I love it when a plan comes together, things go right and as intended. It's a good feeling and I've been fortunate to have had cause to feel that way many times; that's mostly because I work really hard to move things towards optimal outcomes in all aspects of my life, am flexible along the way and have some skills that lean me towards great results.
Things still go wrong though and that's ok, they're learning experiences. It's when things go wrong unexpectedly that I get annoyed...and I was annoyed a couple days ago.
Last week I spent far too long on the phone with a service provider as I needed to swap the account holder from someone else's name and into my own. I expected to be on hold for a long time (and I was), I expected to speak to automated AI voices (and I did), and I expected to finally speak with an operator that spoke terrible English (and I did). It wasn't the worst experience of my life but it was far from the best however at the end I felt that the job was done and the scenario would roll out in the correct manner...until it didn't.
On the first of the month (after swapping the account into my name) I received the tax invoice for the service and it had gone up by $37 from the previous monthly tax invoice. Just for some background, I was paying for the service previously, I just wanted the account in my name for various reasons; I didn't expect the change of account holder to cause the cost to go up. I wasn't pleased.
It wasn't that I couldn't afford the additional cost, it was that the additional cost came without additional services or benefits and I was not advised about it.
In the past I've usually just stuff like this and moved on as I don't have the time to mess around but I was a little miffed (annoyed).
You'll note I have chosen not to swear because it's somewhat uncouth. Usually I'd say something like, I was fucken pissed off that those mother fuckers charged me more like the greedy cunts they are, but that would have been uncouth so I did not. Anyway, I was fucken pissed off that those mother fuckers charged me more like the greedy cunts they are I decided to call them back and see what could be done; after all, $37/month is $444/year which is a reasonable sum of money to spend for no reason. So I called them up, went through being on hold, the AI voice and finally got to the person who barely speaks English and went through the motions of sorting it out. I hung up the phone feeling hopeful.
Apparently, and I'm not going to hold my breath here, it's all been sorted now and the monthly bill will be $160 not $197 and I shall live happily ever after. I'm not convinced about all that though. but will have to wait until the first of the month when the new bill arrives by email to see what's up and if the cost has reverted.
Have you ever been through something similar where the cost of a service or subscription was hiked up for no apparent reason or after some bullshit fucken excuse? (Oops, I may have fucken sworn back there.)
If you've had a similar situation, or one that's not at all even close to being the same and you want to share it in the comments below, please go ahead. Or don't...or make a comment about anything you want, or not. It's your choice.
Design and create your ideal life, tomorrow isn't promised - galenkp
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I just came for the cussing lol...I'm happy to see you in top notch form, I was beginning to think you were ill
Service provider is a misnomer. It's more like Torture provider. Those companies are all like that. I think they don't actually want to service you and make it intentionally difficult to get anything accomplished. They scratch for every cent they can get.
Thank you for the thoughtful post. Have a good day lol
Fucken Aye.!!
Same reason I stopped by...
Love it when my bro goes off on a rant. 😁
lol
Haha, well I've been a little busy and that's taken my focus elsewhere unfortunately.
I don't know when companies crossed over from wanting to help to where they are now, it's nuts, but you're completely right. There's a lot of needless complecoty and I imagine it's done to catch people out. I managed the situation easily, but I think some older people who may not understand the scenarios as well would not and may simply give up on it and accept the additional charges.
It's poor form really, but a sign of the times.
Glad you got that situation handled. Not good when they drag on for days without resolution. It's a pretty fucked up world we live in.
Not related except for the fucked up world we're in, the 'news' just reported 100,000 eggs were stolen worth $40,000 lol. Guess jewels, fine art and banks aren't worth as much these days😂
I heard something about an egg shortage and subsequent price I crease. I wondered when people would start stealing th m...now I know.
Bonkers fucken world for sure.
Our internet here is wojus, so when fibre became available in our area recently we switched to that and I called our current provider to cancel our account.
"Since it's the 4th of the month", she informed me, "and there's a 30 day charge for cancellation, you'll get a bill for 2 months, but since you only owe for 34 days you can call us up again and we'll refund 26 days." "But couldn't you just bill me for 34 days?" I asked, "to save me calling again and wasting another hour of my life?" "Oh no" she said, "that's not the system. Call back next month after you get the bill."
Haha, all those numbers infused me, I'm a simple country boy after all.
Goddamn, those companies are all the same. Can you imagine the brainstorming sessions where those fuckers think this shit up, the policies and all? Fucken hell, I'd like to throw a couple hand grenades in that room!
As you said, usually it's not worth the effort to hassle with them. But I think it's important to stand your ground and demand everything for yourself or otherwise they get too comfortable slapping charges here and there and manipulating the price how they feel like.
It sucks and I hate those kinds of providers.
I wasn't impressed that the additional charges were slipped under the radar so wasn't in a good mood to start with. It got sorted, sort of, but how many people let it go and allow companies to get away with pulling in revenue for no services/products provided. Assholes.
I'm not sure I can recall a situation like yours, but I do sympathize with the phone BS though. All the on hold, AI menu options, and non english speaking operators after pushing one for english. Makes me want to pull my hair out.
Yep, it's unpleasant. I don't have anything against non-English speakers but when it comes to financial matters and subscriptions I rely upon I'd prefer to speak with someone I can understand to ensure things move in the right direction It seems to make sense to me...as an English speaker.
oh, same here. Nothing against them at all. But when given the option of pressing 1 for an english speaker, I kind of expect it.
And so you should expect it. A sign of the times I guess, but I'm not one to simply accept this nutbaggery.
When I worked in a contact centre and customers would wail and whine about having people on staff that had English as their 2nd (or fourth) language, I'd tell them that English wasn't my first language, either.
My first language was the wails and cries I made as an infant, I'd remark, and let them fill in the gaps.
Its really frustrating having worked "on the front lines" of a contact centre, and then having to deal with them "As a customer", knowing all the ways in which their hands are tied to process and the ever-present fear of them losing their job to next lowest bidder.
Pay for good quality service, both within the product, and the presentation. Just make it easy for the customer, and the money will come rolling in, instead of trying to save 4cents on a headset that ends up in so many "sorry, what was that?"
Such is life.
Yeah, shit happens I guess, but I'm never going to tolerate someone who can't speak the language well enough to understand my needs...or those fucken scripts they read.
We just need to stop the enshitification of everything.
Indeed we do but enshitification (great fucken word man) is in third gear and pulling fourth...and looking for fifth. No stopping it I think.
It's electrically powered enshitification now, infinite torque, one simple reduction gear.
Lol, yeah and they call it progression.
That kind of thing has happened to me and with phone companies, both in the past and here in Spain. In Argentina, it wasn't a change of user, it was just that the line didn't work and they charged me the same until I made a complaint and then I got compensation. But it was a long time to complain. And here, they raised my tariff saying that they had warned me when it wasn't so and I decided to change company, and in that case they wanted to charge me a fine for the change, something totally ridiculous. I will never go with that company again.
Could you imagine if you called the phone company line in Spain to speak to someone and I answered, in English and the only Spanish word I knew was hola. That wouldn't go so well huh?
Bloody frustrating!
Anyway, service is set to get worse and worse, more AI and outsourced operators...it'll be even more shit than it is now.
Woww that would be terrible, just hello.... maybe we would understand each other with single words.
Yes, more and more machines are answering, they don't even answer the simple medical service in person anymore but by phone, what is that!
It remains for those of us who are different to be grouped together...
Hi @galenkp, I have had some problems with telephone services around here. On one occasion they activated a new line for me (apparently as a customer service), but they never told me about it, I never had the phone card in my hand. However, after a few months they charged me for a line that I did not ask for, and which I never enjoyed. I had no problems to solve the incident, just a waste of time that annoyed me a lot.
They do stuff like this all the time, probably in the hope people don't notice or complain and simply accept the charges.
I also believe that this is the logic. I wish you a great day.
I'm totally with you on this one. There isn't much that annoys me more than when I have to circle back and touch or deal with something that in my mind has already been settled and moved past. Unfortunately, I work in a field where things continually break, so this happens more often than is probably healthy for me!
They make it difficult to dissuade people from trying to rectify things and when they don't it translates to revenue. It's part of the business model...just a glimpse of what the future will look like.
From some of my posts or comments, to conclude that I have a job related to telecommunications.
I am constantly in communication with mobile and landline operators or internet providers.
But that's at work.
When I come home, I don't have the support of my KAMs.
Then I also turn to customer support and wait for a live agent for dozens of minutes.
But that's when I need something.
But there was one situation when they called me and the young man on the other end offered a bigger package on my mobile number. What did he conclude?
Says, by the amount of the bill.
So, have you analyzed in detail, because I hardly use the internet and minutes from that package because I also have an official phone, while I pay for parking with a private one (that's why the bill was so big).
He apologized and offered free internet on my landline at the cottage.
I agreed, and when the first bill arrived, you guessed it 🤬
I called them again, to argue with them, because they charged me the full amount...
Yep, that's the sort of nutbaggery I'm talking about. Unacceptable, but par for the course.
I cursed them from here to infinity 😅
As you should.
dang.. i HATE calling and beling on hold forever.. I recently called the social security and was on hold for 5 1/2 hours before speaking to a person for about 1 minute. 😎🤙👊
The on hold part sucka, but so does having to sp ak with someone that's almost impossible to understand due to their lack of proficiency in English. Annoying.
Sometimes when things go wrong it not as if we are altogether naughty. It might be that we just need to learn and unlearn some new ideas. Thank you for the thoughtful post. Have a good day
Have a good day yourself, I hope it's enjoyable and productive.
It is a fact that when we dream and then work hard day and night and things seem to improve in our favor, then we are much happier and successful. So we have to fight for our right in this world, if we don't fight, this world will never let us succeed because there are many people behind us who can never be happy in our happiness, so we have to believe in ourselves and work hard because a hardworking person will be successful one day.
!PIZZA