Tyrone turned to Nathan. "And who are you?"
"Nathan. I'm the customer she was helping. I want to ask you some questions about your crew's accounts, if you're willing."
Tyrone glanced back toward the warehouse. He was forty-three and had been managing construction crews for nearly two decades, long enough to recognize every variation of the phrase that wasn't my problem. His men trusted him to make sure their checks arrived and their equipment was safe. He was angry enough about the bank that he had begun keeping his own evidence file, though he had no idea what to do with it.
"Seventeen men opened accounts at Branch Twelve after they came to our pay orientation," he said. "We didn't ask the bank to pick out special products. We just wanted payroll to be easy. The representative said everyone needed the same package to receive direct deposit."
He took them into a portable site office where an air conditioner rattled in the window. On the wall hung a calendar full of shift schedules and a poster reminding employees to wear eye protection. Tyrone removed a folder from a locked drawer and spread out copies of the paperwork his crew had agreed to share with him. Different names appeared on the forms, but the product descriptions were almost identical.
"See those boxes?" Tyrone asked. "Most of the men thought the fees were part of opening the account. Some were new to banks. A couple had just moved here. One speaks English well enough for work but didn't understand the fast explanation they gave him at the branch."
"Did anybody complain?" Nathan asked.
"I did," Tyrone answered. "And two others asked for refunds. This is the receipt they gave me."
He placed a narrow strip of paper on the table. The date, time, branch identifier, and complaint reference were clearly printed. Grace recognized the format at once: it was produced when an employee submitted a customer issue to the bank's central service platform. The receipt was not a resolution, but it proved the bank had been asked to investigate.
"A week later they said they couldn't locate it," Tyrone continued. "I showed them the receipt, and Mr. Stone told me people print all kinds of things. Then he asked whether I wanted to keep using their bank for our payroll."
Nathan lifted his eyes. "Did he threaten to interfere with your company's payroll?"
"Not directly. That's what made it worse. He said it like he was giving me a warning about how things might turn out."
One of Tyrone's crew members, a young carpenter named Luis Ortega, knocked and entered with a rolled blueprint. He saw Grace and asked whether the bank had finally agreed to take his identity-monitoring charge off. His surprise when she said she no longer worked there was immediate and genuine. Nathan asked Luis whether he would be comfortable telling his own story, and the young man took a moment before agreeing.
Luis had opened the account because he was sending money to his mother and wanted a reliable way to track every dollar. At the branch, he had been told that refusing the additional package could complicate approval and delay his payroll setup. He signed because missing a week's pay would have been worse than paying a small fee, at least that was what he believed then. He had not understood he was being presented with products that could be declined.