For those who work in call centers...

[Eevie]

So mom and I were driving along with a music station on the radio. Between songs, a listener called in and she and the deejay started talking about her call center job. He simply asked one question of her;

"What was the craziest thing that you've been called for recently?"

Her answer? A little old lady who called in about her tv. She thought she was allergic to it. She apparently raised such a stink that they ended up sending a tech out.

Mom and I just laughed. Dad works in a call center, so this was just all too familiar.

Anyone have similar stories?

[raudf]

Hubby's in a call center job, telco at that. He had a doozie of a lady who thought that two employees (which she named, but weren't in HIS call center) were messing with her account. How did she know? They were communicating what they were doing to her.. telepathically.

One of his co-workers said he should have asked her if she had any tinfoil in the house..

[ComputerNecromancer]

A friend works in the call center (customer service, not tech support) for a cable company.

The two biggest ones? "Why do I have to pay? I haven't watched TV all month." And then there are the folks who are calling about a bill and claiming they shouldn't have to pay because they moved (without calling to terminate the service).

The "I haven't watched anything" ones aren't too bad. She finally found that comparing it to the telephone works. "It's like your phone. You aren't paying for calls. You are paying to b *able* to make calls."

The folks who fail to cancel the service are usually pretty hopeless. "But I haven't lived there for two months!"

"You didn't tell us to turn off the service, so we still provided it. So you still owe us. Also, where's the cable box that you should have turned in?"

[Jay 2K Winger]

Being that The Client's IT call center ONLY takes calls from Client users, I don't get too many of the really crazy ones.

Probably one of the stupidest was the one my co-worker "Wah" got, asking how to turn off the computer.

[MoonCat]

Wow. Where do I start?

There's the woman who used to place big, expensive, incredibly wordy conspiracy ads about how she'd been kidnapped, raped, etc., etc. (she even gave the name & phone number of a cop that she said would validate her story; we called him. He was a real cop. He said there was no truth to her story and if she used his number in an ad again, he would sue her).

There was the who guy wanted to place an ad stating that he wanted to buy human feces; the various crazies who used to leave long, rambling voicemails about charities they claimed were "gay organizations", or that the government was persecuting them and the paper should write a story about it; or the old lady who claimed that "Indians" who "lived under the ground" were messing up her yard by throwing garbage all over. My favorite was a regular advertiser who said he was really from another planet, and would place ads that were partly in words and partly in numbers.

I could tell more stories but some of them are current customers.

[PepperElf]

"You didn't tell us to turn off the service, so we still provided it. So you still owe us. Also, where's the cable box that you should have turned in?"

Why is this so hard to figure out? Hell the last time I canceled service (cable internet) ... not only did I owe them nothing, they even gave me money back! All because I canceled service and brought them the box within the week or so.

Heck I even sidestepped their attempt to retain me by saying that I was moving, and that they didn't exist in the area I was moving to. (they do now, but back then they didn't)

and if she used his number in an ad again, he would sue her

Not to mention press charges I suppose.

[Eevie]

Dad told me two stories of his. For this first one, just know that my family's last name is rather unusual, not too embarrassing, but it's certainly not a name that you hear very often.

Dad was on the phone with a woman and he goes through the opening spiel. But as soon as he says his name....

SC: Wait, wait, wait, THAT'S your name?

Dad: Well, yes. Yes, it is.

SC: I wouldn't marry you with that name even if you paid me!!!

Dad: Well, lucky for me someone did without a bribe...


Then there was an old man who was sure the world was ending and how it was all the fault of Obama, and how mankind was doomed. I'm not sure how Dad responded to that one...

[Grendus]

I worked in a university call center soliciting donations (I was young and needed the money), so most of the people were either relatively normal or didn't want to talk to us (usually both). I did get a few crazies though.

One man went on a fifteen minute tirade about how we needed to "march down to *state capital*" about them reducing funding for the university. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for education funding, and he had a few valid points, but WTF did he expect me to do? I don't even have the authority to email people! I had to do a closing shpiel when he stopped to take a breath, and left a warning comment for the unfortunate who gets him next year.

One of my coworkers had a prospect tell her about the streaker riots on campus back in the day. Apparently back when streaking was popular, the school decided that it would be easier to compromise than crack down and told the streakers that they could go run and dangle in one of the back parking lots. This was all good and well until, for some reason, the police decided to put an end to it (I forget why). What should have been an easy assignment turned into an all out brawl between the cops in riot gear and... a bunch of naked college students. Even better was only being able to hear her side of the conversation - "Wait... they were all naked?"

A truly terrifying number of prospects actually asked out/propositioned the female callers. I suspect that was just a ruse to get them off the phone (though tbh all you had to do was ask and we'd take you off the list, it wasn't that big a deal), but it was still really creepy.

[Sapphire Silk]

I've had hospice patients call insisting they are with our hospice when in fact they are with another hospice organization; we can't give medical advice to people who aren't our patients.

We also had problems with one young man who was a drug addict who would call begging us to call in a prescription for narcotics to the pharmacy for him. Which we couldn't do because 1) he was not our patient, and 2) we can't call prescriptions for narcotics in over the phone, the physician has to fax them in on a special form.

[MoonCat]

Not to mention press charges I suppose.

Oh hell yeah. He was pissed. A very large national newspaper had accepted and printed an ad from her that used his phone number (she wanted people to contact him with information about her "case"). Apparently they don't bother to verify things like that, or didn't at that time, anyway.

This woman is seriously scary. She's one of the few people that don't sound crazy until you listen to her for a while. Usually, after so many years at this job, I can sense a nutcase from the word "hello." Not with her.

[Nurian]

Let me see:
As a supervisor at <government agency> I was informed the caller was going to have me thrown out of office (hint: I was NOT an elected official). This happened 3 times.

On night shift, we used to get this one guy who would call and ask for numbers we provided. He would only listen to the women though. And he wanted them to say "OH" instead of zero.

Another creeper wanted our female colleagues to describe their feet.

One guy would call up and just spout a conspiracy theory for an hour then hang up.

I got to talk to a celebrity of sorts. A member of the Regents (old doo-wop group from the 50s) called and we talked for a bit. I knew it was him as he gave me his social security number at the beginning of the call (as was the process). He even sang over the phone a bit

[RedRoseSpiral]

Not my story, but one of my coworkers at Convergys was working in the Mercedes Benz department when this little old lady called in wanting to know how to get the title to her car because she had a buyer who was already in possession of the car. Only problem was she rented the car and had no right to sell it. After an hour of being explained to why she can't sell the car, the old woman disconnected after threatening to call her lawyer because she knows her husband bought her that car.