I’m having a hell of a time with my current ISP (sitting at 18 days now without a connection) and I’m having to bite my tongue every time I’m talking to them (Remember The Human and all that)
Whilst the front line support are nice people and answer the phones quickly they are honestly pretty useless and they never really sound like they know what they’re talking about, also seemingly none of the departments seem particularly good about communicating what’s going on so it’s hard to get a straight and useful answer out of them.
Have you ever lost it with a rep? What happened? and did it ever help push things along?
Not on the phone but I had to threaten the Bitdefender E-Mail rep with a lawsuit in order to get my money back.
A few months into my 2 year subscription I changed my e-mail associated with my Bitdefender account. Thereafter all mail I got from them went to that new email, as it should. A short while after that I switched over to Linux and my “need” for an AntiVirus evaporated entirely between Linux’ workflow not really requiring one anyway and me learning how little AntiVirus Software offers over the default Windows Defender. Queue forward to the end of that 2 year subscription (whose auto-renewal I had disabled before leaving Windows exactly to prevent what happened anyway but alas I have no proof of that anymore) I notice a really weird charge while reviewing my credit card statement. A charge that by all accounts should not have been there and one I was not made aware of beforehand. Guess what, those fucks sent only the mail about the upcoming renewal to the old email account which I had no reason whatsoever to suspect would still receive mail from them. Curiously the mail about them cancelling the renewed charge after I went off on them was sent to the new email again…
Initially the customer service said “oh well can’t do anything here’s a 50€ discount” until I lost my cool and threatened to sue them for theft because by all reasonable standards I could not have expected them to inform me on my old email about this upcoming charge.
On that note my stance was reaffirmed: Between and AntiVirus and an actual Virus I’d pick the latter, at least those are upfront about their motives and intentions instead of pretending to provide you with a service.
When I’m dealing with ISP or phone customer service, I always ask for the cancelation department. They are motivated to keep customers so sometimes they’ll throw in a coupon, especially if you treat them like a human.
Yes I have, and no it does not help. Always apologize and tell them it’s the situation, not them, that you are upset with.
I’ve done that job before and most likely they would help you if they could, but the company won’t train them or make any solutions available because it costs money. Your impression that they don’t know what they’re talking about is probably accurate.
Your best bet is to keep escalating to a higher department (“manager”, “office of the president”).
I had a flat tire at midnight once. Tried for about an hour to change it myself before calling a tow truck company that said it was open. Got routed to a call center who said they had to contact one of their freelance trucks, after paying $250 over the phone. A little more back and forth and about 90 minutes later (when they said it’d be 30 minutes), no truck ever appeared. The call center (third rep that night) called and said the one person they had working tonight broke down outside of cell service, can they come out in the morning? I said that won’t work, I’ll just cancel and get a refund. They said it’d take 3-4 business days to get the refund and there’d be a $50 refund processing charge.
I didn’t quite blow up at them, but any time I have to stand up for myself I get shaky and struggle to keep the anger out of my voice. I explained (several times) that there was no way that was acceptable and that I would like to speak to their manager. “I spoke to my manager and there’s nothing we can do, that’s just the cost of processing a refund.” Well I paid for services that I didn’t receive, due to no fault of my own. Let me speak to your manager. Another hold. “My manager is willing to pay the refund himself this one time.” Yeah ok sure thanks bye.
20 minutes later my tire was changed by a different tow truck company who had a real employee answer before the second ring, had multiple trucks on duty, didn’t even ask for payment until after the work was done, and it was about $80. I fully expected to have to issue a chargeback for the first company’s charge but fortunately it never showed up on my card statement.
This is what charge backs are for FYI.
“I’m sorry, but you failed to provide a service. Either give me a full refund or I will start the charge back process with my credit card company and you’ll be forced to explain why your refund policy violates their ToS and any penalties that arise from that process.”
Also, if you can and can do so without overspending, this is why it’s best to use a credit card for all purchases rather than cash or debit. Can’t do a chargeback if you didn’t use a credit card.
There’ve been a couple times. I make a distinction between frustration at the company and the person, but sometimes you run into reps that are willfully unhelpful or actively malicious for their own gain.
Two cases come to mind. I’ve had an ISP rep call me about updated prices, who then proceeded to try and sell me a broadband and streaming bundle subscription. I would have gotten a slightly faster speed, plus the streaming BS. Same price as I was already paying.
I specifically asked if unbundled contracts had also been changed, and the dude said “no”. I checked the prices online while still on the call, and the bastard was straight up lying. Without the streaming bundled, the price was lower and came with even more speed. I told him this, and he asked “oh do you want that then?”. I replied “yes, but not if it gives you a sales bonus”, so I hung up and signed up for the new contract via the ISP website.
In the other case I was shopping for jeans, and the store rep repeatedly handed me elastane-ridden skinny jeans a few sizes too small, insisting they’d look better, even as I kept telling him the exact size I wanted, and that I preferred the 100% cotton denim, loose fit jeans. At the fourth pair of skinny jeans I told him to fuck off, and just went through the store myself until I found what I was looking for.
Yep, but i felt really bad afterwards. Purchased tickets on American airlines on short notice due to the death of my wife’s close aunt. The trip had a connecting flight and our first flight got delayed by an hour (np plenty of layover time left). then when we land the plane taxied for over an hour giving us about 10 panicking minutes to make the connection, but if we ran we could make it.
we didn’t, The terminal was much farther than expected. in the rush, my wife lost her ID, which added to further frustration. maintaining decent composure up until we go to the AA desk to schedule our alternative flight. The flight we were supposed to go on was the last flight for the day. and the next one wasn’t until next day evening.
well that was not going to work because the funeral was in the morning. We asked if we could fly to another city (equidistant to rural home) but the clerk was really firm on that the flight had to be to my destination. after all, our bags made it there.
that was what cocked the hammer back for me. I asked to speak with someone higher and they gave me a number, and boom i was pretty irked and very rude to the service rep who had the patience of a saint. She did get us on the soonest flight to the other city. My wife was crying with relief and i was sobbing my gratitude and apologizing for my behavior. the Service rep brushed it off like it was business as usual and tells me to have a nice flight.
Aside from having to go purchase new clothes at 1am, we made it to the service a few hours later.
Yes. There was a new streaming service that I signed up for. I used an email alias and the confirmation email never arrived. They had no way to change my email address or activate my account except for me clicking the link in my email.
After a month my free trial expired (without me ever being able to log in), they added a second month of free trial while trying to activate my account. This went on for 5 months, finally the 6th month they did not give me another free month and I was charged. Still no solution for the situation. 7th month arrives and I get charged again. The 8th month I lost it. I knew most of the support and customer service reps at this point as I had talked with also all of them multiple times a week for months. But with no solution in sight and being charged for multiple times months I finally lost it on one of the CSRs. Surprisingly while I was on the phone with them they were able to cancel my account and issue a refund.
I did. Back in the old days we had phones connected to wires called land lines. The phones were controlled by shitty companies similar to cell service providers or cable companies (almost as archaic as land lines).
I was having trouble getting my land line up and running after a move. A bad day at work, money trouble, and a phone that still wouldn’t work, set me off. I totally lost my shit on a poor, under paid rep. I mean, I went off. It was brutal. I think I made her cry. The people in the room I was in (rental office at the new apartment complex) all left the room.
After a solid 2 or 3 minutes of me just ripping into this innocent person, I caught myself. I realized what I was doing mid-rant and just stopped. I sort of gasped and said “oh god. What the fuck is wrong with me?” or something similar out loud. I spent the next couple of minutes apologizing and telling this person how big a shit head I was being. I admitted that I had crossed a line, commended them on their professionalism, and took full responsibility for making this their problem when it clearly wasn’t. I was sincere and I was honest. I told her that she should hang up on me and make a note in my file that I’m a problem. I also said that I’d never yell at a rep like that again. And humbly asked if ther was anything she could do to help me. She did. She solved whatever bullshit problem there was and was so rad to me.
She went so far above and beyond after I treated her like shit. That was close to 30 years ago and I still have never even raised my voice to a rep since. As bad as some places are, as poorly trained as some reps are, even as shitty as some reps are, I’ll never forget how rotten a person I was in that moment. I don’t want to be like that. That’s not the kind of world I want to live in. And frankly, fuck a dude that would talk to me like that.
I’m certainly close right now. I bought a laptop from System76 in December (the Pangolin). It has not, any any point, worked acceptably. First the USB ports would frequently disconnect and reconnect. Then the trackpad started freaking out, registering constant false clicks and not letting the cursor move.
The first time I sent it in, they shipped me back someone else’s computer.
When I did get my own laptop back, I found that the trackpad issue hadn’t been fixed. Then it stopped waking up after being suspended.
So I sent it in again, and got no updates from them for 30 days. They said their usual turnaround time was 7-10 days. And the first time I sent it in, it took them about a week to send it back. Well, to send a computer back. So something was wrong here.
On top of that, the support ticket has a “Last Updated” timestamp, and it kept changing every couple of days. I asked them for details, and only received generic “sorry this is taking a while, we’re working on it” responses. I specifically wanted to know why the “last updated” timestamp was changing every few days, because of course I’m imagining that they’ve shipped my computer to someone else.
I finally responded in all caps, asking where my computer was for that unexplained month, and why the timestamp kept changing. The support agent replied:
Your computer was at our warehouse waiting to be worked on.
Bless up,
(Support agent name)
Bless up? Fucking asshole.
I always want to be patient with those working in customer support. It’s difficult and often thankless job. I know how unfair it is when a customer blows up at someone in customer service, not to mention how unhelpful it is. And usually the customer is yelling at someone with no power to fix the situation. But this System76 thing is getting ridiculous. They’re literally just not responding to emails and dodging questions when they do respond.
My experience with System 76 a few years ago was similar. Perhaps the single worst purchase of my life. I had to send it back to them to fix the fucked up hardware (it had a loose power socket and a bad motherboard) more than once and each “repair” took months. The first time they sent it back, nothing had been fixed. It was more than half a year before the fancy laptop I got from them was in any way usable.
Yes, after the rep had personally been trying to play dumb for almost 30 minutes. As a CSR myself I know it shouldn’t take 30 minutes to explain your delivery person THREW MY PACKAGE OVER MY 8 FOOT FENCE FEDEX I FUCKING SAW THEM DO IT. THE PACKAGE SAID FRAGILE ON IT YOU STUPID CUNTS WHY IS THIS SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND I HAVE SECURITY FOOTAGE
I kinda blacked out because I absolutely loathe being unkind to customer-facing workers but dear Christ this was a $300 object and I could hear the smugness as the guy played up his Indian accent (suddenly much more understandable after I snapped) while saying “I’m sorry sir I don’t see what the problem is they delivered your package???”
Fuck that guy, he deserves nasty customers every call
My answers below, but for your current issue, put in a complaint with the FCC or email the CEO of the company directly. Most major companies have a process to resolve issues that normal agents can’t access if you can get to the right level. Emailing the CEO works with many companies, but telecom companies are sensitive to FCC oversight and would rather fix your issue than deal with the FCC.
Yes, the agent agreed with me that the company owed me money, but told me they couldn’t do anything about it. I told them I understood, but please put in a ticket to someone that could do something about it. They just kept telling me they couldn’t help until I got mad. They eventually relented and put in a ticket, which was then denied without reason a month later. I resolved the issue by circumventing the call center entirely and getting directly to an escalation team similar to what I recommended above.
I would complain on their twitter account, That seems to get action pretty fast these days.
Yes. They started the rudeness and I was done being the polite one. It was clearly a misunderstanding that led to a mistake on their part but once I made that obvious to them, they doubled down.
I was getting more and more blunt, think ‘so what you’re telling me…’ type tone. And then I heard myself and internally cringed.
Yes the fuck up was theirs alone. But having worked in a similar role 20 years prior, I remembered how one interaction like the one we were having would completely ruin your day.
She was flushed red in the face and neck and I remembered being young and making the (wrong) decision to double down when I’m caught out in a fuck up rather than admitting fault and working on a remedy. It’s a lesson only learnt in time and humiliation.
I think she’d learnt it at that point but it was too late. And an angry middle aged woman ranting at her was not going to do anything.
So I stopped and said ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be speaking to you like this. I’ve already had a bad day and this has made it so much worse. But that’s got nothing to do with you and you don’t deserve to be spoken like that by customers. When’s the next available appointment?’
She gave me a curt ‘that’s ok’ - and believe me that almost made me snap again, but we sorted it out.
I noted the next time I got a confirmation for my appointment that they’d included my suburb in my surname - I think to differentiate between me and another customer (the reason for the crossed wires). That’s a win. But I hope she learnt a lesson about seeking truth rather than victory and I hope she wasn’t too upset.
A few times. Usually, like many others, I let the rep know that it’s not their fault but I’m angry and try to escalate to someone who has the authority to assist. Three times I went over the line. I’m going to leave out a lot of details on the ISP ones because one would be far too long and the other could potentially out some of the parties involved. It helped in every case, and I genuinely feel bad about one because I could have gotten someone fired.
Once an HP rep stonewalled me for hours and I baited him into saying something fucked up on a recorded line. I hung up, called back, repeated what the rep said, informed them that it was recorded, and asked for a supervisor. I got one immediately and got my problem solved. I’m not proud of the way I handled it but I was young and not thinking about how my actions might affect others.
Another time was a national ISP. Every single time I called all the supervisors were in a meeting (yeah, right). My service worked almost 2 out of every 3 days and I wasn’t getting nearly the speeds I was paying for. I got on with a rep who told me about yet another supervisor meeting. So I said I’ll hold. I told him that I had vacation time and no Internet so I had nothing else to do but fuck up his call time statistics and tell dirty jokes. In those days at that call center they weren’t allowed to hang up unless you were straight up abusive. He blinked before I did because he was supposed to have already gotten off work and I was in the middle of telling bad limericks. So I got a supervisor and they actually got me fixed up the next day.
The last time was a different (local this time) ISP. I had requested specific times for repair because I was working nights and had been without Internet for weeks. I was told that was no problem. But they repeatedly showed up in the middle of the day (supposedly, I never heard from them so they weren’t ringing the doorbell but every time I called they claimed to have come out and no one was home) and telling me it’s my fault for being asleep and never letting me talk to anyone except for the receptionist. So I called one morning insisting I needed to talk to someone else because it had been weeks and she wouldn’t put me through so I let out a string of curse words and the supervisor interrupted me telling me not to talk to their employees like that. I told her about all the trouble I’ve had and that since she was there and had the receptionist lie to me about her being busy that I didn’t give the slightest shit what she thought. I told her that I was coming off nights and unless she wanted me up there every day I had off explaining to anyone in a suit walking in exactly how I was treated and that she was having her employees lie for her she’d have someone out that evening who would ring the doorbell and fix my shit.
It turned out that the issue was with their connection at the box on the outside of my apartment building so they should have been able to fix it without my input at all. No one bothered to fucking check. I seriously don’t think anyone came out but I can’t prove that.
It’s hard for me to do that to them, they’re not the people I’m upset at. Unless the high school office counts as a customer service rep for high school. I might as well have left their property by now with a permanent impact crater.
