Woman claims Verizon customer service call caused heart attack

[plarq]

http://www.cnet.com/news/woman-claims-verizon-customer-service-call-caused-heart-attack/

Customer service calls with various providers of essential tech have become the stuff of distressed legend.

However, I'm not sure that I've ever heard of a case in which a customer accused a service representative of giving her a heart attack.

Until, that is, Angela Hawkins.

Hawkins, 52, claims that a Verizon Wireless service rep treated her so aggressively on the phone that she suffered a myocardial infraction.

As ABC 13 reported, the call occurred last November. Hawkins wanted a $60 credit from Verizon. Soon, she claims, the customer service rep became unkind. Her lawsuit insists he was unhelpful and left her holding on for 15 to 20 minutes.

She then claims that a manager named Jason came on the line. He was, she insists, out of line.

Her version of the story is startling. She told ABC13: "He was under the impression that I had threatened to bring a gun to the call center and shoot every employee in the call center."



Why would anyone do that? Why would anyone think that?

And that's where this story has a large hole: what could have possibly led a customer service rep to make such an allegation?

Hawkins said: "I mean, my heart sunk. I felt like I was in a whirlwind because what a horrible thing to accuse somebody of."

She then says she had a heart attack and was hospitalized for four days.

Hawkins is now suing Verizon for $2 million. The lawsuit, filed last week, offers a strange picture of events. It says that "Jason" the manager informed Hawkins that he'd already called the police. He allegedly told her the police were already on the way to her house.

It was this that allegedly caused her physical distress "including tightness in the chest and difficulty breathing."

The suit also says that Hawkins will now be under medical supervision for the rest of her life. It adds that "the defendants knew or should have known their conduct would cause plaintiff to suffer severe emotional distress."

Emotional distress is one thing, but the accusation here is that Verizon gave Hawkins a heart attack.

The suit therefore claims negligent infliction of emotional distress, as well as negligence. Could any Verizon employee have possibly imagined he would cause a heart attack to a customer?

Still, therefore, one returns to the central question: if Hawkins made no threats about guns or anything else, why would a Verizon rep believe that she did?

Such threats aren't unheard of. In March, a Time Warner Cable customer in Nebraska became so angry that she allegedly threatened to blow up the whole Time Warner Cable building. The building was evacuated and she was arrested.

Hawkins lawyer had an interesting claim to ABC 13. He said that because his client is only 4'10" she wouldn't threaten anyone. This seems to defy some levels of logic.

I contacted Verizon to ask for its side of the story. A Verizon spokesman would only tell me: "We do not comment on pending litigation."

So we're left with a woman who had a heart attack and an accusation that will now be handled by the justice system.

Why do I think there's more than has been so far told?

I have dealt with AT&T for various mis-shipping, mis-billing, credit-not-awarding crap for a long time, each time I need to call and wait between transfers for 30-45mins, or choose the online chat version which costs equal amount of time. But this heart-attacking customer service is beyond my belief.

 

[Zkribbler]

Heart attacks can be brought on by stress.

Calls to Verizon can be stressful.

Verizon allegedly took willful steps to increase the plaintiff's stress, e.g. falsely accusing her of making threats, and falsely telling her the police were already on their way to her house to arrest her.

While the vast majority of customer interactions, as described above, would not result in heart attacks, sooner or later, a vunerable person will come along and be affected.

Verison undoubtedly has the conversation on tape. If it verifies the customer's version of the incident, it's going to cost Verison.

 

[Phrossack]

Well, customer service lines often say "Your call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes," but how often do they actually record them?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Well, customer service lines often say "Your call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes," but how often do they actually record them?

And how often do they keep them if they would prove embarrassing to the company?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Well, customer service lines often say "Your call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes," but how often do they actually record them?

I know there's been a time or two when the topic has come up when I'm on the phone with an infuriatingly obtuse customer "service" rep. The time when they tried to intimidate me by reminding me that the call was being recorded, I responded by saying, "Good. That way they will know what a poor job you're doing so far."

I don't have a lot of patience these days, especially when the "customer service" call centre is located in India or Guatemala. Even an after-hours call at my apartment building is just as likely to be answered by someone in Quebec as it is in Edmonton or Calgary.

 

[IglooDame]

And how often do they keep them if they would prove embarrassing to the company?

If police can manage to misplace/delete/etc incriminating dash-cam footage, I really have no doubt that a telco could manage to erase some customer-service audio files.

 

[Rashiminos]

Well, customer service lines often say "Your call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes," but how often do they actually record them?

Often enough for government snooping.

 

[Narz]

I am generally against frivolous lawsuits but I loathe talking to reps on the phone. But they probably hate their jobs & lives too. Seems like one of the worst jobs that doesn't involve physical danger.

 

[Traitorfish]

Seems to me that working yourself into such a fit of rage that you threaten to shoot up a building could also cause a heart-attack.

So, I don't know, probably I've spent too long working in customer service, but the whole thing seems a little fishy.

 

[amadeus]

I wonder how many times she's "slipped" on something at Kmart. I bet it's more than once!

 

[Farm Boy]

I am generally against frivolous lawsuits but I loathe talking to reps on the phone. But they probably hate their jobs & lives too. Seems like one of the worst jobs that doesn't involve physical danger.

Nah, some people get pretty good at emotionally shunting off aholes. CS reps, ultimately, don't report directly to most of their small-timey customers. It's not like working in support at say, a university, where you report directly in to 3 professors and support more of them. Then the ignorant of, entitled to, and nearly immune from the consequences of their behavior d-bags actually have significant and capricious power over your workday and job flow. Though again, then they just probably hate their job and their coworkers. They probably put up with them because they actually like their lives and the other people within them.

 

[warpus]

Verizon is one of the most evil companies in the U.S. from what I've heard. From the descriptions I have read it would not be a huge reach to equate them with baby killers or racism apologists.

So it wouldn't surprise me if the Verizon rep really did make up all those lies to this woman... and it wouldn't then surprise me claims of "Cops are on the way to your house" could lead someone in a poor medical condition to have a heart attack. It seems unlikely, but I can see how it could happen.

On the other hand, a lot of my friends have had tech support type jobs and I never hear the end of what sort of stupid and potato-like people call in to these call centres..

So I wouldn't mind at all some more details about this incident - there's an idiot in there somewhere I'm sure, but it's not possible to really figure out who it is quite yet.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Some customer service people do like threatening people. When my dad's girlfriend died, we discovered that she had some debts... and we were getting calls because our address and phone number were among the information she'd given them.

So I was having a "discussion" with a customer service rep from President's Choice (the company that runs, among other things, the Real Canadian Superstore grocery chain) because she owed money on her credit card. They weren't prepared to accept that neither my dad nor I were relatives, she and my dad were not married (not even legally common-law), and that the only relative I did know of was her son, who lived somewhere in Ontario. They threatened to "confiscate her belongings" to pay for her debt. So I told them that they were welcome to it - I'd gather up all her stuff she'd left, put it in a couple of garbage bags, come down to the store, and dump it all out in a pile in the middle of their office and they could pick through it at their leisure. Or they could just use the information I'd told them about her son and track him down.

Anyway, they finally quit harassing us.

 

[plarq]

Verizon is one of the most evil companies in the U.S. from what I've heard. From the descriptions I have read it would not be a huge reach to equate them with baby killers or racism apologists.

So it wouldn't surprise me if the Verizon rep really did make up all those lies to this woman... and it wouldn't then surprise me claims of "Cops are on the way to your house" could lead someone in a poor medical condition to have a heart attack. It seems unlikely, but I can see how it could happen.

On the other hand, a lot of my friends have had tech support type jobs and I never hear the end of what sort of stupid and potato-like people call in to these call centres..

So I wouldn't mind at all some more details about this incident - there's an idiot in there somewhere I'm sure, but it's not possible to really figure out who it is quite yet.

Actually it reminds us of Comcast threatening people who want to terminate their services.

 

[Zkribbler]

I wonder how many times she's "slipped" on something at Kmart. I bet it's more than once!

Are you suggesting the heart attack she was hospitalized for four days with was faked?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm torn on this one. It's pretty hard to put a causal link to a non-physical communication and a heart attack (what's to say she wasn't already at a health risk and happened to have it then rather than...say...a day later or earlier?), and will be even harder if the recordings of the communication mysteriously don't exist.

But then, customer service is so awful/aggravating/useless/one-sided that it's the rare case where I wouldn't mind much if a lawsuit won even if it were frivolous. The gulf between goodwill vs money in their case is that great in my mind. That doesn't mean I'd act that way if making a verdict (I'd try to respect the law), but I won't feel bad if Verizon loses either.

 

[Oerdin]

I hope she loses.