I hope your children get illnesses and die!

Hello, obligatory first time posting, etc. Apologies for formatting issues, I’m currently working and on mobile.

Some background info: I work remote for a large insurance company call center. I work from midday to midnight and don’t receive many calls after 10pm. Sometimes I sit in the ready aux for 30-40 minutes without getting a call. Due to the type of insurance we offer, I received lots of late night calls from customers freaking out about Hurricane Dorian. The company I work for has offices in most countries around the world, and we work closely with our colleagues south of the border. They are all bilingual in Spanish and English.

A few weeks ago a call came in around 11pm, which is a bit unusual as most of the calls slow down around 10pm. From the caller ID I could tell that it was an internal transfer from one of our e-commerce partners, so of course I answer promptly, do the greeting, etc. The players in this story are: Me (M), Coworker (C), and the caller, who we’ll call Karen, as I have never experienced entitlement on this level.

incoming call

M: Welcome to company, my name is me, with whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?

C: Hey me this is Coworker from customer service, on the line I have Karen who asked to speak to someone in the US.

[You know it’s going to be a wild ride when this happens, because most of my coworkers in the other office speak very clearly, with accents, but are perfectly concise and understandable. They are trained to do everything that we do in my office, minus policies for one or two of our partners. This was a policy that, under normal circumstances, would be handled by their office.]

M: Coworker I’m so sorry you experienced that, I’d be more than happy to assist. What seems to be going on?

C: Thank you so much, basically she wants us to pay her without reviewing her benefits or filing a claim. She doesn’t want to play by the rules and it sounds like it’s not a covered reason anyway.

M: Okay cool, thank you so much. Sounds like a good time, you can bring her through.

C: warm transfer to my line

M: Hi this is me with company, how may I assist you this evening?

Karen: Are you in the US?! Because Pedro has No Idea what he’s talking about!!! HE TOLD ME IT WOULDN’T BE COVERED!

Eyes roll so hard I almost lose them in my brain, okay here we go… Pedro is not even close to my coworker’s name, which he repeated during his closing

M: I apologize for the situation, what exactly is going on?

Karen: I have a business trip to Florida in two weeks, the hurricane is going to come back around THERE WILL BE REBOUND and it will wipe (city) off the map! It’s going to TAKE IT OUT COMPLETELY and airline told me you were responsible for refunding me the full amount, so you’re going to do that right now.

[This city is on the upper left (west) side of Florida, definitely not going to get destroyed by a hurricane moving backwards]

M: I can definitely understand how stressful this situation must be, I’d be happy to review your benefits and –

Karen: Don’t you DARE GO THERE WITH ME, you’re GOING TO REFUND MY MONEY!

M: Without reviewing your benefits it’s difficult to know what kind of coverage is available to you, but once again I’d be more that happy to go over it with you. Did you get a chance to review your insuring agreement?

Karen: Oooohhh you’ve got to be kidding me! Yes I got the email but you expect me to read all that?! I HAVE A LIFE I don’t have TIME to read that, and anyway, airline told me you would refund MY Money!

[Here’s the tricky part, she wasn’t insisting to file a claim. In fact, she didn’t want to file a claim at all. She thought we would provide an instant refund. Also, with the trip being two weeks out, it was incredibly unlikely that this would be covered. We’re supposed to filter out claims that will be rejected as to not give the person claiming false hope and create extra work for the examiners. It usually makes the situation worse when they wait a month and then realize the claim won’t be honored.]

M: Okay no worries, so there are a list of covered reasons on pages 2- (was literally just going to explain what a covered reason is)

Karen: If you don’t stop I’M GOING TO SCREAM REALLY LOUD! I CANT BELIEVE YOU WORK FOR A COMPANY THAT TREATS PEOPLE LIKE THIS! YOU HAVE NO LIFE OR INTEGRITY, I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS!!!

M: I apologize for the situation and I understand that-

Karen: (is literally just shrieking at this point) EXCUSE ME WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME

M: I understand that this is a difficult situation and I would be happy to file a claim after reviewing your benefits.

Karen: DO YOU UNDERSTAND?! I DON’T THINK YOU UNDERSTAND!!! OH NO, this is ridiculous and you’re going to refund my money AIRLINE TOLD ME SO, YOU’RE GOING TO REFUND MY MONEY OR THIS IS GOING TO BE A LAWSUIT! YOU NEED TO MAKE THIS BLACK AND WHITE, THIS IS A COMPLETE SCAM!

[The documents are literally black and white with 30pt font and easily understandable verbiage, definitions, etc.]

M: I- (was going to say we can review the information on your policy to begin the claims process – at this point I just needed to deescalate the call and wrap it up)

Karen: I DON’T WANT TO HEAR IT!!! DON’T SAY IT AGAIN! I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU WORK FOR SUCH A JOKE OF A COMPANY!

M: (just gonna wait this out because I know what’s about to happen)

Karen: Your company? Is a fucking JOKE, I bet you can’t sleep at night knowing you work for a company that is completely fucking useless, I hope your children get horrible illnesses and die, your life has no purpose and absolutely no fucking meaning, I wish you nothing but pain and suffering, I hope you burn in fucking hell, FUCK YOU click

This is word for word what she said to me and I honestly couldn’t believe it. I never once told her it may not (wouldn’t) be covered under the policy, and I would have started the claims process with her if she would have taken two seconds to stop yelling. When she hung up I went into after call and laughed about it with my bf. I also noticed Karen was from my hometown and lived not too far from where my parents live. I can’t wait for someone to introduce us at a Christmas party 🙂

If you made it this far thank you for reading, I have lots of ridiculous stories from my job that I will share at some point. Also my job makes me want to kill myself so I’ll probably post about that too (on r/callcenters yes I read the rules)

TL;DR: A racist Karen thinks insurance means instant refund, curses me and wishes me pain, suffering, and an eternity in hell after refusing to let me review her coverage.