Out of all occupations, customer service workers are expected to deal with the worst of humanity. Is the customer always right? Absolutely not! These help desk workers recall insane interactions they’ve had with entitled customers that made them think, “Are you serious?”
Content has been edited for clarity.
“Karen Threatened To Send Me To Jail”
“This occurred when I was taking calls for a major cellphone company. I was just getting ready to head out for the night when one of my agents walked into my cubicle with a look of absolute dread. The agent was finishing up their last call, and the woman on the line, ‘Karen,’ immediately escalated the situation. I tossed on my headset and had my agent cold transfer Karen to my phone.
Karen screamed, ‘You better be the manager!’
I replied, ‘Hi, I am currently the supervisor on the call center floor. How can I help you?’
I asked her to be nice, but I already knew what was wrong. I had Karen’s account pulled up on my computer, and she had a bill due for a little over sixteen thousand bucks.
She cried, ‘I’m not paying this bill! This is unacceptable!’
I tried to calm Karen down by telling her, ‘I understand. I wouldn’t be prepared for a bill like this, either. Let me take a look and see if we can get this sorted out.’
At this point, I noticed Karen owed the company sixteen thousand bucks for roaming data charges. Uh-oh.
As it turned out, Karen went on a vacation to a beautiful, yet very remote island. The rate for roaming data was fifteen bucks per megabyte. Karen used over a gigabyte of data while on vacation. While our company sent out protections to keep this from happening, Karen ignored our forty text messages warnings about excessive data usage. We even turned off her data at the five-hundred-buck mark, but Karen manually turned it back on.
While I was looking at her account, Karen continued to yell obscenities about how evil my company is, and how I will personally be sent to jail for the issue.
I finally chimed in and told her, ‘So just taking a look here, I can see the discrepancy in your bill is caused by a charge from data use while traveling. Let me see if-’
Karen rudely interrupted me and screamed, ‘I did not use this much data! This is ridiculous! How can you even say this? How stupid are you?’
‘Taking a look here, you used over a gigabyte of data during the week of your vacation,’ I explained, ‘You were advised the data is billed at fifteen bucks per megabyte.’
‘Nobody notified me of anything,’ Karen argued, ‘There was no way I could have known it would cost so much.’
I rolled my eyes and replied, ‘I understand, but we also notified you over forty times about these data charges, all of them including your current charge as well as the data rate for the area you’re in. I understand this is a large bill, but we gave you every opportunity to call us and rectify the situation, and you chose not to, at this point I can offer you a maximum of seven hundred and fifty bucks as a credit towards the charge.’
Karen continued to cry, ‘Are you kidding me? I go on social media and watch a few videos, and I get this bill in return. You are an idiot, and I’m not paying a cent for this!’
I sighed and replied, ‘Let me put you on hold for one moment to see if there’s anything else I can do.’
I looked through incredibly old policies on international travel, and I finally found allowing me to rerate charges from the particular country Karen traveled to. The charges would be taken down to two bucks per megabyte. It was still expensive for a phone bill, but it would be better than what she currently needed to pay. Coupled with the credit I could apply, I was able to shave fourteen thousand bucks off the bill.
I took Karen off hold and asked, ‘Hey, are you still there? I’ve got good news! So looking through some older policies, I found one a helpful one! In fact, I was able to take fourteen thousand bucks off of your bill!’
Karen laugh-snorted and said, ‘I don’t think you heard me the first time. I’m not paying the bill.’
I could feel myself getting angrier by the second. Nothing was good enough for Karen.
I stopped Karen quickly and reminded her, ‘Woah, there. Let’s not forget you still have your regular services to pay for.’
‘This has been horrible enough customer service. Waving the entire bill is the least you could do!’ Karen yelled.
‘Well, I’m sorry to tell you, but it doesn’t work this way,’ I said.
Karen howled, ‘You’re heartless! I need to speak to someone else right now! Do it, now! I’m not paying for this!’
Fed up, I slightly chuckled as I replied, ‘If I could get my boss, I would. However, it’s almost one in the morning and I am quite literally the last person in the office. I can send her an email in the morning letting her know you’d like to talk, though.’
‘Do it now! I’m not paying for it!’ Karen repeated.
‘Well, consider the email sent,’ I explained, ‘But I’ve gotta warn you, my boss won’t come up with the same solution I have.’
Karen replied, ‘Fine. I’m still not paying,’ and slammed the phone down as she hung up.
My department manager got my email in the morning, which thoroughly laid out the conversation the night prior, as well as my findings. My manager scrolled through the account quickly, laughed, then immediately put on her headset and dialed out to the customer.
She very briefly, and very sternly advised the customer this was not the first time a ‘mistake’ like this had happened on the account, and all she could do was offer a twenty-five buck courtesy credit.
Ha.
My manager then advised any further inquiries about this issue would be forwarded to the fraud department for them to review.
A part of me felt bad about it, but a part of me thought Karen deserved it for how she treated me.”
Routing Number Outrage
“I worked for a credit company in escalations. One day, I received a call from a male ‘Karen.’ We’ll call him, ‘Kyle.’
Before taking Kyle’s call, I already spoke with the representative who was able to get the name of Kyle’s bank and account number. However, he refused to give the representative his routing number. Kyle had already given the representative his account number, but then claimed they were trying to steal from him since they asked for such confidential information.
When I finally answered the phone, I asked, ‘Hi there! Who do I have the pleasure of speaking with today?’
Kyle angrily replied, ‘You have the pleasure of speaking with Kyle, idiot!’
I calmly asked, ‘Yes, and the previous representative advised me some issues were processing your payment?’
Kyle ignored me and screamed, ‘I want to file a complaint against the previous person I was speaking with! They were asking for way too much information. I am an identity theft victim!’
‘I do apologize,’ I stated, ‘And I will review the representative’s call and speak to them about any issues. I would be more than happy to process your payment for you today. If you do not wish to give your information to another person though, you’re more than welcome to pay on ou-’
Kyle interrupted me and shouted his bank account number at me. Alright, things were going smoothly enough.
Then I asked, ‘Alright, and do you have your routing number?’
Not even one second later, Kyle yelled, ‘What? You do not need my routing number! I am calling the Better Business Bureau, you are asking for too much information! Can you not speak English? This information is confidential! I will not hand it over!’
What Kyle didn’t understand was routing numbers were public information anyone could look up through any search engine. Bank account numbers, the numbers he already gave us, were confidential.
I replied, ‘I’m sorry, but we do need the routing number to process any over-the-phone payments. I can simply look in our database if necessary.’
‘Why are you lying to me?’ Kyle questioned, ‘I know what you’re doing! You’re trying to steal my money for yourself!’
I sighed and replied, ‘I can assure you that is not the case, for us to process payment we will need your-’
Kyle interrupted me once again to rant about how my company was stealing his information to line our pockets with his bank account which had likely no more than fifty bucks in it. As Kyle ranted, I took the moment to look up his routing number.
I finally cut Kyle off and asked, ‘Sorry for your frustration. However, I do have your routing number here I was able to find on your bank’s website.’
Frustrated, Kyle hung up.
I ended up pulling the account back up an hour or so later out of curiosity. Kyle immediately called back, added a payment source, and paid his bill. I never understood why he wasted his time.”
“You Need To Personally Explain To My Child Why Her Gift Won’t Be Here”
“I worked at a call center during the holidays, otherwise known as the most wonderful time of the year!
Or not.
‘Karen,’ called one day before the holiday, spitting mad. Allegedly, she had a delayed order, and this particular order had her children’s gifts. Why she waited until the last minute to call, I never understood.
I checked Karen’s order, and it included the one of most popular children’s toys this season. The toys were hard to find, and I was surprised we had any in stock. Then, I checked to see when Karen ordered the toy.
She ordered it only one day before calling.
I tried to explain shipping time frames to Karen, but she wasn’t having it.
Karen cried, ‘It’s all your fault I didn’t order the toys until the last minute. You need to explain to my child why her gift won’t be here on time!’
Then, Karen handed the phone to her young child. I was dumbstruck! I didn’t know what to say for a moment, then I was struck with inspiration.
With a squeaky upbeat voice, I told the child, ‘I am one of Santa’s elves! I’m sorry sweetie, but Santa is swamped this year. We’re asking all the boys and girls to be a little more patient. You can do it, right? I know you can! You were at the top of the nice list this year!’
The child happily asked, ‘Really? I’m on the nice list? You know Santa?’ before her mother yanked the phone out of her hand.
I could tell Karen was livid, but now she had to play along or seriously risk upsetting her child.
Checkmate, Karen.”
“You’re A Mean, Spiteful Woman”
“I worked at a call center, and I took new claims. One time, I had a woman call about an existing claim.
Unfortunately at the time she called, the existing claims department was closed. I explained that to her and provided her with multiple ways to contact the specific claim handler. I had to tell her multiple times how I couldn’t even see anything in the claim beyond the claim number and claim handler’s information before she finally understood I couldn’t help her.
Then, the woman screamed, ‘You’re a mean, spiteful woman!’
I wasn’t paid to get cussed out by people, so I asked, ‘Can you stop cussing at me? If you don’t, I’ll disconnect the call.’
This made her start yelling at me louder while continuing to curse. At this point, I wasn’t listening to her anymore, and I tried to finish up the call by doing the usual company branding.
But then, my ears registered a vile statement.
‘You’re acting like a Karen!’ the woman cried.
She had the nerve to call me a Karen? No lady, you were the Karen!
I finally wished the woman a nice evening, and I hung up the phone just in time for her to get one last ‘Karen’ out.
I couldn’t believe the customer didn’t have a semblance of self-awareness.”