Call Centers: Craziest calls.

[late for dinner]

Hi I work at a call center doing collections for business credit cards. I was wondering if any of you worked at a call center doing anything...tech support, collections, etc. If so What is the most interesting/crazy/insane call you have ever taken? Due to lack of time before I get out, I will post mine in the morning....I promise.

[Lord_Butters_I]

Not me: Internet ISP. Old lady calls, she says the cord is too long. Dude says "I'll just pull on it from my end." He does nothing for a few seconds then says "did that fix it?" She answered "oh yes that's much better, thank you."

Even better one was a 9/11 call. A cop pulled a dude over, he had a joint in his hand. Cop asks if he has any other drugs in the car. Dude says no. Cop says "well then give me some of that, it's cold out here". Dude gives him the joint, cop takes a puff, says thanks and leaves. Dude calls 9/11 to complain that the cop didn't pay him for the pot he took.

[Bor the Barbarian Monk]

Heya, Late. Lemme guess...AMEX Business Card, in that pretty building just north of Thunderbird, right? Been there, done that...LITERALLY! :smallwink:

One of the wackiest calls I ever received when I worked collections was an inbound call, and I couldn't make this up if I tried. We didn't have caller ID back then, but the guy was able to provide an account number. Yes, it was a delinquent account. But once I had the account on my computer screen, the call became a complete waste of time. He refused to give me his address, any contact phone number, or anything that might be useful in resolving his balance. The only thing he said was that he would pay when he could.

Well, that's all well and good, but why wasn't he doing anything at that moment to take care of business?

Well...According to him, he and a colleague had discovered the cure for AIDS. The government learned of this and locked him and his colleague up. After a daring escape, he'd been on the run for months (about the length of time his account was past due). He was only touching base with us to let us know he planned on paying, but to give us any information on his whereabouts would be to let the agents on his tail know where he was.

:smallconfused:

What else could I do? He hung up, I docummented the call, for what it was worth, and moved on to the next account.

[Silence]

*falls out of chair laughing

[B-Man]

I currently work in a call centre on an inbound campaign. I don't really have "crazy" calls per sé but I do have to handle a lot of irate customers and people who do not understand that I'm not in repair or tech support (despite knowing how to correct most Internet-related problems).

I'm currently in training to be vendor support for our current client as well as pick up on their billing systems. I'm not too happy about it but let's not get into that right now.

[BizzaroStormy]

I'm kinda on the other end of those calls. Whenever my caller ID shows a non-personal number I'll pick up, wait a couple seconds, then scream as loud as I possibly can into the phone.

[Silence]

I'm kinda on the other end of those calls. Whenever my caller ID shows a non-personal number I'll pick up, wait a couple seconds, then scream as loud as I possibly can into the phone.

You, good sir, are quite an interesting character.

[KnightDisciple]

Well, these are one step removed, but still. Two stories. Context: I work in phone network support, so all calls are company employees; in both of these, they are phone equipment repair fellows.
First one: the apparent cause of a device malfunctiong? (Spoilered for the weak of stomach)Snake vomit. It dripped down into the device. Apparently once it's sat, it's more...rubbery...and easier to clean off.
Second: a tech was unable to access a cabinet due to an alligater/crocodile being in the way. I mean, seriously. I know I wouldn't get paid enough to mess with one.

[Ilena]

Well, i work in a call center, done tech support and so forth, ive heard many interesting calls and taken many interesting calls, Ive had a lady offer me her daughters hand in marriage, ive had people offering to send me ram and such, when i was in training i listened to a call from a person who broke his mouse on his computer, and he litterally screamed at the tech that he wants a new mouse when the tech said that he cant send a new mouse for free because the customer broke it, this went on for a few mins of screaming, i spoke to a person who shot her computer with a shotgun, hmmm what else, ive spoken to a fellow who flew b29s in italy way back when, i spoke to one lady who has never had a computer before (now i can walk through 90 year old people and 5 year old kids through troubleshooting) but she litterally could not find the front of the monitor, i said everything that you can think of and it took her 30 mins to find it, just the front of the screen! (no exaggeration) i think that call lasted 2 hours before i was able to get her to say what the problem was, and it wasent even our issue ... i would hate to try to troubleshoot with her :S thats all that i can really remember on short notice but theres plenty more (some that ive heard include, people using the cd rom drive tray as a cup holder, and so forth :P)

[Voshkod]

I work for the government. We take turns handling the "crazy calls" and "nutmail." Three of my favorites.

1) A letter from the Queen of Bulgaria (and most of Western Europe), informing us of her royal claims. She further noted her brother was the King of most of Eastern Europe. Very polite letter, very detailed royal history. I wanted to send back a declaration of war.

2) Someone called to tell us the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) put a chip up his nose. I presume he really meant Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), but Google had betrayed him when he searched CIA. Either that, or it was a tortilla chip. Anyway, he was going to sue us.

3) Someone called to insist that "something had to be done about the President, he was ruining the country, why won't someone take care of it!" He ranted for about fifteen minutes before I interrupted. "Sir, I'm going to transfer you to someone who can help. When they pick up, tell them that something has to be done about the President." I then transfered him to the main number at the Secret Service.

Nutcalls are the best.

[late for dinner]

Heya, Late. Lemme guess...AMEX Business Card, in that pretty building just north of Thunderbird, right? Been there, done that...LITERALLY! :smallwink:

Good Guess on where I work but no. I work by the airport at BofA.

Anyways, before I tell my Stories I get to explain to you all what an Offset is. An Offset (if you dont know, is when funds are automatically withdrawn from your acct to pay a bill without your imediate concent. It is legal because in our terms and agreements in BIG BOLD CAPTIAL LETTERS ON THE FRONT PAGEwe say that we have the right to offset, so noone has the excuse to say it was in the fine print. (our corporate people were smart when making the contract....anyways as you can figure, it pisses people off when we do it to them. Now we just dont offset to offset. We have reason, If the card holder absolutly cannot be found, we will offset and if they tell us they are not going to pay us, we offset. We can only take from accts that are BofA accts too, so anyone with a chase, wellsfargo, etc. acct is safe. But here you me, we will take everything you have: On to the calls....One day I called a guy. I asked for his wife. He was mad because we wouldnt raise the credit limit(something collections coudnt even do) to his late, over the limit credit card. Not only was he mad, he was cursing and telling me he thought we were all idiots and he wanted to come to the bank and find one of my managers and publicly humiliate him in front of his friends and family. When I asked what would make him happy, He said that he wanted that manager's head on a plate delivered to his office...I asked him if he would make a payment(just doing my job, you know : ))He said, "@#$% you!" and hung up. I promptly went and checked his bank accts. He had a 16k creditcard balance and had about 7k in his personal acct. Oh and this is 3 weeks before Christmas. I took everything...$7000...well, you can imagine that I got a call back. It was his wife this time, who told me I was not human because I took the money 3 weeks before christmas. I explained the situation, but she was just as stupid as her husband. The husband called my boss and told her he was going to come and break everything she owns. My boss threatened to call the police about his threats. He shut up. Now they pay on time.

To make this clear: We can not make you pay if you are not a Guarantor. Even if the Guarantor dies and there is a 50k dollar debt, we write it off.

I called a lady up and asked for her husband. She said he had died. I appologized and proceded to get the "Death info" that we need to get to write off the debt. She told me the date and when I asked for her name, she refused to give it to me because she said we would just call and make her pay. I told her that we wouldnt. She straight up called me a liar. I said, "Mrs. Jones(fake name)we are a professional organization. We did not get to be one of the Biggest, if not the Biggest, Bank in the world by lying to everyone. We just need a contact name so we can write off the debt. If I am lying to you, I will give you my full name and I will personally quit my job." "Well, It's Mary, Jane, or Sue. Pick one" "Are those 3 legal names or is this a multiple choice quiz?" She then started to cry and tell me that Agent Orange had given her husband cancer and he died and the gov would not give them any money for it so she didnt have any and her husband always payed on time..."Mrs. Jones I completly agree, your husband was an Exelent bill payer..."(It was the only consoling thing I could think to say, meanwhile everyone in the desks around me who had been listening to me talk were cracking up.)She proceded to cry and then finally, before hanging up, "MY NAME IS MARY!" *click*

And Finally, I called and asked for a Cardholder and his wife answered the phone, "John is not here anymore. we are getting a divorce because he was molesting my 13 year old daughter..." I didnt even catch myself before the word, "nice" escaped my lips. It was a sarcastic "nice" though. She didnt react to it. I asked if she knew how I could reach him. "Well last time I checked, he was in jail" "Good that is where he should be. I am sorry about everything. goodbye" This call is just to show you that one of my customers was a pedophile, thus crazy and sick.

I could go on, but those are 3 of my favorite calls

[late for dinner]

Oh, and by the way, that AIDS cure phone call is by far the funniest call I have ever heard. I have come to the conclusion, after working in collections, that most people are dumb.

[Krrth]

Well, this happend to my uncle, not me but still.....one of his guys got called to fix a printer that wasn't working. Nothing they did made it work, so they swapped it out for a new one. They got a call back a few moments later...the new printer didn't work. So they swapped that out for another new printer. That one didn't work, so they called him. He goes down and checks...sure enough, the electric socket has a short...it wasn't delivering power to the printers consistently. The problem...the "malfunctioning" printers had already been disposed of. He wrote it off as an ID-10-T Error on the paperwork...

[Bor the Barbarian Monk]

Well, I was in debt collections, as well as a touch of fraud analysis, for around five years or more. There are plenty of stories to be told.

One such story, which I eventually used as dialogue in a manuscript I have, involves what can be best called "collector speak." We didn't have time to write lengthy passages in the account notes, so one might see this when looking into said notes: "TT Sp. Z OOT. Sp PTP $300 11/05/08 by COP."

TT = Talk To
Sp = Spouse
Z = Possible code, and one I used at one company, to denote the name on the account.
OOT = Out Of Town
PTP = Promise To Pay
COP = Check Over Phone

So that note becomes, using complete English, "I talked to the account holder's spouse. The account holder is out of town, but the spouse agreed and promised to pay $300 on 11/05/08 with a check over the phone."

With a vague understanding of collector speak, some employees would become...creative. They would try to improvise abbreviations, usually at their peril.

I returned from lunch one day to find a note on my computer with an account number. Someone had taken an inbound call on one of my accounts, and wanted me to see for myself how it was handled. It seems that I goofed when setting up a payment arrangement. Instead of setting the account up for a timely call back, I put my notes in and moved on to the next account. The automated dialing system made an outbound call, another collector left a message, and the debtor had called back wanting to know why the call was made, when he'd already made plans with me. The person who took the inbound call put in the notes, "Z called. TT ass."

Huh? :smallconfused:

I checked my list of company approved abbreviations, and "ass" was nowhere on it. Did this mean that this person was calling me an ass, and left me a note to see that she had documented it as such? Or was she calling the debtor an ass?

I was a little younger, a lot less wiser, and utterly baffled. Rather than confront the person who did this, I took it to my supervisor, who came to me shortly after and explained the problem, chuckling all the while. The note was meant to be translated as, "Debtor called and said they'd already spoken to an associate."

There's thinking outside the box, which is acceptable in terms of originality, and then there's thinking so far outside the box that the box can't even be seen. :smalltongue:

[Linkavitch]

I'm kinda on the other end of those calls. Whenever my caller ID shows a non-personal number I'll pick up, wait a couple seconds, then scream as loud as I possibly can into the phone.

*Goes and calls 911 to tell them that the ambulance had better bring a defribulator, because I was laughing so hard my heart stopped*

[Linkavitch]

3) Someone called to insist that "something had to be done about the President, he was ruining the country, why won't someone take care of it!" He ranted for about fifteen minutes before I interrupted. "Sir, I'm going to transfer you to someone who can help. When they pick up, tell them that something has to be done about the President." I then transfered him to the main number at the Secret Service.

Nutcalls are the best.

I laughed so hard. . . did you ever hear what, if anything, happened to him?

[Telonius]

Well...According to him, he and a colleague had discovered the cure for AIDS. The government learned of this and locked him and his colleague up. After a daring escape, he'd been on the run for months (about the length of time his account was past due). He was only touching base with us to let us know he planned on paying, but to give us any information on his whereabouts would be to let the agents on his tail know where he was.

:smallconfused:

What else could I do? He hung up, I docummented the call, for what it was worth, and moved on to the next account.

I wonder if he was related to the guy who called me. I work at a scientific journal, so we get all kinds of wackos calling us. This guy calls in and claims that he has some crucial evidence of why the Shroud of Turin has something to do with why the space shuttle blew up. I tried to explain to him that he would have to write it up in a scientific paper and submit it to us. He was very hesitant to do this because the government was trying to suppress all of the evidence, and might be able to find him. I assured him that we aren't connected with the government, but that didn't pacify him. He demanded to know if there was a CIA Agent behind me making sure I told him what I was supposed to tell him. I told him that I checked out the whole office and that there were no CIA agents there. Eventually (after about a half hour) I convinced him that I'm not about to send in the black helicopters.

After that one, I was half expecting to see myself on an episode of Crank Yankers. But sure enough, about two weeks later we get a hand-written paper from Dr. Loony, explaining - in a one-page article complete with a hand-drawn picture of a space shuttle - how the Shroud of Turin was behind it all.

[Voshkod]

After that one, I was half expecting to see myself on an episode of Crank Yankers. But sure enough, about two weeks later we get a hand-written paper from Dr. Loony, explaining - in a one-page article complete with a hand-drawn picture of a space shuttle - how the Shroud of Turin was behind it all.

You need to post that. The truth must triumph!

A friend of mine used to work at a US Attorney's office. They get nuts in by the bushel. He had one come in and demand that the government turn off the transmitter that was broadcasting into his head. After calmly assuring the man that no such activity was occuring failed to reassure the visitor, my friend leaned forward and said, very quietly: "I'm not supposed to tell you this, but if you ground yourself out, the voices will go away. Make a chain of paperclips, right now, long enough to go from your belt to the ground." He passed over a box of clips, the visitor made a belt. "Now, attach it to your belt, and let it touch the floor. The voices are gone, right?" Our visitor happily reported that the voices were indeed gone, and cheerfully left.

Spartacus93: Never followed up. I suspect, if he did tell the USSS that "something needed to be done," he got a discrete visit from the local agent, suggesting he not say such things again.

[Kcalehc]

Not a call center story, but vaguely related.

Gave my sister an old computer a few years ago, she works on a farm. I'd just got another so it was spare. I had salvaged the sound card and TV card from it for my new one and so it had open slots at teh back. Well, she never uses it, like once a month really, and after about 6 months she calls me to say it isn't working. Being a relatively competent techie I went through every possible thing I could think of to fix it over the phone. Nothing worked so I made a trip to have a look in person.
Upon opening the case, I found: 1 mouse nest + 1 dead mouse. It was an old desktop case so the motherboard was horizontal, mouse droppings all over and a faint haze of mouse urine. We threw the whole thing away, now she has a laptop, no crawl spaces in those... I hope.

[Silence]

3) Someone called to insist that "something had to be done about the President, he was ruining the country, why won't someone take care of it!" He ranted for about fifteen minutes before I interrupted. "Sir, I'm going to transfer you to someone who can help. When they pick up, tell them that something has to be done about the President." I then transfered him to the main number at the Secret Service.

Nutcalls are the best.

WHAT IS YOUR NUMBER?

[afroakuma]

I just get idiots, mostly. "I need to get a receipt." Very well, madam, did you attempt to access your receipt on our website? "No. What's your website?" Company's name.com. "Right. Should have known that. Okay, I'm here and I don't see how to get my receipt." Look in the center of the page, madam. There is a large red button marked 'Get Receipt.' "Oh wonderful! Thank you so much!" Click.

Five of those a day, at least another five who don't have one of only two pieces of information needed to get their receipt in that fashion (usually the one I would need to give them their receipt) and often one or two who have decided to get moving and request every receipt from the past 4-10 months.

And that's not even my main job.

[Ilena]

Ya, i get misroutes ... alot ... as in 15 - 20 a day out of say 30 odd calls a day, (sometimes alot more depending if its monday or not ...) so normally we arnt busy and misroutes leave me time to do stuff online (that i probably shouldnt be doing but meh)

[Raien]

Ugh, I did outbound telemarketing for DirecTV for about four months.

My favorite name was Xelonius Ferrell.

Me: Hello, may I please speak to (phonetically) Zelonius Ferrell
Him: (angry) It's ECKS-elonius Fuh-REAL!

Also I had a few variants of this, when I was trying to get people to reconnect their service:

Me: So, we have (this plan) at (this price) and we can get someone out there to hook it up at (this time).
Him: (pause) You've got a nice voice, girl...what're you wearing.
Me: Uhh...jeans and a t shirt. Now can we hook you up?
Him: Well do you have the Playboy channel?
Me: You can subscribe to it though DirecTV, however I cannot do that, you'd have to call a different number.
Him: Where are you calling from?
Me: Iowa.
Him: Well I'll resubscribe if you'll come here and hook it up for me/watch the Playboy channel with me/etc.
Me: I'm sorry sir, I can't do any of those things for you.
Him. Well then I'm not going to take it.

[DigoDragon]

I've worked call centers for 7 years. One of my favorite stories was working for a printer tech support center helping this nice old lady get her aging printer to work. The printer was on it's last legs but after 10-15 minutes I managed to get her printing again... for about 2 seconds when the cat who was sleeping by it was startled and attacked the printer, knocking it off the desk. I heard a nice plastic shattering crash on the floor.

The lady laughed though and decided to just buy a new one anyway so I got bonus points for selling her on a nice inexpensive printer (with a better warrenty to cover her cat). :smallsmile:

[SoD]

Jeb (http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=w0bwclKQvI8). Not really crazy calls, but quite amusing.

One that I've done (I think I was about 6ish):

*ringring*
SoD: Hello?
Phone Guy: Hello. My name is [name guy]. Is your father there?
SoD: Yes.
...
Phone Guy: May I speak to him?
SoD: No.
Phone Guy: Why not?
SoD: He exploded.
Phone Guy: ...he what?
SoD: He exploded. There's bits of him all over the lounge room.
Phone Guy: ...I see...have a nice day.
SoD: What?! How dare you! My father just exploded and you tell me to have a nice day?! What sort of sick person are you?!
Phone Guy: I've...got to go now. *click*

Meh. I was bored. He should've known better than to ring a bored six year old.

[UncleWolf]

That is really funny, I would have gotten into so much trouble if I had done that.

[xPANCAKEx]

i used to temp on the internal IT support desk for one of the UK's biggest supermarkets. I started out in the retail applications team, which basically delt with stock control devices (both software and hardware).

we had to deal with a lot of problems related to the stock-taking handsets. They were basically glorified palm pilots that cost about £1500 a pop. I'd been there less than a week, when one of my collegues (another temp who'd started on the same day), turns to me and says "erm... im not sure how to log this call"
"why?"
"its an unusual fault"
"what did they say is wrong with it"
".........its got wee on it"

on average, 1 handset would get dropped in a toilet once every 2 months. We had a case logged for ****s and giggles with a response from our hardware vendor saying "courier on route with replacement handset. Will not exchange for damaged handset unless it is wrapped and double-sealed inside two plastic bags"

my favourite call was while i filled in on the team dealing with checkouts. Taking a call from a check outs manager after a scanner had broken.
me: "ok, your call has been logged. Your reference number is ############. A technitian should be on site to repair the fault in the next 4 hours"
her "thanks, thats great"
"you're welcome, you have a nice afternoon"
"you too, and i'll try and tell them not to break any more tills in the mean time... but you know what the irish are like"
:smallannoyed:

yep - i made sure the repairman took his time to get to their store.

[InaVegt]

(Translated to English)

Telemarketer: Hello, would you be interested in <offer>
Me: Well, I might be, but first I'd like to know something else.
TM (happy): And what would that be?
Me: Would you perhaps be interested in some private tutoring, my specializations are Chemistry and Biology, I can assure you my customers are always satisfied.
TM: Ummm, no, thank you very much for your time *click*

[onasuma]

My dad does that too. Tries to sell them double glazing. Once he managed to have a good 5 minuet conversation trying to convince the salesman to buy some. He was going to get a website and stuff, but the guy hung up first.

[thubby]

can't say I've ever worked in a call center, but i get at least 3 people a day who completely ignore the signs that read "offices on second floor" on the main door, the bottom of the staircase (complete with arrows), even the rather large sign in the driveway, and end up in the basement asking where the offices are.
i happen to spend the bulk of my time down there moving boxes of files, or dredging up some god forsaken case file underneath 3 other 60 lb boxes.
and of course they get pissy when the guy alone in the dank basement doesn't acknowledge them immediately because he's wearing headphones.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

I had a situation that I had fun with. One evening we'd been getting wrong numbers from the same person over and over, and it happened twice before I decided to deter them.

1st call:
My sister: "Hello?"
Phone: "Hi, is Becky there?"
My sister: "No sorry, no one by that name lives here."
Phone: "Okay sorry, bye."

2nd call, 10 minutes later:
My sister: "Hello?"
Phone: "Hi, is Becky there?"
My sister: "Still not here."
Phone: "Oh woops, sorry again!"

So she told me about it and was laughing, and I chose to step in if it rung again, low and behold roughly 10 more minutes later, it run again. So I muster up the deepest, roughest voice I can and pick up the phone, almost yelling into it;
Me: "THIS IS BECKY, WHAT DO YOU WANT?"
Phone: ".........." *click*

[evisiron]

^ Awesome!

Non funny background:
I was at the call centre last night, kind of getting annoyed with how our company works. The company is Setanta, a monthly subscription sports channel package. They have a well run efficient sales force (that I am in) but by the sounds of it, a fairly poor customer service line. Not only is it always packed (apparently Setanta channels have a weak signal, so will break up with anything as mild as bad weather in some places) but after a certain point it just tell the callers "We are too busy, try again later" and hangs up on them.
And here is the best bit, the sales line is in the same options menu as the service line, and we are never too busy to hang up on people. This means 90% of the calls coming through are trying to get through to customer service, but can't or got it wrong. And in most cases all we can do is give them the number to call customer services, we can't even patch them through.

Funny-ish stuff:

We had a caller (who shall be known as 'The Todd') who rang complaining about the lack of signal, not getting through to customer services etc etc.
He took ages to complain and all we could do was ask him to ring customer services (which was too busy -> hanging up on him).
He called back 3 times to the same places and getting the same response. Ah, useless persistence...
Anyway, on the 3rd call back he demanded to talk to a manager. We called over the team leader, whose response was "Don't worry, I know how to handle this" and then hitting the Disconnect button. "There, sorted"
We were pretty stunned at this. :smallamused:
And of course, The Todd called back, demanded to talk to a manager... with the same result.
Eventually he called back again, only to hear that "none of the managers are in at the moment" to which he replied with insults at the employee and hanging up. We were just waiting for him to call back so we could say "Sorry, we do not tolerate attacks on the staff" and hang up on him. He never rang back though...

[Pepz]

I really didn't read this thread yet, so pardon me if it's been mentioned already

www.customerssuck.com (www.customerssuck.com)

including my favourite poster Gravekeeperhttp://www.customerssuck.com/board/showthread.php?t=37581, who really gets all the wackies from the US and Canada :smallsmile: enjoy