My Internet connection went down, so I called my shitty provider for tech support and got sucked into the seventh circle of automated voice response menu hell. Finally got shoveled into the queue for tech support.
The automated voice kept coming onto the line every 30 seconds to tell me that if I wanted faster service, I should visit fuckyousuckerwegotyermonies.com. After hearing that for the fourth or fifth time, I pointlessly screamed into the receiver: “IF I COULD GET ONLINE I WOULDN’T BE CALLING YOU, MOTHERFUCKERRRRRSSSSSS!!!”
If an obscenity is shrieked into a dead phone line, does it make a sound? Yes, because it frightened my dogs out of the room and caused birds who were at a feeder 15 feet distant to fly away. The end.
scav
We need to add that image to the store as a refrigerator magnet. Maybe a coffee mug.
Davebo
Been there done that. Looking for a new hosting company now for my website/email and making the change is a real pain in the ass but getting an email saying my site will go down tomorrow despite the fact that I’m paid up through January pushed me over the edge.
And it’s not even cheap. I pay 27 bucks a month for Linux hosting!
Germy
I’ve experienced that hell many, many times. I remember once I tried to be good and obediently selected the numbers they told me to (“press two if blah blah, press three if blah blah) and after going around in circles I was disconnected.
Nowadays if I feel myself being pulled into automated hell I press “0” until I can get a real person. Who usually isn’t any more helpful than the bot.
MomSense
Comcast and Bank of America are the two that send me over the edge.
When people complain about “government takeover” of health care, I wonder if they have somehow managed to get through life without having to call the cable company.
AdamK
I live in a Time Warner monopoly town. Talk about hell. They do extra, egregious, unnecessary awful things to their customers to make them hate them even more. Because they are evil and like to be hated.
Betty Cracker
@scav: We could make them customizable for all the major carrier groups!
Ecks
@MomSense: keep the private sector out of my comcast.
Rosalita
that recording to visit the website is the worst f*ing poke in eye – seriously why would anyone subject themselves to calling if they had any other choice? I have used the website gerthumandotcom on occasion and was able to get someone.
Germy
It’s really fucked up to tell someone whose internet connection is down to visit a website.
It’s like a doctor telling an emergency patient with two broken legs “Have you tried our walk-in clinic?”
redshirt
I really wish I could get broadband. I can’t use Netflix or Amazon streaming videos because it would cost me hundreds of dollars in usage fees, as I use a Verizon hot spot as my internet connection and while it’s plenty fast, data is expensive.
redshirt
@MomSense: Why do use a bank instead of a Credit Union? I went CC a few years back and I honestly don’t know what I’d get out of a bank that I can’t get with a CC. Plus, I’m not giving the bank gambling money.
Betty Cracker
@Germy: I’m going to steal your “walk-in clinic” line for the customer service survey. Hilarious!
scav
As a blood pressure escape hatch and for those suffering from PTSPJSHD (Post Traumatic Stress Phone Jail Service Hell Disorder), you may really need to meet the probable cousin of the giraffe: Xenokeryx amidalae and I so hope they are scrabble acceptable. Along with the third horn, don’t miss the little teeth.
Germy
@Betty Cracker: Comedy is tragedy plus time.
It’s been a few months since I’ve been in automated hell, so I can joke about it.
Lee
I admit I’m one of a very few fortunate people. I’m on Time Warner and usually my help desk calls are answered pretty quick.
Not that they are very helpful as the answer is ‘we’ll send out a tech’ and it is usually the middle of the following week.
But at least the call is answered quickly.
Darkrose
Mentioned in the last thread: MSNBC, CNN and other news crews went into the SB shooters’ apartment and started filming as they rifled through shit. They broadcast un-redacted shots of drivers’ licenses and Social Security cards.
The Fourth Estate is dead.
Randy P
I feel for you, Betty. I’m with Verizon FIOS because the alternative was Comcast. Now I’m basically just living life hoping never to have to call Tech Support, because if I ever do have a problem… well, I don’t think I’d bother calling Tech Support anyway. The entire Tech Support industry has trained the expectations right out of me. I’m in full Eeyore mode (“why bother… just be on hold for an hour and not get an answer anyway…”)
MattF
And there are companies that actually let you arrange call-backs within a time window. I know, it’s amazing that they try to avoid having hundreds of angry users holding the phone to their ears for an hour.
Linnaeus
The First Honest Cable Company.
(Advisory: Adult language)
Mike in NC
We have one company in the county that provides electricity, TV, telephone and Internet service. No competition, and we pay through the nose.
Betty Cracker
@MattF: For the love of sweet, merciful dog, why doesn’t everyone?
schrodinger's cat
For those who like Indian classical music and folk music, the mp3s of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s new movie Bajirao Mastani are out. The score has 10 songs
My favorites are Albela Sajan from part 1
and Fitoori and Gajanana from part 2
Ibadat is juxtaposition of Vishnu Stotra in Sanskrit and a Muslim prayer, fitting since the eponymous Bajirao and Mastani are Hindu and Muslim, respectively. Except for pinga and Malhari, I like all of them in varying degrees.
Benw
Betty, why didn’t you just send your thoughts and prayers to your internet connection?
Roger Moore
I will say that phone trees have taught me the value of hold music and occasional voices coming on the speaker to tell you to stay on the line. There’s nothing worse than being on hold and getting nothing but dead air; you have no way of knowing if you’re still connected and in line or if you’ve been silently dropped. I’ll take Muzak over that.
Germy
Former SNL writer/cast member and current Senator Al Franken has a new book in the works. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Franken has signed a book deal with Hachette’s imprint Twelve to pen an untitled memoir that will cover his career from SNL to his current job in the US Senate. The memoir will hit bookstores sometime in 2017
shell
Yeah, always wonder at the logic of this little pearl. Also, the endless “All of our operators are busy helping other people, please stay on the line….”
Yes, I know that you idiot, otherwise I still wouldn’t be on hold. you don’t have to tell me this every 30 seconds!!!
Germy
@schrodinger’s cat: Have you seen this? I thought the dancing and the music really complement each other.
Bobby Thomson
Pro tip. Screaming obscenities at the voice prompts sometimes does the same thing as pushing zero. And feels a lot better.
Roger Moore
@Benw:
It will probably accomplish about as much as calling tech support, but it will be much less frustrating.
Betty Cracker
And, hello “Recent Comments” in the sidebar, my old friend! Thanks, designers!
MomSense
@redshirt:
I don’t but sometimes I have to call them for work.
scav
@shell: And somehow, no matter what the hour or day, they are always experiencing unexpected call volume. Well, clearly, advertise to one and all that either A) you can’t plan worth toffee and are cheap to boot or B) your products are so bad that you can’t handle the number of people calling to complain about them. They really haven’t figured out the phone jail busy-bar, have they.
dedc79
There’s a special place in hell reserved for whoever came up with the phrase: “we are experiencing unusually high call volumes”
FlyingToaster
@MomSense: My sympathies. Seriously.
We got rid of BoA, because it became effing Evil.
I got my original account at BayBank. BayBank merged with Bank of Boston to become BankBoston. Which was bought by Fleet (and had an ATM in Harvard Square that dispensed EUROS!). Which was bought by Bank of America, which closed the Euro ATM, moved the tellers to the basement, and eventualy started charging fees if you didn’t have direct deposit, despite how much money you had in the account.
I’ve been a freelancer since 1990, and a part-time homemaker since 2007. Neither of those positions offer direct deposit. I moved to a local S&L where I have NEVER paid a fee; HerrDoktor followed 3 months later (once we finished moving my accounts). BoA can just go the fuck under, the sooner the better.
HerrDoktor and I, back in 2002, chose which towns to househunt in depending upon if we could get RCN. He’d had Comcast, and I’d had ATTBI (since bought by Comcast) and neither of us were going to go through that again.
@Betty Cracker: Verizon sucks puppies. Any decent telephone connection or caller id program would know that you can’t call yourself. If the reported caller id matches the number being called, it should shunt that call straight to either tech support or fraud detection. Or the state police. HerrDoctor wants me to cancel the land line; I want to keep it so that the medical people and the [redacted] credit fraud detection departments can call me without eavesdroppers. If they get any worse I may take RCN up on its bundle.
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
Is there a sidebar? All I have is a bunch of stuff at the bottom of the page.
Lee
Wasn’t there a thread/post/something where we could comment about bugs on the site?
thanks,
lee
craigie
@MomSense:
This. People seem to have it in for the DMV, for example, but every time I have to deal with them, it’s quick and painless and professional. Compare and contrast with almost any private company of a similar size.
In fact, I called the Feds this morning about an immigration issue (citizenship for a relative). Got straight through, talked to an actual human, who knew the answers to my questions – all done. Government works if you want it to.
Germy
@scav: When I hear “all our operators are busy” I never believe it. I imagine them in the break room (perhaps a meeting of the Finer Things Club) or else sitting at their workstations staring into space and chewing on toothpicks.
schrodinger's cat
Verizon is evil and so is Comcast. I am glad to have kicked them to the curb. Also too BoA.
Betty Cracker
@Roger Moore: There is if you’re on the main page.
@Lee: Yes — click the About tab up top and then proceed to Site Maintenance.
Ahasuerus
@Davebo:
Check out Rimuhosting. Xen virtual machines or dedicated servers, data centers in several major cities all over the world, not at all expensive. I’ve been hosting a Linux VM with my email and website on them for years and have been an extremely happy camper. And no, I’m just a customer, not an employee :)
Rosalita
And you want to bet the cheap bastards probably only have three people in the call center?
SarahT
@Betty Cracker: Betty, if you can get RCN cable/internet in your area I highlt recommend them (well, as far as I can recommend any cable company, that is). Have yet to wait on hold nore than a minute for a live person, they price gouge less than our previous provider (Time Warner,so that’s not saying much, I guess), & very few tech issues over the past four years. If you can’t get RCN, well…condolences.
Woodrowfan
one of our dogs is scared on my HP printer now, because she is so used to hearing me yell at it. If she hears me print something she goes and sits next to my wife. “Daddy’s going to start yelling again!@”
kindness
Why do you have a birdfeeder in your livingroom Betty?
trollhattan
Took me two days on hold to generate a work order for servicing a gizmo by Samsung US. Two days.
evap
We just switched from AT&T DSL to AT&T Uverse (fiber optic) internet. It was a pain to get them to come out and install it, but now that it is installed, it seems to be working well. Much better than DSL and cheaper (at least for the first year).
Google fiber is supposed to be coming to my city (Atlanta) one of these days — I can’t wait.
We’ve been banking with a credit union for decades and I highly recommend them. We got our mortgage, car loans, and home equity loans through them, all at better rates (and fewer fees) than regular banks, with less hassle and friendly service.
trollhattan
@kindness:
The world is Betty’s livingroom. We’re just overstaying visitors.
ThresherK
@scav: Beat me to it. “We’re experiencing exceptionally heavy call volume right now” all the time. Every part of the day, week, month and year, no matter the industry.
pat
We have Charter for TV, phone and internet. The nice thing is that you can DRIVE to their office and they will SEND someone to your home to connect a new direct TV gizmo of some such.
Hal
Watching a old high school friend on Facebook descend into ISIS paranoia over the past few weeks. It’s been interesting seeing some of the friend of friends comments because so many of them are so way off; one woman insisting that Syrian refugees go through absolutely no screening process and are all arriving here in the US at once. References to “they’re coming for us” and everyone had better start stockpiling those guns because apparent conceal/carry Dirty Harry is going to save us all.
tratclif
Having some experience on the other side of the phone, [REDACTED] outsources Internet tech support. There are different legacy billing systems left over from mergers, and an overarching tool that integrates poorly with them. The systems have not been updated in years, as have other customer-side tools that are stressed to provide service in environments they were never programmed for. At least once a week, a mission-critical system will crash for hours. Fixing some system problems requires some techs that work Mon-Fri to fix by hand.
The customer service reps are on flex schedules. The schedule changes every 2 weeks, and the csr has to call in every day to see if they show up on time or up to 2 hours early or late. Some are split-schedules: work 4 hours, leave for up to 4 hours, come back in. The outsourcer is constanly trying to balance demand with payroll, so a csr might be asked to take unpaid time off in the middle of the day when there are “too many” csrs, or have their employer call them frantically when there are too few.
And the outsource wonders why they have such turnover.
goblue72
@Germy: My favorite is that the only way to see if Comcast service is temporarily gone down in your neighborhood is to GO ONLINE to Comcast’s website.
Kafka couldn’t do any more absurd.
Jon Rockoford
Here’s my consumer contribution:
Had 5 lines on Verizon Wireless for $165 a month for years. We shared 10GB.
I called in October to ask about replacing phones. Rep said I was paying too much for data we don’t use and he could lower my bill to $135 but for only 4GB. We don’t use more than 4GB so I said yes. Nice guy, right?
When I checked my bill a week after, it was $250 for 4GB.
Over the next two weeks I called and chatted many times (wherever chat is available, which is not always; to get someone on the phone I’d call their Customer Retension number at 800-222-8588). Every single time, rep had no clue. I either had to explain from the beginning or give them a previous chat reference number and wait until the rep got up to speed. Sometimes I was told there was no such deal and I’d call right back, get someone else, and the new rep would promise to make the adjustment.
One rep spent 5 minutes telling me how she would totally and absolutely take care of me and gave me her name and email address as proof and told me to email her if in one day everything was not resolved.
Nothing was resolved. Never responded to my email. When I called nobody knew her.
Nothing was ever done. I eventually went to a Verizon store. Have you been to a Verizon store? You give your name and wait for an hour to get someone who doesn’t give a shit. And that’s exactly what happened. He said the best he could do was to lower the bill back to $165, but not for 10GB but for 4GB. And I could check out the phones they had on display on my own if I was interested in a new phone.
So, I started at $165 for 10GB, they proposed $135 for 4GB, jacked me up to $250 for 4GB, put me through the ringer for a couple of weeks and the best they could do is give me the price I was already paying but for less data.
Walked out, went to a T-Mobile store across the street, got a plan for $140 a month for 10GB for EACH line and I’ve been delighted ever since. Why Verizon is the most popular wireless service I have no idea. I stayed with them out of laziness and the mistaken impression that they’re so freakin reliable.
I’ve had zero problems with T-Mobile, I pay less for far more, and the their rep suggested discounted-and-with-rebates LG G4s and they’re awesome; best smartphone I’ve ever had.
P.S. Verizon called twice after I switched, with promises out the wazoo. Too late, assholes.
Mike J
@goblue72: You can use your phone to check the web page, Yes, you’ll need to use part of your data allotment from your phone company, but you’ll have more info.
trollhattan
@Hal:
Cripes, doesn’t she know it’s just a component of a larger plot to distract us from the invading Mexican hordes? Sheesh lady, stay with the program here!
goblue72
@Hal: News this morning is that the wife posted some pro-ISIS stuff on her Facebook page under a fake account. So now everyone is calling it “terrorism” and that they were “radicalized”.
Meanwhile, dozens of white male mass shooters post all sorts of KKK and Fox News influenced crap on-line, and we just call them mentally ill.
There are days I really despise this country.
dlm
I’ve had problems with Verizon too. Nothing beats Independence Blue Cross (Phila) for the worst customer service and wait time. I called them in October and was passed around six times before someone could/would help me. I had to call back twice because I was put on hold and disconnected.
They suck.
trollhattan
@Jon Rockoford:
Good going. How is TMobile coverage in your area? Where I am, once you’re out of the city everybody but Verizon has crap coverage so they’re kind of in the driver’s seat.
Jay C
Back in Ye Ancient Days Of Eld (i.e. up until about 4-5 years ago) Vomitous Zebra Nits used to provide their customers with a means to actually get in touch with the (locally dispatched) service personnel – a few minutes’ chat with whom often solved ones’ problems: now, I’m told, everything gets routed through their Call Center – one located, I’m sure, in the UTC+5-1/2 time zone – “for convenience” (whose? not the customers’!).
I admit a great deal of sympathy for Betty’s outrage the Vile Zinger Network recently upgraded the lines in our building to fiber-optic: unfortunately they weren’t clear that terminating our phone service and closing our account were part of the deal….
Our landlines were down for a week: thank goodness for cellphones….
goblue72
@Mike J: Oh that is what I usually do. I think its just kind of asinine.
Betty Cracker
@tratclif: Thanks for your insights. I’ve usually had good luck once I finally get a person on the phone and am invariably polite to them. It’s the automated thingy that drives me buggy and makes me yell. One thing I’ve learned is that if the agent wants me to do something ridiculous, such as stand on my washing machine to hard wire an incoming cable directly to my laptop, I can just say LOL-NO! and they’ll move on to the next item in their script.
gvg
Coincidently TPM has a story up about Verizon and monopolies/duapolies being duffuses. They tried to switch from time warner to verizon and haven’t got it working after 3 months.
The story about the owner of the SB shooters apartment allowing reporters in to look everything over is just bizarre. FBI quoted at the end saying it was NOT cleared sounds like there is going to be trouble over this.
Lawyer for the family is a Sandy Hook truther who is trying to make it sound like the shooters were framed, so that is going to be in the news. I know families often refuse to see their relatives as bad, but this sounds really stupid.
I hope the reporters in the apartment doesn’t mess up any chain of evidence. I want to know what happened, not have an unclear mess argued over for years.
rikyrah
A.V. Club:
NBC finally gets it right withThe Wiz Live!
And that’s how you put on a show! The Wiz Live!may be NBC’s third recent attempt at staging a live musical, but it’s the first one that worked without any caveats necessary. I was kinder to The Sound Of Music Live! and Peter Pan Live! than most critics because I felt there was a lot of potential in the idea of staging live musical theater on TV. Tonight NBC proved my faith was well placed with a musical event that was finally worth watching and not just hate-watching.
It helps that The Wiz is just better source material for a live production than the past two bloated, old-fashioned musicals. While The Wiz isn’t exactly modern (it opened on Broadway in 1975), its radio-ready score and ever so slightly edgy book (there’s a joke about transporting a minor across state lines!) make it immediately accessible to modern audiences. While the show can be a bit plodding and anticlimactic at times (like, for instance, the Wicked Witch’s quick death), it’s smart enough to throw in an upbeat song every few minutes to keep things easing on down the road.
Rather than give audiences a celebrity to rootagainst this year, NBC smartly offered an underdog to root for. Newcomer Shanice Williams is easily the best lead NBC has cast so far, bringing heart and conviction to her modern day Dorothy (dressed in a red plaid miniskirt in place of Judy Garland’s iconic blue gingham). If her acting was sometimes a little low-energy, she more than made up for it each time she opened her mouth to sing. Her Disney princess-like rendition of “Soon As I Get Home” contrasted nicely with her powerful, rich performances of “Be A Lion” and “Home”—two numbers that likely brought tears to many eyes…
[a thoughtful review that makes some interesting observations]
…Really, however, those complaints are fairly minor, especially compared to the much larger issues I had with the past two NBC musicals. It’s a testament toThe Wiz Live! that the most people could find to snark about on Twitter was the noticeable lack of Toto during most of the show. Perhaps that’s because this production really did feel like something special.
Tonight’s broadcast was full of black actors of all different ages, skin tones, and body types playing characters that ranged from saintly to villainous and everywhere in-between (sometimes all at once: Dorothy is probably the most lovable murderer ever written). The show asserted—often explicitly—that these characters are smart, brave, loving, powerful, and beautiful. White audiences take it for granted how often we’re bolstered up by the media we watch. The Wiz Live! sent the same message to black audiences while simultaneously offering up a goofy, heartwarming piece of entertainment for everyone.
In other words, The Wiz Live! had courage, heart, brains, and one of the catchiest musical scores ever written. Really, what more could you ask for?
http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/nbc-finally-gets-it-right-wiz-live-229325
rikyrah
LA Times:
‘The Wiz Live!’: Gorgeous, utterly sincere and attitude to spare
So now we know: It’s much easier to successfully stage a famous musical on live television if you cast a group of multi-talented, high-energy and personally kinetic performers who know how to own the spectacle rather than the other way around.
Oh, and get Cirque de Soleil involved if at all possible.
It certainly worked for “The Wiz Live!” the latest addition to NBC’s new holiday tradition. Unlike recent live musicals of Christmas past (“The Sound of Music,” “Peter Pan”), “The Wiz” did not serve itself up for live-tweeting snark.
Instead, it brought to the flat screen a gorgeous and utterly sincere celebration of the show that has been a fan favorite ever since it won an armful of Tonys 40 years ago. The Harvey Fierstein-tweaked script had plenty of pop culture references and attitude to spare–when Mary J. Blige is your Wicked Witch, there will be Attitude—but it remained a sincere and joyful celebration of the work.
Put on, it must be added, by a bona fide dazzling display of talent, including Amber Riley, Elijah Kelley, Ne-Yo, David Alan Grier, Queen Latifah and Uzo Aduba. Faced with such a high-wattage supporting cast, even a seasoned lead might be daunted, but newcomer Shanice Williams entered strong and remained the vivid heart of the piece. If her voice thinned out at times when the dancing got tough, she brought down the house every time she needed to—with Kelley and Ne-Yo in “Ease on Down the Road,” with Grier in the show-stopping “Be a Lion,” with all three in the new “We Got It” and in her big finale, “Home.”…
…The only real problem, beside the lack of sneer-tweet material, was logistical. The frequency and length of commercial interruptions went far beyond irritating, into the realm of destructive. Making “The Wiz Live!” a live television event best seen prerecorded.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/showtracker/la-et-st-review-the-wiz-live-20151203-story.html
trollhattan
@gvg:
Luckily, a reporter would NEVER do such a thing. For all the good the local authorities did Wednesday, this phase is beginning to sound Clouseau-esque.
schrodinger's cat
@Germy: No I hadn’t! The monkeys were the best!
rikyrah
they violated what HAS TO BE A CRIME SCENE?
Have my years of watching Law and Order been for naught?
WHEN, less than a WEEK after the incident..
IS THAT NOT AN ACTIVE CRIME SCENE?
…………………………………………
CBS Los AngelesVerified account
@CBSLA
Landlord says he didn’t allow media into San Bernardino shooters’ apartment: ‘they rushed’ http://cbsn.ws/1cUhbOw
gex
Not sure when the Recent Comments feature came back, but good job dev team!
Iowa Old Lady
We have Mediacom for internet and phone. They’re pretty responsive.
Mwangangi
@goblue72: I had this exact discussion yesterday. Why does everyone talk about Daesh and Al-Qaida’s slick multimedia outreach and ignore all the Fox ‘news’, ‘Talk’ radio and websites that put out a steady stream of the same sort of hateful shit right here in the United states?
trollhattan
After the bible class massacre, I’d assumed South Carolina legislators would have dialed back crap like this.
They’re not kidding about the betrayal thing.
Greg Schisla
Seems TPM isn’t too impressed either.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/broadband-policy-update-verizon-doofuses-edition
Yutsano
@gex: HOLY SCHMOKAS!!! WE GOT RECENT COMMENTS BACK!!!
*throws confetti everywhere*
Calouste
@gvg: Someone pointed out on TPM that no one (except the police) has a right to go through the stuff that the murderers left behind as it is part of their estate, and of course they have a known heir. And the landlord definitely doesn’t have the right to grant access to a property without cause and notice, i.e. plumbers and electricians etc.
But considering that there was some suspicion that the murderers had help, why wasn’t the place guarded to prevent someone making off with evidence, or just completely emptied out?
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Calouste: A forensic chemist I know has speculated that the landlord could have deliberately contaminated the scene so he could rent it out again quickly.
goblue72
@trollhattan: JFC. What is wrong with people?
The problem with being an atheist, is that there is no possibility of these arseholes getting their just desserts in the afterlife.
trollhattan
@Yutsano:
Last time somebody threw confetti it shorted out the hamster wheel.
p.a.
I once hit 2 (Spanish) by accident. Pickup was immediate. I apologized. The tech said ‘no prob’ I can help you, and off we went… Just sayin’. YMMV. (Can’t remember the company)
Friends worked in the Vz FSC (fiber solutions center) and were told that to make their office target numbers they should dump the subscriber after 12 minutes with them whether the trouble was fixed or not.
When I was I&R (install/repair) and OT was shut down we would get in trouble if we were honest with the sub about why we couldn’t work past 5 to finish the job. But General Rule #3: “The company expects and requires absolute honesty from each employee in all dealings with the customer, the company, and fellow employees.”
Quote that to a manager and your life would be hell, possibly forever.
Central Planning
If you’re having trouble with services like phone or cable, threaten to go to your state’s public service commission.
The threat worked for Frontier – they finally removed their cable lying across my property.
I actually opened a PSC complaint against Time Warner and got a 3 month issue resolved in two days
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: Killer! Thanks Alain & crew!
Paul in KY
@Hal: Should tell them that the Syrians will be camp guards at the ‘Re-Education Camps’ Lex Obama will be setting up. Buwahahahahaha!!!
J R in WV
@Mike J:
Why o Why do people assume that cell phones work for everyone, everywhere? They don’t. Especially cell companies which contract with networks to supply their customers with actual connectivity.
Cricket, how many towers have they installed? T-Mobile, same question?
At my home in WV, cell service will NEVER be available because the frequencies are line-of-sight – if you can’t see a cell tower, you can’t have service.
At our camp in AZ we have line-of-sight for 50 miles in 270 degrees of landscape – but cell towers can’t receive your little phone’s signal from 20 or 30 miles away – they aren’t that strong a radio.
Verizon has a tower in range of the AZ house – ATT, nope, none of the others. Verizon owned the landline business in the area before they sold the copper to Frontier, so they had already built cell towers in the area. Everyone else rents space on the Verizon networks, so you might get a connection if no Verizon customers need that cell. Or not
Yet internet sites want me to enter my cell number, as if it was turned on more than 2 or 3 hours a week. We can use the Verizon hot-spot at the camp, but I broke down and got a sat internet service, which seems to work OK. We don’t surf that much when we’re at the camp, we do outdoors things. Like cut firewood and hike and tour.
Pogonip
To talk to a human, start speaking in Spanish. It does not matter what you say: count to ten, yell naughty words, say naughty words in a friendly tone. Once I sang “Ai yai yai yai, soy el Frito Bandito.”. Bing! Human being. I guess the computer is programmed to recognize Words That Aren’t English. If I knew enough words in another language to make a sentence, I’d try it.
catclub
@redshirt: This! and if you do not know what Kasasa banking is, it is worth finding out. Not all CU have it, but most of the providers that DO have it are Credit Unions.
EthylEster
@MomSense: BoA frustration for me today. I think that some time in the not to distant future, these kinds of interactions are going to provoke gun violence. These corporations do not seem to realize that they are driving many people f’ing crazy. The insults pile up and even calm, reasonable folks like me eventually get really pissed off. Human beings have limits. They have embraced a system that continually tests those limits.
EthylEster
@redshirt: I agree with your CU love. All my bank accounts are with federal credit unions. BUT i have to deal with BoA because of my Alaska Air frequent flier plan uses them for their VISA card. Let’s face it…you cannot completely avoid big banks in the US.
EthylEster
@Lee: I recently got an AMEX card. They proudly state that their customer service is available 24/7. I’ve had the card for 3 months and have called them 4 or 5 times about various things. On all but one occasion they have informed me that “unexpected circumstances have lengthened wait times” and advised i call back in 24 hours or visit them on the web. So much for 24/7.
EthylEster
@Roger Moore: But the frequency of the message is often the problem. Music I can abide but the same warning message over and over is maddening.
Gravenstone
I suspect the sadists who design those automated trees not only know about the Catch 22 they have you in, but are counting on it to torment your immortal soul.
rikyrah
The Hill ✔ @thehill
Woman asks Hillary if her rape views apply to Bill Clinton accusers; WATCH: http://hill.cm/z41qabG
11:57 AM – 4 Dec 2015
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Jon Rockoford:
Having worked in a call center many years ago (with the carpal tunnel problems that go with it), the very helpful person was probably unceremoniously fired for being too helpful, or managed to find a better job and left that place in the dust.
Pogonip
@EthylEster: I think it’s more they don’t care that they are driving many people, including their employees, crazy, and that they know you’ll never be able to find and shoot the offending computer or computers.
What I don’t understand is why someone hasn’t picked up on the obvious business opportunity here. Many people would probably pay more to deal with human beings who know the product and can help fix it, as well as sell it. I would certainly pay more if I never again had to hear those annoying canned voices: “One moment please,” “Your call is very important to us [so important you’ve had me on hold for 45 fucking minutes]”, “Please listen carefully as our menu options may have changed [and why, I ask, has YOUR menu suddenly become MY fucking problem?].”
Ajabu
I actually worked as a low level tech support guy for about a year back in 1999 when the music biz was in a more than usual slowdown and was eventually fired because a supervisor monitoring my calls caught me referring to AOL as either SOL or America on Hold.
Fuckers couldn’t take a joke.
boatboy_srq
It’s really strange, but the more I deal with Compost, FieOnUS, and the rest, the more I miss Ricochet and CLEAR. Wireless Internet seemed like such a no-brainer.
boatboy_srq
@Pogonip: IIRC the folks who figured that out got bought by the big boys (precisely for the superior customer service, higher customer ratings etc) and promptly run down to their level.
Jon Rockoford
@trollhattan: I’m in Columbus, Ohio and I’ve had no problems. I haven’t traveled outside the city since I got T-Mobile so I don’t know how they’ll do. I do know that there are rural areas in Ohio (e,g, Hocking Hills) where cell service is bad for everybody.
Xargonaut
@Germy: Aha, but some automaton I encountered the other day has thwarted any attempt to speak to a live specimen without first playing the entire game. That is, pressing “0” only invokes the wrath of the automaton who simply regurgitates the menu options (which “…have changed” in case you missed that the first time) until you either choose from the stated menu or hang up and go away.
Ice weasel
I love you, Betty.
Capt. Seaweed
@Davebo:
Tried iPage yet? I pay about $120/yr to host 6 different sites.
Origuy
Say what you will about Amazon, but they do customer service well. I bought a couple of books on Monday; they were supposedly delivered Wednesday afternoon. UPS said they left them at my front door. I have housemates who were home all day. They got other packages Wednesday, but never got mine. We live in a townhouse where the front door is ten feet from a common driveway. It’s not a safe place to leave anything.
I tried calling UPS and was on hold for over 30 minutes. I went to Amazon, found the “Contact Us” page, and clicked the button to have them call me. I entered my phone number and within a minute had someone on the line. He was able to have replacement copies of my books sent out and refunded the shipping charge.
WaterGirl
Alain: Just noticed that we have named threads again instead of Balloon Juice Balloon Juice Balloon Juice for tab names. Big yay for that!
Pogonip
@MomSense: They have probably had their secretaries talk to the cable company and other time-wasters. So they don’t even understand why the secretary didn’t get anything done the day she called Comcast about her boss’s bill.
Pogonip
@Origuy: Yes, they treat their customers very well. I wish they’d do the same with their employees.
Pogonip
@boatboy_srq: Well, when we finally take the guillotine out of storage, let’s start with those big boys.
I know MBAs are stupid and greedy but I still don’t understand what they have against good, or even barely passable, customer service. Can’t you loot a company without also infuriating its customers?
Ruckus
@Pogonip:
MBA looting means every last cent that can be found/ripped off/stolen/etc is one more that goes in the bosses pockets. An MBA student learns to absolutely forget about empathy, financial or otherwise on the first day of study. It is the basis of the entire degree course.
parsimon
Hey, Betty Cracker, I may be able to contribute something. I haven’t had time to read the thread, so maybe someone has already said this, but:
I recently had occasion to grapple with Verizon customer service, and was given a shortcut in order to actually get to real tech support pronto:
When you first call and get the welcome message, whatever it says (“Welcome to Verizon”, or some such), hit zero five times in a row. 00000
I don’t know if it works: as it happened, we figured out the problem ourselves. But a real live person gave me that shortcut.
Pogonip
@Ruckus: But still, don’t happy customers=more purchases=more loot?
By the way, the Federal government goes out of its way to hire MBAs nowadays. Good argument for voting against the incumbent when possible.
Ruckus
@Pogonip:
Happy customers=more purchases.
Well you already have the internet/TV/phone you paid for if not the service that you wanted. You aren’t going to buy more and with out real competition you aren’t going to change either. Now if you are talking about some retailer like wally world, you’d be correct except one of the basic premises of wally world is to kill off all the local competition from the day they arrive so that there is no competition. So who gives a shit about happy customers?
Don’t know about the MBA’s in the government but if you don’t realize that most of the government is either all political or the top level is and that almost any conservative is likely these days to be worse at their government political job than a liberal, there probably isn’t anything I can say to discourage you from playing the vote out the incumbents game. Both sides are not the same. Yes there are bad liberals. And possibly good conservatives. But given today’s conservative party I find that highly unlikely.
Tenar Darell
As a former toiler in the shiny happy realm of tech support, where closing issues, not helping people was the point, QFT:
Tehanu
@Pogonip:
The only thing I know how to say in Spanish is, “?Donde estan los parquederos guapos?” which, I am told, means “Where are the handsome parking valets”? (Although Google Translate calls them “mozos de aparcamiento”). Anyway, you could try that!