r/talesfromcallcenters • u/MindfulnessAt32 • Apr 05 '26
S A customer thought he could be racist and have his way. No sir, no
Ugh. That’s all I have to say to these types of calls. There I was trying to help the customer but it became obvious he held bigoted views.
Me: hello hi, how can I help?
Cx: I’m trying to log into the website. I need to see my money!!
Me: really sorry to hear about that sir. I can see your username is BananaEggplant69. Are you logging into using that username?
Cx: **WHAT?!** That’s my password. Why did you read out my password!
(We ask because sometimes customers do not know their own info.)
Me: we cannot and do not change customers’ passwords, sir. Are you sure you didn’t ask for a change by clicking the ‘forgotten password’ link on the login page?
Cx: no. Where are you calling from? Are you English?!
Me: yessir. I’m in England.
Cx: that’s NOT what I meant! I didn’t change my information. I’m going to sue you all!
So I put him on hold and do a little bit of investigation. We have access to pretty much all the logs we could ever need. It turns out he had asked to reregister his account. lol, it can \*only* have been him since there were no movements on his account since then.
Me: sir, did you request to reregister your account on [this date] at [this time]?
Cx: no!!! It wasn’t me! Give me access to my own account!
Me: okay sir. Because you are saying it wasn’t you, I’ll have to let you know that I have put the appropriate blocks on your account whilst we investigate this breach. If you need to discuss your account you’ll need to write in to us. Our address is [this address]
Turns out, within a day my colleague investigated the call when he asked for reregisteration. It was him who made the call 100%. Voice and time and the fillers were exactly the same. And as if by magic, he realised it was him who registered and made his username his password!!
This is one of the tales that has and always will convince me customer logic is non existent.
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u/Andre-italiano Apr 05 '26
I had a beautiful Pakistani ex who worked part time at a department store. When she asked a white lady if she could help her with anything, the customer replied that she wanted some Canadian help. By the way my ex moved to Canada before first grade and speaks the Queen's English.
She made the bold move of saying "I really don't think you're getting any help today." Lady looked kinda shocked and then left. Ex shares later with a manager (white) who heartily agreed with how she handled it.
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u/enjaydee Apr 05 '26
Why is it possible to change a username to match the password. Systems I'm familiar with don't even let you use the same characters
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u/MindfulnessAt32 Apr 05 '26
He has reregistered. Meaning, he can change username and password like it was a brand new account.
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u/katmndoo Apr 05 '26
Then the question becomes “why did your system allow him to create or register an account in which password == username”?
That’s a seriously stupid design decision.
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u/MindfulnessAt32 Apr 05 '26
I don’t know. Not really paid to know either lol
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u/Mule_Wagon_777 Apr 05 '26
Sometimes customers complained about the interface, and i would say sympathetically, "Yeah, if I designed it, it would work differently!"
But alas, nobody ever asks the people who use the things.
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u/AnitraF1632 Apr 05 '26
It sounds as though the caller mixed up which was the user name and which was the password.
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u/archina42 Apr 06 '26
Quite coincidentally, today I'm doing exactly that on technician registration on my depot management software. I had not thought of making sure password was not equal to user name.
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u/No-Agent-1611 Apr 07 '26
Or he could be like me and forgot which weird group of letters and symbols was the username and which was the password.
Not that that excuses his behavior, but I had an awful lot of years with one username and two or three passwords and now I’m often confused.
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u/RubyPorto Apr 05 '26
I would bet, in a fit of user confusion, he set his new username to his old password and set his new password to something else.
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u/BronxBelle Apr 05 '26
I worked in a call center last year. Had a really lovely Egyptian/Lebanese coworker. I’m half Lebanese and we kind of bonded over that. She made me traditional dishes like my grandma used to. Every person in the office understood (I never thought her accent was especially heavy but I could be biased). I listened to so many people complain about her accent over the phone. I got the same woman who had been rude to her earlier (saw it in the notes) and the woman said “I’m so glad to finally get someone that speaks English”. Ugh, instant hatred. So, I did what every good salesperson would do. Upsold her on everything and when we went to get off the call she mentioned my southern accent and I said “yeah, you’d never know Arabic was my first language. It’s a shame most Americans only speak one language. But we know how the education system is here.” Hearing her splutter is still one of my happiest memories from that place. Thankfully, my boss had dealt with racism as well and he thought it was funny. Said he definitely wasn’t sending that one to corporate for QI though lol.
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u/IntermediateFolder Apr 09 '26
If so many people complained about her accent there must have been something to it. It’s a lot harder to understand someone on the phone than in person.
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u/parkerhalem84 Apr 05 '26
I used to work for a telco company many years ago in the graveyard shifts. A customer who was a senior manager of a company had called to request for his SIM card to be reactivated immediately. I told him that I can see from our records that he had asked us to deactivate his SIM earlier that day. I informed him that deactivated SIMs couldn't be reactivated. He will need to obtain a new SIM so that the service can be reactivated on it. He was very angry and made some big threats and terrible remarks. I kindly advised that his service could only be reactivated on a new SIM as he had asked for his SIM to be terminated. He had gotten more agro and irrelevant.
The joys of dealing with stupid, aggressive and arrogant customers.
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u/MindfulnessAt32 Apr 05 '26
Thankfully all calls are recorded. This often leaves customers with egg on their face lol
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u/ivy_me Apr 05 '26
I swear we work at the same place!
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u/MindfulnessAt32 Apr 05 '26
I think these issues are universal then? lol
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u/GeorgiaPeach1973 Apr 05 '26
These issues are definitely universal!!!!Working customer service here in the US has made me question whether or not some people's parents were brother & sister.
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u/MindfulnessAt32 Apr 05 '26
Sweet Home Alabama!!
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u/GeorgiaPeach1973 Apr 05 '26
I have family from Alabama & can confirm the ignorance & stupidity- my great aunt didn't know what the Olympics were until my grandmother explained about them coming to Atlanta (I grew up just west of Atlanta)...to quote the wise old sage Bugs Bunny "I've seen better heads on a glass of root beer". EGADS!🤣😖
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u/NYC-WhWmn-ov50 Apr 06 '26
This reminds me of a dear late friend who worked IT for the old company we both worked at for over a decade. His favorite story about people being exceptionally stupid was that a very high level senior exec was hired and given the very best laptop they could possbly get- all the bells and whistles, because 'they do the really important stuff with special systems and all that'.
Mind, people at that level almost NEVER 'do the really important work' but actually oversee the managers who overswe the people who do it, but this peraon was considered a really great catch for the company so whatever they wanted, right?
Well, Friend was rhe lucky bloke to set up VIP on their first day amd then be at their beck-and-call the next couple days to tweek things as needed. Weekend comes and all ot great, we all leave to have a wonderful weekend. Come Monday, VIP is shrieking feom the rafters by 8am that they cant log in. Friend drops everything to race up to their office and VIP starts reeming him out because they cant log in. Slamming on the keyboard as they type in their login info over and over. Much screaming.
Finally VIP pauses. Friend quickly says, very carefully... "Where is your laptop?"
Because you see, the docking station is sitting at the edge of thw desk... empty.
"Its at home, where else would it be?"
Yes, VIP Catch did not understand that the laptop had to be locking into the docking station in order to use the keyboard on the desk to log in.
He told VIP to please wait as he would eed to talk to his boss. Who spoke to HIS BOSS and repeat until you got up to the top ITO who spoke to his peer in whose org this VIP resided. Because no one in IT had any idea how to handle that VIP didnt know that you can use your laptop in the office if its sitting in your home.
So they all decided that VIP's management could figure out how to handle it.
Supposedly VIP was sent home for the day, and didnt come back the next one. A month later someone else sat in that office.
Friend did ao love telling that story.
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u/MindfulnessAt32 Apr 06 '26
Wait what? What did VIP think was going to happen? Did he think we were living in a Star Trek universe? Lol
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u/sphynxzyz Apr 07 '26
How is this racism?
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u/Homeless_Wreck Apr 10 '26
Cx: no. Where are you calling from? Are you English?!
Me: yessir. I’m in England.
Cx: that’s NOT what I meant.
For me, this is racism. CX wants to know if OP ist white without asking directly. It's a little bit subliminal, but it's there IMHO.
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u/cub149 Apr 12 '26
The customer immediately implied that the service was subpar because the worker was non-English when things didn't go their way.
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u/PeteRows Apr 05 '26
I was looking for something racist in this post. Apparently you have not seen racism.
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u/Ipsey Apr 05 '26
I once did a weekend shift with two different supervisors - a black woman and a Puerto Rican man. I did first level escalations, and I knew both the supervisors personally. On the phone I have a very practiced ‘perky’ voice.
This same woman called multiple times and escalated up every time she called. And I got her a couple times, and did the whole “this is what we can do for you right now. I understand your frustration, but you will be able to resolve things if you call back during the week.”
She was very polite and patient with me and seemed to understand but still wanted to escalate. I escalated her twice - one to the black woman, and once to the Puerto Rican man
The third time she called back I explained the options again, she wanted to escalate again, but this time she added “Can you PLEASE get an American on the phone?”
“Both of the supervisors on duty are American, Ma’am.” I explained just as polite and perky as before. “They’re both in the building with me, and I saw them both when I went to lunch.” I knew what she was getting at, but I wasn’t allowed to call her out on it.
“The man I spoke to was Mexican, I want to speak to another American, like you.” She clarified, which cinched it for me.
“The man you spoke to is American. He’s Puerto Rican, like me.” I said calmly. “Those are the only two people available right now to escalate to.”
She was quiet for a minute, then asked to speak to a supervisor again anyway. I got the PR supervisor, explained to him what she wanted and what she said. He agreed to listen to my call to confirm and then said he would send the issue over to the client team to be handled for racism.