To be totally sick of modern technology and having to do so much online

[Lifeomars]

i have been almost reduced to screaming and crying over the past three days due to almost everything having to be dealt with online.

!. I ordered some hair straighteners online from Boots, all fine and dandy. I got a text from Royal Mail saying they would be delivered on 26 Nov and giving me the tracking details. They never showed up and tracking showed them as being at sorting centre. This message showed every day for the following week, trying to track it online did not work. Going onto Boots website had a piece of info saying not to contact them until 7 working days had elapsed without them turning up. 7 days passed and I went back on the Boots site .After a good few minutes of scrolling through rather unclear information I then had to engage with a bot to try and explain what was happening (or not happening in my case). The box to enter my order number in would not work and after trying for 20 mins and feeling like ripping my (unstraightened) hair our I tried to use the email facility. This took another 10 minutes as all you are allowed to do is scroll though to find the option. It keeps trying to divert you to their FAQ but in the end I managed to fill it in. The whole process was hideous and I kept thinking that a 5 minute conversation with a human being would have sorted it out.

2, Today I had a message from my phone provider EE saying I had exceeded my "spend cap". I have been with them for two years and was not even aware that I had one. Can't phone them as I now cannor use my phone, can't log into my account on my laptop as I cannot remember my password (never use the online account). To set a new password requires that they send me a text, phone is now not even receiving texts which is odd so atm I am phoneless. I do not use my phone excessively, a bit of WhatsApp, some texts, and all the online stuff is done via my broadband account. Basically I feel that I have been almost driven to the brink by tech over the past few days. Great when it works but when it plays up it seems to take so much mental energy to sort it all out.

Talking of elderly, I'm doing a lot for my parents now...online shop, online car insurance, online house insurance, online medical accounts to arrange GP appt and prescriptions, online banking...loads of it. I am constantly ranting to my DH about how long I've spent with bots, emails, phone calls on a daily basis and it is honestly driving me to drink!

There is no customer services anymore...even when you're lucky enough to actually speak to someone on the phone because all other avenues have been exhausted to no avail, the person is distracted with a dog barking in their kitchen, TV on, kids voices, washing machine going whilst they WFH trying to be professional and at the end of the call its 'computer says nooooo' and said with a 'don't give a crap' attitude.

Literally no pro-active services whatsoever, when DF might say 'oh we had this letter today, can you sort it out please'. My heart just sinks....

As you can tell, utterly fed up of it all!!

I worked in this field once. It was impossible. Most elderly people don’t want to learn or just can’t get to grips with the basics, let alone navigating chat bots. I found they just want you to do it for them so it’s sorted and they “don’t have to worry about it”.

So what is an idealistic intention to teach the older generations tech, turns into an admin role of completing all the tasks for them. Some people got nasty when you pushed back and made them engage with learning what to do next time.

it sounds lovely in theory but it wasn’t a role for the faint hearted.

I hate retail parks - bring back the high street shopping!!

A couple of years ago, I spotted an A5 size grey packet on the kerb, probably fell out of the courier's van. Address was 2 miles away. It was much quicker for me to drive to the address, with a note explaining where I found it and my number. Than to contact the couriers. Guy couldn't thank me enough. It was some photos of his grandparents which he had restored.

Had a similar thing, we have a street name that's quite unusual but there is another one about 4 miles away. Evri made a mistake with the postcode so they took my parcel to the other street. We went round and met the people living there rather than going through Evri. Turns out it was nice, they are lovely and we are now working on "twinning" our two roads 😀

Yeah I get it was on us that we didn't get the email. But still whats madness is the fact that all we got was an automated email, no way a travel agent or hotel would cancel a holiday without attempting direct contact, and then when we realised we couldn't get through to try to resolve it.

@TempestTost i can imagine. I work in a very non tech role with colleagues are in 20s up to 50s and all seem to hate this phenomenon. Even the younger ones into tik tok or whatever really struggle with banking stuff or life admin. It's funny cos in my life I'm the one who is terrible with tech but at work I'm the one who knows how to work the laptop.

As a mother of 3 the admin is insane, I have so many different payment platforms and apps for gymnastics, schools etc. The majority of people are struggling with this stuff, I think the extent of it and the stress it causes is really downplayed in society. Those that find it easy tend to be very smug.

When you try and contact companies by phone it's not much better:

"Sorry for the delay, we value your custom but we are currently experiencing higher than average call volumes. Please hold on the line "

Except mathematically this is incorrect because if it really was higher than average then why is this message always given rather than less than 50 % of the time or average since when 1974 ?

And if they really are experiencing high call volumes all the time then hire more people to handle the calls.

I would rather they are honest and said "The call wait will be 30 mins, press 1 to stay in the queue and press 2 to disconnect and take your custom elsewhere". I

also find that when you look to switch mobile or utilities or broadband the customer services now really don't seem bothered about keeping your custom whereas previously they really did try to.

In short it just seems that in reality nobody really cares or gives a crap anymore especially where customer service is online or on the phone rather than in person.

YANBU and I wholeheartedly agree with you. I dream of going back to having a Filofax and no phone.
I did love my old Nokia. Phoning and texting and one game-that was it. Smartphones are the reason I have had a trapped nerve in my shoulder now for over a year and intense pain-I have text neck I think. Scrolling is agony. I'm not 16, so don't spend hours on Insta and Tim Tok, but I do run a business and need it for that.
Customer services need regulating somehow as it's appalling that you have to waste so much time and potentially take half a days holiday to spend sorting household admin issues out. I think Martin Lewis was/is investigating this and you can report various companies to him via his website for poor customer service.
And I feel desperately sorry for old people. They just don't count in society any more.

Everything should be required by law to have a "checkout as guest" option. Oh no, you can't clutter up my inbox with pointless marketing emails any more. Boo hoo.

I find that contacting companies on Facebook messenger seems to work well. I’ve had a few queries resolved that way.

my pet hate is the sites that have 2 factor authentication and you have to get a code by text just to log in. Then they have a box to tick that says remember this device to stop codes in future but it never works!!

Contactless payment for parking is finally coming in THANK FUCKKKK. I've spent the last decade parking on the street a mile away because I flatly refuse to download any of those fucking apps.

It's dealing with accounts and settings for secondary age children that's driving me mad. Some things were set up under my emails when they were younger, but as they transition through the teenage years and gain more independence, they need to migrate to their own accounts but don't necessarily want to start all over again.

Computer programmers clearly aren't demographically biased towards dealing with the practicalities of teenager admin...

I was technologically competant from 1994- 2016 when it all just seemed to spring a life of its own.

I live on permanent fear of losing my phone and I dread the day it'll need replacing.

If only!

Completely agree. I am counting down the days until DS2 finishes primary for this reason.

We have 3 different parent portals all with different login/passwords for 1 school. I know I'm not the only one that misses stuff - sometimes letters are emailed, sometimes they're on one portal, sometimes they're on the other. Or the form is on this one and the payment is on the other (even parentpay which is the easiest to use, is a pain that you can't transfer money between 2 children) so when DD left the school instead of simply adding the balance on her account to DS account, I had to contact the school for a refund....and then top up DS account....which seems faffy to me.

But I can sort of understand this with the huge amount of fraud that’s committed and everyone demanding reimbursement from the banks. How do they prevent some random person walking in off the street, claiming they’re you and getting your money?

That's me and no doubt countless others too. When mine went "down" due to the EE glitch I nearly had a panic attack, I couldn't even contact them on it, had to log on to my account via my laptop and then couldn't; remember my password because I never ever use it and for some reason it was not in my password storage thingy.

If you read my earlier posts you will be able to see:

1. I did phone Boots Customer Services and it is an automated line which simply repeats much of the info on the website and suggests you go online to sort out your issue
2. I had no phone service due to a glitch in the EE system on my account so guess what? I could not phone them hence the problems. Had to go online using my lap top to start sorting it out.

Octopus are brilliant, they answer the phones in reasonable time, they are pleasant, helpful, explain things in plain language and do proper follow up emails.

Because I was in my branch with my bank card and the app, to sort something I couldn’t sort online (where there’s more fraud committed than in person). I wasn’t even looking to withdraw any money, I just needed to activate the online only account! I just really felt for anyone who has accessibility issues with technology, coupled with being unable to go into a branch to expect some human support- life will be so difficult for them to sort even the small things.

I am fine, thanks so much for asking. I did put "almost" and used the words "screaming and crying" for effect to convey how annoying it all was.

I've found that typing into the chat bot 'I need to speak to advisor' or 'put me through to adviser' sometimes helps and gives me the option to actually chat with an advisor. Also contacting companies via social media as a PP suggested seems a good way to go.

I think this should be regulated and there must be an option to pay without a smartphone.
It still upsets me that the local council made all of the car parks on the sea front in his town app payment only, wouldn't budge and it meant he wasn't able to use them because he didn't have a smartphone. You shouldn't be forced to have a smartphone just so you can park somewhere. He couldn't afford a smartphone contract and wouldn't have been able to use it for things like that. He had enough problems using his old, cheap phone.
He used to go and get fish and chips a couple of times a week, park in one of the car parks and sit in the car and watch the sea and the ships coming in. One of his joys in life. And then he couldn't any more. It still upsets me thinking about it 6 years on.

Yep, I'm paying for 4 xbox live subscriptions for 2 kids because they set up their own microsoft email addresses and accounts and then forgot their email addresses. I tried everything I could think of to solve it, in the end I ordered a new card thinking the old ones would then not be able to take payment and cancel themselves - nope, somehow the payments still get taken every month. Whereas when you want that to happen like the pp with the holiday, it doesn't!