Ever Worked In A Call Centre? Tell Your Funny Stories Here!

steo87 · 16-02-2009 09:00PM #1

I used to work over the phone for a bank doing debt-collecting....the funniest response I got from a customer was a simple, but very effective, "fúck off". So what are your funny stories/responses?

Ste

abi2007 · 16-02-2009 09:03PM

no thank god

DarkJager · 16-02-2009 09:05PM

The equal hatred I developed for every single customer to call me. Here's a newsflash: The customer isn't always right, in fact he's quite a ****ing wrong,deluded and arrogant little bastard most of the time. You haven't seen the full extent of retardation among the public until you've worked in a call centre, believe me.

Funny story though. I worked for a mobile operator once and some dickhead called me, screaming pure uncalled for abuse down the phone for about 3 minutes non stop. Once he calmed down, I offered to call around to his house (which was close by) and politely informed him that he could repeat the whole thing he had just said to my fist. Cue paniced calls to the supervisor and getting fired later that day. Felt damn good though

aoibhebree · 16-02-2009 09:08PM

Customer: I got my new SIM card in the post today, but my phone still isn't working

Me: Are you sure it's in the phone the right way round?

Customer: I'm meant to put it into the phone? How do I do that?

RATM · 16-02-2009 09:09PM

steo87 wrote: »

I used to work over the phone for a bank doing debt-collecting....the funniest response I got from a customer was a simple, but very effective, "fúck off". So what are your funny stories/responses?

Ste

Misleading thread title, I thought the OP had a funny story.

dr.bollocko · 16-02-2009 09:10PM

aoibhebree wrote: »

Customer: I got my new SIM card in the post today, but my phone still isn't working

Should have just said "No. It's not, You're right"
And then hung up.

Saruman · 16-02-2009 09:15PM

Been there and done that, best time of my life as it was Gateway Tech support and i got to play games all day and sometimes went a day without even getting a call. I was on the server/corporate market so it was pretty quiet and i dealt with IT admins mostly.

Anyway we had some characters like some ass of an ex Army General from the UK who had our number and should not have. He demanded to be called General whatever his name was. We had great fun calling him Mister whatever his name was before transferring him.

Oh one guy who worked with me was a big guy, ex boxer. He dared another guy to him him as hard as he could in the stomach (big stomach). Anyway the other guy took a few steps back and ran at him and the big guy bowled over in pain

We had another guy who did Freddie Mercury impressions and would jump up on the desk and pretend to sing. He got the facial expressions perfect!

We had a paperweight laptop i had some fun with. At first glance it looks real. I offered £50 (before €) to the ex boxer if he could take out the motherboard. Told him it was a new model. He spent an hour before he gave up.

I took the same paperweight when the manager was walking by and dropped it in front of her making sure she would see it. She was shocked and i just laughed at her, she had a sense of humor so i knew i would get away with it.

The one thing about the job was, everyone who was there will usually say that if Gateway ever came back that they would try get a job there again, even if they made less money as it was such a laugh.

steo87 · 16-02-2009 09:15PM

RATM wrote: »

Misleading thread title, I thought the OP had a funny story.

Twas funny to me! Well there was one where a customer pretended that I told him to fúck off.....I was on the phone to him one day and he was using abusive language so I informed him that I'm hanging up due to this.....hung up and that was that.

Next day the boss calls me....the same customer sent in a FOUR page email ranting and moaning, saying that I told him to fúck off and that I disrespected him....and the best bit - that he "...felt degraded".

Boss didn't believe a word of it.

DarkJager · 16-02-2009 09:19PM

Saruman wrote: »

Been there and done that, best time of my life as it was Gateway Tech support and i got to play games all day and sometimes went a day without even getting a call. I was on the server/corporate market so it was pretty quiet and i dealt with IT admins mostly.

Anyway we had some characters like some ass of an ex Army General from the UK who had our number and should not have. He demanded to be called General whatever his name was. We had great fun calling him Mister whatever his name was before transferring him.

Oh one guy who worked with me was a big guy, ex boxer. He dared another guy to him him as hard as he could in the stomach (big stomach). Anyway the other guy took a few steps back and ran at him and the big guy bowled over in pain

We had another guy who did Freddie Mercury impressions and would jump up on the desk and pretend to sing. He got the facial expressions perfect!

We had a paperweight laptop i had some fun with. At first glance it looks real. I offered £50 (before €) to the ex boxer if he could take out the motherboard. Told him it was a new model. He spent an hour before he gave up.

I took the same paperweight when the manager was walking by and dropped it in front of her making sure she would see it. She was shocked and i just laughed at her, she had a sense of humor so i knew i would get away with it.

The one thing about the job was, everyone who was there will usually say that if Gateway ever came back that they would try get a job there again, even if they made less money as it was such a laugh.

Very true. Whatever can be said about the actual work in a call centre, the laugh and comraderie between the people working in it is very hard to match elsewhere.

Turd Ferguson · 16-02-2009 09:20PM

Me: Hello, welcome to ISP tech support

Idiot: I got my internet today and it's not working

Me: Ok, well how many lights are on the modem?

Idiot: All of them

Me: And whats on your computer screen?

Idiot: Computer? They never said I needed a computer when they sold me this. This is an outrage. I dont even know how to work computers. blah blah blah

It amazes me on a daily basis how stupid people can be.

Fiona4037 · 16-02-2009 09:24PM

Once while working in customer care in Eircom i got a call from an old man looking for a number of a local garage, i explained we weren't directory enquires and told him to ring 11811 (eleven-eight-eleven)

Half an hour later i got another call from the same man giving out that i'd given him a wrong number - he'd no number eleven on his phone

Saruman · 16-02-2009 09:36PM

I love how it took him 30 mins to realise that too

General Zod · 16-02-2009 09:42PM

I once had to fix a network issue for a dutch guy called Dik Doktor.

Saruman · 16-02-2009 09:45PM

Oh again in Gateway, a friend of mine got a call from someone unable to access a website... not exactly our problem as it was just one website. Anyway he humoured him for a moment and asked what website? It was www.dickcity.com

Pretty sure it was a different website back then than what is there now.

bronte · 16-02-2009 10:19PM

Saruman wrote: »

Anyway we had some characters like some ass of an ex Army General from the UK who had our number and should not have. He demanded to be called General whatever his name was. We had great fun calling him Mister whatever his name was before transferring him.

:eek: I had a guy demand the exact same thing when I did Vodafone uk customer support. What a feckin eejit! Wonder if it was the same guy!!
He used to put his elderly mother on the phone whenever I asked him to hold. Asswipe.

tony1kenobi · 16-02-2009 10:26PM

I worked in a call centre....It was funnier than Police Academy 6.......but not as funny as Police Academy 1 or 2.

JustAddWater · 16-02-2009 10:26PM

I had a woman once who gave out to me because we sold her wireless broadband yet she needed a wire to plug the router in

"But I have to plug it in, and that's a wire, so it isn't really wireless then is it"

I gave up trying to explain what wireless internet meant after a few minutes

Blush_01 · 16-02-2009 10:31PM

I worked in a directory enquiries call centre. Never had the funny stories from the office though. The nights out were good craic.

Prat Kenny · 16-02-2009 10:33PM

I'm forced to call some prat live on TV every Friday. Pain in the glutius maximus.

Washout · 16-02-2009 10:33PM

if a story today doesn't involve sleeping with Ur aunt it just isnt fnny

giggsy664 · 16-02-2009 10:40PM

DarkJager wrote: »

The equal hatred I developed for every single customer to call me. Here's a newsflash: The customer isn't always right, in fact he's quite a ****ing wrong,deluded and arrogant little bastard most of the time. You haven't seen the full extent of retardation among the public until you've worked in a call centre, believe me.

Funny story though. I worked for a mobile operator once and some dickhead called me, screaming pure uncalled for abuse down the phone for about 3 minutes non stop. Once he calmed down, I offered to call around to his house (which was close by) and politely informed him that he could repeat the whole thing he had just said to my fist. Cue paniced calls to the supervisor and getting fired later that day. Felt damn good though

Look no futher than www.notalwaysright.com

source · 16-02-2009 10:53PM

Worked for a mobile company in their call centre there was this one guy who used to call in everyday. one day a member of staff, put a note on his account saying that he had called to apologise for not calling the previous day lol.

same guy and myself used to bring in psp's and play GTA over wireless on the quiet days.

oh and there was the one time that a person called to ask me if they could change the name on the account from victor to victoria.....that was an interesting call.

oh and the chinese guy who called me racist because his phone was cut off.....he hadn't paid his bill in 3 months.

there was no shortage of idiots either, like the woman who was calling joe duffy because she could only get 2 bars of coverage in her house which was down the arse end of nowhere in kerry behind a mountain. oh and i also had a woman who couldn't figure out that the sim was needed in the phone to make a call, the phone was on the table and she was ringing the number on "the paper with the card on it" but it wasn't ringing,

16-02-2009 11:06PM

You always get nutters who call every day, usually several times. We had Hayden and some other English bloke who used to talk about football and any other random stuff.

I loved working in a call centre. I would have stayed if the money hadn't been so terrible. Great laugh.

Toots · 16-02-2009 11:07PM

While backpacking I worked for an Australian bank telemarketing accidental death insurance (yeah it was the best job ever :rolleyes:). Some of the customers were nice, but then lots were total assholes. There was an Irish guy working on my team, let's call him Aidan, and he was just cracked, I don't think I saw him in sober the entire time I worked there.

So one day he'd obviously called someone who was having a serious off day, cos this customer was just ripping him out of it on the phone. It was quiet in the office, so he put it on speaker for the rest of us to hear this loon screaming about how he'd fought on the beaches in Gallipoli so he'd have the freedom not to get calls from telemarketers

Anyhoo, he started demanding that Aidan give him a number to phone back. None of us knew what the number for the office was, as it was an outbound call centre, but worry not, Aidan picks up a copy of British Balls (backpacker magazine for those who don't know), and scans through to the escort adverts in the back. Called out one of the numbers for a 'massage parlour' to the customer, and then gave him a backup number (to a gay escort agency) to call in case he couldn't get through on that one.

We were all in convulsions with laughter, definitely the funniest thing that happened while I was there. Unfortunately for Aidan, he only lasted another two hours in the office before he got the sack.

lostexpectation · 17-02-2009 05:47AM

directories equiries has an up to date list of busines phone numbers

hahahahahhahahaha

silverharp · 17-02-2009 08:13AM

I worked for a motgage company years ago, so I could read the comments from the call centre on the accounts. The funniest I remember was a lady who was a fortune teller by profession who was in arrears, the agent had written " she hopes things will improve in the future , well she should know!"

Fratton Fred · 17-02-2009 08:29AM

Fiona4037 wrote: »

Once while working in customer care in Eircom i got a call from an old man looking for a number of a local garage, i explained we weren't directory enquires and told him to ring 11811 (eleven-eight-eleven)

No such thing.

There is a number at eircom that you can ring and have some halfwit give you a load of completely useless bull**** about how it will take 6-8 weeks to get your broadband installed though.

Berty · 17-02-2009 09:00AM

Oh I have soo many but some are very gruesome indeed. I used to action all death claims for an insurance company because the girls were too girlie to deal with death. 7 year olds dying of heartattacks, cancer etc. Very nasty.

Anyway. Had this woman call up the Insurance company telling me they caught the big fish, weighed it and now want to claim the prize. I said she must have the wrong number because this is an Insurance company and we dont give prizes for catching big fish. at this stage all the people around me started staring at me because its not the normal conversation you expect to hear your colleague having. She told me I was wrong and trying to con her out of the prize for the fish. I asked her to call back the number she was given. She started shouting at her husband to get fishermans weekly or some **** from the coffee table and called back MY direct line number from the magazine. That was an odd couple of weeks for me. BTW, some people caught really big fish.

I had a woman call to claim she wanted a refund on her credit card insurance because the item she bought was damaged. It was a debs dress for her daughter. I asked had it been worn, she said no so we asked her to post us the dress. When we got the dress it smelled of smoke and had a grass stain on the back of it. I called her and asked about what stain she reffered to. She said it was the grass stain. I said I would post back the item and possibly she should ask her daughter where the stain came from. We never heard from her again.

Some woman was trying to claim insurance for her husbands death and long story short had to post us hers husbands medical records which included the original birth certificates of her dead twins whom died at 3 weeks old. Everything was in order, we paid her claim and posted back her medical records to her GP. Oh no wait, bozo in the post room lost her medical records. We were sued for losing the only pieces of paper that proved the existence of her dead twins for the short existence on this world. Bloody post room monkeys :mad:

This is not funny but will never leave my memory. I had a heated discussion with a claimant telling him I would not pay for his sicnkess claim because he was claiming depression and his policy does not cover stress, depression or any phsyconeurotic condition. Two weeks later I was handed a death claim. He hanged himself. The coroners report said "Im sorry, ask Mr XX XXX in the insurance company." My fcking name !!!!

alexandros · 17-02-2009 09:23AM

Me: Thank you for calling Earthlink Technical Support; my name is Alexander, can I get your main e-mail address for the account in question please?

Idiot: No! This isn't about my internet.. my internet is fine. I need help with my computer.

Me: Alright sir; can I get your account e-mail for record keeping purposes?

Idiot: NO! HOW IS THAT IMPORTANT.. MY INTERNET IS FINE.

Me: Ok.. I understand. What seems to be the problem with your computer?

Idiot: I got a new Apple computer.. one of these box looking things.
I hooked it up and got it working ok.. I started to install some software and I can't get the CD out.

Me: What do you mean sir? The CD won't eject?

Idiot: THERE IS NO BUTTON.. TO TAKE OUT THE CD.. THE FUKCING HOLE FOR THE CD IN ON THE TOP OF THE BOX.. THERE IS NO BUTTON TO GET IT TO COME OUT. I TURNED THE DAMN THING UPSIDEDOWN AND SHOOK IT AS HARD AS I COULD.. NOTHING.. I TOOK A COAT HANGER AND TRYED TO FISH IT OUT BUT IT W O N T C O M E O U T.

Me: Alright sir, I think I understand; to eject the CD you just drag the icon of the CD that is on your desktop into the trash bin and the CD will eject.

Idiot: WHAT?!?

Me: (repeats everything slower. louder and dumber)

Idiot: THAT IS SO STUPID

Me: Did it work sir? Were you able to retrieve your CD?

Idiot: No. I have to turn my computer back on first.

Me: Alright sir.

Idiot: Hold on I have to put the phone down to get to the outlet under the desk.

Me: That is fine; I will wait.

Idiot: Stupid thing does not have a power button.

Me: Excuse me?

Idiot: THERE IS NO POWER BUTTON ON THIS DAMN THING. I HAVE TO UNPLUG IT FROM THE WALL EVERYTIME I WANT TO TURN IT OFF.

Me: The power button is on the keyboard sir.

(pause)

Idiot: (I assume he looks at the keyboard) FUKCING STUPID SHI** ****** *****...... I'M SENDING THIS FUKCING THING BACK. (hangs up)

Me (to myself): WOW! Apple computers are so easy to use that it’s actually confusing.

Three moths later the call center was shut down and a couple of thousand employees were laid off because all Customer Service and Technical Support functions were outsourced to India.

Sleipnir · 17-02-2009 09:29AM

Berty wrote: »

This is not funny but will never leave my memory. I had a heated discussion with a claimant telling him I would not pay for his sicnkess claim because he was claiming depression and his policy does not cover stress, depression or any phsyconeurotic condition. Two weeks later I was handed a death claim. He hanged himself. The coroners report said "Im sorry, ask Mr XX XXX in the insurance company." My fcking name !!!!

Bloody 'ell.

the_syco · 17-02-2009 10:20AM

Saruman wrote: »

Been there and done that, best time of my life as it was Gateway Tech support and i got to play games all day and sometimes went a day without even getting a call. I was on the server/corporate market so it was pretty quiet and i dealt with IT admins mostly.

Some things don't change :cool: Was on the home user market back in 2007: was great fun.

The customer is never right. And in most cases, the customer was ringing me cos they f**ked up and needed my help. That, or they dropped their laptop, and it cracked.

Funnist story: some loon broke their power adapter. Cool, says I, post it in, and we'll send out a new one. Do I need a box, they ask? No, I say, it's only the power adapter that is broken, so put the power adapter into a plastic bag, and mail it in. The loon posted their laptop (minus a power adapter) to us, in a plastic bag. It was smashed to bits. The loon could't figure it out, as it wasn't dmaged before he gave it to the couier (who was driving a van)... :rolleyes::D

Ever Worked In A Call Centre? Tell Your Funny Stories Here!

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