Me - "Welcome to Health Insurance Inc, how can I help you?"

Stupid Customer - "Your automatic payment line told me to come here"

*silence*

Me - "Oh...okay. Did it...um...I'm sorry. Just to clarify ma'am, because our payment line is fully automated - when you say it told you to 'come here', what exactly do you mean by that?"

Stupid Customer - *sigh* "I tried to pay my bill, so I'm TRYING to give you people money, and it said there was an error and I had to call this number to get it resolved. I better be getting a months free premium on my policy for this, it's a massive inconvenience that your systems are broken like this! I'm just trying to do the right thing and pay my bill here!"

Me - "Okay ma'am. So when you say it said there was an error, what was the exact error message being given so I can have a look into this for you?"

Stupid Customer - "It didn't say anything, it just said there was an error and I had to call you. I had better be compensated for this"

Ah-huh. At this stage I am calling bullshit every which way. Why? out automated system is set in a way where you key in details and that's it. There is no 'voice' going on about 'errors' and all this crapola. If the system is down, you can't dial through at all. Simple.

Me - "Hmmmm. That sounds very unusual ma'am. I mean, as far as I'm aware our payment system doesn't have the function of a voice-over..."

*interrupting me*

Stupid Customer - "LOOK it said there was a f*cking error so you gonna fix it or what? Or are ya' stupid or somethin', huh?"

Me, now deadpan - "What was your membership number?"

Stupid Customer - "I dunno, I gotta go grab it, how come you need it?"

Me - "The 'error' that you're talking about is not one that I have ever heard of before ma'am, I was not aware it existed, therefore to try and pinpoint the problem I'm going to have to log into your account and view the activity log, that may indicate to me where things are going wrong"

Stupid Customer - "Fine, whatever"

*She gives me her membership details. I log in...read the activity log...and with a HUGE smile go back to the line and say in the MOST polite, sweet-as-pie voice I can muster...*

Me - "Thanks for holding there ma'am. So I can see here that you actually dialled the payment line several times in the past few minutes, and each time made it through to the payment section when you enter your credit card details. It shows here that each time you did that, your card was declined, at which point you disconnected the call on your end. There are no errors recorded - all that's happened here ma'am is you called our payment line several times and then hung up each time your card was declined. As such I'm sorry but there is no error with our systems, you are not entitled to any form of compensation. You are welcome to make payment on your policy once your credit card issue has been resovled on your end"

Stupid Customer, muttering - "Bitch"... *CLICK*

Ah-huh.
Now that's what I call OWNED.