To be so drained and fed up of constant electronic forms and passwords and apps?

[Bananabreadandcupofcoffeethanks]

Hate it so much I can't express it. Nothing works right for me, you need a fairly recent smartphone for apps to work for example.

Then with electronic forms. Fuck me. I'm trying to fill in a whole complicated form for an appointment and cannot get the 'electronically fillable' form to work. So now I have to print it, and hope the printer works, and then take a photo and scan or something.

I don't have the energy to do this now. It is now a whole multi step process with lots of little bits to get the task done.

I just fucking hate it all when it comes to appointments and job applications and whatnot, and then everything needing an app, or an account with a password that needs xyz to meet criteria.

God needed to get that off my chest.

I just use car parks without barriers and ANPR cameras and don't pay. Fuck 'em.

And yy to writing all your passwords down in a little notebook. Top tip: repurpose your old address book and log them all alphabetically: A for Amazon, B for BBC online, C for Christ on a bike dot com

I have all Apple stuff and use the Apple password manager, no idea where it stands against other password managers but it seems to work ok and I'm thinking it must be reasonably secure as Apple are quite hot on security, I have used it for years. DH writes his all down but he doesn't have as many as me because I tend to do most of the shopping.

I hate apps because on the whole they seem to be worse than the website, in fact I hate using my phone for anything and sit there at home like an old luddite on an iMac but always have to have my phone or iPad handy for the dreaded verify on the app.

Personally I get pissed off doing a company's admin for free, when I should be speaking to an employee and they do it and in half the time that it takes to navigate some bloody websites.

it is getting increasingly difficult to find phone numbers on websites and a lot of the chat bots are just a list of FAQ but in a different form so next to useless. I need to speak to BG about my smart meter and know that it will take at least an hour to do this simple task. Nowadays we seem to have to do everything ourselves so companies can employ fewer people.

The worst ever is the government gateway , it's like having to crack an FBI code .

I love RingGo. I will avoid a car park if it doesn’t use RingGo! Such a good, well designed app. I don’t want to carry around an assortment of coins nor line up in the rain behind people who can’t use a parking machine.

Oh the other hand there is no publicly humiliating punishment severe enough for the developers of WorkDay and any HR team
who inflicts it on their workforce.

Anyone writing down passwords in a notebook, please don’t do that unless you can keep it somewhere very secure (ie not the car, not your handbag).

Why are we always being pushed to use the app, I don't want the app, I have been given vouchers or money off by Next, M&S and Amazon for using the app, I just delete it after collecting the gift though

This!

What really gets my goat is those "contact us" forms in lieu of any phone numbers or email address. You send it into the ether without knowing if it's been received. There is no option to actually just ask someone your question.

Car parking apps are my absolute nightmare, the other day it took me 20mins of hell going round in circles on RingGo because I think I must’ve used it once with a hire car but because I clearly haven’t a bloody clue what that reg was it wouldn’t let me put my reg in, or reset the account.

It was for 70p FFS!!!

And the doctors, it’d been ages since I needed an appointment so I didn’t know they’d moved that all online, spent ages on hold at 8am to speak to someone who said I needed to request an appointment online - even though I was speaking to them…

I think it’s really inaccessible tbh, I’m only 40 and I find it all baffling and irritating, how are elderly people supposed to navigate a world where you can’t buy something simple in a shop without them wanting an email address for a receipt?

Yes yes!

I'm in my thirties, grown up with computers/ phones. The last few years have become ridiculous with the reliance on phones and apps for everything.

Parking apps - fine if you use just one each time. I've got about 4 parking apps on my phone! Plus my mum who doesn't have a phone just doesn't go to them anymore as she got a fine - it IS an age thing.

School apps - 2 children, 8 apps between them. Seesaw doesn't allow 2 children logged in at the same time as far as I'm aware. Seesaw family doesnt show the same stuff. So my partner logs into 1, me to another. What do you do as a single parent, or with 3 kids? Constant logging in and out for homework. Often 10+ emails/ app notifications in a day. Information overload after finishing work.

I work in the nhs- it's moving to paperless. That has it's advantages but - every system ( 8+) has it's own password and non of the systems speak to each other -- arrrgghhh!!

Those are the essential ones I have to use! I welcome well thought, out useful technology, but like pp say - apps just to slash paying humans or for marketing are a scurge!!

Howling at this!

I cannot stand those images where they ask you to click all the pictures with bridges or trees in to check you’re not a robot. The images are often quite grainy or blurred, and sometimes it’s genuinely unclear whether something is what they’re asking!

Yy to government fecking gateway. If you lose the password to that you are literally fucked.

Also two factor authentication- I've put in my username and password, why do I then need to open an app and get a secret code? FUCK OFF

I probably sound like a dinosaur, but I wouldn’t trust those master password apps personally. Do you even know the ridiculously long password it has generated for you? If not then surely if the app goes down you’re done for!

@Changingplace you can just say no to the email receipt

I keep a list of all my passwords on a piece of paper under the lining of my laundry basket!

I must be in the minority but I much prefer online forms and apps rather than paper forms and dealing with people. It can be so hit and miss when dealing with people, some people are so grossly incompetent and utterly useless. I can see why some people are so scared about the AI revolution as it won't be too hard to replicate them.

It's not for everyone and so whilst I am OK with most, the OP makes a valid point. None of them are done to benefit us as customers in 99% of cases.

Parking payments should be one system for all- preferably just contactless or chip and pin. This could be simply achieved by any penalty charging notice or other action being illegal unless the one system was available.

If Rishi Sunak really does want to do something about the alleged 'war on motorists', parking payment is a simple win.

YANBU I want to scream every time I get an email from school we are now using XXX app you need to do XYZ 😤I don't need anymore apps or passwords in my life.

I just want paper. Then I go to my file if I need something and fine the answer. I can't even remember the website let alone the username, password and code for info that is mine and I should be able to access easily.
Payslips
Pension
Tax
Insurance
Banking
Mortgage
I would check all these statements much more often if I could remember how, or they were in paper form!

And I hate apps for homework at primary too. I have to log in 3 times for 3 kids, work out how to do the work on a screen, upload it, or open another app for spelling or whatever, log back in and say we've done it. Easoer for the teacher marling, but I just want a sheet of paper.

it is getting increasingly difficult to find phone numbers on websites and a lot of the chat bots are just a list of FAQ but in a different form so next to useless.

It took over two hours for me to work out how to return an item to M&S this week - from an online order. The website is a nightmare, and then I had lofty ambitions to speak to someone via the phone. Who do I think I am?

I wanted to return one thing and replace another (faulty) item but wanted to check if that item was in my nearest store first as it's 20 miles away - which led to me speaking to two different women in India after I'd found the secret number to call M&S Customer Service which is in no way easy to find on their website. Their Contact Us takes you to a form and bot hell.

Once I got through to the Actual Human, I was told they couldn't check stock with the local store - since when?! - so I had to process the return over the phone. I'm hard of hearing and the first woman's English wasn't great. She couldn't understand that my call related to two different items, one was faulty and needed replacing and one I was just returning - or why I
couldn't do it online (two different tasks relating to the same order is too much for the AI).

It's not like I hadn't tried to process it myself. To 'chat' online you have to fill in a form explaining your issue then a chat bot appears and none of that information is carried over so you're expected to type it in again BUT the chat bot can only deal with simple tasks so you give up and phone.

Turns out, this first woman hadn't understood me and processed the wrong item to be replaced and she hadn't processed the other item at all. I found out by the returns email she sent which is also supposed to contain a QR code for the post office. (Reader: it did not contain a QR code but the words 'QR code' where one should have been)

I had to phone again and again navigate the tedious bot, telling it in a few words what my beef is. On the third go of not having the 'few words' logged by phone bot, I say "complaint" and it cut me off. Called again and finally got through to Actual Person No2. She sends out a new correct item to replace the faulty one (so possibly a second item on its way to me?) and processes the other return. I post the two items back. Neither woman was that interested in me returning the faulty item, by the way, or me telling them what the fault is. I sent it back anyway along with a handwritten note. It's not easy to see the hole that shouldn't be there unless you put the garment on.

When I was speaking to the second woman, she had to send the returns email whilst I was on the phone twice - the QR code did not download again, she then had to email me a screenshot of the QR code to post back.

That was two days ago. This morning, I got an email: all the items I'd originally ordered have been resent to me.

M&S online? They're on something...

Sounds like a pain and good illustration of why we hate not having phone numbers. Next time Google ypur nearest M&S and phone the store.

Also, my dentist has gotten in on the AI act now. Every six months I visit them, and every six months they send me a reminder text of my upcoming appointment. So far, so reasonable, but before my last two visits, I've had to submit three different forms, one on Covid, one about my family health history and one with my personal details before they will confirm my booking. Every time I visit I have to redo these forms. I've been their patient for six years.

Don't get me started on the auto-correct on the Mumsnet app. (WHY does it spin to the end of your message every time you make an edit? Maddening)