to be fed up with how f-ing difficult everything is?

😂

Oh so many but like other pp's I hink life is short and is it worth the aggro.

I do pick a few fights though British Gas being one of them.
They just would not have it that I had paid off the rest of the bill months ago and wanted me to send a spreadsheet containing the payment details of when it was paid etc.

I finally cracked and said the bill is paid on so and so date. If you wan't me to do your admin for you the cost will be £50 per hour. I will also be reporting to the GDPR council and the police for continued harassment. With this and their vile money grabbing behaviour during the energy situation i.e. taking large sums of money out of my account without permission, I would never ever use them again.

Edit to say they never contacted me again.

The revolution should be the small person claiming back money such massive time wasting from all these bell end companies.

HMRC has been paid (by a disabled relative who has worked all his life) in instalments for the last 40 or so years. In the last few years they've had a problem with this and continually hound him for money with debt collectors etc. It's fucking ridiculous.

Yep, Royal Mail delivered my parcel to the wrong address.

Put in a claim. Told I would receive a response in 30 days. Two months later, they email to say I will get a cheque in the post. A few days later I receive eight first class stamps. I don’t use First Class stamps because it is so fecking expensive. Just about to email them again…

Me too.

I'm dealing with a clothes shop and a famously bad delivery company at the moment.

Item didn't arrive on Thursday when they said it would. Apparently a hoodie is too large so needs a specialist courier. It still hasn't arrived.

I asked for a refund. Clothing company can't find my account.

I don't believe either of them.

I've done a chargeback through my bank.

And I still need to buy my neice a Christmas present!

I believe it's called "enshittification"

Yanbu.

I don't think anyone reads anything or sense checks stuff anymore. I've had colleagues who just reply to the top question in am external email thread and miss all the other relevant info further down. Why can't people be a bit more nosy?

2 full hours on the phone to HMRC today. And still the problem isn’t resolved 😡.

On the flip side - I ordered some wrapping paper from the Barnardos website last week, and I didn’t get a confirmation email straight away. Being impatient, busy, and eager to get it sorted, I rang the number on the website. A woman answered immediately, asked my name, checked their system, and confirmed my order had gone through. The email came soon after. But speaking to someone was like a breath of fresh air. It really was.

One use I've found for AI, it's very good at finding telephone numbers that companies don't seem to want you to find.

I was told that ringing is a waste of time as the call handlers don't have access to your account so can't actually look at anything specific and can only give generic information, better to contact them through your online account if you have a query related to your specific account. If you have one of course.

I had to renew my DBS check through an ID app. I kept failing their check. I couldn't get through to a human that could help, either from the organisation asking for the DBS, or the app company.
It turns out, the app refuses to recognise you as a human if you are wearing glasses.
It does not tell you this anywhere.

I agree about shopping being so needlessly complicated, too many decisions to be made.

• Do you want to buy one more thing to qualify for free P&P?
• You must create an account.
• Do you want to round up your purchase to fund a chief exec's 6-figure salary?
• Do you have a loyalty card?
• Do you want a loyalty card?
• Which courier?
• Don't forget to review your purchase.
• Don't forget to rate your courier.

And I remember witnessing this in a Sainsbury's petrol station, with about twenty pumps, so they ask the customer to confirm the amount. Somebody who didn't speak English well didn't understand the question, and eventually screamed "can I just pay?". Then came the next question in the cashier's script:

"Do you have a Nectar card?"

Have a break, have a Kit-Kat.

As well as frustration and loss of £ for the customer and loss of work for those working in retail/service industries, this automation of everything is also damaging human connection and communication; community. Granted there have always been people who don’t want to engage with others around them, but for most of us it’s vital. The impact of community on individuals’ mental health and ability to cope with the world. Cohesion with our neighbours. Productivity- because we can all achieve a lot more with support.

The result is more and more individualism. Each person, couple or family spending more and more time in their own homes, never needing to have a conversation or ask a question of a shop worker or bank staff. I think it’s really, deeply sad and worrying.

My dad died and had an outstanding holiday booking with a friend. My dad was the lead name on the booking. Friend still wanted to go on the holiday but the travel company refused to change the booking to make alive friend the lead booker - as they needed permission from my dead dad to do so. No amount of reasoning with the travel company would make them change their minds / accept my authorisation as the executor, nor would they refund us, so dad’s friend missed out on the holiday and the money he’d already paid. Beggars belief.

BT - I’ve been dealing with them for about 3 weeks now over a fault with my broadband and landline. They have actually driven me to the very brink of insanity. I actually cried in frustration yesterday. I have quite literally been on the phone for hours and hours whilst they mess about with things their end and tell me it’s fixed -when it isn’t. They take gaslighting to a whole new level.

I’m sick to death of “virtual assistants” and “ diagnostic bots”.

Even though I’m quite technically competent and knowledgeable I can quite see that as I get older I will just give up with lots of stuff

DP bought a pair of pints of warm, wazzy, horrifically overpriced cider at a Christmas 'market' last year. They were served in two squashy plastic pint containers for which he was charged an extra £1 per container 'deposit', just in case uncontrollable avarice overcame us and we decided to steal these desirable items to display on the mantelpiece at home. Cards only, no cash accepted. He went to return the priceless plastic and reclaim his deposit, only to be informed that his two quid would be returned to his account in 8-10 working days! Needless to say, it never was. Imagine how quickly and how massively these non-returned deposits would have mounted up over the three weeks the 'market' was there! The organisers must winter in the Caribbean every year!

Yep - easy to pay £10pp deposit for an online booking for 4 people, where Ts&Cs state ‘deposit refundable for cancellation up to 72h prior’.
Easy to cancel on line 24h later - just click ‘cancel booking’.
Not so easy to get deposit refunded - wait a few days, call the restaurant, they say it’s automatic but takes [more than the number of days you’ve waited]; wait twice that long, try repeatedly to call, voicemails not replied to. Finally get through, someone says they’ll talk to manager. Repeat last steps, finally refund made.
Makes me deeply uninclined to book with them again.

Yes ordered something off Amazon at start of December and still not arrived. Impossible to contact seller directly (dodgy Chinese company I realised afterwards) and just going round in circles trying to chat electronically 🤦‍♀️ Eventually managed to get a refund but such a palava. Had the worst experience last year purchasing 2 of those love 2 shop gift cards - the cashier mistakenly put it through as an online code (not on the card as requested) and I wasted hours between the shop and on the customer services to be told I could neither transfer to a card or have a refund. Everything is so complicated these days 😬

One of the reasons I don't think I'll ever stop banking with First Direct is the ease of speaking to someone there. Just really easy and they know their stuff. Compare and contrast with Smile, who I also have an account with but it's not and never will be my main one. An absolute pain to get through to by phone - think I was on hold for about 30 minutes last time.

I have had cause to contact Sky 3 times in as many days but in fairness it's pretty easy to speak to someone there. I flirted with the idea of moving to Virgin earlier in the year and had a package all sorted but their appalling customer service and the challenge of actually speaking to another human put me off and I stayed with Sky.

Have to praise M&S this week. I returned a jumper I'd bought 2 months ago with no receipt and I'd taken the label off. The woman on the tills couldn't find the jumper on their system but then showed me how to go onto my Sparks app and get the digital receipt for it which I did and duly got a refund. I was impressed as at best I thought I'd get a gift card.

Online chat drives me potty - it's obvious they are talking to about 10 others at the same time as the wait between responses is insane. The not being able to just pick up the phone and speak to someone has got to a ridiculous point.

Totally agree

I will counter..... Three or four issues with deliveries recently, either gone to the wrong place ( my fault),, not delivered at all, a jumper that went wobbly after one wash..... Emailed and/or phoned. All instantly refunded and replaced, without even getting the returns. I was really impressed.

Big shout out to White Co and Boden in particular.

Definitely popped ! lol

Hope it was popped and not pooped!! 😂

I just had to verify my partner's ID through Companies House as he's a director.

First of all I tried doing it for me and the instructions didn't work. Typical. Then I tried verifying myself manually using my passport and the system told me I don't exist and I now have to go to a PO to prove I do exist.

I don't live in England.

Then my other half tried to do it and spent about a week with the whole process not working even though he was following HMRC's and companies house's online instructions - it asked him to scan a QR code that wasn't anywhere to be found.

In the end he reluctantly contacted Companies House online help. And they told him they now had a new app you have to use which is NOT MENTIONED IN ANY OF THEIR ONLINE DOCUMENTATION.

He used the new app and verified himself in about 2 minutes.

AAAAAGH.

I'm 8 weeks into a five day 'we need you to move out because of the toilet and shower' bathroom renovation.

Bathroom company didn't deliver when they said, turned up the next week and then following days with 'oops we forgot this'.

@Bedtimewithoutissues123don't start me off on the 'we need ro replace your water meter' appointment/not turning up thing. And the 'your smart meter doesn't work' and they don't turn up either!