Friends, now I will tell you a wonderful story. I assure you, a great mood will be provided to you for the whole day. So, to begin with, my financial affairs this summer, to put it mildly, are not very encouraging.
Where the income was coming from was delay and uncertainty, while there were trips at his own expense to human rights events in the Emirates and Paris. Because of this, by the way, I did not get to the space festival Starmus VI Armenia to Yerevan, where he so dreamed of going and could not because of the high cost of tickets. But let’s not talk about sad things.
So, two weeks ago I was literally and figuratively on the beans in terms of money. And he went to his Israeli bank to get a loan. Moreover, the chances of obtaining a loan were almost zero, I already had a small, but minus on my account. I come to the bank, take a number and patiently wait for my turn to the employee.
At that moment, a bank employee comes up to me and asks how she can help me. I replied that I was waiting for my turn. She asks for my number, I show it. Suddenly her face changes and the polite smile is replaced by unwarranted malice. With the words: “This is a mistake, you should have booked online in advance, and not take a number from the machine,” she asks me to go with her. I follow her to the exit, there is an apparatus for issuing numbers, as it were, outside the common hall. There she rips my number and then tries to go back to the bank and leave me outside.
But I do not let her close the door – I put my foot in the doorway. The employee begins to swear rudely and insult me in public, while kicking me with her foot so as not to interfere with closing the door. I don’t give up, she’s shaking all over with rage, hitting me with the door, but it’s useless. The employee’s cell phone fell out of her hands and broke, she goes on to scream that she will call the police.
The director of the bank branch runs up, other visitors gather, everyone shouts at the employee, demanding to stop the disgrace. The director literally grabs her by the hand and shouts: “What are you doing, stop immediately!” A strange woman suddenly breaks into tears and tells the director that he himself instructed her not to let people with numbers from the machine. He answers her: “Are you out of your mind?! Never said anything like that, get out of here immediately!” It must be said here that the incident was filmed on the phones by numerous customers of the bank, and I myself filmed it, because I am a blogger – the profession obliges me to seize the moment.
The director invited me to his office, apologized for the behavior of the employee, said that she was new and a little emotional. To this I replied that she had broken my toe until it bled (I was wearing open shoes), and besides, with this ugly behavior, she dishonored the largest bank in Israel and caused me serious moral harm. The director tried to joke: “This is a woman, you understand, these are mood swings …” But I did not support the joke and promised to file a complaint with the police.
I did not wait for my turn at the bank and immediately went to the police. A plan of action immediately formed in my head. If I was able to sue Azerbaijan at the ECHR in Strasbourg, when they were found guilty of torture and attempted murder, then I can do it all the more.
What happened in the bank can be regarded as hooliganism, for which there is a specific article of the Criminal Code. On the way to the police, he went into the emergency room of the Haifa Rambam hospital and recorded traces of kicks and door strikes on the leg. Nothing serious, a couple of scratches, but the fact itself. Then he went to the police, wrote a statement on the fact of the attack of a bank employee. Then I went to a well-known Haifa lawyer, who is not only a lawyer, but also a popular blogger and author of cool books from the Lawyer Stories series. We wrote a letter to the bank with a proposal to settle the incident without the need to go to court.
All this was two weeks ago.
Yesterday, the lawyer called me and said that the bank’s management had contacted him, apologized and offered to pay compensation. Again, this is the largest bank in Israel with hundreds of branches throughout the country and abroad.
Yesterday the whole day there was a bargaining because of the amount of compensation. We wanted a lot, but the bank wanted less. This is common practice. As a result, they agreed on an amount corresponding to the cost of approximately a 2015 Volkswagen Golf in good condition. Well, or, for example, the cost of tickets, if you fly five times to the USA and back.
We are joking with the lawyer that out of the blue blogger Lapshin has come down with happiness. For a couple of scratches, from which for a long time there was no trace. So I’m thinking, where else can I go, so that a beautiful woman kicks me in the leg, and then she also pays me money. Inexpensive. Joke.
Finally, I will say that this story did not make me rich. But from a debtor, I turned into an ordinary person, at least without debts. And I didn’t have to take a loan from the bank, because the bank gave me compensation just for the amount of the expected loan. It’s cool! There is still a little left to live on until the end of September, when the debts will be returned to me myself. There would be no happiness, but misfortune helped.
My point is, never lose hope!
In the photo for the article, I painted over the name of the bank, since the incident is over and I am completely satisfied with how quickly and efficiently the bank apologized and paid compensation.