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Christmas Fruitcake for Labor Day Weekend: The Bad Penny Caller Saga

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I work remotely for an insurance call center handling complex technical calls, taking escalations, and handling some light underwriting work. Most of my calls are ho-hum technical calls, a lot of which involve me teaching reps more about insurance than training ever did. I handle escalations about billing and underwriting, which are almost always a variation of “How dare you tell me that you won’t insure me for free!” I work a late shift, so I handle more than just the Garden Variety Crazy or Demanding Karen. I handle the ones who are willing to call an insurance company at 2 a.m. to yell at someone.

The identities of all parties has been scrubbed as much as can be reasonably expected. If this in any way resembles how you treat people you speak with in call centers, you can go get mauled by a horny, hangry grizzly bear, as far as I’m concerned.

Your intrepid writer is looking for reasonably priced quilts on Amazon when a call comes through. It’s after midnight in my neck of the woods. The call is coming through as an escalation, so I brace myself.

The rep tells me that this guy is demanding to speak with a supervisor because we “illegally” added someone onto the policy. I look and see that this is most likely his kid. The rep tells me that he also wanted to complain about a prior rep for “being rude.”

This guy starts out the conversation screaming at me, demanding that I remove the person from his policy. I wait for him to finish foaming at the mouth and take a breath. Once he does, I then ask him the questions I’d need to know. He confirms exactly what I suspected- the added driver is his son, he lives in the household, and operates a vehicle on the policy.

Oh man, this guy is going to $#it frisbees when he hears that there’s no way he’s getting that person deleted or the balance waived. My turn to take a breath.

“Sir, based on admissions you’ve made on a recorded line, that balance is not being waived. Your kid lives in the household and operates a vehicle on the policy.”

He goes bat$#it crazy. “You F\*\*\*ING B\*\*\*H, it’s none of your F\*\*\*ING BUSINESS who drives my vehicles! I’m NOT PAYING $350 extra for the term! TAKE OFF THE DRIVER OR I WILL SUE YOU!”

“We’re keeping this conversation civilized or I’ll be disconnecting the call. Your policy contract states we can make changes if new information that affects the policy is discovered, like who is operating your vehicles.”

“I DIDN’T SIGN A F\*\*\*ING CONTRACT, YOU F\*\*\*ING @$$HOLE! I WILL HAVE MY AGENT MAKE SURE YOU GET FIRED!”

“Again, let’s keep this civil, or I’ll end the call. Your agent would have gotten the same notice as the one we sent to you. And by giving us money to render services, you’re providing consideration for the contract. Your kid needs to stay on the policy based on our contract and what you have told us on a recorded line. We can-”

“GET ME YOUR MANAGER NOW, YOU STUPID C\*\*T!”

“Normally, I’d be happy to get you a supervisor. However, I’ve asked you repeatedly to keep it civil. Since you couldn’t, I’m disconnecting-”

“I WILL TRACK YOU DOWN TO KICK YOUR @$$ YOU F\*\*\*ING B\*\*\*H!” He bellows this as I’m hanging up on him.

So, because he threatened me with bodily harm, I get to reach out to security. While I’m talking to security, I’m documenting notes. Because I’m annoyed at the additional work this jagoff created for me, I’m also putting a restriction on the ability to remove the kid. See, in my position, I can go into a policy and make it so that customer service reps cannot remove a driver.

About fifteen minutes after all this is done, another call comes through my line. The name on the screen looks familiar. Did I not leave the policy entirely? What are the odds?

Folks, the jerk was escalating again like a bad penny onto my line. He apparently wouldn’t even give the rep sending him to me his full name. He wanted to complain about the person he’d spoken with before because they hung up on him and had been verbally abusive to him.

I start laughing when the rep tells me all this. “I spoke with this one twenty minutes ago. Did you read the notes on the policy?”

The rep pauses and I hear some clicking. Then I hear a gasp. “I’ve never seen a security note on a policy before.”

He gets put through my line. He’s frothing at the mouth again, screaming about the rep who hung up on him, blah blah blah. We’re horrible for putting someone on his policy without his consent, etc etc etc.

“Okay, Sir, I’d be happy to help. What’s your name, please?”

He gives his first name. He obviously didn’t recognize my voice, because he didn’t bellow or call me a c\*\*t.

“Okay, Sir, do you have a last name?”

He gives his last name.

“All right, so to resume our conversation, your kid still needs to be on the policy. We have options-”

He hangs up. Surprisingly, he didn’t call back.

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