Tweet
Hello all! I've been waiting for a good story to pop up at work as my first post since joining, and I think I've finally got one!
As background, I'm a supervisor at a call center for a voluntary membership organization. Without going into too much detail, we have a few hundred thousand members who pay annual dues to us, all due on the exact same date. This date hasn't changed in YEARS, and it's printed all over the place on our website and dues bills, so our members have no excuse for being surprised by it (and yet somehow manage anyway...). Due to the nature of our organization, it is very common for our members' employers to pay their employees' dues.
This week we received a letter from one of our members, who I'll call Delusional, stating that he was upset about getting a recent renewal notice. He said his company sent a check for his dues way back in December, which was never applied to his account. He quit the company shortly after they sent in his check, and now he wanted us to apply the money from that check to his account.
One of my specialists did a little research into the check, since we automatically refund checks after a few weeks if we can't apply them to an invoice for whatever reason. This check couldn't be applied because we don't generate quotes for membership renewals until May, so there was nothing to apply the check to back in December when we got it. It turns out we sent a refund check to the company in early January, but they never cashed it. Since it's been 6 months, we voided our refund check, and will be sending a new one shortly.
Since the guy told us he doesn't work for this company anymore in his letter, and we had already proceeded to the refund stage ages ago anyway, I told my specialist to call Delusional to tell him that we can't apply his former employer's money to his dues renewal unless we get a letter from them authorizing the payment. There's no way in heck we're going to open that can of worms by using a company's money to pay for Delusional's membership 6 months after he stopped working for them unless they tell us it's cool.
Delusional FLIPPED OUT, and demanded to speak to a supervisor. I wasn't there at the time, so my fellow supervisor Awesome Supervisor (AS) took the call:
Delusional: Your employee just told me that she can't apply a check that my old company mailed to you for my dues back in DECEMBER unless I get a letter from them. That is ridiculous! I didn't leave on great terms, and there's no way I'm contacting them about this.
AS: I'm sorry to hear that, sir. However, since you have told us that you no longer work for the company that issued the check, we cannot apply their funds to your membership renewal without their authorization, especially not this long after the check was initially sent.
Delusional: Well, it's not my fault that you didn't apply the funds back when my company sent the check! You shouldn't have cashed the check if you weren't going to use it!
AS: Unfortunately, renewal invoices for each new membership year are not generated until May, and we aren't able to hold on to funds for that long. It is our policy to cash all checks sent to us upon and receipt, and refund them within 3 weeks if we are unable to apply them to an invoice.
Delusional: Well the company obviously meant to pay my dues back in December, and if they haven't cashed the refund check yet, you still have the money. You should use that check for my dues!
AS: We can't do that sir. You were employed by that company in December when they wrote the check, but you aren't employed by them now. That check does not belong to you, it belongs to the company that wrote it, and they are the only ones authorized to make decisions on how their money is used.
Delusional: That's just ridiculous! You have a check that was written for my dues, and I'm not calling a company that I don't work for anymore!
The call pretty much went in circles from there; long story short, he's not getting what he wants. He demanded that my coworker talk to a manager about this and call him back, so I'm sure this is going to turn into a series of back and fourths. Unfortunately, while our managers give us full authority to deal with these escalations, we're not allowed to outright refuse requests to have things sent higher up the chain
As background, I'm a supervisor at a call center for a voluntary membership organization. Without going into too much detail, we have a few hundred thousand members who pay annual dues to us, all due on the exact same date. This date hasn't changed in YEARS, and it's printed all over the place on our website and dues bills, so our members have no excuse for being surprised by it (and yet somehow manage anyway...). Due to the nature of our organization, it is very common for our members' employers to pay their employees' dues.
This week we received a letter from one of our members, who I'll call Delusional, stating that he was upset about getting a recent renewal notice. He said his company sent a check for his dues way back in December, which was never applied to his account. He quit the company shortly after they sent in his check, and now he wanted us to apply the money from that check to his account.
One of my specialists did a little research into the check, since we automatically refund checks after a few weeks if we can't apply them to an invoice for whatever reason. This check couldn't be applied because we don't generate quotes for membership renewals until May, so there was nothing to apply the check to back in December when we got it. It turns out we sent a refund check to the company in early January, but they never cashed it. Since it's been 6 months, we voided our refund check, and will be sending a new one shortly.
Since the guy told us he doesn't work for this company anymore in his letter, and we had already proceeded to the refund stage ages ago anyway, I told my specialist to call Delusional to tell him that we can't apply his former employer's money to his dues renewal unless we get a letter from them authorizing the payment. There's no way in heck we're going to open that can of worms by using a company's money to pay for Delusional's membership 6 months after he stopped working for them unless they tell us it's cool.
Delusional FLIPPED OUT, and demanded to speak to a supervisor. I wasn't there at the time, so my fellow supervisor Awesome Supervisor (AS) took the call:
Delusional: Your employee just told me that she can't apply a check that my old company mailed to you for my dues back in DECEMBER unless I get a letter from them. That is ridiculous! I didn't leave on great terms, and there's no way I'm contacting them about this.
AS: I'm sorry to hear that, sir. However, since you have told us that you no longer work for the company that issued the check, we cannot apply their funds to your membership renewal without their authorization, especially not this long after the check was initially sent.
Delusional: Well, it's not my fault that you didn't apply the funds back when my company sent the check! You shouldn't have cashed the check if you weren't going to use it!
AS: Unfortunately, renewal invoices for each new membership year are not generated until May, and we aren't able to hold on to funds for that long. It is our policy to cash all checks sent to us upon and receipt, and refund them within 3 weeks if we are unable to apply them to an invoice.
Delusional: Well the company obviously meant to pay my dues back in December, and if they haven't cashed the refund check yet, you still have the money. You should use that check for my dues!
AS: We can't do that sir. You were employed by that company in December when they wrote the check, but you aren't employed by them now. That check does not belong to you, it belongs to the company that wrote it, and they are the only ones authorized to make decisions on how their money is used.
Delusional: That's just ridiculous! You have a check that was written for my dues, and I'm not calling a company that I don't work for anymore!
The call pretty much went in circles from there; long story short, he's not getting what he wants. He demanded that my coworker talk to a manager about this and call him back, so I'm sure this is going to turn into a series of back and fourths. Unfortunately, while our managers give us full authority to deal with these escalations, we're not allowed to outright refuse requests to have things sent higher up the chain
They were very grateful for the notification that we tried to send them a refund check, and will be on the lookout for it when we reissue it this time around.
Comment