My share of the blame

I wrote The Letter I Wish I Had Sent Instead the other day, so you may know the situation from that... or from me bitching about the client, if you have talked to me in person. He's so mean he's brought me to tears twice, and the first time I talked to him I almost quit my job just so I wouldn't have to deal with him again.

However... having spent about 6 hours of my workday on untangling this (for the fourth time now)...

I have been giving him misinformation.

Every month I have faithfully called and gotten detailed instructions from the corporate customer service reps, monthly billing reps, and even the e-payment helpline on how he should proceed to pay his bill. Every month I have told him, and he has ignored me and done it any old way. (His line? "I trust you to fix it." Folks, don't do something consistently, stubbornly, knowingly wrong and trust someone to fix it... if I were a lesser person I would have swept it under the rug til he cancelled, got mad, and went elsewhere. Lots of people, faced with the kind of abuse he dishes out on the phone or email, would have done just that.)

Every month they have given me those instructions. But in April (when he started having these problems), when I took over commercial services for our agency (thus bringing zero experience to the table), they changed the website so that no commercial policies could be paid online, period.

Yah.

They did not inform the commercial customer services reps, nor the retail manager.

They did not inform our monthly billing reps.

They did not inform their own customer service reps on the helpline.

They did not post "YOU CAN ONLY PAY YOUR PERSONAL POLICY BILLS HERE... COMMERCIAL POLICIES MUST BE PAID IN PERSON, VIA SNAIL MAIL, OR VIA EFT" on the website.

No.

So I've been trying to discreetly explain to this guy why he's an idiot (he still is: if something didn't work ... hell, if it didn't work TWICE and you have been told it will never work, QUIT DOING IT!!!) while he's been loudly telling me that I and everyone I work with are idiots... and we're both right, kind of.

I've been doing my due diligence, but it hasn't been helping.

Sheesh.