Cussing works!
My departure from the States was messy. Selling up and moving to a whole ‘nother country is like that. To make sure I had stuff covered during the transition, I didn’t cancel any accounts before I left. I took my last copy of all my bills, made a big pot of coffee and sat down to cancel them once I was safely on the other side.
That’s when I discovered that 800 numbers don’t work from the UK.
Well, they ring. But the bit where you input your account number using the keypad, or press a number for which department you want…that doesn’t take. And that’s often the very first thing you hit on the way in, so you can’t get past it to a human being.
That’s when I discovered that a whole lotta companies ONLY give you an 800 number these days.
No mailing address, no customer service email. Just a phone number. I feel sure that’s a breach of some consumer protection legislation somewhere, but there you go.
That’s when I discovered the ‘fuck you’ exemption.
Guess what? Many voice recognition systems have been programmed to recognize bad language. If you get frustrated and start shouting wirty-dords down the line, you’ll get connected to a human being, pronto. I learned to explode with profanity the moment I came up against a robot voice. I hope somebody’s grandma wasn’t “monitoring the call for quality control.”
It worked for all of them but Checkfree, my bill paying service. Bastards have been leeching five bucks a month out of my account for a year — which I can ill afford, but five bucks, you think, “oh, screw…I’ll work it out before next month.” No, I haven’t worked it out, but I did find an email for them tonight, so we’ll see.
I just wanted to share the thing about the cussing, in case you find it useful. I’m all about the household fucking hints up in here.
February 24, 2010 — 6:43 pm
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