Franchisee Made An Insurance Employee’s Life Miserable, So She Let Everyone Know What He’s Really Like And His Life Fell Apart

Nobody likes a bully…

That’s true in just about every aspect of life, but when it comes to the business world?

Don’t even think about it!

And this woman decided she’d had enough with a business associate who was a real creep.

Check out how she handled this situation!

“This story comes from a friend of mine, Sarah, and has been building for almost 5 years until it all came crashing down over the last week.

A few things to note before I get into it:

• Sarah works at an insurance company, dealing with a massive nationwide delivery company (her company insures all the delivery trucks)

• Over the years, Sarah had seen her fair share of anger from callers. Mostly justified, or people letting off steam at the anonymous voice on the other end of the phone. She’s learned not to take it personal

• She a absolutely despises the owner of one particular franchised depot – Dave

On to the story.

We start in 2016. Dave is the franchisee of a vehicle depot for Delivery Company. Meaning he’s sort of an owner, but the company CEO could take away his ownership if they feel like it. I’m not sure exactly how this works, but as far as I understand it’s a fairly standard franchise contract, so anyone who knows about these things should have a rough idea of what Dave has to do.

Dave calls in for the first time, to talk to Sarah about a claim one of his drivers is making. Something simple – reversed into a wall, minimal damage, but claiming to get the vehicle repaired.

Dave is NOT chill.

Dave starts ranting and screaming about how dare he/his driver be expected to pay an excess (standard). Sarah has dealt with people like this all her career, so she just deals with it as she always does.

And so it continues for 2 years, with Dave bullying and abusing any call handler when he calls about a claim. It’s annoying, and plenty of people have been brought to tears by it, but they can’t stop serving him because he is responsible for dealing with his franchise’s claims.

Dave got into some trouble…

It’s now 2018, and Dave decides to get himself arrested. To give you an idea of just how stupid this man is:

One of his drivers had been in a really bad accident. Nobody was seriously hurt, but the van was badly damaged. So while it was being repaired, Sarah organised for a hire van.

Dave goes to the hire company to collect the van, and he’s asked to make a £1 payment by debit/credit card to secure the vehicle. I’m pretty sure it’s so the hire company can just charge it for any damage caused while on hire, and is an industry standard in my country.

Dave doesn’t like this. He argues with the hire company. He threatens to dump the hire vehicle once he’s finished with it. Finally, he punches the poor bloke working front desk.

As previously stated: Dave gets arrested.

Fast forward to a few months ago.

He’s back!

Everyone is working from home (yay, lockdown) and most people understand this. Everyone except Dave.

He must be having a particularly bad day, because his tantrum about how useless Sarah and her company is descends into personal insults. Sarah, having an equally bad day, decides that now is the moment she will get revenge on this guy for everything he has put every claim handler through.

So she requests a copy of the recording of the call (all calls recorded for safety, complaints and calling people out on their nonsense). She then sends this recording to three people.

Her manager, saying she refuses to speak to Dave due to his abusive behaviour. The rest of the team agree, and suddenly there is not a single claims handler willing to speak to this man. Manager says he will sort something.

Dave’s boss, simply stating that is behaviour is unacceptable, and the next time he tries to speak to someone at Insurance Company that way, they will end the call.

Sarah wasn’t messing around.

Every listed CEO or board member of Dave’s company. She wanted all of them to know just how vile this man was.

Then, today, she gets the call she’s been waiting for.

A representative of Delivery Company has called, wanting to apologise for everything Dave put her and her team through.

He also gives the best news – Dave has been downgraded from Franchise Owner to a lowly delivery driver. His lovely pay package, benefits, annual bonus, and company-funded car (a brand new Merc, for anyone interested) have all been taken away.

Dave had it coming…

He now earns a little over minimum wage, 60 hour weeks to pay his bills, with his reputation in tatters. If he doesn’t meet the standard for delivery drivers within the next 3 months, he’ll be fired. (Sarah also learned from someone she knows in the company that his wife is divorcing him, because he told her she needs to get a job or they’ll lose the house thanks to his sudden drop in income)

Sarah hasn’t yet met the new franchisee, but if I know her, she’ll make it clear that she’s the one who ruined Dave’s life, and she isn’t afraid to do it again if the new guy doesn’t treat her and her colleagues with respect.

Lesson: don’t be a jerk to call centre employees.”

Check out what people said about this.

One reader wants to work with Sarah.

This person shared their thoughts…

This person shared how it works in Australia…and they’re not buying this story.

Another individual poked holes in this story.

One can never know if any of these stories are actually true, but needless to say if it is true… that’s some solid revenge.

Good for her! Maybe.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.