Parents of customers

Answer their questions or not?

[HRoth]

I just got a call from someone who wanted to know if an order had been delivered to a specific address. She said she was the mother of the person who had ordered. I felt uncomfortable giving her any information and told her she should take it up with her son. When she insisted on the information, I hung up on her.

What do people do in this kind of situation? How do you know the person is really the parent and the person who ordered is really a minor?

Btw, this was not a question of a misused credit card. No card was used. The order she called about had not actually been placed. It was someone just using the cart to produce a mail-in order, and the widget they ordered did not require them to be 18 to buy it (I have a few things that do). But this is not the first time I have ever been called by someone who wanted to know what someone else had ordered. Not sure what to do.

[jatar_k]

you can't release the information, at least not in any country with privacy laws. Even when speaking to someone who says they are the customer it is in your best interest (and your customer's) to confirm their identity.

[kevinpate]

> Not sure what to do

How would you expect your vendors to deal with your order/financial information should someone cal them up and demand info solely based on a telephonic say-so of being your momma?

It's (to me) a rather clear case of 'someone else's monkey' once you think it through.

[Sanenet]

Agreed. Apologise and explain that you can't hand out that sort of information over the phone.

Maybe you could ring back on the number provided with the order, or reply to the email you sent the confirmation to?

[jsinger]

Don't know about the rest of this situation, but this was clearly wrong of you:

I hung up on her.

[jwolthuis]

Right.

No matter how rude the customer is, you must bite your tongue until it bleeds.

But Never, Never hang up on them.

[oneguy]

To be fair... we don't know what she said to him, or how she said it. I don't remember ever hanging up on anyone (even telemarketers).

After thinking for a sec, I have hung up on some unreasonable girlfriends before. So, there are situations where hanging up on someone might be the only way to end the conversation.

In general, I'd agree that it's not cool.

[HRoth]

I hung up on her because the conversation was over. She just kept demanding more information about this order, even though I had already told her repeatedly that I couldn't give it to her because I had no assurance she was who she said she was and that the person who placed the order was in fact her son. She wouldn't address that fact, just kept demanding. I had already told her that all that had happened was the individual had used the cart to print out a mail order. I felt I was wrong to even do that, but she was not satisfied with it and wanted more:

Her: "Did he send in a payment for this order?"

Me: "I'm sorry, I can't give you anymore information. You have to talk to him."

Her: "I want to know if you sent anything to this address!"

Me: "If I had and it is your address, surely you would know."

Her: "They are here when I am not, so they could get the mail. They won't tell me."

Me: "Then the problem is not my business but your family. You should talk to them, not me."

Etc. Not to mention there is no way for me to know how old this person is. It could have been her husband for all I know.

She said she found out that he had contacted my business because she was going through all his things. She started out angry at me already, as if I had committed a crime, yelling. I thought there are problems here that I don't want to be a part of and I don't have to be a part of. They need to settle it amongst themselves and not make a public spectacle of it. If she did go through his things, then why did she not talk to him if she did not like what she found for some reason? Why was her first response to call me with her angry demands? It was like she wanted to force me to be a witness to her family bs.

So I said, "You have to deal with your son on this, not me. Goodbye." And hung up.

She called right back and left a voicemail saying she was going to call the police about my business if I did not call her back and give her the info she wanted.

There have been a few times I have hung up on customers--when the conversation hit a solid dead end, like it did with this. I think it has happened a total of four times.

My concern was more about how much info should I be expected to give out to someone like this.

[Miklo]

Never ever give anyone order details through telephone no matter who they claim to be.

[scatcat]

There is one instance where I think it is acceptable to hang up on a customer, and that is if they start swearing and being abbusive.

I which case I say 'sorry I am not willing to listen to language like that' and hang up.

[chodges84]

Is it against the law for them to obtain information in that way? Even if they are a relative of the person in question?

If so, even if they report you to the police they may be in trouble with the law. In this case, you've done everything right, so you're definately not in trouble with them.

[bullfrog]

Most of this can be solved by requesting people do things regarding their order in writing or through an email. All third party type "he said, she said" scenerios on the phone should be avoided, since they almost always lead to misinterpretations and misunderstandings and can result in unfounded complaints against your business.

[ganderla]

Don't worry about the police. I have had the police called on me and no biggie.

Though having a detective and officer knock on your office door and tell you they are there investigating fraud is a little unnerving, but they were just trying to scare me.

On a good note, I found out a wanted murderer was using my SSN.

[gpilling]

Unless you are selling something illegal, dont worry about the police. Many people seem to think that the police are there to do their bidding and carry out threats. This is not the case in the slightest. In a previous line of work, I used to occasionally do repossessions, and the police invariably tried not to get involved. They always told the repossessee that it was a civil manner and that he should take it up with a lawyer and not them. Of course, this never happened.

In your specific case, I think that you probably admitted too much as it was. There was no reason to have the conversation at all if credit card fraud was not part of the concern. I have a friend that worked in a large mail order operation who told me that they occasionaly had problems with Junior using Daddy's credit card, but that these instances were usually resolved by returning the product or by Daddy resolving it directly with Junior.

We have a general policy of not revealing details like that at my company. There are too many opportunities for problems when information is released haphazardly. Perhaps you could have invited the parent to get a court order for the information. After all, if you dont protect your customers privacy, who will?

And if a caller is being rude and abusive, go ahead and hang up. No single customer can make you, nor can they break you. It is important to treat everyone as well as you can, and that includes yourself.

I think you did the right thing by denying information, and by hanging up on an apparently rude caller.

[Habtom]

There should be a limit on how far a customer can be treated "as a king". Generally being rude to any customer won't do you any good, but providing them something which they can be busy of will do. I would have informed the lady that I will be sending the information to the email of the person who put the order, and tell her to view the information from her son if he allows her to. If he doesn't allow her to see his info, why should you?

Habtom