That one time a customer wouldn’t let me disconnect the call even thought there was an earthquake

I used to take inbound calls for an American bank.

Me: Yours truly

C: Customer

I read a similar story here, and I shared mine in the comments. Here is the full story.

The Customer called because wanted to report he lost his credit card. I was taking his information to locate his account when suddenly there was an earthquake. This was the first time it happened while I was on a call and I didn’t know how to react.

Me: May you excuse me a second sir?

C: Why?

Me: Just a second please.

I muted the phone and asked my supervisor what should I do. He told me to tell the customer there was an emergency and advice him to call later.

Me: Thank you for waiting sir.

C: What was that about?

Me: There is a local emergency and I need to leave the buil…

C: Oh no. You are not hanging up on me, you know how much time I lost waiting for my call to be connected to you?

At this point the ground had stopped shaking, but I needed to get out of the building anyway because of the security protocol.

Me: I understand sir, but there was an earthquake and I need to…

C: My credit card got lost. The later I call you, the bigger the chance someone else find it and use it.

Me: I understand sir but I need to get out of the building. There was an earthquake.

My co-workers in full spanish started saying variations of “Just disconnect the call, don’t try to explain anything to him”.

C: Why there is people speaking spanish in the background?

Me: Those are my co-workers.

C: I don’t feel safe with too many people watching my account, specially if they are speaking a language I don’t understand.

*He disconnected the call*

In hindshight. I don’t understand myself why I spent so much time trying to explain to him why I needed to disconnect the call. I should just have hung up. I spent so much time trying to make him understand that it would almost have been faster to just report the card as lost.

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