by
William A. Gralnick
I had three suspicious charges on a credit card that had to be challenged. You probably could write the rest of this yourselves, but allow me.
Call one. Initials was the sender. They meant nothing to me. I googled them (someday I’ve got to figure out if Barney Google and Google are related…) and found they were a legit company. I found a customer service number for them and made a legit call. The response to the legit call was a legit email address. Contacting the email, I got a response that told me that they no longer have customer service personel. Is that legit? However if I followed the instructions that would tell me the what and when of concern they would send me a receipt. If they couldn’t find the receipt I was to let them know. What would happen after that was a mystery.
To my shock, I received the receipt the next day. It made the light dawn. Crossing call one off my list was a pleasure. It would be the last pleasure of this experience.
Next came something I found so intriguing that it almost made up for the aggravation. I “spoke” with five robots, each one passing me to the next. They were quite polite. Each was sorry, after I gave them the infromation for which they asked and was the same information I had given to the previous what? thing? machine? stick with robot? or am I on familiar enough terms to call them bots? The next to last one held out hope, until that is I got to the last one. It told me to call back.
I dialed up number three on the hit parade. This time I didn’t even get a bot to talk to. I got a bot that preferred writing. Have you ever checked “chat” as your option? If not, don’t. It can be the most maddening of all.
The bot doesn’t really care what your problem is. I shouldn’t say that. I wants to know your problem through asking specific questions. No matter what you tell it to try to hasten the process, it fails. Or, it has no memory. Usually when you are first contacted you are asked, “How may I help you?” Dutifully, you give it the answer. Then come the questions in its own order as if you’d never explained anything to it. You can type in capitals. You can bold the capitals. I’ve used sarcasm and irony. I have screamed SUPERVISOR!! Dozens of times. Nada. Bots have no sense of humor or even sense that you are trying to be humorous. Nor do they know or sense that you are angry. This time, I hung up on it.
Today I tried one more. I’ll give you the name: Spotify. The first thing that comes up when you google them is a notice that have have no customer service by phone. I found an email for customer service: no people to be found. I found another email that went through. I laid out my story: i had a trial subscription for the service, canceled it, and they don’t stop charging my credit card. My email said that without a prompt resolution I was reporting them the the Dept. of Consumer Affiars. As Rachel says, “Watch this space.”
So, tell me where all the people have gone, though I admit, at times people can be as aggravating as robots. Many read to you from a book.
If the plot doesn’t contain your answer you are transferred to someone with a different book. This premium experience most often happens to me when I’m having a problem with a premium streaming service or trying to resolve a cell phone problem. Trying to solve technical problems these days, can give you mental health problems–at least from my perspective.
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Bill bids thee so long until the New Year with wishes to all for a healthy, safe, and joyous holiday season and a Happy New Year filled with promise.
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