# rant...gotta get it off my chest



## Sylie (Apr 4, 2011)

After 3 months the probate court finally appointed me representative of my sisters estate. Before today I could not do anything. So, her mortgage is delinquent. I tried to telephone her mortgage company and after listening to the recorded message for a good three minutes they instructed me to "enter your nine hundred digit account number, followed by the pound sign." Okay it was only 16 digits, but I just can't manage. My phone is a touch screen and it locks after 3 seconds...I hate my phone. After a little while I am so stressed that my thumb starts shaking. I simply cannot enter 16 numbers without a mistake. Hang up, start all over. After 30 minutes, I still could not get to talk to a person. Pressing 0 got me no where. It really annoys me that it is so trying to get to talk to a company you do business with. Oh, and after you enter you 19 digit account number, the first thing they ask you for is your account number. But they can call you at 6AM. Just trying to get the smallest thing done takes hours, because the companies we do business with are saving a couple of dollars by not employing a person to answer the phone...while we consumers waste so much time trying to reach them. I really, really, really want to say a bad word. 

I know that each and every one of you have experienced this same frustration. Why do we have to put up with it?


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## ann4280 (Jan 28, 2013)

Sylvia,
Try punching in 0 and the pound sign as many times as you can. Or just try punching in pound many times. Generally there is a combination of 0 and the pound sign that will flip you over to customer service.

Ann


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## Sylie (Apr 4, 2011)

ann4280 said:


> Sylvia,
> Try punching in 0 and the pound sign as many times as you can. Or just try punching in pound many times. Generally there is a combination of 0 and the pound sign that will flip you over to customer service.
> 
> Ann


I did. Sometimes that works, but not this time. I went to their web site and spent 45 minutes before I could finally get an e-mail message to them. It will probably take a week before they reply with some response that doesn't even address my question. In the mean time they are charging late fees.


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## pammy4501 (Aug 8, 2007)

Actually I have found that simply not pressing any numbers at all gets you connected the quickest. Just sit and wait for it. It works!


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## eiksaa (Jun 8, 2012)

Try gethuman.com

You enter a company name and they tell you the easiest way to talk to a human. 


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## eiksaa (Jun 8, 2012)

pammy4501 said:


> Actually I have found that simply not pressing any numbers at all gets you connected the quickest. Just sit and wait for it. It works!


Or this. The voice thingies don't get my accent anyway, so I just stay quiet till I reach a human. 


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## dntdelay (May 27, 2011)

Sylvia I understand what you mean about companies. You the consumer spend so much time trying to talk to someone and then when you do talk to them it's like you are interrupting their time. Grrrrr!!!!


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## zooeysmom (Aug 1, 2011)

Have you tried swearing? I cuss the automated system out and usually get connected to a human after yelling the f word.


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## MalteseJane (Nov 21, 2004)

That's one reason I keep a land line. There is no way I would be able to lessen and push this or that on a cell phone.


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## edelweiss (Apr 23, 2010)

Sylie, I truly apologize but your msg. just made me laugh outloud! "I just want to say a bad word" about says it all! You have the most delightful sense of humor, honestly. 
I know that frustration living in a different country most of my life---there is a human there but they don't care what I am trying to say in their language---it is like talking to your machine. The other frustration is getting someone in Timbucktu whose job it is "to make me wish I lived on Mars". . . so my heart is truly w/you eventhough I think you are funny.


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## maggieh (Dec 16, 2007)

I understand completely - Saturday is episode 5 of "As the Refrigerator Runs:" "In this episode, Maggie escalates her ongoing angst over a constantly running refrigerator to a Senior Technician in the hopes that he won't break her heart by blowing off the service appointment!"

I usually touch 0 and if that doesn't work ####### a whole bunch of times to get someone. When I finally get a person, I ask if they're onshore or offshore and if offshore I ask to escalate it to an onshore representative. I've found that I get someone who listens instead of someone who's just following a script.


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## ladodd (Jan 8, 2012)

Sylvia, I feel your pain, it's infuriating. My current gripe is trying to get medical insurance issues straightened out for my 18 yr old son. They won't talk to me since he's "of age". He's still on my group insurance with my employer, I pay the bills..infuriating.


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## Furbabies mom (Jul 25, 2011)

Oh yeah, and how about the menus??? Press 1 through 50 to get the dept. you want, and then I forget which dept. best suits the question I'm wanting to ask???


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## TLR (Nov 13, 2011)

We all feel your pain, it's a PIA (pain in ....). You insert bad word but somehow I don't think that's the word that was on your mind.


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## Cyndilou (Jan 24, 2013)

A big AMEN to this post sister!!!!


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## sherry (Jan 4, 2013)

I just spent 1 1/2 hours on the phone with the internet guy whom I could not understand! I kept saying huh, and what!?!That's not what I was saying in my mind!


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## Maidto2Maltese (Oct 19, 2004)

Oh I so know your frustration! ... and I can't begin to tell you how outraged my husband gets! Sometimes by the time he FINALLY get to a human ( IF he does) he's so angry he can hardly express his initial concern!... and oh yes more than one bad word in the process! 

Hope you can resolve your issues soon! I handled the estates of both my sisters and it's tedious enough without this aggrevation!


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## mdbflorida (Feb 28, 2013)

By any chance can you get your lawyer to send a letter to the mortgage company? They really should have done that upfront.


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## lynda (Oct 11, 2005)

I totally understand and agree with what you are saying. If you ever find the answer let me know. In the mean time, just say the bad word, I know I do and it makes me feel better.:chili::chili::chili:


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## IzzysBellasMom (Jan 16, 2013)

Last weekend my dh tried to update our garmin online, it wiped out the whole system on the garmin. So Monday afternoon he called garmin to see what to do. After pushing the correct numbers to get to a service rep, it told him he had a 35 minute wait. Well after 30 minutes it hung up on him. He was a little mad, had to call back and waited another 45 minutes before he got a rep to the phone. Luckily once he did talk to a rep, a quick email and she sent us great instructions and the file to reinstall the operation system on the garmin.


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## The A Team (Dec 1, 2005)

There are not that many things that I dislike in this world....but

I HATE AUTOMOATED PHONE MENUS!!!:smilie_tischkante:

I've been the executrix for both my step-dad and my mother in the past few years. Spent many many many hours on the phone cussing at recordings. There's nothing worse than having to answer questions being asked by a machine. ...oh except for when you finally get a person who doesn't speak English...not that I could tell anyway! :blink:

I actually yell at the recordings to get the (heck) off the phone and give me a live person!!!!:angry: - that never worked though...

I feel your pain.


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## AshleyAndSophiePup (Aug 24, 2012)

I am alway the one in the house to call automated systems. Because as my friends put it "I have the patience of a saint." What they don't see is while I'm calm, cool and collected on the outside I'm screaming about 20 different swear words in my head. Hey, whatever works. Right? :blush:



ladodd said:


> Sylvia, I feel your pain, it's infuriating. My current gripe is trying to get medical insurance issues straightened out for my 18 yr old son. They won't talk to me since he's "of age". He's still on my group insurance with my employer, I pay the bills..infuriating.


My mom went through this when I turned 18 a few years ago. I got on the phone long enough to say who I was and that my mom had access to my records or whatever they needed me to say and that's all it took 


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## babycake7 (Jan 30, 2012)

It took me 61 minutes this morning to get human help with Direct TV today. ARGH! I feel your pain, Sylvia! I also detest when I call and I can not understand what the person is saying because the call center is outsourced to a foreign country. I recall once, years ago, hearing one of my co-workers, a very proper and calm young man screaming a litany of swear words and then screaming, "I thought I was calling AMERICA on-line!!!!!' because he had been connected with a service representative that he could not understand.


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## Lacie's Mom (Oct 11, 2006)

Sylvia -- on a "good" day, I hate dealing with the automated systems but when you're upset and having a "bad" day it's unbearable. 

And of course, my company has an automated system too. I get calls all the time from frustrated customers. For example, if you don't have your account number, you can't go forward with the automated system, but, in our case, your interenet is out and that's what you're calling to report, and your account number is stored online and you can't get to it because your internet is out -- but you can't report that your internet is out because you don't have your account number and on and on and on it goes.:smilie_tischkante::smilie_tischkante:

On top of this -- it's so hard to settle an estate after the death of a loved one. You're in terrific pain, but no one is helpful or understanding. They have their "rules" which are often just stupid or unrealistic and you have to abide by at a time you are in tears, not doing well mentally and just plain upset.

Sometimes I think that the younger workers (who primarily man the call centers) have no compassion.


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## Sylie (Apr 4, 2011)

Grrrrrr. A good day can be ruined after you make try to make a call. So, while I can't call them they can call me. My sister's former mortgage company had my phone number, thinking it was my sisters. They would call me early in the morning, never caring that I have a west coast area code.


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## Leila'sMommy (Oct 20, 2012)

This is one of my biggest pet peeves!! Especially when I finally get to a human and can't understand what they're saying or when they don't really know the answer and keep repeating some script they're reading that doesn't answer the question in trying to ask. I wish we could boycott all businesses who use these until they stop using them. 


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## Sylie (Apr 4, 2011)

Leila'sMommy said:


> This is one of my biggest pet peeves!! Especially when I finally get to a human and can't understand what they're saying or when they don't really know the answer and keep repeating some script they're reading that doesn't answer the question in trying to ask. I wish we could boycott all businesses who use these until they stop using them.
> 
> 
> Sent from Petguide.com Free App


Oh so do I. Only they are all in it together. Next time I get an incoming call from an 800 number I am going to tell them to enter numbers until their head explodes. Trouble is there isn't even a person on the line when they call YOU. I used to get these computer generated calls with a robot instructing me to press 9...or some crap. Every single morning. So, I tried to respond to tell them to take me off the list, but again I never got through to a person. I wanted to kill, not just say bad words.


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## MalteseJane (Nov 21, 2004)

Lacie's Mom said:


> Sylvia -- on a "good" day, I hate dealing with the automated systems but when you're upset and having a "bad" day it's unbearable.
> 
> And of course, my company has an automated system too. I get calls all the time from frustrated customers. For example, if you don't have your account number, you can't go forward with the automated system, but, in our case, your interenet is out and that's what you're calling to report, and your account number is stored online and you can't get to it because your internet is out -- but you can't report that your internet is out because you don't have your account number and on and on and on it goes.:smilie_tischkante::smilie_tischkante:
> 
> ...


That's why it is important to settle estate when you are still alive. And of course young workers don't have compassion. They have not experienced yet what it is to lose someone. 
We have only one child so I understand we have not the same problem. But we already did everything so she does not have to go through probate when we die. She can access all our Bank accounts and the house automatically is hers without going through probate. But a lot of people don't do this because they think they are not going to die yet and mostly they are afraid to talk about it. And when something happens, the surviving family members have to go through all the mess.

When it comes to automated systems, I hate them too. And when it comes to when your computer is not able to access the internet anymore and they advertise that if you have a problem, send them an e-mail or schedule an appointment on line. Ya right, how am I suppose to do that !!! When my computer crash, I don't have access to ANYTHING anymore and certainly not to the internet. :smilie_tischkante:


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## pippersmom (May 21, 2012)

How about after you press 50 million different buttons, you finally get a real person who puts you on hold and transfers you to someone else while you have to sit there listening to their dumb music playing in the background.


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## plenty pets 20 (Jul 8, 2006)

I wonder what all the high tech has saved us? Paper, NOT. Stress, Not. Thanks for all the hints on how to cheat the system..
I don't pay bills on line for this very reason. Don't want them helping themselves to my money.


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## Sylie (Apr 4, 2011)

So, today I went to my Chase bank to open the estate account for my sister. It was amazing. It took almost three hours, but the gaps were filled in with laughter and fun with my "private banker." I have a direct phone line to call her with any questions I might have. She also helped me to put my own accounts in a better place. What a delight. Chase bank works really hard to give top notch customer service. I wonder what happens if you call their 800 number.


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## ann4280 (Jan 28, 2013)

I am glad everything worked out.


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## maltese manica (Nov 6, 2012)

I am glad that you got things all sorted out!


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## pehirsch (May 13, 2013)

GREAT question...why ARE we putting up with 'cash rich, employee poor' companies that continue to go for ROI and NOT America strong???


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## Sylie (Apr 4, 2011)

pehirsch said:


> GREAT question...why ARE we putting up with 'cash rich, employee poor' companies that continue to go for ROI and NOT America strong???


We put up with it because we have no choice. They continue to use these automated systems that they know we hate, because they know we have not choice. You can't just get a new mortgage company when you find out they are impossible to phone, and even if you could, the new one would be the same. :angry:


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## Maidto2Maltese (Oct 19, 2004)

I even have issue with things having to be entered via computer Vs paper sometimes. 
Last year in the process of hubby having a medical procedure ( out-patient) he had to get all pre-op testing etc done. We were sent to several depts..each requesting the same info ( all within the same facility). 
The last one had to do with admission forms for the day of procedure. Only a minute or so into the process the gals computer froze! She couldn't get out nor could she procede. We were 'stuck' there having to wait for a techy-person to come and 'fix'. 
The gal ( a nurse) said," you know I could have had all this done and you on your way if we could use paper forms for this! She said even when all went 'smoothly' she feels the 'paperwork' done on paper goes much faster than having to wait for 'screens" and for the computer to 'allow' you to go on to next section.


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