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

When booking in at the maternity unit in France, I had to give the hospital my blood group, which I didn't know. Got the blood test done but the results were refused because they were in my maiden name, even though I had proof of my marriage and name change. Redid the blood test under my married name but that was refused because there were no commas between my first and middle names.

Did the blood test a THIRD time at their own lab at my insistence, so they could get the bloody thing the way they wanted it before I either ran out of blood or gave birth on the bathroom floor.

I've had a 6 place set of crockery for nearly 30 years and in that time I've broken one tea plate. Imagine my delight at finding a tea plate with matching items in a charity shop. I asked to buy just the tea plate for £1.99 but was told no. I had to have 8 other tea plates, 10 bowls, 5 side plates and 3 dinner plates for £1.99.

I can't re-donate just in case I break more pieces.

Bloody EDF energy

We had our monthly bill through. It came in for over £1000 for one month of gas.

Gobsmacked DH rang them up. Even they were shocked. Couldn’t understand how it was over £1000 for a small house.

Insisted we still pay for it, and then they will refund the difference as computer wouldn’t let them amend it.

We didn’t have £1000 to give them in the first place.

Eventually we moved house and we are now out of the time band for them to claim it! Result

Turned out, the gas was supplying three houses instead of just one and was billing us for all 3!

I have a good one of these..

I ordered something online as a birthday present for a friend from Debenhams. Realised after I ordered that it would be better to have the delivery sent directly to her and so called customer services to change delivery address from mine to hers. Customer services rep dutifully obliges, no problems. At this point I am winning!

Then i get the confirmation of change email which seems to suggest that the order is still coming to my address but that the billing address is now down as my friends (Nooooooo!). Call back customer services to find that they won't now talk to me as... THE ORDER IS NOT IN MY NAME.

Didn't know what to do but called my friend and fessed up just in case. Four weeks later a tea pot that no one ever paid for turned up at her house.. I'm still not sure how that happened.

@lyralala - same happened to me when I got my new married name passport. I arrived on honeymoon and the hotel pointed out I looked very good for my age. I hadn't noticed but my birth date was shown as 07 instead of 67. This all happened in the last millennium and it showed I was in my eighties not a child! I think it was very easily resolved by returning the passport for correction, fewer "computer says no" moments 30 years ago!

@SuddenArborealStop a system i use at work had the questions "who was your favourite teacher in school" and "who was your best friend in school". Well i was in school for 13 years so it was an always changing situation. Plus i left school 25 years ago so kinda pointless questions

My favourite would be an incident following the death of my father, who had been ill for some time, but who died very suddenly and unexpectedly at home. Because his death was sudden, there was a post mortem, after which he was cremated.

My mother was having some trouble sorting out one of his pensions, so I took it upon myself to call the company. They were a bit cagey, but in the end, they said that, because there had been a post-mortem, they were reluctant to start paying the pension to my mum in case there had been any "foul play".

OK, Miss Marple: if you really want to do this, let's do it. By the time I had finished with them, they had apologised, agreed to sort it asap, including the back payments. The confirmation letter arrived the very next day.

Was helping a relative deal with changing bills into her name after her husband had died. Understandably relative very upset so I was doing most of the admin, pretending to be her. However the bank where they had the joint account just wasnt having it that the Mr on the account was no longer around. I didnt want to upset my relative so I went in another room with the phone, snapped and asked the person on the other end if they had a ouija board as I has just buried my husband.
Was handed to a manager, cue much grovelling and account changed.

My own one now:

My surname is Eskimos Knob. Not just Eskimos, not just Knob, it is both words.
So many online forms dont accept that the space in my surname is legit and there for a reason. Drives me absolutely sodding crazy on a regular basis

Went to buy a new backup battery for our Alarm System.
Went to a specialist battery supplier as it's not the sort of thing you can get at a general DIY outlet.
They identified the battery, produced one from the shelf, put it on the counter in front of me, told me the price and then proceeded to refuse to sell it to me as the computer said they didn't have one in stock and therefore they couldn't generate an invoice! Couldn't budge them on the situation. The best they could offer was to go back the following week after they had a delivery and hope that my battery type was on the delivery.
Amazon delivered one to my house the following day for less money than they were asking.

"Not really computer but... I was buying a 40p pack of paracetamol in Sainsburys. Self checkout. It flags up for ID, no staff about. I wasn't impressed and in a huge amount of dental pain, so stood there huffing. Woman eventually marches over and I was just expecting her to clear it.. but she says "Have you got ID?" totally seriously. I couldn't actually believe it and I pretty much gawped at her then stammered that I hadn't. I asked "How old do you have to be to buy it?" She says "16"... I was 31! Could not believe I left without it!"

Don't know why this is considered strange. You were huffing at the staff and she rightly asked for ID you didn't have 🤷🏽‍♀️

A "stuck on the system" one; when DM died, it was unsurprising that post and reminders continued to come - upsetting but could not be helped.
She bought a lot of stuff by mail order, and I simply informed companies that she had passed away, thanking them for providing a service she appreciated. Nice messages of condolence sent, catalogues stopped.
Similarly, the dentist and chiropodist only needed telling once.
But the optician.......it may seem a trivial thing, but getting an eye-check reminder for someone who has died can be painful when you're still a bit sensitive. Six times I contacted them to tell them she was dead.
In the end, I marched into the optician's premises wielding the death certificate, emphasising that, wherever she was now, DM had no need of glasses. The poor young girl on reception was mortified to the point of tears, but I didn't blame her; it wasn't her job to update the database.

@Alwaysfrank Apparently if a typo had made me older, or even just a little younger it would have been shrugged off as “the system shouldn’t have let that happen, but hey ho”

The drama seemed to have been that I was sent a ten year passport with a child’s DOB and they couldn’t work out of that was a system error or if someone had managed to override one of the checks.

It was mostly funny because people kept telling me it couldn’t happen despite the fact they had said passport in their hands

(On phone)
Bank: what’s your secret answer?

Me: that depends... what’s the secret question?

Bank: I can’t tell you, it’s a secret.

This thread has reminded me of this

m.youtube.com/watch?v=jrZyZn5nVks

Monty Python Spam sketch. RIP Terry Jones and Graham Chapman.

In the local chippy. The chicken coujons usually come with salad, so I asked for the lunch deal (you get a some chips and a drink for about £1 more). I realised she'd not asked me about salad (she always checks as sometimes the coujons are for ds), so I asked could I have some salad. She said no sorry, we don't include it with the meal deal. I asked could I buy a portion, but they don't sell it as a seperate item, it just happens to come with some things. So reluctant to give away 20p worth of lettuce and raw onion, to someone who's just spent over £15.

I rang Swiftcover to cancel my house and contents insurance renewal. They had nearly tripled the price of the previous years quote. (I always pay the full year straight away.) I then paid for a years worth of insurance elsewhere. Meanwhile swiftcover took payment anyway and sent out new paperwork.

I rang swiftcover not happy they had taken payment (over £500). They admitted it was there mistake and could see that I had requested to cancel the policy in time. No apology. But they still refused to issue a refund. I had to write a letter to a postal address before they would issue a refund for there mistake. That took forever. I was left with practically no money because I had already paid for the other lot of house insurance that month too.

I rang up a phone company to let them know my late dad had passed away and that we’d like to change the account into my name.

That was fine. I paid any outstanding bills no problem. They then asked me about the phone number which I replied that I wanted to same number as my mum is elderly and everyone has the number. Apparently that couldn’t be done as that number was used by another customer. Yes. He’s dead and therefore wouldn’t be requiring it wherever he is now. Literally around and around in circles. Rang up another company and they had a deal with said company that if anyone switched over they could take their phone numbers.

I had gas meter readers out regularly for five years when I didn't have gas. Every time they asked me if I was absolutely sure I didn't have gas.
Once they sent someone out to inspect the whole flat for gas. I was happily showing them every damn room and my knicker drawer to demonstrate the sheer absence of gas.

After five years of NO bills and no gas, they sent someone round for non-payment of imaginary gas. I said I'd never received a bill as I have no gas. The following month I received a bill for something like 9 quid. Which I didn't pay.
I moved out.

Similar one re aspirin. I tried to buy some online from Superdrug. To sell me the 99p pack they needed to check my details with a third party (Experian, apparently). The purchase was refused as these didn't match.

They didn't match because I had entered a random date of birth instead of my real one to prevent me being bombarded with "birthday offers" around my real birthday.
It still made me over 50.

I was paying by credit card in my own name.

The delivery address was the same as the billing address.

Also I now wonder whether an unsuccessful third party check with Experian is going to have damaged my credit score in any way.

I've been having some problems with my RIGHT knee - achy, stiff, clicky and sore for no apparent reason. I went to see my GP (who is in general fairly rubbish) and he gave me a quick examination, then gave me a form to take to the hospital so I could have it X-rayed.

I went to the hospital, handed my form in and went into the x-ray room,

Radiographer: So, we're going to x-ray your left knee
Me: No, it's my right knee that's the issue
Radiographer: The form says its your left
Me: It's my right knee
Radiographer: The form says left
Me: My right knee hurts.
Radiographer: The form says left. I can't do your right knee unless I update the computer.
Me: Please can you update the computer? I would like my right knee to the xrayed.
Radiographer: The form says left. Look here....
(she shows me the form that has some kind of code, starting with an L, which I presume meant left)
Me: Well, I don't know what to tell you. The GP examined my right knee and them handed me a form. I didn't really look at it and even if I had, I wouldn't understand what it meant
Radiographer: I'll get in trouble if I x-ray the wrong knee
Me: Please don't x-ray the wrong knee! I don't want my left knee x-rayed! Please can you just x-ray my right knee?
Radiographer: OK, I'll update the computer.

She went and updated the computer and x-rayed my right knee. As I was leaving she said "you make sure to tell your GP that it's your right knee!"

It was honestly like something from a sketch show. It felt like she thought I was trying to pull a fast one by insisting that it was the other knee!

@magpiefeather Hahahahahahahaha I thought it was just me that had those conversations with banks.

I've since uncovered the magic word. Which I can't repeat because it's secret.

Correction, I was collecting in person. At which point they would have clearly seen that I was over the age of 18 by some margin..

we had months of hassle with British Gas who were booked to come and connect the gas supply to our new office. Except BG had decided that we were to have a domestic contract rather than a business contract, and tried to bill us for domestic gas, from a non-connected meter. BG Business could see what the problem was, but weren't able to speak to BG Domestic, so a very helpful person dictated the exact wording to use to BG Domestic which would eventually get them to accept that we didn't actually owe the £000s, as there wasn't a gas supply at that point, and in any case, we'd never signed a contract with them.

My DPs were turned down for buildings and contents insurance on their new house because, being 20 meters from the sea, they were in a flood risk area. The fact that the house was 30 meters up a cliff didn't change the insurance company's view that they were at risk of high tide and storm damage. DF eventually lost patience with them and suggested that if they though his house was likely to be flooded at high tide, they'd better start building an ark.

I've got a knee one, @IToldYouIWasFreaky!

Four years ago I had my left knee replaced. Both knees x rayed, both arthritic but only one giving pain.

Fast forward, right knee now going the same way. Sent for X Ray, conclusion is that my right knee hasn't deteriorated in the four years so replacement not warranted. Based, I imagine, on the consultant deciding four years ago not to replace the right knee. Except that he didn't because he wasn't asked to.

Having had one knee replacement, I'm pretty confident that my other knee is now in the same condition. But because it decided to take four years to flare up, I can't apparently have it done, based on a decision that was never made.

Trigger warning
When I was pregnant, I signed up for various milestone tracker/offers websites including Boots. Sadly I had a late miscarriage and deactivated everything. When pregnant again, soon after, I cautiously sign up to everything with a new due date. I then got an email on Christmas Day from Boots, “your child at 7 weeks” which I guess he would have been if he had survived but I wasn’t allowing myself to think about it that way. Tried to edit the system but alerts could be on or off for all offspring. The first due date couldn’t be removed from the system. Support team didn’t seem to understand the problem. I had to stop receiving emails entirely because I couldn’t only receive alerts relating to my ongoing pregnancy.