Nowadays, most people know you can’t give out sensitive information on the phone, due to the increasing number of scams.

But this story is from a while ago, and apparently, most people were okay with it.

Except for one woman who made this call center agent regret calling her.

Let’s see what happened.

Never Call You Again? Okay, Done.

About a dozen years ago, I was working in a banking call center.

The company was informed of some governmental change that required us to have a tax ID number for everyone with our business credit card account and we had some ridiculously short timeframe to be in compliance.

There were tens of thousands of accounts with this ID missing (it hadn’t been previously required).

A big group of us were given lists of customers and told to call them and ask for the tax ID number.

It was supposed to be as simple as a question and an answer.

If they had it, we added it to the account and all was well. If they didn’t have it, we were to switch them to a consumer (non-business) card.

If they didn’t want that, we’d cancel on the spot.

Due to the short timeframe for compliance, the customer had to tell us on the call which they preferred.

It was straightforward enough, but it required a lot of calls and, often, persistence.

Another nifty caveat was that were were only making TWO calls and were not leaving messages (we couldn’t drag this out waiting for people to eventually call us back).

If we got the person on the first call, we were done.

If we still didn’t get them on the second call either, the account was auto cancelled.

This sounds like a horrible job to do, but it was actually going really well.

99% of the people I called were happy to comply or switch accounts.

Everything was going well, so far.

Then I called Karen.

The phone rang and rang and I was about to hang up when I heard that pause and double ring that tells you the call was forwarded, so I waited.

Karen: WHAT?!! (I could hear background noise like she was out in public)

Me: Hi, this is Jane Doe with XXX bank and –

Karen: Why the **** are you calling my cell phone?! Are you ******* stupid? I’ve told you people to NEVER call this number!

She wasn’t even willing to let her get one sentence in.

Me: I didn’t, the call was —

Karen: OMG, now you’re going to LIE to me? Pay attention, NEVER CALL ME AGAIN! I use your credit card for EVERYTHING and pay it, so you have NO reason to call me! Got it!?

Me: Yes, but –

Phone disconnects.

She decided to do just as she was told.

Malicious compliance kicks off.

Okay, so I spoke to you (maybe a dozen words), you didn’t provide your tax ID, and I can’t call you back because you said to NEVER do that.

Next button? “Cancel.”

Notes? “Customer did not provide the tax ID and demanded we never call her again.”

I really, really, really hope she was out shopping and had fun when her card was declined at the next store.

I guess both of them could have communicated better.

People were not pleased about this malicious compliance story.

A reader wonders.

A commenter shares their point of view.

Another reader chimes in.

This person sounds upset.

Some things to consider.

This person disagrees with her approach as well.

People are more aware of scams nowadays.

Maybe this ‘Karen’ was ahead of her time.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.