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

@GetOffTheTableMabel when I moved into my first house in 1972 the gas had been removed from the house, and the old meter was on the floor in the cupboard under the stairs. Every quarter the meter reader would knock on the door and ask to read the meter, and every quarter, I would tell him we didn't have gas, and he would argue that we were on his list, so we must have. So one day I asked him to wait a minute, and took the meter out to him. He looked astounded, and said "But it's not connected!" He stopped knocking after that!

It does my head in when I order something from the USA and select "international delivery" and it asks for my state. I don't live in a state! It's international delivery, most countries do not have states. I used to put the province instead but now I moved to a small village in a province with the same name as a big city nearby.... not helpful.

We had private medical insurance with DH previous job. I had a few gynae issues and Bupa kept refusing to pay out. DH and I share an initial and it transpired they were trying to claim against Mr X Bloggs rather than Mrs X Bloggs. Computer keeps saying not possible. I couldn’t get Bupa to understand that they needed to apply the costs to MY name not his. I just kept getting stupid letters like Mr Bloggs does not have a cervix so Bupa will not pay for his treatment. After about 3 months of this my consultant rang them himself and lit an absolute rocket under them. It was beautiful.

38weeks pregnant at work Christmas party, I was having lamb, I asked if I could have it mrs-well rather than pink. I got told I could have it pink or well done as they were the only options on the till. I suggested speaking to the kitchen and asking them or putting a note on the order. The waiter said he needed to ask his supervisor who had to ask their manager who asked the kitchen first. They then tried to explain to the whole table how food orders work in a restaurant.

We were a Christmas party from a bar/restaurant and none of us could understand how basic communication between front of house and kitchen couldn’t happen.
Our head chef offered to cook it for them 😂

I changed my name by deed poll, and wasn't home when the paperwork was delivered. It went back to the Post Office as it needed to be signed for.

I went to the PO with passport and a recent bill, only to be told that the name was wrong because the Deed Poll had been posted to my new name! I didn't have any ID in the new name; I couldn't, UNTIL I HAD THE PAPERWORK!

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.

My work PO system is awful. It was designed by madmen who think every single address in the world has a business name, apartment floor, streets, towns, cities and zip codes. Added to which the form isn't one single mandatory field, its multiple separate boxes (so you can't c'n'p) AND they are all in random order.

So you have to mangle addresses to fit in, like:
Buckingham Palace
1st Floor
Westminster
Westminster
Buckingham Palace
SW1A1AA
London
London

That's before you get to the "acocunt" (sic) fields which assume every person in the world has a VAT number and a European-formatted bank account number/format.

It's a complete Noddy system, I hate it.

Husband and I both have stinking colds, went to the shop to replenish the ibuprofen and paracetamol, wasn't allowed to buy a pack of each per person in two separate transactions as we were together, utterly ridiculous.

Not allowed to use "mothers maiden name" as a security question because her maiden name is too short (4 letters).

Not allowed to buy a clock in an independent shop because they only had one left. I said I didn't want money off for the display one, happy to pay full price. Not allowed because someone else might come in the shop and not know they sell those clocks and they might want one. But they wouldnt be able to buy it anyway...

Just filled in an online claim form for a parcel that Royal Mail lost. It was a Christmas present for my 98 year old aunt. Completed the section for recipient’s details, ie. name, address and phone number and it asked for her e-mail address. She’s 98, she doesn’t have one so I left it blank. No good, page wouldn’t submit. So I typed in ‘none’. Still no good. In the end I entered my own e-mail address so I could submit the claim. So in essence, Royal Mail doesn’t understand that not everyone uses e-Mail.

Another royal mail fail here, my daughter has an official name.which is usually shortened (think Matilda, known as Tilly). We missed a delivery, took the card and her passport, but they wouldn't hand it over as the name didn't match, yet they could see from the photo and the name that the shortened name had been used, but they could reschedule the delivery to us!

At the end of December we were Moving house from one rental to another so I went online to change details for the council tax bill. For some reason the system wouldn't let me do it and a message came up to call and speak to someone. So I rang the offices only to be told to go online. I tried to explain the situation that as we were also homeowners and paying tax for two properties the system didn't have the option that I needed. He insisted he would be asking the same questions as the online form so I should abandon the call and go online.
For goodness sake man! You are a customer service adviser, this is part of your job!
I finally managed to speak to a supervisor who sorted it out. It took just 2 minutes.

My favourite of all time happened at a convention in Glasgow.

A lot of people (think several hundred) had been staying in the hotel, and check-out time ended at I think it was noon on the Monday, when a lot of us were leaving. So there was a long queue in front of the only woman at the check-out desk, and she was getting flustered. Who shall blame her? it must have been a bit of a nightmare, and she was new.

Then came the Problem. One couple had been charged for the contents of the room-fridge, which they had not used. She said, "I can't take that off the bill, the computer won't let me. You'll have to pay the bill and then write and ask for a refund." I think it was understandable that they didn't want to, and argued about it... After all, they now knew about the accuracy of the billing system. And the manager, when called, was no help because he didn't know haw to subtract anything from the bill either.

After about five minutes of to-and-fro, with last-time-for-checkout and extra payment ticking closer and closer, someone emerged from the back of the queue, said gently, "It could do that when I installed this system," and showed her (and the manager) how to subtract an item from the bill. The couple then paid, and we could all go home. The hotel was lucky; a lot of us had begun planning to dump our keys on the desk, then go home and send them cheques for what we knew we owed them, rather than hang about any longer, and gawd knows what that would have done to their system.

We had it every year for my disabled Aunt’s housing association house

“It’s time for your annual gas inspection”
“I don’t have gas”
“The system says you have gas, we have to inspect, it’s a legal requirement”

What usually happens at this point is the person says they’ll sort it, then a month or so later I get a call from her, hysterical, because they’ve threatened court and the police if she doesn’t let them in

Last time I got a call from them saying we needed to have a meeting because she’d refused to show the gas guy where the meter was

Every sodding year for 6 years. Last year it was close to the election being called when it was due so the MP was very helpful. Apparently it’s fixed.. We shall see

Years ago when ds1 was a baby I went to open him a bank account and the computer wouldn't accept his birth certificate and was asking for a driving license?!
The poor woman was just as bewildered as me as to why it was asking that and went to fetch someone else who could amend it.

Applying to remortgage to the banking company that my husband works at already. We were not asking for any more money, just a better deal. Both good jobs, no debt or credit cards.

Computer said no. Wouldn't give us a mortgage. No explanation. They weren't allowed to say why.
We did our own investigations, and it turned out our credit rating was poor as we "hadn't declared a second property".
We don't own a second property.

It turned out our credit rating was merged with another person, same name and date of birth as my husband. But living in an entirely different city four hundred miles away, and married to an entirely different person.
No one at this company processing the mortgage thought it odd that one of their own employees couldn't get a mortgage because he allegedly lived in a different city with a different job, committing bigamy with another wife and another house. No one has the sense to actually go "wait a minute... this doesn't look right..."

Got a letter from Housing (MOD Housing) saying they were coming on X date to check attic for abestos. We got a lot of similar ones, so didn't thing about it to much... But the day arrived. Inspector rang doorbell .. and pointed out we had no attic. He had to do this for the whole street, but poor bloke had nothing on his computer to say no attics... He just got us all to sign that he'd been. It was because the previous inspector had ticked that he couldn't gain access to the attic (which was true... Because they didn't exist!)

We have a funny one round here where some phone numbers are still 5 digit. Our work one is.
Sometimes computer forms refuse to accept it because it "isn't a phone number".

Recently we had a company we were dealing with. We heard nothing from them for ages after filling in the form. When we eventually managed to speak to someone, they said "oh, we can't phone you because you've not given the correct phone number." ie it was one digit short. They hadn't even bothered trying it.

@AngelOfDeathNix Bill Bryson tells a hilarious tale in his book Niether Here Nor There about arriving to take a bus in the wilds of Norway to see the Northern lights.

He was denied access as the booking was in the name Bill Bryson and his passport was in the name William Bryson. He managed to persuade them that if William Bryson didn't turn up, he could take his place :)

I have a basic savings account that I opened with two pieces of ID - council tax letter and my passport

It’s still in my old surname because I need 5 individual pieces of ID to change my name. Council tax bill can’t be used as its in joint names. They don’t accept mobile phone bills or printed off copies of paperless bills.

Oh I remember when Dd was about 8 months old and I went to Asda living cafe, it was empty apart from two others. I ordered a sandwich and drink and sat down with Dd. Minutes later I see a sign that says you get a free jar of baby food with every food purchase.

The woman behind the till had literally just served me and nobody was queueing, there was nobody waiting etc

I said I’ve just ordered my sandwich, could I have a jar of baby food for Dd as per the sign.

She said no because I should have asked for it when I originally ordered. I said but it’s free? I didn’t know about it until I sat down. She said sorry but I can’t give it to you now you’ve already left the till.

Her manager came out and decided as a “goodwill” gesture they would give me the sodding apple pie purée jar

Was asked for name of my primary school as a security question.
Mine was called something that is usually two separate words, think 'appletree' or 'yellowgates' so my answer was unacceptable.

Years ago I worked for a computer software house which was doing some NHS system work.
Young male programmers had to be told that although it was probably unlikely that any one woman had more than nine kids some poor women may well have had unsuccessful pregnancies into double figures. So yes, two boxes for digits needed on the form.

Tried to have something embroidered with my initials (JAP) the online software so no racial slurs allowed

Dd moved into a studio flat last year. It was clear that the previous occupants hadn’t paid their energy bills as there were 36 letters from Scottish power in the letterbox. She phoned them to say she had taken over the rental and she wanted to give them gas and electricity readings so she wasn’t liable for previous tenants.

Person on the phone said the flat didn’t have gas; so she asked what that big white box on the wall with the burning flame was. They suggested it might be a water meter! Despite giving gas readings they are still insisting the property doesn’t have gas.

I wanted to buy something from a charity shop, but it was on buy one get one free. I only wanted the one item. They insisted I couldn't, because the offer was BOGOF and not half price. I said I didn't want to pay half price and was happy to pay the standard price, but for one. No, that is not possible.

So I bought two and then donated the second straight back to them.

@JJPC that’s brilliant