Okay, first of all, she's been a customer since 2008. We really don't consider that to be such a long time, but whatever. Then I click on her account history and it shows that she's been 30 days late once and 60 days once. Unfortunately the system doesn't specify WHEN, so I have to go through her account, statement by statement, since 2008.
At first I didn't see anything because I was scanning for late fees and there were none. So I was all set to file the credit bureau dispute for her. Even though I apologized for the mistake, she kept yelling at me about how she can't believe we did this to her, going on and on, and then she lets slip the exact dates that were reported. I offer to check again, thinking I'll send her copies of those statements to prove that there wasn't a late payment, and lo and behold, what do I find?
She was over 60 days with her payment on this account! Somehow she was never charged a late fee for either billing cycle, which is why I missed it the first time around.
Now she's going on about how this is all our fault, she must have never received her statements, maybe she was out of the country at the time so how would she have known? I'm not even going to get into the fact that the bill is due on the same day each month, which has not changed since she opened the account in 2008. If you're going to be out of the country, it's your responsibility to make arrangements to have your bills paid while you're gone!
Despite having found that the account was actually paid late, she keeps insisting that I need to remove this from her credit report. Because she's been such a great customer for so many years and it's not fair that we're ruining her credit over $55! Um, okay...
I tried to explain to her that there's nothing I can dispute. Her payments were reported correctly. The information on her account is correct. She insists on speaking with a manager who can "fix this." Right, because a manager is going to file a false report for you? All that's going to happen is that the dispute will be denied once they review your account history!
Unfortunately, we have a policy that if a customer demands to speak to a manager or supervisor, we are required to escalate the call. Guess what I discovered while I was waiting to transfer that call? A very detailed comment from the rep who spoke to her the day she made that late payment.
This customer was fully aware of the fact that her payment was over 60 days late!
