August 9: my car loan took an unauthorized payment from my account. I phoned them, they said to send a bank statement to show it cleared and they'd refund it. I did. They didn't.

August 23: I phoned again, they processed the refund (allegedly) while I was on the phone, I "should" have it Monday or Tuesday.

Later that day: my car loan took ANOTHER unauthorized payment from my account. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!!!!! You evil morons!!!!

So I call them and I'm like "you're going to refund my money NOW." And they said send a statement and I said no, I did that last time and you did nothing about it, so just refund my money NOW. And they said it will take (some false number) days to get it done and I said no, it will not, because that's your third mistake in two weeks and I want my money NOW.

Now all this time the girl on the phone keeps saying "I'm just explaining to you, that's our procedure" and I keep saying "stop explaining to me because I don't CARE about your procedure, you screwed up three times in two weeks, so screw the procedure and give me back my money." Except I was careful to avoid coarse or abusive language so they couldn't refuse to talk to me. Then I'm like "can I talk to your supervisor?" and she says "my supervisor will tell you the same thing."

Hmmmmm... Think think think. As it happens, I just took the "Dealing with Difficult Customers" training at work. And at MY job, when we have a disgruntled customer, it's our job to find a way to say "yes". Even if it's their fault, let alone if it's ours. So if it's good enough for a minimum-wage grunt at Home Depot, it's good enough for a financial institution that just confiscated nearly $350 of MY money. So, I refused to get off the phone and just kept repeating that I wanted my money, until the girl stopped thinking up more excuses and just didn't know what to say anymore. Then she was quiet and I said "let me talk to your supervisor", which at that point she did. After having a very lengthy conversation with said supervisor while I was on hold. And the supervisor... did exactly what I asked. FINALLY.

Now there is still the issue that their accounting department might overrule the supervisor, but at least I got them to say yes. Thank you, Home Depot, for teaching me to be a more difficult customer.