They called my son "unhelpful"?! Did you get a name? I will make it my mission to make his/her/their life a living hell. And I'm going to go out right now and buy you your favorite ice cream. But first I must confess that I once spent over an hour on the phone getting increasingly angrier with Spectrum because we were having trouble with our cable and they kept telling me they had no record of my account. I finally had run out of time and patience and hung up on them telling them how incompetent they were...and then I looked through our records and realized we had had Spectrum at the last house and I should have been calling Direct TV.
I moved out a couple of months ago and the switching of service providers was admin hell. Completely feel your pain here.
I've worked many customer service roles in the past so I like to think I've also got a bit of patience, but my most recent terrible experience involved being on a live chat (ugh) with someone for FOUR HOURS. The problem still hasn't been resolved.
That’s what truly sucks: I know none of these people want us to have a bad time (well maybe a few of them do) but they’re still the ones who take all of our raw fury!
Ah, Will. I entirely emphasize with your customer service travails. In the spirit of Thomas Wolfe’s “Mau-mauing the Flak Catchers,” though, I tend to give as good as I get. I don’t mind the ridiculous waits — I just put the phone on speaker and put it down — but if the person on the other end of the phone is ignorant, slow on the uptake, or resistant to the exigencies of my logic, I become so pleasantly unpleasant that my wife has to leave the room. My speech becomes slower and more fiercely articulate with the edge of a rotary saw and the palpable subtext of “I will lay this out for you, you moron, as clearly as I can.” It is, sadly, an exemplar of my arrogance and self-righteousness: I am the most genial of men when things go my way and people agree with me; when I am crossed or have my strongly-held opinions dismissed, I become a monster.
I'm a childhood/high school friend of your Dad's. We go back (OMG) 60 years.
I'm going to do you one better at the Customer Service From Hell. My husband and I paid off our car the end of March, 2022. Kia closed the account, sent a letter saying the car was paid off, sent us the title. We were done, right? In April, the payment was again taken out of our bank account. I called the bank, who said it was a newly generated invoice every month, not set up like a regular automatic payment under my control. I'm going to sound like we're rich or something, which we're not, but in 42 years of marriage we have only financed two cars - one a year after we got married, and this one. Self employment is a very bizarre way to live..... The bank said they could do nothing. Kia had to stop the invoices. And then the Circle of Hell began......
In all fairness, they return the payment as "overage" every month. But for half of every month, they have use of our money. Then the phone calls began. Kia Customer Service said they couldn't do anything because the account was closed! Every time over numerous phone calls, I'd ask for a supervisor and be disconnected. EVERY time. I'd ask for an address to write to, a department that could rectify this. Anything I could think of, to no avail. Click. Finally in August, a representative said he would put in a "request" to stop the payments. He gave me a confirmation number. The payments did not stop, the "confirmation number" appears to be meaningless. It's now December and it's still happening. A friend that we spend holidays with, has a nephew who works at Kia; and after this came up at Thanksgiving, he may have found me an address to write to.
Nine effing months. My worst Customer Service Experience EVER in my almost 73 years on this planet. Can someone beat that?
Oh, my God, Faith, no one's going to beat that story. And yes, you should try KLS's suggestion (we call her Korby, she's a wonderful friend and a brilliant writer and if I were a company I would NOT want her mad at me). Going to your local TV station if they have a consumer reporter might help, too.
Only harder thing is trying to cancel cable or telco service. Happened to MKB…your Dad’s and my good friend. They kept passing him to another supervisor and another supervisor , all of whom were desperate to offer him all sorts of incentives to stay. He is a litigator , and finally had to get quite threatening to just cancel
It feels so bad when you have to put on the "serious" voice to these people who probably hate their jobs and are making not nearly enough money for the shit they take, but sometimes that's all that works!
Post what happened on the company's Facebook page. Someone will respond pretty quickly, in my experience. Companies don't like negative feedback on social media.
Unfortunately, like most people, there are too many bad customer service encounters to mention. Here's one that is so ridiculous you may find it amusing. Jackie and I were on our way to Mexico from Milwaukee. We had a stop and plane change in Denver. When we checked in, we were told our flight to Denver was cancelled due to weather. They rebooked us on a different flight through Chicago but since that flight had no business class seats, we would be going coach and without any refund for the difference in fare (reason: same day booking!). Okay, we wanted to get to Mexico so we went with the flow (no easy task for me!). We proceeded to the gate and along the way passed that big electronic board listing all the departing flights. Three flights were leaving for Denver in the next hour, ALL ON TIME! Obviously the weather was not an issue. I approached the gate agent to vent and she suggested I go all the back to the ticket counter to talk to the supervisor. If I had done that we would have missed our flight. When I arrived Mexico I contacted the airline to make a claim and was told I would have to wait until our trip was complete which would would be two months later. I did just that and it's been 10 months and still nothing has been done by the airline to refund the ticket differential.
Airlines really are top of the heap when it comes to nightmare situations. They know you need the services and they know most of us are too busy to really fight for our consumer rights...thanks capitalism!
They called my son "unhelpful"?! Did you get a name? I will make it my mission to make his/her/their life a living hell. And I'm going to go out right now and buy you your favorite ice cream. But first I must confess that I once spent over an hour on the phone getting increasingly angrier with Spectrum because we were having trouble with our cable and they kept telling me they had no record of my account. I finally had run out of time and patience and hung up on them telling them how incompetent they were...and then I looked through our records and realized we had had Spectrum at the last house and I should have been calling Direct TV.
AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHA
I moved out a couple of months ago and the switching of service providers was admin hell. Completely feel your pain here.
I've worked many customer service roles in the past so I like to think I've also got a bit of patience, but my most recent terrible experience involved being on a live chat (ugh) with someone for FOUR HOURS. The problem still hasn't been resolved.
But man FOUR HOURS is TOO LONG! You’re a saint for not burning it all to the ground at this point
That’s what truly sucks: I know none of these people want us to have a bad time (well maybe a few of them do) but they’re still the ones who take all of our raw fury!
Ah, Will. I entirely emphasize with your customer service travails. In the spirit of Thomas Wolfe’s “Mau-mauing the Flak Catchers,” though, I tend to give as good as I get. I don’t mind the ridiculous waits — I just put the phone on speaker and put it down — but if the person on the other end of the phone is ignorant, slow on the uptake, or resistant to the exigencies of my logic, I become so pleasantly unpleasant that my wife has to leave the room. My speech becomes slower and more fiercely articulate with the edge of a rotary saw and the palpable subtext of “I will lay this out for you, you moron, as clearly as I can.” It is, sadly, an exemplar of my arrogance and self-righteousness: I am the most genial of men when things go my way and people agree with me; when I am crossed or have my strongly-held opinions dismissed, I become a monster.
I would NOT want to be on the wrong end of a customer service call with you!
Hi, Will
I'm a childhood/high school friend of your Dad's. We go back (OMG) 60 years.
I'm going to do you one better at the Customer Service From Hell. My husband and I paid off our car the end of March, 2022. Kia closed the account, sent a letter saying the car was paid off, sent us the title. We were done, right? In April, the payment was again taken out of our bank account. I called the bank, who said it was a newly generated invoice every month, not set up like a regular automatic payment under my control. I'm going to sound like we're rich or something, which we're not, but in 42 years of marriage we have only financed two cars - one a year after we got married, and this one. Self employment is a very bizarre way to live..... The bank said they could do nothing. Kia had to stop the invoices. And then the Circle of Hell began......
In all fairness, they return the payment as "overage" every month. But for half of every month, they have use of our money. Then the phone calls began. Kia Customer Service said they couldn't do anything because the account was closed! Every time over numerous phone calls, I'd ask for a supervisor and be disconnected. EVERY time. I'd ask for an address to write to, a department that could rectify this. Anything I could think of, to no avail. Click. Finally in August, a representative said he would put in a "request" to stop the payments. He gave me a confirmation number. The payments did not stop, the "confirmation number" appears to be meaningless. It's now December and it's still happening. A friend that we spend holidays with, has a nephew who works at Kia; and after this came up at Thanksgiving, he may have found me an address to write to.
Nine effing months. My worst Customer Service Experience EVER in my almost 73 years on this planet. Can someone beat that?
Holy cow you really do win the award for worst customer service experience! My goodness that is MISERABLE
Oh, my God, Faith, no one's going to beat that story. And yes, you should try KLS's suggestion (we call her Korby, she's a wonderful friend and a brilliant writer and if I were a company I would NOT want her mad at me). Going to your local TV station if they have a consumer reporter might help, too.
Facebook was an excellent idea. If I can't get any satisfaction, that's my next step. And local TV. Good to talk to you, Steve.
Only harder thing is trying to cancel cable or telco service. Happened to MKB…your Dad’s and my good friend. They kept passing him to another supervisor and another supervisor , all of whom were desperate to offer him all sorts of incentives to stay. He is a litigator , and finally had to get quite threatening to just cancel
It feels so bad when you have to put on the "serious" voice to these people who probably hate their jobs and are making not nearly enough money for the shit they take, but sometimes that's all that works!
Post what happened on the company's Facebook page. Someone will respond pretty quickly, in my experience. Companies don't like negative feedback on social media.
Ooo this is a really good idea! Thanks Korby!
That's a great idea. I think I will do exactly that on my Customer Service from Hell experience with Kia.
They hung up on you??? I thought they were required to stay on the line no matter what!
I was as shocked as you were but I sat there saying "hello?!" for like 20 full seconds
I think that realtor that bullied me was up there for worst customer service. Thank god we’re moving somewhere else!
oh man she was a real piece of work!
Unfortunately, like most people, there are too many bad customer service encounters to mention. Here's one that is so ridiculous you may find it amusing. Jackie and I were on our way to Mexico from Milwaukee. We had a stop and plane change in Denver. When we checked in, we were told our flight to Denver was cancelled due to weather. They rebooked us on a different flight through Chicago but since that flight had no business class seats, we would be going coach and without any refund for the difference in fare (reason: same day booking!). Okay, we wanted to get to Mexico so we went with the flow (no easy task for me!). We proceeded to the gate and along the way passed that big electronic board listing all the departing flights. Three flights were leaving for Denver in the next hour, ALL ON TIME! Obviously the weather was not an issue. I approached the gate agent to vent and she suggested I go all the back to the ticket counter to talk to the supervisor. If I had done that we would have missed our flight. When I arrived Mexico I contacted the airline to make a claim and was told I would have to wait until our trip was complete which would would be two months later. I did just that and it's been 10 months and still nothing has been done by the airline to refund the ticket differential.
Airlines really are top of the heap when it comes to nightmare situations. They know you need the services and they know most of us are too busy to really fight for our consumer rights...thanks capitalism!
I feel your pain, Will. Been there…
The curse of having so many wonderful products available to us.