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

All dressed up as it's better for you the customer.
No it's better for the service provider us the customer working for free for the duration we have to deal with said organisations.

I did manage to speak to a human at the bank on the phone, who was perfectly pleasant , but couldnt help with my particular query.
If you go to a shop that has manned tills ( no scanners or self service ones) you find one poor soul on their own and a long queue. The cutbacks they have made in some shops make the whole thing a pain.

I’ve experienced this too - refunds issued in parts. Each time I was told I’d been refunded but when I checked it was only some of it, eventually I got so fed up with chasing them that I ended up going to my bank for a charge back. I think the company hoped I’d just give up.

These companies hope that people ‘ let it go’ by making it harder to deal with them.
I am convinced this isn’t just one of my own ‘ conspiracy theories’ !

Couldn’t agree more. I have now unfortunately reached a stage where I do have to let the money go most of the time, as I just don’t have the time or inclination to sort it out. Life is too short to waste an hour on the phone to save $10, though I do resent it. I suspect people ‘giving up’, like I do, must be a fairly substantial source of revenue for some companies.

Most of the banks in our town have gone.
They rely on the apps now , which is just another way of fobbing you off.

British Fucking Gas...

Informed them of mums death in September, emailed them death certificate, letters of administration, date we handed property back to HA, Photo of meter - which as it was a pay as you go meter showing £73 in credit should be a simple refund.

After 19 emails back and forth - me reminding them each time to stop heading their emails 'Dear Dead mum Name' A supposed issue in the accounts department, more Dear Dead mum name emails they have now decided that they have read the meter ( even though it is in a locked garage) and rather than sending a cheque for the £73 that was showing as pre paid credit on the meter, they have finally managed to post a final bill somehow working out that i owe them £267???

So back to help line, to be told will refer back to accounts, they know bill is wrong, but will take at least another two weeks to produce correct bill - cant seem to explain how a pay as you go meter that has always been in credit needs a bill, or how it could possibly owe £267, if it was showing credit when the keys were handed back.

They have been a complete nightmare to deal with, but they can fuck off if they think im letting it go

I see your goods and services

I raise you - The SEND system.

yeah it’s not just you OP and even being able to call sometimes doesn’t solve the issue.

I called my local opticians to ask where my contact lenses I’d ordered were. The woman I spoke to was so dismissive and fobbed me off saying maybe they’d arrive tomorrow despite the fact they were already late.

Came into the branch two days later still weren’t there and they had no explanation as to why the order was late or when it was coming.

They were all geared up to just fob me off me again until I insisted something must be done that very day since I was going on holiday in three days.

They found some trial packs of contact lenses in their storeroom and then eventually got the ones I ordered 2 weeks later. But it was such a carry on to get what I had paid for .

HMRC are terrible.
If you can get through that is

I pooped into m and s foodhall last week. To fill in the customer survey took me longer than I spent in tne store. If you mention you’d rather have staff on tills than self service is ignored anyway. It’s just a waste of time and seems to be for every visit !

I detest the endless follow-up emails and messages seeking feedback on the service you've received - it clearly doesn't make a shit of difference to the service offered!

YANBU. Shopping is needlessly complicated these days. And customer service is very hard to come by. Trying to find a phone number for a large retailer where you can actually talk to a person who can give information is almost impossible. It’s all ‘Live Chat’ and going round in circles on phone lines. I hate it. Modern life is rubbish.

@Badbadbunny you have my sympathies having to deal with HMRC. They really are appalling.

@Fluffyholeysocks Yep - this is why I don't even bother trying to sort husband's tax affairs myself now and just hand everything over to an accountant. Life is TOO damn short to deal with HMRC.

I completely agree. Since the pandemic, it feels like genuine customer service has almost disappeared. Recently, I placed two orders with different companies, and neither went smoothly. It was impossible to get in touch with anyone, I had to go through WhatsApp and deal with a bot, and my messages were simply ignored. In the end, I had to contact my bank to arrange a chargeback. Now, before ordering online, I always check how a company can be contacted. If there isn’t a straightforward way, I either avoid them or use PayPal to pay asI’ve found it much easier to get a refund through PayPal than by trying to reach the company directly.

It is companies and organisations taking YOUR time and turning it into THEIR money. They have put a system in place that costs them less than the previous system where a person picked up a phone to help you.

The cost is transferred to your time trying to navigate it. Fair enough if it’s a product or service you can choose not to use, but when it’s essential things like tax or school admin or medical appointments it’s just wrong.

Give your business to places that do things properly, where you can, and give feedback to that effect.

They make it so difficult to contact them too - I have the app, but couldn't apply for a refund through the app. The app told me I had overpaid tax. I ring them, the recorded message basically tells you to go to the app/website as most queries can be answered there - no they can't. The whole tortuous process is designed for you to abandon your query. We don't have local tax offices with people manning the desk anymore, we just have completely disinterested call handlers who don't seem to be able to sort any queries. So every couple of months when I'm feeling brave I ring them again to stay on hold for another 45 minutes, listening to the same recorded message only to speak to yet another disinterested call handler who can't help me.

I'm an accountant so have to deal with HMRC numpties on a daily basis. Just when you think they can't get any worse, they do! It's been the same for 20 years ever since Brown "merged" the different tax departments and imposed managing tax credit claims on them. They're not only impossible to speak to, when you do get to talk to someone, they invariable don't do what they agreed to do, so after waiting a few weeks/months with no action, you have to go through it all again. No wonder they're "busy" with phone calls - if they actually did what the taxpayer/agent asks them to do, there'd be no need to keep phoning them weeks/months later for the same problem.

Nobody knows anything , yet if you let your parking go over by a few minutes or owe them tax or want to pay a bill , that seems to go smoothly.
Ive got to wait over a week for a refund on something that I paid for instantly. Can anyone can tell me why it takes so long for it to go through ? I know it’s ’ how it is’ but it feels as if they take us all for mugs.

Agree. Try to buy something on line and you get caught cycling through payment apps, then verification screens, then the ban denying it as it’s a new transaction, so you have to go on that to confirm it was you, than back to the website to try to pay again by which time the cache is cleared or they may have soled out.

Go to tesco/any supermarket and you HAVE to use their loyalty card in order to be given the discounts at checkout, so that’s an app/wallet swipe before you even get to the payment bit (and your bank wants you to verify that too, even though you’ve shopped there every week for years). And that doesn’t allow for the faff of placing your own bags on the shopping table, waiting until someone can be bothered to help you, and getting stalled on at least two items because the weights don’t register or you stupidly moved your shopping bag 2mm while trying to load it.

I could go on as I am also trying to buy a house - separate apps for the mortgage co, the solicitors, the EA, for the ID verification, and so on. It is never ending. I have a smartphone choc full of apps that just seem to slow the process down…

I have just had the job of trying to sort out missing deliveries and the hell of a John Lewis chatbot.

But that is a cakewalk compared to having four PCNs from a private parking company when I’ve paid the parking fees at the time. They’re trying to fine me on the basis that I hadn’t paid the fee immediately on entering the carpark - ie whilst still driving. Sadly for them they have misunderstood the petty menopausal rage and I will be taking them to court for harassment should they not back off.

I really do think people lack good old fashioned common sense. I work in a team customer facing by phone. The sheer lack of lateral thinking and problem solving surprises me each day.