Pearoast: "I don't have AIDS!"
I thought I'd try a different tack with this QotW, given that most of the stories will likely be bitching about the hilariously incompetent buffoons to whom we give our money. Not that this is a bad thing, it's just that I don't have a story to hand, and am away on detachment with limited interweb access. So, I shall pearoast this little gem for your delectation:

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A good friend of mine works in a bank - basically when you walk into a bank, normally you see the rows of tellers behind their glass screens and then a chap in the corner at a desk. My friend is this chap.

About half an hour before closing time one afternoon, he's approached by a large woman with a very thick Nigerian accent.
"Can you sort out my money? Something's wrong with my money."

She hands him an account book. Not a bank card, not even a new, up-to-date account book, but an old, battered book which at best was probably issued in the early '90s.

My friend takes a look at this book and sees a number of worrying figures in there. It appears the account has been closed.
"Excuse me," he says, "I'll just go and check our records and see why this account was closed."

He goes away to find out the account was closed for "debt recovery" - basically the credit history was so bad that the bank dropped all the debts just to be shot of this woman.

My friend finds a more polite way to explain this to her. Her response?
"Why do they do this? I'm not a bad person." Then, very earnestly, "I'm not a prostitute! I DON'T HAVE AIDS!"

She then launches into the story of how her account came to be in this state. Little of it is cogent; all my friend can really work out are two things:
1. Something about a Dr Lumenfrond and his wife, who are from Switzerland. They are apparently "very naughty people" and stole her identity.
2. She doesn't have AIDS. She keeps reminding him of this; in fact, nearly every phrase ends with the assurance, "I don't have AIDS!" It almost becomes punctuation.

After twenty solid minutes of this, my friend has switched off. He has to be careful now - is this woman crazy, and should he call the police? More importantly, if she says "I don't have AIDS!" one more time, he's in danger of cracking up and laughing very loudly.

Eventually he finds the best way out of this situation:
"I'm very sorry to hear about all this. What you should do is fill out this complaint form. If you send this to the head office and tell them what you told me, I'm sure somebody there will be able to deal with your account."

And he breathes a sigh of relief as she takes the form and shuffles away. I really hope she wrote up the entire story of Dr Lumenfrond and her lack of AIDS and has sent it to some poor, bemused person at the bank's head office.

Length? About twenty, maybe thirty, minutes. But at least she didn't have AIDS.
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<sub>Thank you for patience. And have a good week if I don't have another chance to log back in here any time soon.
Additional moan: I don't get back from this detachment until the day after the Great British Beer Festival finishes. This of all of teh arse, as well asa flagrant appeal for sympathy on my part.

Mehehe...I said 'part.'</sub>
(LongJohnBaldry, Sun 19 Jul 2009, 17:17, 3 replies)

something for the supreme crow to think about
.....in lots of developing countries (e.g. Nigeria) having AIDS is a huge stigma - individuals with AIDS get marginalised in society and can be denied services e.g. banking. probably why she was so keen to stress she didn't have aids.
(the_penguin_of_death, Sun 19 Jul 2009, 21:01, closed)

I'd never thought about it that way
But that is actually a good point. I do feel a bit bad for laughing at her now you've pointed that out...
(LongJohnBaldry, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 12:02, closed)

They died, she acquired the money, and now she wants to put TWENTY MILLION US DOLLARS into a foreign account.

( idonthaveafunnynickname Drink-Aware? Sure. I'm aware I want another drink., Mon 20 Jul 2009, 2:03, closed)