Some phone calls escalate pretty quickly, especially when money is involved.

So, what would you do if a parent called screaming that you stole her money, even though the remaining camp balance was clearly outlined in deposit terms and reminder emails? Would you keep trying to calmly explain it to her? Or would you reach a boiling point and hang up on her?

In the following story, one customer service rep deals with this situation. Here’s how it played out.

Customer Threatens to Call Police on Me

This happened a few years ago, when I was working as a customer service rep for an athletic performance camp. We were a national camp with week-long camps across the country during the summer.

During the years I worked there, parents could hold a slot for their kids with a deposit that was roughly 1/4 the total cost of the camp until mid-May.

On a specific day in May, the total amount was due — either by bank deposit or, if the parent had put down the money with a credit or debit card, we’d take it out of their account.

Unfortunately, the volume of phone calls would increase when the money was taken.

We let parents know this at the time of deposit, as well as at three different time points, with two of those reminders coming one month and one week before.

On the day of the withdrawals, we got a lot of angry calls about why we’d taken money from them. Most customers were okay once they realized what was happening and laughed about not reading their emails.

I answered the phone to a Crazy Lady (CL) calling:

She refused to give her name.

Me: “Hello, this is PsychEndurance, with SportsCompany. Who am I speaking with today?”

CL: “YOU STOLE MY MONEY.”

Me: “Ma’am, if you can give me your name, I’d be happy to help you, and I can assure you, no one here stole your money.”

CL: “I WONT GIVE YOU MY NAME. YOU TOOK MY MONEY.”

Then, she asked for the address.

By this time, I had reverse-searched her phone number and found her account.

Me: “Hi, CrazyLady. I see here we did, in fact, take the remaining balance out of your account, and sent three emails to the email address on file.”

CL: “WHAT’S YOUR ADDRESS?”

Me: “*gives company PO address*”

He’s still waiting for the cops.

CL: “NO, I WANT YOUR ADDRESS. I’M CALLING THE POLICE ON YOU. THEY’RE ON THEIR WAY. I’M SUING YOU FOR EVERYTHING YOU’RE WORTH!”

Me: “…You’re welcome to the $50 in my checking account. I’ll be waiting for the police to show up.” *Hangs up*

She was the only customer I ever straight up hung up on… and I’m still waiting for the cops to show up.

Eek! She deserved that.

Let’s check out how the folks over at Reddit feel about customers like this.

This reader was told how to handle it.

That was a pretty dumb thing to do.

Here’s what this person would’ve said.

For this person, the call would get transferred to client relations.

He handled it fairly well.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.