Wise Eyed Open - by Arun D Ellis - a compendium edition incorporating 'Helter Skelter', 'Power Grab' & 'Rust' - books 7, 8, & 9 in the series

Helpline

Dom was older than most of his colleagues; telephone 'helpline' was a young man's game, but at 45 he was glad of the employment. He had bills, responsibility, he was a 'stayer' and had seen, with some envy, many of his younger colleagues leave on a whim. One young man had gone in the company of the police, arrested for using the information obtained from customers wanting to use their card abroad to undertake burglaries of their conveniently empty homes. Dom had liked Russ and had been sorry to see him go.

He switched his phone to receive and began his day, "Hello Mrs Dingle, you're speaking to Dom, I see you wish to transfer some money from your savings account."

"Oh yes love," said the woman, an old lady's voice to match the D.O.B on the screen in front of him, "Can you tell me what I've got in there first?"

"Certainly, Mrs. Dingle," said Dom, dying a little inside, "er, you've got £1.18." He wondered briefly how she'd managed to evade capture and incarceration in the fallout from the OAPs' attack on Parliament. He decided it wasn't his business.

"Oh dear, not much is it," she said, clearly embarrassed, "still, it's more than I've got in my current account, can you transfer it for me, please?"

"Certainly, Mrs. Dingle," said Dom, trying not to sound too hearty, "there you go, all done, is there anything else I can help you with today?"

"No, that's all dear, you've been very helpful."

"You have a nice day now, Mrs. Dingle."

Dom wanted to rip off his head-phones and scream, do something, anything to get the old lady's predicament out of his head but he had another call and his response times were monitored. To make matters worse his next call had an indicator code number 1; high priority, meaning the caller had been pushed to the top of the queue because they were a big investor. He couldn't afford a momentary lapse on this one. He swallowed hard and got to it.

"Hello, Mr Howard, how may I help you?"

"You charged me for going over my overdraft." A voice used to commanding attention.

"Okay Mr Howard," said Dom, un-gritting his teeth with difficulty, "let me take a look at that for you."

"I don't want you to take a look at it, I want you to refund me. Furthermore, I demand compensation for the time I have wasted on this call."

"Okay," said Dom, speaking slowly, "well first of all, Mr Howard, we need to go through security...."

"No, we bloody well don't, you just need to sort this out for me, now."

"I'm afraid I can't do that. Before I can access the account I need to ask some security questions." Dom was annoyed to discover that he was almost afraid, he could feel a complaint coming on no matter what he did.

"That's absurd. Why do you need to do that?"

"I do appreciate how you feel but without it I can't get into your account, Mr Howard."

"Bloody stupid, if you ask me, this will cost you more, believe me."

"Of course, Mr Howard," said Dom, finger twitching over the release button, if only he could.

Twenty-five seconds later, having passed smoothly through the security questions Dom was looking at Mr Howard's statement. He had to admit to being awed by the amount in the current balance and that was with all the outgoings on the account over recent days.

His heart sank when he saw the point at which the account had gone into overdraft and calculated the gap between that and the account returning to black.

"Well? I haven't got all day you know."

"Okay Mr Howard," said Dom, waiting for the outburst to come, "it looks like you went over your overdraft for twenty days...."

"And your point is? That's what an overdraft is for, surely?"

"Well, there is usually a charge of....."

"I don't care about what there usually is, do you have any idea how much money I have with your bank?"

"Well not exactly Mr Howard," said Dom, scanning the savings accounts and arriving at an estimated 600k, "but I'm sure....."

"Refund me now and compensate me for this call or I'm moving everything to another bank."

'Yeah, sure you are,' thought Dom, 'with all the accompanying inconvenience, well let's just play with you for a bit shall we?'

He clicked on the memos, "Bear with me, I just need to check back through the notes on your account, Mr Howard."

"All you need to do is refund me. NOW! And if you can't make that decision then I suggest you get someone on the phone who can."

"I am able to authorise all that, Mr Howard... provided we haven't refunded you anything in the past."

"Well, I can tell you the answer to that, you haven't refunded me, so get on with it."

To Dom's deep joy the memos clearly stated that the man had been refunded and compensated on several previous occasions. He tried to keep his pleasure out of his voice, "I'm going to have to pop you on hold, Mr Howard."

"Why? How long for?"

"I just need to refer this to my manager," said Dom.

"Bloody hurry up, you moron," a snarl of displeasure.

Dom popped him on hold, sipped his coffee, flicked through a few articles on RT and then wandered over to his manager.

"Got a high investor demanding charges back and compensation," he murmured, hoping to catch his manager with his balls strapped on. He added quickly, anticipating the inevitable question, "He's been refunded several times in the past 12 months."

"How high an investor?"

Dom's spirits sank, "600k."

"Do it, raise it as a complaint as well and make sure he's properly compensated. How long's he been on the phone?"

"About 5 minutes."

"Give him 20 quid for the cost of the call and 75 quid for the distress and inconvenience."

Dom knew it was pointless but said it just the same, "He's not been inconvenienced, and the call couldn't have cost more than...."

"High investor, Dom, just keep him happy."

"Sure thing," said Dom, bitterly, "keep the rich happy and screw the poor."

"Oi, what have I told you about that, just watch your attitude on the floor, Dom, I mean it."

Hope you have a nice week

Cheers

Ariun