I am one of those grumpy old women or was this just ridiculous??!

[bigmouthstrikesagain]

I called vax today as I need a replacement part for my steam cleaner and it is still fairly new so still under guarantee. The pleasant chap on the phone took my details but needed me to send receipt to enable a free replacement part to be ordered. "No problem" says I, "I got it from Amazon so I can forward the email proof of purchase", he asks me to do so while on the phone, he received the email and then starts asking for me to attach the receipt as a document as the email I forwarded isn't sufficient. I can't do this as the only receipt you get from Amazon is an email that I already sent. He says to cut and paste email from Amazon into an attachment. I say "why? That is nonsensical you do realise?" He gets fed up and puts me on hold for a bit while he "speaks to a supervisor" then comes back saying yep that's what we need. I cut and paste the email from Amazon that they already have, into a word document, cos that makes it for reals - then forward that. Man happy so he orders my part.

I am left feeling bemused and irritated, if he wanted to cut and paste it why couldn't he do that and how does that make it a valid receipt ffs? Apparently I could have made up my email from Amazon but I couldn't possibly fake a word doc I mean really.

That is a bit bonkers.

YANBU and yes that's ridiculous!

The youth eh? They don't have the skills. Or they think anyone over 23 doesn't have the skills and should just go away and stop being a big nuisance.

The good news is that you're getting your part though.

I know I will be happy when I can push my steam cleaner around with a nice new handle instead of a wobbly one held together with electrical tape. But it is going to be forever tainted by the memory of being made to do a pointless task, isn't life pointless enough?

Er, both? :o

Yeah that's probably a fair assessment ouryve

This is what I call a 'Beam me up Scottie, there aint no intelligent life down here' moment. Bonkers. You're not on your own. I have regular convos like this.

There are actually 2 forms of order/invoice on amazon - one of them is a VAT invoice, & it could be he was supposed to get you to send that. DS2 recently bought a camera that had a cashback offer, & the standard amazon order wasn't good enough, he had to find & forward the VAT one.

What actually happened with yours is nuts

Based on my own work experience I can well imagine them having a database that requires a file to be uploaded so quicker for them if already in attachment rather than email. However, it is obviously a ridiculous thing to ask someone else to do so we would do that sort of thing ourselves rather than asking the customer.

(& incidentally DS2 is actually only 22 & he couldn't find it - I'm 64 & I found it for him, yay me)

To be fair, it's probably a crap software problem rather than the agents fault. They probably have to attach a document in a specific format (ie docx) to process the payment. And I would imagine being a call centre they probably have all sorts of shitty restrictions on software which stop them doing it themselves (eg only being able to open, not edit Word docs). It's a pain, but probably the fault of the company rather than the staff member.

If so Bill I am sympathetic, but then the poor sods should be trained to explain it better as it just made no sense to me the way he justified the action.

No, this is ridiculous, but my judgement may not be the best, being a grumpy old woman myself!

You say it's fairly new and still under guarantee. In that case I wouldn't have bothered with phoning vax for a replacement, I would have just returned the whole item to Amazon as faulty.

Glad you got sorted out anyway.

Oh dear! I emailed Vax customer support today - awaiting their response with baited breath now!

Well that makes me a grumpy old woman. Those are what i call "just shoot me" moments.