I found a job working at a local call center that handled
cell phone service for a major U.S.
cell phone cArrier’s business cusTomers. These were cusTomers who got a deal on
their phone through their job, or had a corporate phone and etc. Some of these
were small, some were serious business major corporation CEOs and their
families sort of thing. I had a feeling something was off when in order to work
there I had to pass a drug test but not a background check. I passed with
flying colors and started my training class. My first instructor would put on
random instructional videos and then text on his phone, after a week and a
half, he was fired. So we moved on to another instructor who would teach us
something for an hour, then go outside to smoke and bullshit for an hour.
Basically, I didn’t learn much and spent a lot of time
outside bullshitting. It was through this process that I discovered that I was
a minority working here since I did not have a criminal record. Nearly
every single one of my classmates had criminal records, usually drug related,
but some were more serious such as embezzlement, theft, vandalism, and being
retarded. Now stop and think about that for a second, these people were calling
in to find out about their account information and providing personal
information over the phone to CONVICTED FELONS and/or UNSAVORY, UNTRUSTWORTHY
ASSHOLES. I’d offer to look up someone’s account based on their mobile number and
confirm their identity using things like Date of Birth, passwords, or last 4 of
their SSN (the rest was blanked out). Some of these customers would begin
willingly offering me their ENTIRE SSN to look them up by. Anyhow, a lot of
other bullshit happened there such as two people snorting crushed up vicodin in training class, people showing up for work on Meth, and arriving to find my
usual desk was being used and there wasn’t a single spare headset in the
building to use to even start working. I clocked in via my phone so I couldn’t
even start earning money for doing nothing.
Eventually I got a job working at the call center for a major U.S. bank, I can’t tell you Which
onE since I am reveaLing their intimate business practices. I had to pass a background check to work
there, but not a drug test. This was
a surprisingLy efficient approach and while many of my co-workerS smoked absurd
amounts of weed, none of them struck me as criminal types or meth users. Let me
give you some inside inFormAtion about banks and the banking industRy in General.
Here we gO. (Did you see what I did there?)
First of all, when your bank tells you they can’t do something, they are lying.
Seriously. Remember that time you said “well why can’t you just stop my card
from overdrawing my account?”
Canned response: “The infrastructure isn’t in place for us
to do that and/or we don’t want to stop your card in case you have an emergency
and need gas/Starbucks/burgers.” This is a total bullshit lie, the bank can stop your debit card anytime they want to, they can stop you from overcharging your account by even one cent if so inclined. There are only a few transactions that are “up in the air” until processed such as transactions made as Credit instead of Debit. Credit means that the amount is subject to change, Red Lobster tells the bank that you spent 47.26 on your meal but the tip could inflate that price. Same with gas purchases where you hit Credit, the gas station asks the bank for approval for 1.00 and then submits the full amount when you’re done. They don’t stop you because they want you to overdraw your account. Canned response: “It isn’t the Bank’s responsibility to manage your account.” That is a total asshole line and I’m guilty of using it.
Secondly, most banks but especially the bank that I W.orked
F.or used a marketing tactic known as “Cross-Selling,” this is where you sell
someone who is already your customer another product. Most businesses do this,
“iPod works great with iTunes!” You just got sold another Apple product. Even
if you never make a purchase through
the iTunes store you hold an inherent dollar value to Apple by installing and
using that product, because for everyone one person who doesn’t make a
purchase, three people probably will. Anyhow, when you call your bank and they
tell you they are pulling up your account information and their “computers are
so slow today!” or “your information is loading right now!” this is also
bullshit probably 90% of the time. Maybe once every three hundred calls I’d get
one that was slow to load, but most of the time your account is already up and
loaded. The reason for the delay is they are flipping through your assets, transactions,
opening your checks, and looking at where/how you spend your money. I’ll give
you an example.
Mr. Fells Wargo calls in and I give him the line about his
account loading slowly and ask how his day is going, time to go to work while
he runs his mouth for a few seconds. He has a checking account, does he have a
savings account too? Yes/No, refer him one! Does he make a lot of small purchases
at Starbucks or other fast food places? Yes/No, get him the rewards program for
check cards! Let me open this check written for over a thousand dollars, looks
like it is going for his rent/mortgage/car payment, get him to
refinance/renter’s insurance/car insurance/roadside assistance program! And
what’s this, he is making regular payments on credit cards with other
companies? Get him one through the bank and tell him to take a personal loan to
consolidate the debt on those other cards! He got some overdraft fees last
month, get him to open a second checking account, one for bills and one for
pleasure! (My personal favorite since you’re convincing someone to get a second
helping of something they can’t even manage one of.)This customer has just been referred or “cross-sold” on at least 6-10 different products, all through his bank, how convenient! Wrong. The bank gives not half a shit about your convenience, peace of mind or financial stability. They want to make money off you through fees and services.
Not only was this business practice encouraged, it was mandatory. If you were not telling that grandmother surviving
paycheck to paycheck in Omaha that she needed a credit card and to save money
by refinancing her house, you were getting into trouble for it. It isn’t enough
to just mention a product either, you were highly encouraged to “warm transfer”
them to a “Personal Banker.” Which is fancytalk for stick you on hold, bring
some asshole working on commissions from the Sales department on the line to
convince you to buy more shit. And by “highly encouraged” I mean if you didn’t
do a certain number of them per day, your boss called you into his
cubicle. There were “incentives” for
doing this, you could earn EXTRA money for referring enough products! But the standards
that you had to maintain in order to “Bonus” were impossible. Meaning, you may
have just made the bank 100,000.00 dollars but your calls were 27 seconds over
the average, ergo you don’t get your bonus money.
Now, how about fees? Overdraft fees, transfer fees, monthly
service fees, excessive transfer fees! The canned response is “well when you
overdraft your account, the bank is having to front that money for you, you’re basically taking an
unauthorized loan.” How sweet, they’re doing you a favor, they spotted you 2.00 for that soda you bought in
exchange for a 35.00 Overdraft Fee. Sounds fair! Now, when you ask for the fees
to be taken off because you’re already struggling financially, all bank
employees are trained and advised to offer you HALF of the fees back to see if
you take that. If the person (like me) decides to go ahead and reverse all your
fees, we get reprimanded and called into our boss or our boss’ boss’ office to
be lectured about giving out too much credit. (As if we were giving away the
bank’s money.) Here’s another one, when the bank tells you that they can’t
reverse a fee because of A. the Federal Reserve or B. some other bullshit
business practice/law this is entirely false. Fees go directly into the pocket
of the bank, they can reverse them at will for any amount.
Now here is the salt in the wound, if you bank with the bank
that I W.orked F.or, their processing order for paying out transactions,
meaning your checks/debit/credit/withdrawals everything is thus:
1.
Deposits. (They need you to have money before
they start paying things, as fun as it is to charge you fees they have to make
sure you’re somewhat good for it.)
2.
ATM Withdrawals. (This is any cash you went and
snagged out, the money is already gone and accounted for.)
3.
Highest dollar amount transaction.
4.
Second
highest dollar amount transaction.
5.
Third highest. (See the pattern here?)
Your paycheck goes in and all those bills start getting
paid, oops you ran out of money because the bank covered your rent, car,
groceries, utilities and such before
paying those nine times you bought yourself a burger off the dollar menu for
lunch or you splurged and got a Starbucks. This means that you just incurred nine fees of 35.00 each instead of one fee of 35.00 for your rent, or your
car, or any one of the other things that would have covered you.
Canned
response: “We process it this way to make sure that your important things are
paid first, we don’t want your car getting repossessed or your rent check to
bounce!” How nice of them! They paid the important
things first. They couldn’t be bothered to cover your small shit first and then
go ahead and spot you the last 30.00 on your rent and charge you the one fee? That’s correct.
Ultimately, the job became too much for me. The stress was
impacting my health and happiness, it isn’t easy dealing with people screaming
at you, getting bitched out by your boss for reversing too many fees or not
referring enough products. This isn’t even mentioning the people who call you
crying because their account is totally fucked and they can’t afford food for
themselves, their pets, their children and you
get to tell them “tough shit” because if Quality Assurance catches you
reversing more fees or not offering up their bullshit canned responses they
will report it to your boss. Then the person asks to speak to a manager or
supervisor. Sure, let me put you on hold. Oh, did you think you were going to
talk to someone with authority? Nope. You just got the “Team Supervisor” which
isn’t actually a promotion, this guy/gal makes a little more money per hour to only take escalated calls, they can
reverse slightly more fees than normal people can (we could only do a certain
dollar amount) but they still have no real
power.
In addition to all this I witnessed people working there who
had been working for this company for decades
and they were content to stay. They said they loved working for that company
and it was so “great!” This is what ultimately drove me back to education, I wanted
to make something of myself that was not
a wage slave; gaining weight and having breakdowns from stress on my lunch
breaks. (A co-worker of mine actually collapsed
during one of his shifts from the stress and pressure placed on him by our
boss.)
Next week I’ll talk about my journey into education and all
the absurdly stupid things college kids say and do. I promise it will be
funnier than this one! See you Friday.
