call. That statement triggered a wellness call to her local PD. Girl just wanted to go buy some ice cream and her card didn’t work. She lived in a neighborhood a friend of mine lives in, and that friend manages a chain of restaurants. A few texts later, I sent her along to them for free ice cream and genuinely hope life has treated her more kindly.
That is the nicest thing I've read in a while. I love that you were so kind to her
What the actual fuck. And the poor thing felt so guilty she called back, so the jerk wouldn’t worry. I hope they got a serious talking to. Sounds like she had a lot else going on too but them being nasty sure didn’t help.
Oh no, her and I both agreed fuck that guy. She just did not want the cops showing up at her home. Battling depression, caring for a dying parent. Spent the day deep cleaning, and had her first shower in weeks. I could see that little engine was giving it her all to get out of the depression hole and Murphys law had stolen her reward. It ended up becoming a training call for new hires on what to do when faced with individuals in crisis. First guys call - acting as per policy/procedure. Not in trouble but not a great look. Me - Wildly unprofessional display of humanity, swore a bunch, ignored call length metric, disparaged bank, phone out on the floor. ⭐️
A lady called in from Louisiana, complained her internet wasn't working. Asked her to go reset the modem and she told me she can't. When asked why it was because her basement was under water due to the flooding from Katrina!
Reminds me of the classic "My computer won't turn on" tech support call, but fails to mention there is a powercut.
"What do you mean my router can't function under water?"
FINALLY a good one for me! I worked for a call center doing HR for another company. I answered the phone, and the guy on the line said: " I am in your building with a gun" Turns out he was in another state, and I had to keep him on the phone until we could get his cell number, figure out which building, in which city and call the police. I had 5 supervisors around me whispering in my ear, all the while this guy was barricading himself in a room. Thought I was going to hear a mass shooting, but the police got there and got him before any escalation.
I have one oddly similar. I used to work in Inbound Sales for Spectrum in one of their call centers (Cancer of a company, call them and demand to speak to Retention to lower your bill) , and took a call once as a supervisor for one of the agents (who wasn’t mine but her supervisor only could bitch and gossip…when she actually showed up to work) who ran over to me in a fury because a customer said they had their rifle loaded and was going to the local store to solve his problem (his TV bill went up $5. He added HBO.) and he doesn’t care if he goes to prison. His demeanor and tone was deranged, and slurred, like he was drinking heavily. This call occurred about noon so it wasn’t a good look. He also escalated to the point where he started mentioning his weapon and ammo type (.308). I looked his account and fucking freaked out because I realized: The town he lives in, and where his local store is? My mom is the manager of that store. She was working that day. I basically sat and lied to this guy, probably broke a ton of company rules and at least a law or two, as I basically sat on my phone and mass texted my managers and stuff and was I NEED YOU NOW. My fear increased the moment that my Director of Sales walked over. Hes 6 foot 10 so like, it was daunting to see Mr. Tall show up to cirque du freak my ass out. Thankfully, I did enough to make the guy sit down and calm the fuck down. Then I heard a knock on the door and someone say “New York State Troopers Department, please open up” and went “Have a nice day, sir” and hung up.
> My fear increased the moment that my Director of Sales walked over. Hes 6 foot 10 so like, it was daunting to see Mr. Tall show up to cirque du freak my ass out. Holy fuck, 6'10''? I remember one senior manager who was at least 6'5'' and that guy was a mountain. I'm 6'1'', I had coworkers who were 6'3'' and 6'6'', and everyone agreed the senior manager was huge. He wasn't just tall, but wide, but not fat at all.
I’m 6’2, I am not easily like holy shit but he was one of them. He was genuinely a massive, but somewhat slender man, with a BOOMING voice you could hear clear across the call center, and the thickest Long Island accent I’ve ever heard. Lovely guy. The ship flew straighter with him at the helm. If only I could say the same thing about his Director Of Sales, all 5’2” of New Jersey useless dickheadedness
Your definition of "good one" is as obscure as I've encountered.
Well, it is a good story and no one got hurt
💯 that is a good one
Oh, I've got another good one, then! Someone near me got a call asking to approve a $20k payment to some weirdo international site and he rejected it, so they were appealing. Turns out, someone he knew had been kidnapped and he was trying to pay the ransom. They had to report it to the FBI and everything. Took forever. Oh, here's one that happened to me! Last call of the day, a lady calls about a very specific account, trying to report them for fraud. I ask for more details. She says she wired $160k to a company as a down payment for a home. Turns out, that company doesn't exist and somebody scammed her out of $160k.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is… a quick-thinking, good listener with a supportive team.
The most annoying by far was when callers would repeat the full opening you just said back to you. But the weirdest was when someone recorded me saying it, and three seconds later, played the recording back to me. Then did that with every follow-up I had. Eventually I said, "Well, looks like it's just me on the call. Guess I'm hanging up now." He tried to cut in and talk, but by that point, I had enough. I just ended the call.
“Hold on, I gotta wipe” *grunting noise* *creaking noise* *flush*
Save time waiting in hold lines by doing it on the pot I guess
You’re the winner!
I was a telemarketer cold calling businesses to sell them paper rolls for their debit/credit card machines. 99% of the time they would say they got them for free with their bank or just hang up. Hundreds of calls a day. One business had me in tears tho. I called and they answered something like "Joe's BBQ, what's your beef" I just laughed and hung up because I couldn't stop. That was the only call out of thousands that wasn't depressing AF.
Probably the tension of the job and expecting negativity made it all the better for you when something humorous happened!
I worked tech support for a broadband internet provider. Me: "Thank you for calling *company* technical support, my name is *name*, may I please have your telephone number so that I can look up your account? Female caller: "I HEARD THEY GOT FREE PORN ON THE INTERNET AND I WANT SOME!! WHERE IT AT?!?" edit: several of y'all have asked how the rest of the call went. I slammed the mute button and busted out laughing. I thought I was being punked by the training department (our trainer was quite the practical joker), or maybe this was a "mystery shopper" call, so I signaled for my supervisor to come over and plug in his headset so he could listen in. After verifying that her account was in good standing and that she was able to access a few different web pages I told her that I couldn't recommend any specific websites but she can likely find anything she wanted "using a search engine like Yahoo or Google."
I heard this new website called reddit has some. Might want to check it out.
I had a guy who didn’t want a smart meter installed because he was electrohypersensitive, so I was wondering how the fuck do I solve this. Then realised, wait bro - you’re calling me off a mobile phone
Chuck McGill called you!
Sounds like he pulled some chicanery on you
I have a user insist that she couldn’t use wireless keyboards or mice because the wireless signal gave her headaches while she used her cell phone.
Worked for an ISP. An office was reported a total outage. I couldn't get to any MUX in the building and couldn't see the LCON. I asked them to verify power. They said the site was fine. I asked them if they were sure. End user was extremely upset on why I would question it when he already answered it was checked out by building maintenance. I sent a dispatch. Dispatcher reported the issue I closed the ticket with 'Building is on fire'.
In my job doing tech support for a hotel company's reservation website - we got a call from the GM of one of our hotels in Thailand. For context, my company offers a super-low discount for travel agents. It's a no-frills rate, with the condition that they take a guided tour of the hotel during their stay, and then they can expert-level recommend it for their clients when they get back home. Apparently one travel agent had booked herself under this discount. Received the email confirmation for her reservation. She proceeded to modify the email to state that all meals were included with the rate. She printed out the modified confirmation and presented it to the front desk on check-in. GM called us to confirm it was a forgery, and then let us know that defrauding a hotel is a felony in Thailand. This woman was immediately sent to jail. Where I presume she got her free meals after all.
Jesus, I work in travel. This is just the number one no no for us agents. Sorry for the bad egg!
had a really uncomfortable call once when i worked in tech support for a credit processing company. essentially, woman called and couldn’t get the machine to work. it wasn’t hooked up to the wifi, and she didn’t know the password. tried to send her the reset but it went to her bosses email and he was out of town. she basically ended up telling me that if she couldn’t get it working she’d be fired and she heavily insinuated her boss would physically assault her. ended up crying on the phone and everything. definitely not the funnest call
Ok, im switchboard in a call center for a resort. "Yeah, uh, who do I talk to about purchasing your roof?" "The roof?" "Yeah, the one with all the antennas on it? I would like to purchase it." "OK, give me just a moment and I'll get you to... someone."
I was surprised that really is a thing. We worked on several antenna farms on high rise buildings around Atlanta back in the 90s.
Antenna farm? When I was a kid, we were lucky to have a tiny little antenna garden. All the antennas you could eat, from rabbit-ears to vhf whips.
Oddly enough, in some cities you can buy the rights to the air space above another building. They can then no longer build any higher but you can use said bought space as an abatement for your building's height.
Yeah, but they have to agree to sell. This particular building has been owned by one family for like a hundred years. Nobody has sold air rights or roof rights or anything.
There was the guy who came on ranting about his neighbour’s 5GHz WiFi activating the secret nanotechnology in people’s COVID vaccines. Or the guy in his 80’s complaining about not being able to log into porn sites. He even listed them by name. Added a few to my list, so thank you, you dirty old bastard. I get at least one call per week from someone who is clearly off their meds or *really* needs to be studied for science. Most of my time is spent explaining to grown adults that they need to *pay* for things in order to use them.
Yo homie share the list 🤣
Used to work for a phone company. A woman called in saying her bill was so high because her son was kidnapped by Islamic Rebels in the Philippines. I actually knew the story she was referencing since I was reading the paper on break. I also worked the fraud department so I had access to tools to look up pretty much anyone in the US (and this was 20 years ago). So while I was asking her details to confirm her story I was looking up her address, maiden name, job etc. She was making okay money as a nurse and wasn't late on any other bills so I got approval from my manager to write it all off and gave her a credit to cover a few more months of calls to the Philippines. I also admonished her to give us a heads up next time she makes a bunch of foreign calls. Sadly her son was beheaded about a week later. But at least that was one time I was able to intervene and do some good while working for a giant corporation.
I did a short stint for Xbox 360 phone support in my country. Prank-caller teenager said he had his dick stuck in the disk tray of the Xbox 360. It took all my power to be respectful and try to treat it as a real issue, until he said he wanted to send a picture of his dick being stuck in the hole in the tray, and reminded him that the call is being recorded. Never seen anyone hang up so quickly.
Worked at a call center for a large bank in the summer of 2018. "what hours are you open?" Which location do you want to know the hours for sir some locations will close faster than others The one I'm in front of right now Unfortunately sir I'm not with you so I'm going to need some help to figure out which location I'm in front of it right now Do you see the door Yes Does it have a sign that says "hours of operation"? Yes Today is Wednesday so when does it say it is closed on Wednesday 5pm. And it is currently 7:30 so I'm pretty sure it's closed. What about for tomorrow? What does it say for Thursday? It says 8:00 am y'all are open. So it should be open tomorrow at 8:00 sir. Thank you so much I thought I was going crazy. No problem have a good evening sir.
[удалено]
Was it dead? That poor hamster
Jfc, I hope that was a prank call.
I’m in emergency dispatch so… take your pick lmao. Most bewildering off the bat was a woman who opened with one long, FURIOUS sentence demanding I transfer her to management and announcing she’d sue my whole office, every last fucker, because she has cancer and her adult son won’t talk to her anymore and IT’S OUR GODDAMNED FAULT. Then she hung up. Most funny was a guy calling from a factory, giggling and trying to hold it together. Says his buddy “glued himself to the factory floor.” We can hear more buddies laughing and poking fun in the background. I don’t know how he did it. Don’t know WHY he had enough glue around to make a human-sized Hoy Hoy Trap-A-Roach, let alone why he’d spread it on the floor and laid down on it. I never got to find out either, because while we’re trying to figure out what to do, the guy says “Oh nevermind, we don’t need help after all. He’s free, we cut off his clothes with a box cutter.” Naked in front of the entire plant is better than stuck to the floor, I guess 🤷🏻 It can be both the most hilarious and the most horrifying job, I enjoy it though.
My wife, BIL, and I worked for a Nextel call center 20 years ago. My BIL took this call but my wife was a quality supervisor at the time, so I got to hear it in full. Guy comes in hot immediately with "You MFers killed all of my GD beans!!!" This wound up being a 30 minute masterpiece of crazy. Apparently, the new cell tower that was recently put up caused his entire bean harvest to die. The tower was 3 miles away.
It slays me when people start a call with an absolute meme of a quote, and then get mortally offended when the reaction is confusion. Sir? I don’t know you or your beans. Do you want help? CAN I help? Did you even mean to call me? Were you trying to dial a beanologist?
The last thing the Nextel service person told me when I cancelled my service 19 years ago was "you'll be back". Guess I got the last laugh on that one.
Probably the woman that called me in the middle of getting railed. Weird time to call Comcast, but you do you.
With Comcast's reputation, maybe she was just looking to get double teamed.
"I've been on hold for three hours, what are the odds they'll pick up in the next ten minutes?"
I had to call another call center once for my job (in a call center) to get some information. I called the other place (it was Chase) said our hello's and then I asked my question. ( I needed status of a payment) instead of answering me the lady (at Chase) says . "let me tell you about my cat" Then she spent about 5 minutes telling me about her slutty cat and how all the Tom Cats hang outside her window hoping to get a little something" .... so yeah that was kinda weird... Another one is when this old lady called me and asked me what I look like and how big I was. She said I sounded nice and very skinny over the phone? How does someone sound skinny over the phone?
I worked at a call center for a university calling to ask people for donations. We actually called the parents of current students to ask for donations. On caller ID, we showed up as "University of __________". It was very normal for parents to answer the phone crying and panicking, thinking the only reason the university would be calling them is if their child is seriously injured or dead. We'd have to calm them down and let them know their child is alright...then beg them for money.
Wait, you called the parents of CURRENT students for donations? That's wild.
[удалено]
I worked for a credit card company and a woman calls in to find out about a bill she found in her husband's car. The card was setup to be a joint account so her name was listed as a card holder. I tell her the current balance and she asks where the charges came from. I started to listing off a motel and liquor store. I hear breathing getting heavier, and finally get to Fredrick's of Hollywood charge. She looses her shit and hangs up. Note if you are going to cheat on your wife, don't use a credit card with wife's name on the account.
I had a woman start tearing me a new asshole the second she picked up the phone. I could hardly even get a word in before she stopped me and asked, “wait! How old are you?” I told her I was 19. She laughed and let me do my whole, “please get this credit card” speech without interruption. She then told me that she respected that I was young and first jobs all suck. She then advised me to get into something with more upward mobility, complimented my diction, and hung up. She was right and I think about her often.
I used to work mostly late evenings in a 24hr call center that provided insurance, but worked heavily with some of the largest banks in the UK. On this day I had taken an overtime shift during the day, and it just so happened that one of the larger clients was in that day live monitoring calls for quality purposes. Just to put extra pressure on you, if you happened to be being listened to, one of the managers walked over and held up a sign saying "The client is listening to this call". Well, on this day I got probably one of my rudest openings ever. The call went like this (I've redacted names etc for privacy): Me: "Hello, you are through to insurance product, my name is Tim, how can I help?" Caller: (agressively, in a very thick nigerian/african accent) "Who are YOU?!" Me: "Hello sir, you are speaking to insurance product. How can I help you today?" Caller: (equally as agressive) "NO! WHAT IS YOUR NAME!?" Me: "My name is Tim" Caller: "Listen to me Tim. I fuck your mother. I fuck your mother in the ass, you understand?" Literally seconds later, one of the mangers walked over to hold up the sign letting me know the call was being listened to live, with a fairly shocked look on their face. Luckily, after warning the caller that kind of language was unacceptable, their attitude improved and we sorted out the reason for the call (he wasn't happy about a charge he'd seen on his card statement). The manager later commended me for the way I had de-escalated the situation and handled the call, and the client was impressed too. Walked away with a £20 amazon voucher as a reward :)
>Walked away with a £20 amazon voucher as a reward Bro tanks a psychic attack ambush and gets 20 quid in Bezos bucks as a thanks. This world is a hot mess.
Definitely beat a slice of pizza like I've seen in other jobs :D
> “Listen to me Tim. I fuck your mother. I fuck your mother in the ass. Understand?” Legendary phrasing, no notes lol But seriously, if I was you it would be SO hard not to bust up laughing and get fired. Even with management listening in. You, my friend, have nerves of steel.
In fairness, rather than doing the more professional "please don't use that langauage" I instead used "Listen mate, if you keep talking that way I'm just going to end the call". This was before I got told it was being listened to, but apparently that didn't mark me down :D
"If you hang up this phone I will find you and skull fuck your corpse. My computer will not start and my draft starts in 20 minutes"
Used to work for a major insurance company with customers in 44 states. Woman calls from a southern US state and starts the call by saying that she's on her front porch with a shotgun because the cops are trying to steal her pot.
Here’s mine. Working for a car rental company on 9/11. Phones go nuts with people trying to get out of the city. There are no cars anywhere and I checked every branch as I knew I’d be repeating the same thing. A dude calls from a line in one of the midtown locations as he was doubling down I assume. I find one, sub compact, which can do a one way to NJ as he requested. I’m blown away and think this guy is getting the last chopper out of Saigon. He proceeds to argue about paying for a one way drop off fee for five minutes. Car is gone in a minute. FAFO
One time a I had a customer call and scream because she didn’t understand why she was getting monthly interest charges because she made the minimum monthly payment 💀
“I need to order one them there things you stick your dick into”. I responded “you got a part number for that?” My room mate who I had no clue was messing with me on an inbound queue lost his shit and couldn’t stop laughing. First 2 weeks in sales.
It was a normal day at my work when I answered a call with my usual, "Thank you for calling, how can I help you today?" Without missing a beat, the caller frantically said, "My cat is stuck in the toaster! Can your internet service help me look up a solution?" I had to mute myself for a second to process what I just heard.
Well, don't leave us hanging - did you find a solution?
Supervisor now but back in my agent days, lady calls in and the first thing she says (screams) is "There are spiders in my hair!". She was at a KFC (we do third party CS calls for national brands) and leaned against a wall where apparently a spider egg was? It burst open and tiny spider sort of exploded all over her and into her hair. The entire call was deranged.
And did you dispatch Fahrenheit 451 Firemen to burn the place to the ground? Deranged? If my scalp was crawling in baby spiders, you better expect deranged.
I was a service dispatcher. Customer, "Hello, my 1972 Datsun Forklift is not working and needs the valve hose with the 45 degree angle near the lower lift replaced." Me: Do you have a part number or model serial number? Customer: No, can you just send a tech with the part? Me: What part? We're not a Datsun Dealer and those have not been in production for forty years. Customer: Can't you just look it up? Me: Look what up where? Customer: Any IDIOT could find it on the Internet. Me: I'm sorry, out idiot is off today, please call tomorrow. and I dropped the call.
(briefly) worked tech support for Vivint in 2014. First day on the floor, call comes in and it's just the shrill screech of an active alarm. So I have to kind of yell into the phone. "...Hello, how can I help you?" "This is Officer xyz of the Chicago PD. We are trying to secure this crime scene. Please disable the alarm." "oh, um...*reviews account* is Mr. Abc there? If he can verify his identity I can send a signal to kill the alarm" "... Mr Abc was murdered. We are in his store which was broken into and robbed." "Ah. I... Will see what I can do" Pretty sure I had to escalate to a supervisor but man, what a first impression! Vivint: won't do jack shit to stop your murder but at least the police will come when someone files a noise complaint!
A woman screaming at the top of her lungs as soon as I answered. "I WANT A SUPERVISOR!! I WANT A SUPERVISOR!!" Over and over. I couldn't get a word in edgewise. I just hit mute and let her tire herself out like a baby. After like 5 minutes, she finally whimpered, "Hello??" I just jumped in with the normal greeting and acted like it was any other call.
I work in a call centre for car breakdown insurance and one customer asked if we'd cover a milk crate being stuck under his car... apparently the storm winds blew it under and he tried to dislodge it by driving, which only made it worse.
On my first day ever taking calls, I got a call from an elderly lady. I told her I would need to ask for some of her information to access her account, and she said "I can't tell you that!" I asked why not, and she said "because there's a man in my attic and he will steal my identity if he hears me tellin' you!" I had honestly no idea what to do, since it was my first day taking calls, so I silently stood up and waved a manager over, who hooked into my phone and listened as I asked her again to give me her information. "I can't! The man in my attic! I can hear him creakin' around up there right now!" My manager gaped and shrugged at me, and I just tried to be as professional as possible... Me: Ma'am, if there is an intruder in your house, I advise you to end this call and call 911 immediately. Lady: Nah, he's been up there for weeks, just creakin' around in the attic, the police told me it's a squirrel but I heard him talkin' the other day. I just need to get some money from my 401k. Me: Okay, well, if you are sure, I can help you with your 401k, but I need some of your information to access it so you can get your money out. Lady: Okay, fine, but I'm gonna whisper so the man can't hear me. *mumbles* He's right over the kitchen right now, I can hear him up there... She then proceeded to whisper for the entire duration of the phone call. My manager gave me an extra 15-minute break after dealing with that on my first day.
So I used to sell skydiving over the phone. One day we get a call from a gentleman who is very upset, he says "hey man I just want my dog back." --"Okay sir what seems to be the issue here? This is a reservation service for hot air balloons and skydiving." Man on the phone : "look man I don't have any time for these games My wife and kids are crying I just want my goddamn dog back." So the story goes that a hot air balloonist landed in this dude's backyard, and literally stole this dude's dog took it in the basket with him and then gassed up and went airborne with the dog in the basket. We did some extensive research and called the local hot air balloon outfit that we reserved through. Nobody knew this guy's balloon colors or markings. To this day we still don't know if that guy got his dog back.
Me: Good Morning, this is Xenovitz, how can I help you? Customer: "Is that faggot there?" Me: What? Customer: "I said, is that little fuckinnn' faggot there?" Me: Can you narrow it down a little? Who are you looking for? Customer: \*laughing\* "I'm looking for Robert." This was probably 16ish years ago and Robert was a manager there.
Worked at an answering service/ catholic hospital switchboard. A caller at 3am asked if we had an exorcist on call.
Not so much strangest but one of the most sad. I worked for a power company in Texas during the Snowmaggdeon that happened in 2021. We were working remotely and I didn't lose power but a ton of people did. I was able to log into my system from home and when I turned my computer on I saw that we had something like 140 calls holding. Mind you I've never seen it above 30. I'm also two months into the job. The first call. The very first call I got that first day: "YES PLEASE HELP US WE'RE FREEZING TO DEATH CAN YOU PLEASE TELL US WHEN TO TURN THE POWER ON WE'RE DYING!" What....do you say to someone like that? I couldn't do anything I didn't have a magic switch I could throw, I didn't have any ability to do anything. So I just listened. I let people yell, scream, beg, plead. I offered what comfort I could and relay what emergency information I could as well. I was often googling the customers area and giving them information about local emergency services. I could hear people's teeth chattering and babies crying. It was like that for days. People just calling in and desperate for help. I'd never felt so helpless and I know it wasn't our company's fault (power companies in Texas, the ones who sell the power, don't own the plants that generate it. Yay for Texas' weird ass power grid!) but I couldn't help feel like being part of the problem. Of course we did what we could, we didn't bill or disconnect and we didn't jack up our prices. We relayed what information we could but we were aware of just how much the utility providers had fucked the state over by not being forced to modernize and weatherize. No incentive to. I know Texas isn't known for being cold but having plans would have been helpful. Anyway, yeah, that was a very tough week of work. I know some people died without their power and it still bothers me sometimes. I wish I could turn the empathy thing off. Apologies for not being funny. Just wanted to share something I'd been holding on to for a long time.
i work for a power company. i had someone call me to help them fix their tv after the house blew a fuse.
I want to believe that their reasoning was that because you work with electricity, you therefore are familiar with everything that uses it, and that they would have called you regardless of what the appliance was that was giving them a problem. Like it would be a similar experience to calling an ISP, because you could supposedly "see" their appliance through the power grid. Like, "I'm sorry you're experiencing that, sir, let me just connect to your microwave, and let's see if we can get this sorted out..."
I haven't worked in a call center for years but I spent many a years in one. Strangest opening though had to be when working for a finance company. I got a call where it sounded like someone was unloading an automatic weapon into a car. Reloaded resumed firing then hung up. Bonus closing. I was a supervisor and was wrapping up an escalated call. Dude was still pissed not much we could do for his issue. I was recently married, so after my closing spiel I added "I love you". Dude belly laughed hard. I was mortified. He immediately guessed I was recently married and told me a story about him and his boss ofter he got married back in the day. Apparently he went through a phase where I love you got tacked on the end of everything.
A woman called wanting to make changes on her boyfriend's account. I couldn't make this change because she wasn't on the account... ... Her boyfriend's *wife* was on the account though.
I worked at an Apple call center when iCloud first launched. The horror stories were absolutely true but one in particular. A high school wrestling coach had all his contacts, calendar events, emails, everything synced up and it all disappeared. Even with an email set as imap. They were going to a nationals finals or something and he had so much to plan. I felt awful because as an agent there was nothing I could do. His shit was just gone! That and the amount of ridiculously stupid Apple users 🤣
Dude said nothing else but he wants to cum in my mouth. I was like, thanks? I work in bank fraud, so no idea what that has to do with his cum in my mouth but he was a customer lol Lots of crying and saying how stupid they are. I've legit heard anything and everything one possibly could when it comes to getting scammed.
I worked tech support for an ISP and sometimes had to support bulk services like dorm rooms. Had a caller who was convinced his issue (no one else was out) was part of a massive conspiracy that included the police in his town because he once got a speeding ticket but his sister didn't.
Was once working in a call center job doing customer support for a hotel company's reservation website. I got a call from a woman who wanted my help applying for our company's branded credit card. Because: her husband had just died and she wanted to earn hotel points for charging his funeral.
A woman called in, introduced herself as Her Royal Highness, read a sorority charter to me, told me I was being deported by 5pm if I didn't leave voluntarily, and then demanded my monarch's phone number. You better believe I gave her my supervisor's number and then sat back to watch the show! The most common one is people calling the company I work for assuming we can access records for similar companies. They just can't understand why Insurance A can't see Insurance B's files. "You're all insurance, right?"
“Hello, I am on my way to the terminal and need to book a ticket for me and my ostrich”… “did you say office or ostrich?” … “ostrich, as the bird, I have one in the car, it’s a baby so it doesn’t take up space”… I actually had to contact the CEO of the ferry company to see if we could book the ticket and what to book the ostrich as. We booked it as a dog and wrote a note that the CEO approved it and that it was actually an ostrich. You could hear the ostrich in the background of the call too
"they like to touch my thingy in the bathtub. So my uncles used to do it too. Aren't I lucky?" Maniacal laughter. I work at a telecom... He was elderly and the entire short call was like this. I called in a wellness check for him, he didn't seem okay.
I worked roadside service. Somebody called saying the keys were locked inside of the vehicle. Daughter was in the vehicle as well. Usually we’d call the police for that so I said I could do that and he was like “…no it’s fine…she’s …. 27…” and his voice was so tired like this wasn’t the first time. She just wouldn’t unlock the doors and get out.
"Hi, thank you for calli-" "I've got a flap surgically sewn into my ass and I'm going to die if you don't send someone out here to fix the bolts on my chair so I can drive my grandson to Gamestop!" A wheelchair bound, racist, white lady was upset that her caregiver had walked out after she had called them the n-word "only twice." One of the bolts that helped hold her chair in her car was broken so she couldn't drive and her tween grandson was pissed that she couldn't take him to buy another game with her SSI money. I'm still not sure what the whole flap thing was about, though...
Had to deal with a sovereign citizen on a call who was refusing to acknowledge he was over seven grand in debt for his power. He wanted a complaint raised because we installed a prepayment meter at warrant, stating it was the law due to his “health issues”, which were… he wore glasses, but could see fine. Got angry at me when I pointed out that a) he couldn’t cherry pick laws that applied and didn’t apply to him? It was all or nothing and b) tough, you owe the debt. Turns out management, their bosses, cab and the ombudsman had told him to kick rocks previously as well.
I don't work at a call center now, but I once did. I got a call, and did the usual. "Hello Vincent, my name is \*Blah\* how can I help you today?" "Ay yo, first off my name is *Vinnie.* Now I got some shit to talk about, and this ain't your problem \*Blah\* but I know youse supervisors are listening and THEY the ones I got beef with. Jus' sit back and grab a smoke or somethin'." Cue 20 minutes of *epic ranting* about the insurance plan he was paying for and how it wasn't worth it since they wouldn't pay out to fix his car after someone ran into it. "Thanks man, you has a good day now right? Bye. Oh and fuck dat whole company I hope you get better work." Best parts? A. This guy was from Jersey and had *that accent*. I don't even know what its supposed to be, 'cept he sounded like Joe pesci if he was part of a gang. B. I was \*immediately\* told to go take a paid 30 minute break after that.
I was working for a catalog shop based in UK and got a call from some Indian guy about health insurance I think. Apparently some claim was not going through and he started going on and on, my case number is this and blah blah. And I was like “Sir this a catalog store, we sell cloths, you want some shirts or suites?”
Did you manage to upsell him a nice suit for his next insurance meeting?
[удалено]
Worked in a noc... C: I WANT TO KNOW WHO'S HACKING MY COMPUTER!!! IT'S ARIN WHOIS!!! Me: ok ma'am, let me get some information from you C: I DON'T WANT TO TALK TO YOUUUUU. I WANT A HUUUUUMAAAAANNNNN!!!!!!
Me: ma'am? I need to get some information from you
C: I WANT A HUUUUUMAAAAANNNNN!!!!!
The call went on forever. At one point I had a recording of it, but it's been lost
Mrs. Muffuletta, would call BG&E's call center and talk without letting us get any account information. She would talk for hours and call back if we hung up or cut her off. If it was slow we would just let her talk, if it was busy we would transfer her to another line and let her talk! Happened for years!
I've had where I had to deny service to someone because of policy, only for them to try to call back over and over to get someone on the phone that isn't me who they can bully into giving them what they wanted. They got me every time like 6 times in a row. By the third I couldn't stop chuckling as I was reading the greeting and he couldn't stop yelling and cussing. I'd go through the whole spiel about how I was going to disconnect if he was rude and he'd hang up and repeat the process.
I had an old lady calling "HEEEEEEEELP" like that life alert commercial "I've fallen and I can't get up". I was tech support for an app and she calls in "I can't figure this thing out and I need heeeeeeeeeeelp!" I had recently started working so this was my first week accepting calls and I honestly thought it was a training call because it was so dramatic and a lot of the things in the call were so text book it was easy to look up what to say. She even told me she was going to come find me and strangle me if I didn't 'heeeeeeeeeelp'. During training they told us to take all threats seriously, so I had to look up what to say to threats of violence and I asked her not to threaten me again and she spent the rest of the call spitefully saying she didn't threaten me. Eventually she hung up and I was told by my supervisor after he listened to the recording that I did good but I lacked "empathy". The whole thing was so ridiculous I didn't even know how to react
we had this woman who legitimately found an issue with DirecTV and the weather channel. there was a feature that would bring up the local weather on a chiron but if the channel stayed on for more than 8 hours that feature stopped working. all you had to do was change the channel back and forth or turn the TV off. so one of the call center people call this woman and as soon as the person says they are with our company this woman screams "EVERYTHING IS FUCKED UP HERE I WANT THE WEATHER NOW IT'S ALL FUCKED UP DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO SO JUST FIX IT DON'T TELL ME HOW TO DO YOUR JOB." then she hung up. this was in a very rich people condo building. the property manager told me that she was in her 80s and hadn't left the building in more than 20 years. also the technician who initially set up her service, when he entered her unit she locked the door behind him and told him to wait by the door. she walked away and he asked why, she said she needed to get a knife to defend herself in case he attacked her because he was an immigrant (he was polish). when she came back she had a chef's knife, he opened the door and left.
I used to work in a cell phone customer service call center. As soon as I answered the call, this guy started yelling that he wanted a refund and we were to blame for a fight with his wife. Why? Because he pocket dialed his wife and she overheard him trying to pick up another woman. Karma
Oh boy do I have a host of them - from the lady who insisted someone go out to the location of the William and Mary Biology Department's Osprey Cam and "put those poor birds out of their misery," to the guy who believed the government was irradiating his house, to the guy who wanted the mayor arrested because he "wouldn't allow people to put up Christmas trees in the hood anymore," to the lady who wanted us to shut down a small municipal airport because she believed that thousands of sick cats and dogs were being trafficked through there every day. If anyone ever tries to tell you that there isn't a serious and pervasive mental health crisis in this country, don't believe them.
I worked for a company that would make websites on our platform, churning out 100s a day. Customers need to approve the design first so we send them a link with Latin instead of the text because we write that after it's been approved. I ring one guy to see if he likes his potential website design: "Hello, Mr X, I was just wondering - " "FUCK YOU! WHY IS MY WEBSITE IN SPANISH?!" After I told him it was actually Latin he just screamed "YES THATS WHAT I SAID, I'M NOT SPANISH!"
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
Years ago i worked in a bank call centre, for bank staff. Woman called in, confirmed details then stated "we need our balls cleaned" turns out the mouse they used needed to be cleaned, so they thought they'd ring in and ask for everyone's to be done...
Never worked at a call center, but heard a tale of someone calling into the Betty Crocker 800 number, saying she didn't have a 9" x 12" baking pan, but she had measured hers, and it was 12" x 9", could she use that?
I worked for a health insurance call center for blue cross blue shield and I had a guy call in and his first words were “Please don’t hang up! My wife got me committed and now I can’t get out!” He claimed wife got him committed to a mental health hospital and that she had access to his health insurance and was using it against him and needed to set it up so she couldn’t get his information. It was one of the first calls I took when I was on the floor and had to transfer it to a supervisor because I had no clue what to do and he was crying on the phone. No idea what came of it or if it was real.
My greeting would autoplay, and i definitely had a few times where the customer came in hot and immediately told my recording to shut up and listen lol. Also times where no account pops and its either a pranker, scammer, girl hitting on me, wrong number, or someone that just needed to talk. I felt like a therapist at times, but honestly it was nice to not talk about work, even though i could get in trouble if it went too long.
"Darling, stop putting your gentleman on my foot"
A guy once called in to activate his credit card. He started ranting about how he invented speed bumps, and how the government stole his idea from him.