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.

Those parking apps add a booking fee onto the cost which infuriates me further. I collect coins and use those if I possibly can… but often not possible.

I’ll do anything to wriggle out of downloading an app. My phone is FULL of the bl**dy things

I’m usually okay with the chat bot things but even I lost it the other day while trying to complain about the Now TV app on my telly being discontinued from next month. I’d signed up for 6 months before they announced this so feel I want to cancel and get my money back. In the meantime the app keeps getting stuck in an endless buffer so I can’t use it at all even though the changes aren’t happening t till next month. OMG, impossible.

The chat just wanted me to try logging out, clearing my cache, reinstalling the app and then trying again. The funny thing was though, they suggested all the steps above and about 20 seconds later I get a message from the bot “I haven’t heard from you for a while, are you still there?” I had to reply “give me a bloody chance, I’m still trying to find the settings.” Eventually they suspended the chat just because I kept talking too long to give them updates about what they were telling me to do.

I once bought some period pants online. By definition the sort of thing you only buy every couple of years right? SIXTEEN MARKETING EMAILS A MONTH they sent me. Insane.

With chatbots, I just keep telling it that I want a human until I get one

I got the rage the other day whilst trying to pay for something with bitcoin. Previously I'd been easily able to transfer funds from my bank and convert before sending over.

As I'd not logged in for ages they had to email me to confirm login from new device. When I clicked on email it said they were emailing a verification code to use. However, when I backed out of the current email to get the code it kept resetting the process. Usually, I would just open Gmail separately in a browser and then go back and paste code into the app.

However, when I tried this it locked my account due to 'suspicious activity'. I then had to take a video of myself holding my driver's license whilst turning my head to the side. Except the bloody thing repeatedly wouldn't register that my face was in frame! I finally managed after about ten mins to then be informed that due to new FCA regs I had to pass a knowledge test before being allowed to buy any bitcoin.

The test was actually pretty difficult as it required a fairly high pass rate and would lock you out for 24 hours if you failed twice. Some of the questions were obvious but others required reading up on things like 'stablecoins' which are of utterly no relevance to somebody wanting to make a straightforward £35 bitcoin payment. Some of the questions were quite complex and I wasn't able to find all the answers online as there were a fair few different wordings for some of the questions.

It took me two hours of fucking around and a bit of sheer luck/guessing to do what should've been a ten minute process and I was thoroughly 😡 by the end of it.

Personally I think it's down to the company seeing profits as king. It's invariably easy to order something and for them to take your money. However it's never as easy to get customer service when things go wrong or you have an "unusual" situation you need assistance with. Chat bots are cheaper than paying for a human representative, who needs training, wages and authority to actually do something like a refund. They also profit from a customer getting so fed up with the support system, that they give up trying to contact them. Once a company has been paid for an item and has proof it was dispatched, they don't really care if you get it or not. More and more there are websites where there's no phone number to call and even no information giving a physical address for the company either. It's up to them if they respond to emails or you can navigate the chat bot. When those go unanswered you are left twisting in the wind with no way to escalate the issue. The sooner we have some sort of policing or requirement for actual customer service, the better. As is all power to the company and or scammers at the moment.

The parking apps and paying more is a total scam and needs attention as these companies are raking it in.
Chat bots are rubbish
Customer service doesn't exist
Some people are making money from the fact that customers can't fight back easily because you can rarely speak to an actual person

I think it's completely normal. I live in a country which is pretty much cashless. Sometimes tourists ask where the nearest ATM is and we have to pause because we don't use cash most of the time. You use apps for everything. Recently, I picked up a parcel from a delivery point by connecting the app on the phone via Bluetooth to the locker to open it. Tracking etc. is all done digitally too. I like it, makes life much easier.

As I mentioned before, companies do not invest in training as much.

Family friend works for one of the Big 4 supermarkets for 37 years. The first week of work, was working in a spoof store set up at the back of a larger supermarket. It was of a corner shop size. They spent a whole week there doing full time hours, even though the average number of hours the 5 others plus her was about 24 hours a week.

Now new starters, including Xmas temps get about 30 mins' training on the manned tills and kiosk and 10 mins on the baler. That's it! No mention of the need to rotate fresh, produce and bread. No mention about safe handling of using roller cages, boards. Hence why my friend and a few other experienced colleagues waste so much time in putting things back in the correct order. Her manager couldn't give a fuck about waste. One of the purposes of store managers is to reduce waste, NOT create it. Then at another store, a Xmas temp broke hand by getting hand trapped when folding roller cage up.

That's fine as long as all the apps and tech work well. A lot of the time they don't and there's nothing more frustrating than wasting time going round in circles trying to fix an issue when it's not your fault the system is rubbish.

Digressing now, but training is one of my bugbears these days. It seems to me that managers have abdicated responsibility for training in a lot of cases. It's up to you to do the (inevitably) online courses or whatever, so if you don't know something, or can't do it properly.... it's your fault not theirs.

Back to the supermarket that family friend works for. Each store until 10 years ago had a store trainer. Who was responsible to train new staff or do refresher training- Think 25, fire safety etc. Now managers get an email from human resources hq with training that is required by staff.

The staff teach the newbies how to do things on 30p above NMW.

Then companies wonder why staff don’t last as long. Doubt anyone who started their current job this year would be there in 2061. This is 37 years time. Family friend started her job in 1987

Years ago they would have a training room and a trainer to do the health and safety things / how to spot a shop lifter / how a till works and it would be a day course or sometimes more
Now it is all online training you do and they may decide to pay for a few hours overtime. It's up to you to complete and tick off the boxes
Another part about being an employee that can be 'sourced out ' to save them money.
It's all such a con

I recently picked up a parcel using a code sent to my phone which is a bit easier than waiting in for it to be delivered.

I think there's a time and a place for technology. It shouldn't replace humans.

There's new a terminology for this - Enshittification

Those of you complaining about parking apps ... you can alter your settings in most of them so you aren't charged extra for texts etc. Ringo, Paybyphone etc. I think they're so much easier than scrabbling around for bloody coins.

My point is - why can't I just use contactless on parking machines like I do for everything else. Why do I need endless apps? I don't need the Lidl app to shop there, the Tesco app to shop there, the M and S app to shop there so why should parking be any different.

One hospital I go to still has coin only pay and display machines. They have an ATM and change machine in the reception area as hospital knows that not everyone carries cash!

Having an up to date smartphone should not be a fucking prerequisite for parking your fucking car

they are also a fucking pain in the arse for foreign visitors when texts take too long to arrive

I can't see this. Coins are in the car or I wave my card at a machine.

It might be ok if you have the app, you always park at that car park (eg a railway station car park) and you do it once you are on the train (and might have decent wifi, but at least you are in the warm and dry). Although our local railway station says you have to pay immediately now and you can't do it on the train, it used to be the case that you could pay anytime until midnight.

I walk.

Exactly this.

And although I don't have an EV car - also electric car chargers. Why on earth do you need an app, why can't you just pay for what you use. Like petrol, for example.

Also the NHS app. Works fine until it doesn't. My mum uses it to order prescriptions. Until she can't and then she has to go back to giving the surgery bits of paper - at least they accept them.

The app decides you have to change your password, or that you are not putting it or your email address in correctly even though you are, or decides to send a two factor authentication PIN again. All of which is unduly confusing for (some) elderly or disabled people.

Yes three cheers for Octopus

(and anyone who emails you with a reply-able address or with a clear contact form linked).

App parking for railway stations is brilliant. So many times I've been delayed by cancellations etc., or even had to stay overnight somewhere else when the "last" train has been cancelled, being able to login to the app and pay for a few hours more parking (or an extra day) has saved me from several parking fines that I'd otherwise have suffered.

Same on a smaller scale when shopping or sight seeing and I've parked in, say, a supermarket car park. Being able to add an extra hour or two by the app saves having to traipse back just to buy another hour or two on the cash ticket machine.

Same on a smaller scale when shopping or sight seeing and I've parked in, say, a supermarket car park. Being able to add an extra hour or two by the app saves having to traipse back just to buy another hour or two on the cash ticket machine

If the car park lets you stay for longer. A couple of times recently I've had to move the car which is really annoying. Or just give up and go home! There seem to be an increasing number of car parks that will only let you stay for 2-3 hours, which isn't enough if you eg want lunch.

You don't need an app for that though, you just need a pay on foot car park so you get charged for what you've used.