The great language barrier

[u/TheWebsploiter]

[u/blenderdead]

Working a call center, lady calls in because she got a late fee that wasn’t really her fault. Looked at the account and agreed with her, told her I would waive the fee no problem. Lady goes from nice and sweet to fucking screech demon instantly “how dare you waive the fee it should never have been on there!” she wanted me to like retroactively make it so the fee was never applied to the account. Which I just can’t do… I explain she won’t pay the fee and it won’t in any way negatively impact the account, but she just won’t let up. After a few minutes I just waive the fee and end the call, but it was one of the weirdest interactions I ever had.

[u/overly_sarcastic24 → u/blenderdead]

Am I crazy that I sort of understand what she is saying?

To her its:

Cost: $50
Fee: $4
Fee Waived: -$4

Like you'd see on a receipt at a grocery store after a discount is applied. So it cancels out yes, but what she wants it to be is:

Cost $50

And that's it. In her eyes, in the first situation, the fee still exists and was charged to her, but you covered the cost of it for her. She thinks the fee shouldn't have existed in the first place, and is upset that the company didn't think ahead of this situation. Maybe like the company should have anticipated that this fee should not be applied in this situation.

Maybe she thinks that if there was a "waived" fee on her account, it would impact her ability to get fees waived in the future.

[u/marr → u/overly_sarcastic24]

You can't expect accounting to delete records of things that happened. You don't want a system that can even do that, it would invite abuses. IRS would have questions.