Be THAT Person

Golf. It’s one of my passions. So please forgive me for the brief golf analogy I’m about to draw.

It was the year 2000. A golfer named Hal Sutton was in an epic battle with Tiger Woods who was then in his prime. They were on the final hole. Hal needed to choose the right club to hit the ball the perfect distance to the pin. As soon as he hit it everyone knew it was headed in the right direction but if it was too far or not far enough he could have lost. As the ball was flying towards the hole Hal uttered one of the most memorable lines in golf history: “Be the right club today.” It was and he won. (That’s it for the golf. Hope you’re still with me.)

Fast forward to October 2019 when I begin an “epic” battle with the bank. It doesn’t matter which one. It could’ve been any bank or any other company. It started when I looked at my credit card statement and noticed a charge from a merchant from whom my wife had purchased something in the past. I never question her purchases but for some reason I asked her about this one. Turns out she hadn’t bought anything from this merchant in many years. So I decided to look at previous statements for other unauthorized charges by the merchant. I found a bunch. The total amount wasn’t enormous but it was large enough to be worth pursuing.

I felt a little chagrined by my lack of diligence in reviewing my statements when I called the bank to register a complaint. And that’s when the battle was engaged. This isn’t a venting session in case that’s what you’re thinking. Wait til the end. 

I won’t describe the countless phone calls and emails. It would bore you to read about them and bore me to write about them. I get bored just thinking about them.

The bank took the position that complaints about unauthorized charges must be made within sixty days. Fair enough. I understood that. But I wanted to find out how so many charges came about. I continued calling and emailing and getting nowhere. Until the end of November when a bank rep suggested we call the merchant together. We did. And guess what? The merchant told us the charges were a mistake and shouldn’t have been made. Game over, right? Now it was simply a matter of the bank settling up with the merchant and with me. 

But that didn’t happen. So I wrote to the President of the bank in January. And I continued to email and call and get nowhere. 

The amount of time I spent on this was way out of proportion to the amount of money involved. A lot of people would consider this to have been a big waste of time. I didn’t. It wasn’t about the money. It was about doing the right thing. The charges were a mistake. The bank knew that. To rely on its sixty day complaint period policy was a cop out. So I continued to email and call and get nowhere.

Ultimately a rep from the President’s office called me at the beginning of May. She had looked into the matter herself. She thanked me for letting her know how badly I was treated. She apologized profusely on behalf of the bank. She assured me the bank would be using this as an example to improve its processes. And she offered to compensate me for the entire amount of the unauthorized charges. Thank you.

Was it worth it? Not from a financial point of view. But as my mother said: “Worth isn’t always monetary.” I’m satisfied with the outcome. Not because I won the battle or justice was served. Because my faith in humanity was bolstered when the President’s rep did the right thing. Good people are all around us. People who do the right thing. We just have to find them. 

How often have you had to call a customer service department more than once to reach someone who knows what they’re doing? Why does it have to be this way? There may be company policies to follow. I accept that. But at a certain point we all have a choice. Imagine a world in which everyone upped their games. We can’t expect perfection but we can all do the best we can to be the right person today. (Flashback to golf.) To be THAT person. So when our turn comes to help someone we’ll do the right thing. 

So be reliable. Be honest. Care. Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. Listen. Do Unto Others. Help. Go above and beyond. Not just at work but all the time – as a friend, parent, sibling, child, co-worker. It feels really good. 

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