Cracker

I work in debit card claims for a large US bank. As a general rule, if someone says they want to open a claim, we do so. We need to have a record of the claim existing, even if it’s going to be denied or if the charge being disputed winds up not going through. (The only exception I’ve found to this is if the authorization was denied at the merchants end, like for insufficient funds or if its auto-flagged as possible fraud.)

So about a month ago, a guy calls in. Hes polite in the sense that he tends to answer my questions with “yes ma’am” or “no ma’am”, but I can tell he’s angry and just waiting for an opportunity. So I’m using my very best customer service voice.

I can see he’s got several claims opened, all on the same day, all for a charge to the same merchant, from different months. They’ve all been denied. Since it’s always playing with fire to straight up to point that out right out of the gate, I ask him what questions I can answer for him about the claim I had open.

Here’s where he starts to go off on me. Paraphrasing, he goes on this tangent-rant at me about how we’re violating his rights by not opening this claim for him, the merchant stole from him, he wants his money back, just over and over, skipping from one half-finished sentence to the next. While he’s bitching, I look through the notes to see that this guy has chewed out at least three prior phone agents before me, two escalation-level agents (both of whom had to disconnect the call due to his abusive behavior) and TWO SUPERVISOR LEVEL CALL BACKS.

Turns out his car was repossessed due to non payment. I could see he had made partial payments for the most recent 2 months, but neither were even half the monthly he’d been paying prior. He felt that because they took the car back, he was entitled to his money back. All of it.

I tried to explain that we had no rights to dispute these charges because at the time he’d paid those bills, he had possession of the car. He didn’t want to hear that. He continued pissing at me, until I firmly told him he needed to keep his language civil. He did not. He went off on another tangent, claiming the only reason we wouldn’t give him his money back is because we were racially discriminating against him.

I stated that this was not the case, we were denying the claim because we had no right to fight it, and again, I needed him to keep his language civil.

That’s when he busted out with my favorite thing I’ve heard so far:

“Fuck you, you cracker bitch, go fuck yourself.” And he hung up.

After a few seconds of sitting in amused silence, I just sort of said aloud, “I dont think I’ve ever been called a cracker before.”

By some miracle my surrounding teammates were not on calls, and my supe was only a few desks away, so everyone heard me. It made for a good chuckle.