Go Ape refusing refund

Thinking back on working in customer service, I remember one call that did make me cry.

I hadn't cried when people had told me I was useless, told me they'd get me fired if I didn't do what they said, or told me they would come in and hit me.

Those calls got me very stressed but I didn't cry.

I remember the one call that did make me cry.

A woman rang in about her friend. She said that her friend had signed up to a joint account for something with us with her husband. They had now broken up and the woman in the couple, wanted to get off the account.

I told the friend that the woman would need to ring in to us herself, and I would talk to her about her account.

Ther friend said "but she has already gone in once and been told that they won't take her off the account".

That didn't sound right to me, because we wouldn't just say to someone "no you can't ever get off a joint account"

I asked a few more questions and she said that the woman was told that she couldn't come off the joint account because the account was in debt.

I said oh, and explained it. I said "OK so all she needs to do is just pay the balance of the debt that she owes, and then when the balance is back at zero, she can then remove herself from the joint account. It just won't allow her to remove herself while their account is in debt.".

That was company procedure.
It makes sense right?

The woman who rang in went into a rant. She started screaming at me. She said

"my friend has just found the strength to leave her abusive partner. And she wants to get off this account with him!

You won't let her! You are facilitating abusive men! You are an abuser yourself! I'm going to go to the radio and tell them how your company allows abusive men to abuse women, and you want women to be abused!!!! YOU'RE A DISGUSTING ABUSER YOURSELF. IM going to go to the radio, give womens rights organisations your name. YOU'RE DISGUSTING "

I wasn't taking that from her. I'd taken lots of abuse over the phone, but I wasn't going to be told that I want women to be abused.

I said "Excuse me, Im not facilitating abusive men. I'm trying to help you to tell her what she can do".

She did, after ranting for ages, eventually say to me "OK well not you personally".

She ranted on for ages. At the time we werent allowed to hang up on people unless they swore at us. When she hung up I did cry.

If you actually read the thread, after OP had gotten her result, several of us had moved on and were talking about what it was like to work in customer services.

So my point was in regard to that conversation.

I never said that the OP made phone calls.

If you actually read the thread, after OP had gotten her result, several of us had moved on and were talking about what it was like to work in customer services.

So my point was in regard to that conversation.

I never said that the OP made phone calls.

You sound like you could be projecting your past experiences into this scenario - no one has been shouting down the phone at anyone. You're comparing apples with oranges.

Thinking back on working in customer service, I remember one call that did make me cry.

I hadn't cried when people had told me I was useless, told me they'd get me fired if I didn't do what they said, or told me they would come in and hit me.

Those calls got me very stressed but I didn't cry.

I remember the one call that did make me cry.

A woman rang in about her friend. She said that her friend had signed up to a joint account for something with us with her husband. They had now broken up and the woman in the couple, wanted to get off the account.

I told the friend that the woman would need to ring in to us herself, and I would talk to her about her account.

Ther friend said "but she has already gone in once and been told that they won't take her off the account".

That didn't sound right to me, because we wouldn't just say to someone "no you can't ever get off a joint account"

I asked a few more questions and she said that the woman was told that she couldn't come off the joint account because the account was in debt.

I said oh, and explained it. I said "OK so all she needs to do is just pay the balance of the debt that she owes, and then when the balance is back at zero, she can then remove herself from the joint account. It just won't allow her to remove herself while their account is in debt.".

That was company procedure.
It makes sense right?

The woman who rang in went into a rant. She started screaming at me. She said

"my friend has just found the strength to leave her abusive partner. And she wants to get off this account with him!

You won't let her! You are facilitating abusive men! You are an abuser yourself! I'm going to go to the radio and tell them how your company allows abusive men to abuse women, and you want women to be abused!!!! YOU'RE A DISGUSTING ABUSER YOURSELF. IM going to go to the radio, give womens rights organisations your name. YOU'RE DISGUSTING "

I wasn't taking that from her. I'd taken lots of abuse over the phone, but I wasn't going to be told that I want women to be abused.

I said "Excuse me, Im not facilitating abusive men. I'm trying to help you to tell her what she can do".

She did, after ranting for ages, eventually say to me "OK well not you personally".

She ranted on for ages. At the time we werent allowed to hang up on people unless they swore at us. When she hung up I did cry.

I think you're a bit naive if you think what she showed us here, is the actual emails that she sent them

Give over.

If someone is crying over the type of emails OP was sending they need a strong word about resilience. She wasn't rude or personal.

BTW I worked in banking complaints for 6 years, yes I did cry when a man clearly having a psychotic break told me it was MY fault he was going to get his fingers broken, MY fault his wife had murdered his children, MY fault the mafia was after him; in fact, practically all the ills of the world were apparently my fault because I couldn't resolve a complaint the way he wanted. He had my name and as at the time I was the only person in the country with that name, he could have found me.

But sure, repeated emails saying "I'm not happy with this outcome" are the same

Give over.

If someone is crying over the type of emails OP was sending they need a strong word about resilience. She wasn't rude or personal.

BTW I worked in banking complaints for 6 years, yes I did cry when a man clearly having a psychotic break told me it was MY fault he was going to get his fingers broken, MY fault his wife had murdered his children, MY fault the mafia was after him; in fact, practically all the ills of the world were apparently my fault because I couldn't resolve a complaint the way he wanted. He had my name and as at the time I was the only person in the country with that name, he could have found me.

But sure, repeated emails saying "I'm not happy with this outcome" are the same

That is a very hollow victory. They gave you 50% to get rid of you. Maybe for the future you could remember that what you give out as assertiveness can be perceived or received by others as unacceptable bullying. People have probably cried because of your emails.

Exactly this. No they shut at 6:30 and my slot was 1630 -18:30

I'm also laughing that she believes that it was a 'Senior' that she spoke to.

When I worked in customer service, if someone insisted on speaking to the manager,

I would get one of my other colleagues (who was at the exact same level as me) to come over and pretend to be a manager.

We had been told by the actual manager to do this.

Your post on trip advisor is bloody obvious it's you.....

Do they know they are being discussed like this on here.

All publicity is good though for business.
You gave them free advertising.

I don’t think anyone has cried … apart from my kids. These
are professionals running a business and admitted their wrong doing and we came to a conclusion, the chat I had with the Senior was very respectful on both parts and a shared interest in getting in right for kids with additional needs. If someone hasn’t done their job properly and needs retrained, that doesn’t mean they will be upset, just that they need more training which is on the organisation. At no point did I personally bully, harangue or intimidate any one member of staff. It was a corporate response and it’s been concluded 🤷‍♀️

Of course you can't lie to an autistic kid and tell them everything is as expected. But your attitude to things as a parent of ND kids and how you deal with them and what you model in these situations does matter. Both things can be true.

I am absolutely guilty of having overreacted to things in the past and catastrophised and I know in my bones how it feels to an autistic nervous system to have to deal with the goal posts unexpectedly shifting. It's a horrible feeling, like the ground is sinking under you. However, I had to learn to manage that for the sake of my kids. I had to learn to ground myself, remind myself that even though I felt awful in that moment, I was still safe, and I learned to remain calm and not mirror my dysregulated child's energy. We can explain needs and people will usually try their best, but the world cannot be free of these kinds of things happening. I wanted my kids to have a mum who could cope with things going wrong and be their safe person in those situations when others don't get it right.

If we want others to give us and our kids grace when we don't react as people might expect, or move through the world differently, we also need to remember to give others that same consideration when they get it wrong. Too much of the contemporary ND movement feels adversarial and judgemental about "typicals" or indeed anyone who doesn't always know the exact right things to say and do.

Your post on trip advisor is bloody obvious it's you.....

Do they know they are being discussed like this on here.

All publicity is good though for business.
You gave them free advertising.

Think this is going round in circles here as understandly people can’t read every comment as there are so many! Going to take the sensible advice of asking for a 25% refund, will update when I get a response as appreciate the kindness and genuine help of many of you. Thank you.

As long as you believe all that, you will be happy. The problem is that many others don't. Just the fact that you use a capital S on senior tells me a lot about you. "I demand to speak to the manager!".

Well, the waiting list for initial assessment is two years round here. After that the waiting time for potential diagnosis is 18 months, so if you call 3 and a half years quick, then sure.

I don’t think anyone has cried … apart from my kids. These
are professionals running a business and admitted their wrong doing and we came to a conclusion, the chat I had with the Senior was very respectful on both parts and a shared interest in getting in right for kids with additional needs. If someone hasn’t done their job properly and needs retrained, that doesn’t mean they will be upset, just that they need more training which is on the organisation. At no point did I personally bully, harangue or intimidate any one member of staff. It was a corporate response and it’s been concluded 🤷‍♀️

But so many kids are neuro diverse these days.

Every child I know seems to have been diagnosed with ADHD/ apsergers/ on the autism spectrum..

Doctors seem quick to throw out the diagnoses these days.

Which is why many of us including me have said that she should ask for proportionate compensation rather than the full refund, because yes, there was a mistake made here. The key word being "proportionate".

I can't imagine OP's kids are completely unaware of her OTT "mama bear" approach to this, even if it is taking place by email.

I can see from an earlier update that the OP has now accepted that a proportionate refund is a more reasonable and realistic response, which seems sensible - she's clearly listened to some of the more middle ground voices on here.