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

As a student I had a magazine subscription which had been a Christmas present from my father. When I was getting married I contacted them to give them my new details, married name, address etc., I also gave them my father's details as the account payer.
After we married and moved I got these:-
1 to new name and address
1 to old name but new address
1 to new name at my old college address
1 to my father in his name
1 to my father in my old name
1 to my father in my new name

I was queuing to collect a parcel at Parcelforce.

The guy in front hands over his delivery card and Parcelforce guy comes back with a wrapped parcel.

Parcelforce guy to guy in front of me: "Do you have id and proof of address"?

Guy in front shows a utility bill

Parcelforce guy: "Do you have any photo id?"

Guy in front: "No, just this"

Parcelforce guy: "I'm sorry, you need to have photo id"

Guy in front: "The parcel is my graduation photo. If you open it you will see it's a photo of me"

Parcelforce guy: "I can't open the parcel, it's not allowed"

Guy in front: "Then give it to me and I'll open it here"

Parcelforce guy: "I can't give it to you until I see your photo id"

Guy in front: "But it is literally a photo of me!"

He didn't get his parcel in the end. It's a tough one because while it's really frustrating for photo guy, Parcelforce guy just couldn't bend the rules because if he opened the parcel and it wasn't the guy's photo he'd have been in the shit.

At an ATM attached to the bank and The machine swallowed my card. Bank teller “nope can’t do anything need to apply for a replacement“. OK I say and sit down at her counter let’s complete the paperwork. She then found the keys and retrieved my card

The county that I live in doesn't technically exist anymore, so filling in my address online via those drop down boxes is a bit of a nightmare. I usually have to choose a county that is nearby but not mine and confuse the postman to keep the online bots happy. It doesn't like me leaving it blank either in the boxes you can fill in yourself. Occasionally the non existent county does appear in the drop down menu but I don't like to use it as it's not been part of my address for over 20 years!

Soon after my Dad died he received a summons for a very minor (non endorsable) motoring offence. DP rang the court to explain he was dead and therefore wouldn’t be attending and they said we had to send them a copy of his death certificate - to which I replied “or else what?” Twats.

Haha @MintyMabel I didn’t actually realise How many times I’d mentioned going to cafes Age UK is not one of my regular hang outs, my nana however thinks it’s the best and I was dragged along

Telephone pole across the road had snapped in a storm and the telephone wire was severed, laying across the road being run over by 60mph traffic and the other half swinging around my garden.

I phoned my telephone supplier from my mobile to tell them it needed fixing and described the phone line being severed completely outside. They asked me to plug a different phone into my socket and try it. They then asked me to reset my router in case it was that too.

I kept repeating that no matter what I did inside the house and even if I tried a hundred different phones in the socket I STILL wouldn't be able to get a dial tone because the telephone pole was down outside.

In the end I accepted the possible charges of £180 call out fee of the issue was my hardware and they sent out an engineer.

The engineer arrived and asked what on Earth he was doing here as it's obvious what the problem is. All I could say was, "You try telling your bosses that!"

Tried to login to Laura Ashley website.
Tells me password is incorrect.
I know for sure it is correct (I have it written down and have never needed to change it since opening the account).
After 3 failed attempts; I choose 'reset password'.
Am told will receive reset email.
Never get this email (tried 3 times altogether).
Next I try the 'contact us' field. Type a note explaining what happened / asking for support.
Get to the end and am asked to 'tick a box' - to confirm I'm not a robot.
The box won't let me add a tick / won't even let me click into the box.
I decide to call Customer Service.
A pleasant guy tells me he can help me by placing an order for me but can't help me with my login problem, other than pass a message to IT. He can't guarantee they will do anything, or even get back to me to advise me what to do next.
2 days later and I've heard nothing back. Still waiting for the password reset email too

Went for a Sunday roast dinner with my family. I'm not vegan but I love nut roasts so asked for that but with the normal beef gravy and wanted a Yorkshire pudding with it (it was on the extras bit so happy to pay for it). Was told no because it wasn't vegan and I had ordered the vegan option. I had to ask for them to put the vegan gravy on the side, even though I wouldn't be using it so therefore wasting it when the kitchen could've saved it, not all over my dinner and my partner "ordered" an extra Yorkshire pudding that was allowed to go on his plate. When he went to put it on my plate he was told it wasn't allowed because I had a vegan plate! Had to wait until the waiter was gone before he could sneak it onto my plate lol! Also, i wasn't allowed to order the beef gravy even as a paid extra, for the same reasons as the Non-vegan Yorkshire, but partner was asked "would you like any extra gravy with your meal?" and promptly given a whole fresh FREE extra jug of gravy, which he gave to me. When the waiter had his back turned of course!
All very bizarre!
Same place wouldn't let me order a Diet Coke without a slice of lemon either. No idea why! Just told "can't be done!"

I was in the queue behind a child I taught and her mother at the collection office. The cashier was debating whether she could hand over a parcel addressed to the child if she didn't have ID(she was 9) Mum had ID with the address and same name on.. I piped up that I could vouch that child was said child as I was her teacher. I got told to mind my own... manager called, parcel handed over straightaway.

Npower nearly drove me to distraction with computer says that's not possible.
I was renovating a house that had been empty for 10 years. The first thing I wanted was electric. At some point in the 10 years a new meter had been fitted but they hadn't removed the old meter. So electric comes in, goes to new meter, then to old meter. And the old meter was a ticket one (after the 50p meters, before keys) so totally defunct.

Npower insisted this was impossible and kept repeating the meter serial number to me. Which was correct but the other meter was still there!
Eventually an engineer came. He was reading his hand set, which probably said crazy woman is insisting there's 2 meters. His first words when he looked in the cupboard: oh there ARE 2 meters.

@WitchQueenofDarkness just put your nearest county. It really doesn’t matter.

It always amuses me when I think about the woman serving in a kiosk in a theme park in Orlando. She asked the family in front of us, in a deadpan monotone :
‘Do you want straws? We don’t do straws.
Do you want ketchup? We don’t do ketchup’
It tickled me!

About 100 years ago when mobile phones were just phones....

I needed a new one and saw an offer in the paper for a model I liked. The offer was for two identicsl phones at a very attractive price for the pair and as dh didnt have a mobile so we decided to buy them. The deal only was only available to people ordering over the phone. I'll add here it wasnt a shop run by the phone network ,(like an ee shop) but one of those where you could buy phones from a variety of providers.

Phones arrived, but without sim cards so I called them up and the "agent," clearly couldnt be bothered to do anything and told me to go to their shop. Which I did next morning. Guy got some sims and tried to put them through the computer. It said no. He tried every which way, it was still no. So he decided that he would refund the phones and sell me two more. But the offer wasnt available in store so he couldn't do that for the lower price. So he had to ring up to cancel the refund and re-instate my original purchase. The person on thephone tried to talk him through adding two sim cards to my phones. Computer still said no. At this point the manager arrived and various attempts were made including refunding my purchase abd getting me two more. More phone calls, more attempts all in vain. By this point I had been there a couple of hours at least. I couldnt fault the staff who were trying very hard to rectify the situation. Eventually another staff member arrived for her shift AND SHE KNEW HOW TO DO IT. The guy dealing with me had been very professional throughout and I felt quite sorry for him having to sort out someone elses mess and of course during the hours he spent with me he wouldnt have earned any commission.

I think I got home about 3 hours later. Never set foot in the shop again!! But good phones.

So frustrating when there isn't a till button for something! The worst I experienced was when discount vouchers for an odd amount got handed out by the marketing bods, but no one told the retail staff, so there wasn't a button on the till that was even slightly close to the discount, and we had zero authority to use our discretion. I think we ended up having to charge the nearest amount we could, then handing the customers a £1 coin from petty cash and writing a note for the accounts people so they could reconcile it. Really crap!

Subway does the normal bread in 12 inch size but the wheat free bread only comes in 6 inch size. So you can’t buy a 12 inch wheat free sub because it’s only available in 6 inch. I suggested they could just give me 2x 6 inch and charge me the price for the 12 inch, but they said they couldn’t possibly. But they happily served the customer behind me with 2x 6 inch which was allowed because it was originally a 12 inch that they’d cut in half.

So there's 50gb left of space on a memory stick. I wanted to copy a folder from computer to stick - folder is 20gb in size. Computer says there is not enough room on the memory stick!? WTF!? So I had to move a third of the files at a time to get them on the stupid stick

I lost count of the number of moments I encountered after my DF’s death a few years ago. He lived alone, fairly straightforward life. It took me nearly three years to close and transfer everything in his name.

After some soul-stripping conversations across loooong afternoons with the bank or insurance company, I’d seriously question my sanity. It was as if my dad was the very first person ever to die. Surreal.

I remember saying to her-on-the-switchboard once that if she asked to ‘speak to Mr XX’ one more time, I’d dig him up, put the phone to what was left of his ear and send her a close-up pic of me doing it.

I hope the folks who bought his house had better luck redirecting his mail. I failed after about 9 fruitless attempts.

Well, I tried to sign a document with a spoon today... Unsurprisingly it didn't work

I opened a mortgage through a broker and one of the conditions was also opening a current account with the same provider and having a certain amount paid in each month. This saved me .5% interest so why not.
I wanted to set up online banking on the new account but couldn't get it to work online. Rang them up and immediately hit a wall as I failed the security questions.

What's your mother's maiden name.?Smith.. No it's not... Yes it is... I'm terminating this call due to incorrect security answers.

What's your favourite colour?
Wtf I'm 34 I don't have a favourite colour, I don't remember ever answering this question on the application.
There's an answer in the system.
Fine pink (niece was pink obsessed at the time figured if I answered anything it would be that)
Nope terminating the call....

Round and round it went with me ringing and holding and them hanging up. One operator said you'll have to go into the branch where you opened the account and talk to them... But I have never been to a branch says me... Yes you have I have the paperwork here... He finally saw the issue was someone else's paperwork had been added to my account and said he'd look into it and get back to me.. He never did but he did "accidentally" reveal the mother's maiden name they had on file so I could skip being hung up on and go straight to the fight from that point on.

If I hadn't just started the mortgage I would have run a mile. What kind of security question is your favourite colour, surely you need to stick to facts so the answer is memorable not something subject to your mood on a given day.

I appear to have lost my name due to a computer says no scenario.

I renewed my passport but stupidly put down my abbreviated name rather than my actual name and nobody noticed and my passport now isn’t in my actual name. Which is a pita because twice solicitors have refused to accept it for ID when buying houses.

So I’ve tried to change it but need to provide a deedpoll certificate. But I can’t change my name by deedpoll to what it already is. I’m considering changing my name twice, once to something different and then back to what it actually is.

A bit less light hearted...my whole family did our settled status forms last week. Mine and DFs went through no problem, poor DM they 'had no record of' ...she's been here since 1993!
Her and dad very grumpily spent about 5 hours finding and scanning 5 years of bank statements and water bills and scanning them in.

Online forms can be frustrating when they want a particular format for something like the date or a telephone number but don't say what.

Or the post code - eg do they want TQ1 1QT or TQ11QT?

This doesn't happen very often - but sometimes they want a 2nd line of address. I don't have a 2nd line of address, I live in 1 Cologne Street, Cologne. Not Cologne Heights, Cologne Street, Part of Cologne, Cologne!

HSBC mortgage! Honestly I tear my hair out every time I want to log in to check my mortgage balance. It's like they want me to produce the blood of a unicorn in order to pass their 13, yes, 13 security questions every single sodden time.
They ask for account number, bank account number, user name, user number, email address, alternative email address, password, pass number, memorable word, memorable pet, mother's maiden name, place of birth, first school... drives me demented!
Oh, and their details on their app are different to my account. No idea how to sort this. So I need a one time activation code to use their app. I apply for code. It arrives by post. I input the code and the message "this account is invalid" comes up on the screen. They don't know how to fix it

I was in a cafe at a wild life park and they refused to sell me toast because toast is a breakfast item and it was after breakfast time.
Guess no one there has ever had toast for lunch, dinner or an evening snack ...