RSSAdventures in Customer Non-Service
October 6th, 2007 | View Comments
The story starts about a week ago, when my credit card starts randomly getting declined. First at a Thai restaurant, then at the grocery store.
I call the credit card company in the middle of the week and get told their computers are down and they will call me back.
Hah! Yeah right.
So I call again today to try to get it sorted out.
The phone tree has no option to talk to a real person. I JUST WANT TO TALK TO A REAL PERSON! Eventually I learn that if I hit zero (not a listed menu option) a bunch of times, it will transfer me to the “waiting for a real person” queue.
Be careful what you wish for, because not only did I get to talk to a real person, I would get to talk to seven real people before my problem finally got sorted out.
Person #1 manages to figure out that my account has been flagged with a fraud alert. Did anyone from the credit card company call me about this? Uh, no. Person #1 transfers me to the fraud department.
Person #2 is all set to help me, but her computer wigs out and she needs to transfer me to someone else.
Person #3 is not with the fraud department and needs to transfer me back there.
Person #4 is also not with the fraud department, needs me to yell into the phone so he can hear me, but at least gives me the direct number to the fraud department in case I need it. Sort of. The phone number he gives me has ten digits, including 1-800. Yeah, thanks a lot. Is this number on the credit card company web site? No, why would it be?
Person #5 can’t hear me either and drops my call.
I call back.
Person #6 can’t enunciate, but eventually I figure out he’s going to transfer me…somewhere. Which turns out to mean he’s going to disconnect me.
I stop. Breathe. Seethe. And then I turn to It Who Can Fix Anything: Google. The last hit on the first page of a Google search turns up the direct number for the fraud department with all 11 digits.
Person #7, blessed, wonderful person #7 at the fraud department, answers the phone quickly, figures out quickly that the fraud alert is erroneous, and resets my account quickly. Thank you! Though I suppose I should actually try to charge something before I get too excited. Person #7 also tells me that the company did try to contact me about the fraud alert, leaving a message on my voicemail. And now that I think about it, I did get a message that day — a completely unintelligible and static-filled message from an unknown number. Good job, credit card company.
Total time on phone: 1 hour.
Yvonne posted this on October 6th, 2007 @ 6:21pm in Life | Permalink to "Adventures in Customer Non-Service"
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