Losing it at IndyMac

Patience more than money, it seems. Customers at an IndyMac branch in Encino got into a huff this morning after several people apparently tried to cut in line. The cops were called in, and they told customers to remain calm or face arrest. The dispute seems to have involved a sign-up list that was started late Monday for customers who wanted to leave for the day. Some customers said they were told there would not be such a list. From the LAT:

As the morning wore on, customers leaned over a metal railing separating them from a row of security guards and yelled complaints. As tensions rose, customers began pointing fingers at one another and trying to cut in line. "Listen to me, lady," Mahvash Barjasteh, 51, a loan broker from Woodland Hills said to a guard. "I was in front of him." She was told to get to the back of the line.

[CUT]

Joanne Knauss, 40, returned to the branch this morning after being turned away on Monday, when customers in line began chanting: "Give us numbers!" "It's only fair -- we were sitting in line for so many hours," said Knauss, an attorney from Woodland Hills. Officials "literally didn't know what to do." Barjasteh, though, complained that she had set up an appointment for 10 a.m. but arrived to find that the staff wasn't honoring it.