Within the span of about one week, a reader sent us more than 100 help requests for problems with Apple, Chase, Equifax, Uber, Coca-Cola and FedEx, among others.
Nearly every one asked for the same thing: $8.4 million.
The complaints looked serious and credible at first glance. But once you started to read them, they were clearly detached from reality.
There was a work computer compromised by estranged relatives. There were soft drinks that had been poisoned “again.” Emails were marked “presidential.” (It gets worse — much worse. We’ll go into details in this week’s podcast. Warning: This episode is for mature audiences only. Listener discretion is strongly advised.)
On the occupation line, the reader listed the CIA, then the DEA, then the FBI, then “disabled person at 100 percent.”
What can an advocate do?
We assume every person asking for our help is rational. In order for us to do our jobs, there has to be a policy someone broke or a promise someone didn’t keep. We take that case to the company and ask it to make things right. But when the problem is a person’s sense that every institution in their life is turning against them, there’s nothing to take to anyone.
Our practice has been not to reply to requests like these, beyond a polite acknowledgment. Why? When our advocates sense the person reaching out to us has mental health challenges, and we suggest a resolution, like “please get help,” the response is almost always hostile.
How often does this happen?
Mental illness itself is common. In 2025, about 18.2 million American adults, or 6.9%, had a serious mental illness, according to the federal government’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health. That’s a mental, behavioral or emotional disorder that seriously limits a person’s ability to manage daily life.
Our help form gets somewhere between 30 and 50 submissions a day. So statistically, one or two might fall under the “maybe not sane” category. We get a fair amount of absurd requests:
- A guest banned from a hotel in Kazakhstan claimed $10 million in damages, then wrote, “To be absolutely clear, I am not seeking financial compensation.”
- A reader valued a problem with login verification at $100 million.
- One complaint, in its entirety, said “Fix.” But there was no problem.
- A reader asked us to remove an eviction from a credit report and valued the claim at $9. Four minutes later they filed the same form again, this time for $1 million.
Most of those readers had an ordinary grievance underneath. A locked account, a hijacked domain name and a refused cruise boarding were all real problems that someone inflated out of frustration. But others are totally detached from reality. That’s the topic of this week’s podcast.
So where’s the line?
Our team can and should help when there’s a company, a transaction and an outcome the company has the power to deliver. A request is beyond our reach when only a court, the police or a doctor could deliver what the person wants or needs. It’s also beyond our reach when the grievance is aimed at every institution at once instead of at one company. Multiple submissions for the same problem count, too.
Some customers have a real complaint, but their expectations of what the company owes them is way over the top. In those cases we will look into the issue and work with them to set more realistic expectations.
But where’s the line? Should we send a short, kind reply with mental health resources? Or should we stay silent?
But isn’t silence part of the problem?
Critics would say ignoring someone in distress confirms what they already believe: that nobody is listening. A two-sentence reply costs us nothing. The counterargument is that advocates aren’t clinicians. A reply can open a conversation we aren’t qualified to handle, and in our experience it often turns ugly fast.
If you answered yes
- Should we respond with a short, kind reply with information about a crisis line? It costs us nothing and may reach someone at the right moment.
- Would it be better if we offered a form reply that we can’t help with this type of case?
If you answered no
- Why not? Is this too far outside our wheelhouse?
- Are we making the problem worse by validating someone’s delusion?
My take
As someone who has seen mental illness closely in both a personal and professional setting — and by “closely” I mean really closely — I’m very sympathetic to people who have lost their grip on reality.
I used to think I could tell a troubled reader from a frustrated one in a sentence or two. But the inbox would disagree.
The person demanding $1 million for a locked account usually has a real problem: They can’t get into their account, and nobody at the company will help them. But the person who wants their mail marked “presidential” has a problem none of us can solve. Our job is to tell those two apart while being respectful and empathetic.
That kind of challenge isn’t unique to consumer advocates. Every customer service department faces a similar problem: How do you screen out the looney-tunes requests while retaining the legitimate ones?
Your turn
Have you ever reached out for help and gotten silence back? Or have you been on the receiving end of a request you couldn’t fulfill? Our comments are open.
Have a question about this story? Tell us what happened — we read every comment.
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