Many corporations certainly do employ people with terrible manners and social skills. Thanks for the new example.

Now we wait for the response from Capital One. I hope it is fun..

I've had nothing but excellent customer service from Capital One. Sorry to see someone provide such poor service.

Wow -- someone was really having a pissy day. And she seems to think she's totally justified in going off on a customer like that. Very unprofessional.

I would like to have heard the conversation before Miss Brown from Brooklyn 'went off.'

*Devil's Advocate Hat On*

While what the CSR said was certainly confrontational and a bit unprofessional, we're not hearing the whole conversation. It sounds to me like Steve's wife probably provoked the CSR to respond this way.

The CSR wasn't really "abusive" - she never swore, she never personally attacked the caller - it sounded like she was defending herself after dealing with an angry customer. Not only that, it seems like the CSR WAS attempting to help her becasuse the person she tried xfering the caller to was not in the office. The CSR's "tirade" was only about 10 seconds long and, at the end, she xfered the call to someone else.

Sorry, but we don't know the whole story and I kind of doubt Steve's wife is totally innocent in all this.

*Devil's Advocate Hat Off*

@faust1200:
Yeah I agree. Needless to say, there was something said to lead her to this ranting.

I dunno, I love big corporations getting ugly stains in their reportoir, but sometimes the customers themselves are the ones that can be the unreasonable &*$%heads.

@faust1200: No kidding. Something tells me that the customer got pissy to trigger such a response. And then sista called her out.

I didn't necessarily agree with the content of the rep's statements, but [the rep] seemed reasonably calm.

Capital One doesn't need poorly trained CSR's to loose customers, company policies and general business practices takes care of that.

@ancientsociety: She wasn't yelling or cussing, just terse. The thick NYC accent, deeper voice, and poor grammar doesn't help her sound charming in the first place. Maybe Steve's wife isn't used to hearing people who talk like that. Or her perceptions amplified what she was hearing.

The CSR seemed pretty calm to me, and it's true, her voice was the same througout. She did not yell, insult, provoke, or use even mild profanity. She seemed very logical and articulate.

I can only imagine the bitchy, whiny tone of the complaining wife. This article is totally one-sided and not worthy of Consumerist attention.

This reminds me about a call I had with First USA. They guy was being a jerk to me and I asked why. He then said that I was the jerk. I asked to be transferred to a supervisor but he said that was not possible. I called back and talked to a supervisor. She said he did not call me a jerk because if he did was supposed to put that in his notes. What an idiot, no one is going to put in the call notes they are breaking the rules.

Even if the CSR was provoked, her tirade (which seemed to last more than 10 seconds to me) seemed a little over-the-top and unwarranted. The CSR didn't raise her voice, but she became pretty hostile. And what was all that stuff about "Brown from Brooklyn" ? (Whenever I've called Capital One, I've gotten "Brown from Bangalore.")

The professional thing for this CSR would have been to put the caller on hold, take a breath, and then either handle the call (sans tirade) or transfer the call to someone who could handle it.

What's in your wallet?

Certainly not capital one...

Dude,
people take out their problems at the CSRs as though CSRs control policy of something. I wont buy this until i hear the other side of the conversation. From what the CSR said i can imagine the wife saying "i dont like the attitude youre giving me, the attitude in your voice"

This would piss me off if I was the CSR going out of my way to help someone.

Yeah, im being the devil's advocate here, it simply does not sound that bad.

Who stole my wallet?

Certainly capital one...

Wait, isn't 1 to the nth power still just 1?

Without hearing the beginning of the conversation it's hard to blast the CSR. They probably should have kept it at, "I'm not being short with you" but we have no idea what led up to this.

Regardless of whether the CSR acting correctly or not:

NO "verbal abuse" took place here.

She is saying "I'm from Brownsville, Brooklyn, NY" in her non-sweet, God blessed voice. My guess is Steve's wife is not used to be talked back to by "the help". I also think it is one sided and would like to hear what happened prior to the start of the recording.

Moments like these make me thank god I don't live in the northeast. I get my fill of the 'bricktown badasses' when I visit.

I'm not surprised - all of this from the same company where 5 customer service representatives, on at least 3 separate occasions, told me that I COULDN'T cancel my Visa and that keeping my Capitol One credit card active (even if I didn't use it!) would be GOOD for my credit and then hung up on me. I would have tallied up all of the hours I spent pleading with them to cancel my card, which had expired and a replacement was never sent in its place, because seeing it on paper would undoubtedly make me lose my mind. About 2 months after I thought the fiasco had ended, my replacement card with a current expiration date showed up in the mail.

Almost a year later, I still can't get off of their e-mailing list.

I've never dealt with so much frustration over a credit card in my life.

Spelling anyone? Yeesh.

Yeah, I've seen/heard/experienced better CSR lid blowing. This feels like the CSR was baited.

Sounds like a confirmed cased of BWA.

@bambino:

Hey, some of us are very nice, dammit!

it doesn't matter if the rep was baited or not--it's part of her job to handle customers the right way. she was rude, period.

It didn't sound like an appropriate exchange on the CSR's part to me. Might have been baited into it, but I have no way of knowing.

I do have an issue of having "God" brought up into any business conversation, no matter how small the reference. Save the speech for church.

"God blessed me with this voice.." Blah, blah..

God also blessed this person with their dismal CSR McJob too. I didn't hear that being praised.. How odd.

Is a brown an african american? Did I just learn some Brooklyn slang?

Certainly sounds to me like the CSR is an extremely offended person -- who knows what provoked this, she's certainly conveying that she's trying to help and didn't appreciate comments about her manner of speech. Of course she'll now get fired once Capital One gets the Google alert about a name mention.

@Naughty Consumer:

Agreed!

The CSR was rude and unprofessional but I didn't hear any "racial comments". It's not racist for the CSR to call HERSELF brown. It would be different if the CSR had made comments about the customer being white but that didn't happen. Also there is no context of what happened before the CSR got all angry.

That's rude?!? Steve and his wife should visit Brooklyn for a weekend. That's not rude. Sounds like she was sticking up for herself after some snippy, dame gave her attitude.

I'd like to hear a recording of what the CUSTOMER had said to the CSR to make her so upset. I have a feeling that the whole story is being presented here.

There are ways that a CSR should handle a customer being irate and there are ways a CSR should handle a communications problem...

I don't believe the customer was abused but rather the CSR wasn't being very helpful at all.

I don't think this offense alone should be worth losing a job, but rather maybe a meeting with the person to explain the different ways to handle customers and ways not to handle customers.

Capitol One sucks. So does posting edited/partial recordings where the customer service representative was obviously baited to elicit a negative response.

can i have back the two and a half minutes of my life i just lost please? obviously we don't hear the rest of the conversation, but that wasn't at all as described... i'd like to read more about a resolution to their problems with cap one.

Yeah, I agree with the majority of the posters on this one. It sounds like *something* pushed the rep over the edge and it would be very educational if we could have heard the entire conversation.

I've listened to this several times to try and figure out what the parts were that weren't transcribed. I couldn't make it all out, but the first bit sounds like she's saying basically that she was doing something to help the customer that she didn't have to do. The second part sounded like she said she had her own cases that she needed to work on to help others. Did anyone else make it out more clearly than that?

From what we were given, it seems to me (just my opinion, of course) that the rep was going out of her way to help the customer and she felt that she wasn't being appriciated. Plus it's clear the customer said *something* about her voice that offended the rep. I'm not saying that the customer said something over the top--I simply don't know since we didn't hear that part. I'm saying that it seems the rep interpreted it that way.

And I'm not saying the rep should have said what she did--simply explaining that her voice is like that all the time and she didn't mean any disrespect would have been enough--saying it as pleasantly as she could, of course. I'm just pointing out that it appears there is more to this story.

As to the start of the video, where we are told Steve's wife was abused and there were racial comments....I don't see what took place as abuse, but maybe Steve's wife is thin-skinned enough to where she honestly does feel that way. But unless I missed something--and I admittedly didn't understand part of what was said in the recording--the only racial remark the rep made was about herself, saying she was a brown from New York. Having the begining of the video state there were racial comments gets the viewer thinking that the rep was using racial epithets at Steve's wife. So Steve, if you are reading, I suggest snipping that part out. Having it worded that way ends up damaging your credibility.

Another devil's advocate here. I hate poor customer service as much as the next guy, but I've seen plenty of these "exposes" and I do sometimes wonder if they are faked. Just as counterintelligence is sometimes more valuable than intelligence, propaganda can be well designed by people who want Capital One to look bad and can be made to look like the real thing.

I don't know that that's what Steve is doing, but there's certainly enough in this case that's not provable, so I take it with a grain of salt.

I have no feelings, positive or negative, towards Capital One, except for their obnoxious commercials. What's in my wallet? Not Capital One.

@ancientsociety: That doesn't matter. You never, ever, EVER go off like that on a customer. CSRs are trained to be polite. My ex-husband has done work like that for years and he has let me know this when I've asked a few times.

This woman should be reassigned to a job where she doesn't have to interact with customers, or should be fired. She crossed the line.

Because of what she did, she personally lost her employer a customer.

As someone who is hearing-impaired, I personally think that anyone who complains when asked to speak up or try to be a little more clear or whatever should just freaking do it. Chances are there's a good reason you're being asked to.

@xskeptictankx: It is true that keeping a card active even if you don't use it does boost your credit score because available, unused credit is a good thing to the score algorithms; so are long-standing, long-term credit accounts.

However, you're the one who gets to dictate whether or not the account is closed. Demand that they close it, in writing, and cut up the card.

I refuse to pass judgment on a snippet of a telephone conversation played out of context.

She is not saying she is brown.

If you listen she is saying "I'm from Brownsville, Brooklyn, NY, OKAY."

The CSR went on a rant. Not professional but not abusive either. And not having heard the first part of the conversation makes it hard to judge the situation.

@Milesthecat:

"She is not saying she is brown.

If you listen she is saying 'I'm from Brownsville, Brooklyn, NY, OKAY.'"

No wonder she had a hard time being understood - Brownsville is where The Three Stooges are from.

I believe she called herself "a brown from New York". I'd call that racial. And yeah, that's being pretty nasty.

Correction, "Some brown from Brooklyn New York".

Nope. It is 'I'm from Brownsville, Brooklyn, NY, OKAY.'

Perhaps it is cause I am in Brooklyn, that I can understand the words through the God blessed attitude. I think she did just what Jesus would do. Hang up.

It is crystal clear to me that she is saying "I'm from Brownsville, Brooklyn, NY" -- sounds like Steve is the racist here.

I refuse to believe this couple's story without hearing the first part of the conversation.

Yeah, it's definitely Brownsville, etc. The tipoff is the fact that no human being has ever uttered the phrase "I'm some brown from Brooklyn, New York" in the history of mankind.

I've got to agree with the bulk of commenters who lament the enormous missing piece here. I understand that they weren't set up to record the call prior to this outburst, but at least tell us what really went down beforehand. Consumerist readers are not going to be duped by the type of story that goes, "I was innocently seeking help and SUDDENLY THIS HAPPENED!"