You’d think it’s a simple enough request. “Don’t call me with any promotions or pre-approved offers.”

Apparently it’s not a simple thing. And you know why it’s such an issue for me? Respect.

The bank has more rules than you can shake a stick at. Overdraw your account for 30 seconds and you pay the overdraft fee. I have no problem with this. I know the rules going in.

The problem seems to be that I expect it to work both ways. Calling me with promotional offers annoys me the first time because they don’t ask. But fine, they call. So I call back and tell them not to call me any more. It’s my phone so I am completely within my rights to withdraw my permission to call me with the audio equivalent of junk mail. So they get the message and we’re done, right?

No, we’re not done. They call again. I tell them again twice more. They promise I’ll receive no more calls. Then, I get another call on each of the next two days. I call again and they tell me it will stop this time. They’ll do what needs to be done within the hour to make sure of it.

“It’ll take an hour. Then you’ll get no more calls,” she tells me.

“I hope so,” I say.

“I hope so too,” she replies.

Not the right thing to say. She either doesn’t care to make certain, or (more likely) doesn’t have the ability to make certain. But it gets worse. She then says she has two offers for which I’m pre-approved and asks if she can tell me about them.

“You don’t want to do that,” I explain.

“Yea?” she says.

“Yea,” I reply.

She pauses, and then says, “So can I tell you the offers?”

“No,” I reply. I was calm and polite. Too calm.

So at this rate, I just might experience the unpleasant task of looking for a new bank in the near future. They seem to want to make it clear to me that they do not care about me. I don’t want the bank to be my best friend, but I show them respect, and I require a modicum of respect in return.