To ask for your “computer says no” moments?

[Retpark101]

Light hearted, I’m talking about times when in a shop/supermarket/transport/anything else really, you’ve been “not allowed” or told “can’t do that sorry” when it’s something really tedious or silly. My title (for those who don’t know) refers to Little Britain’s character of a woman behind a computer who just say no to every request made of her.

Anyway I’ll share mine from this morning that gave me the idea.

In Waitrose cafe as they’ve refurbished it and it looks lovely. I’m with DD who is 2. We are looking at the kids snacks and sandwiches but DD isn’t hungry and there’s only ham or egg mayo sandwiches for kids so she isn’t interested. However she would like a banana and an innocent smoothie pouch so I pick both up and go to the counter to pay.

The woman says “sorry but the smoothie isn’t included in the kids meal deal” I say it’s fine I’ll buy it separately. She says “you also can’t have to banana on its own, you have to buy a sandwich and a kids drink as well” (which is just 2 flavours of fruit shoot)

I say I don’t mind paying extra if I can just have the banana, DD doesn’t want a sandwich or a fruit shoot. Can I not just have the banana separately? “No sorry you HAVE to buy it with the kids meal deal”

So I just got my coffee and DDs smoothie and went to get a pack of bananas from Waitrose itself then DD ate one in the cafe.

Total first world problem I know but FFS just let me buy a pissing banana on its own from the cafe without the sandwich and fruit shoot?

Tell me your stories

Wanted to consolidate various debts with a bank loan.
We were paying £450 a month to service the debts and worked out that if we moved it all to a bank loan we’d be paying approx £150 a month.
‘Computer says no, it’s unaffordable’ 🤷🏻‍♀️

Similar has happened to me twice.

1. Was at the cinema, was watching my diet, so asked for a small milky way to be told it was for children only.
2. was at the zoo and wanted a piece of fruit and was told it was only available as a kids mix 5.

My local Sainsbury's has a display by the entrance door with food and drink items of the kind one might buy for lunch - eg bottled drinks, sandwiches etc, single items.
I put one in my basket and carried on - purchased a few items. At the checkout the person very apologetically told me I could only pay for my drink at the cafe.

Lost count of the number of times I have taken an item to the till at my local Co-op but been unable to buy without a 4 hour investigation because the item doesn't exist - despite it being on a shelf with a price displayed. Occasionally one of the more helpful staff will scan something with a similar price twice but usually it's a full-on drama.

I tried to add DH details to my self assessment return and it said, No. Those details do not match who we think you're married to. 🤔. Called to clear it up and apparently there's a lot of it about this year!

Many years ago I was booking a holiday in a travel agency. They entered my details. The computer shut down. He tried his neighbour computer which also refused to book. I was politely told to go for a walk while they sorted it. Returned to find that my name was apparently responsible for crashing their entire IT system. Nice chap rang up and booked my flights over the phone instead.

I tried to order beans on toast for my 2 yr old in a cafe at 12.01pm but they stop selling beans on toast at 12pm because it's on the breakfast menu. The person in the kitchen was happy to make it for us but the person on the till said we couldn't have it because the till wouldn't let her ring it through at 12.01 pm.

Not being allowed bacon as an additional topping on a veggie burger (it was an option as an additional topping for a normal burger}

This is going to be a fun thread!

I asked for my chips to be simply wrapped open, in paper, rather than on a tray. The person behind the counter looked at me as if I'd asked for the moon and uttered the words... 'It's never been done.'

Getting a quote for travel insurance or something. They for my address which I gave. They told me no, the address was incorrect. I repeated my address to them

105 My House (It's an apartment complex so no road name)
My Village
My Town

Again was told no, it was not the full correct address. The penny dropped and I said oh if you also need "Not My Street" then that's incorrect. The apartments are off a street.

The person continued to argue that I was wrong, they were right. I ended the call saying well clearly you know better than the deeds held by the land registry and rung off.

I had little hope of them insuring me in the event of an accident if they couldn't even get my bloody address correct.

Desert menu at restaurant had apple pie with cream or chocolate cake with ice cream. Both the same price. I asked for apple pie but with ice cream. No, not possible. In the end dh bought the chocolate cake (which he hadn't really wanted) so I could have his ice cream

I’ve literally had ‘surname is invalid’ when trying to fill out an online form.
I mean, it’s definitely an unusual, non-English name but I typed it exactly how it appears on my passport/bank card etc!

Utility company sent multiple letters asking for readings from the meter upstairs. It was a small 3 bedroom terraced house. I kept trying to tell them that the only gas meter was on the wall outside. They wrote saying they would force entry if necessary. I spent ages on the phone trying to convey them that even if they bashed my door down, they still wouldn’t be able to read the upstairs meter because I didn’t have one. They said it’s in the kitchen. I finally managed to convince them that if there was a kitchen upstairs in my little house, I would have known!

I set up an account online username and password saved to phone tried to log in computer said no that password is incorrect (my phone literally just saved it?) So I typed it in manually rejected again so I went via forgotten password used the same password again (I wrote it down so I felt committed) error message "new password cannot be the same as the old password" password now cuntyshite

Tried to register an account on TripAdvisor only to be asked if I meant .pl at the end of my email address rather than the actual .com

Never managed to get past that and couldn't register.

I've also been caught by webforms requiring a county. I don't have a county! It's a mandatory field on a surprising number of websites. Still saves me money as I can't complete the order!

I’ve literally had ‘surname is invalid’ when trying to fill out an online form.

A Chinese friend has been told her name isn't long enough for the minimum characters on a field several times. I think she just writes it twice now! So she's like AnnAnn Smith

Trying to take out cash at an atm outside Santander, transaction went through but no money came out of the machine. Tried again, insufficient funds now so the money I tried to withdraw had now effectively come out of my account. Went into the bank to be told I needed to take it up with my bank who would open a dispute and claim the money back from Santander. Oh but it takes 3-7 working days.

Great. Thanks. That's fucking helpful when I've got no more money left. I thought perhaps they could unlock the atm and cash it up, then they'd see the extra £100 sitting there but god knows how many people it happened to already that day. Walked past an hour or so later and no one had bothered to put a sign on to say the machine was out of order.

Restaurant in London wouldn’t serve me banoffee pie without the vanilla ice cream on the side ‘because the chef insists on no menu changes’. I just didn’t want the ice cream FFS, but it didn’t matter how many times I explained this. This of course wasn’t anywhere fancy, just a pizza place near to west end theatres

I had a small trolley with 5 items in it, and tried to go through the "Baskets only" till in the supermarket. The assistant said "You can't use this till, it's baskets only" I told her I only had 5 items and she'd just served someone whose basket was piled high. She wouldn't budge, so I picked up a basket, transferred my items, and she served me....

Took a cheque into the bank. Went to the machine to put it in as they virtually refuse to let you queue (not even for my 30k house deposit that I'd rather was handled by a human!).

The cheque scans, deposits, fine. Next day, I get a letter telling me the cheque was declined because it didn't scan properly. It must have been automated at the moment I put it in, because I went late afternoon.

Go to bank to see if they can retrieve the cheque from the machine.

No - they're sent away to head office, a random sample plus cheques over a certain value checked, all destroyed!

But why the BEJEESUS not have the machine notify THEM, not head office, of the error and flag the cheque to be reviewed?

On holiday my dad asked for a sausage sandwich to be told they could only do sausage on toast. Then followed a long conversation about whether they could just skip the toasting stage.

DP ordered something for himself using my Amazon Prime. It defaulted to my old address and he didn't notice (head in the clouds). They put a card through the door of the old (now empty) house and sent it back to the main post office. He went to the post office and they told him he couldn't pick it up because it wasn't in his name (it had my name on). That's understandable. He could bring my ID and pick it up though, so he went back with my driving licence, no he can't have it as he doesn't have the card. But the card is in an empty house we don't have access to!

Anyway he then brought me with him, along with a) my photo ID, b) the council tax letter showing I'd moved house, c) his email showing that it had been sent/delivered. The woman admitted they had the parcel, that yes it was ours, and ummed and ahhed about giving it to me before saying "but I'm not allowed to do that without the card."

We all stared at each other for a minute. Then she said "But I can put it out for delivery to your new address for tomorrow." Of course that was fine...but we puzzled over this for AGES and we couldn't see how that was any more secure than just giving it to us seeing that she still only had our word for it that the new address was correct at all! It all worked out OK but...it doesn't make sense!

I’ve been told my surname is not a surname as well (hyphenated)

Not a computer, but made me cry laughing:

My dad, lost in the arse end of rural nowhere in the pissing rain, having followed a confused sat nav for 6 miles.

Pulled up next to a man on a tractor, asking for the best way to get to .

Man on tractor:

"Oh no, mate, You can't get there from here."

I've also been caught by webforms requiring a county. I don't have a county! It's a mandatory field on a surprising number of websites.

That's because there are a number of idiots working in IT who don't seem to realise a county is not a mandatory part of your postal address.

Yes had one of those moments with the bank.
I had left my bank card at my friends house over the weekend so she was sending it to me by post.
Anyway I went to the bank with my passport and birth certificate and utility bill as proof of who I was and explained situation and that I needed to take £100 out for the week.
Nope they refused this only £10 as I didn't have my card. But I had all my i.d. apparently wasn't good enough. After a lot of complaining etc seeing manager still not budging.
So then asked how I could go about closing my account.
They said I was allowed to close the account with all the I.D I had and withdraw the £500 in there!
So they could not let me just take £100 out but I was able to close the whole account and withdraw all the funds without my card!
It was ridiculous.