to be fed up with how f-ing difficult everything is?

[GrinchyScroogus]

Maybe I'm caught in one of those phases where everything goes wrong. I feel like everything is such an f-ing hassle if you interact with any kind of shop or goods or services and I'm fed up with it.

I've had a delivery where it was just left in a puddle when it should have been put through a letter box, the box soaked through and the item was damaged - not unusuable but not as ordered. I emailed asking for a partial refund and got sent a £5 gift card. WTF. Never ordered from these people before and had no need for anything else from them. Had another go and eventually they refunded me £20 (about 50%) - so it was worth doing but just hassle. Offering a gift card for something delivered damaged is terrible customer service, so is having to force the customer to raise it again.

Another problem where had to try to get info out of a previous company about what work they'd done to give a new company. No one answering the phone on hold forever. Phoned repeatedly and wasted a lot of time and phone bill money.

Ordered something from Amazon from a 3rd party. what was delivered was not what was described at all. Actioned return but they expected me to pay postage so needed more emails to sort that out as I was not prepared to pay postage to return something that was there complete misdescription.

A (Well known for being incompetent) courier company keep delivering a neighbours parcels to us because they can't read the address apparently (not because they aren't in). Trying to contact them is near impossible.

Just one thing after another. Complaining is stressful and I hate all this but if you don't you lose a lot of money. Leaving the courier which is just a pain, the total cost of not trying to sort out all this would have been about £130 - none of this is just shopaholic shopping either, some of it was serious maintenance stuff.

It just seems that unless you stay at home and do nothing, every engagement with every shop or service causes problems AND then sorting it out is never easy.

Does anyone else have this experience or do most people just suck up the wasted money and let it go?

SO FED UP.

yeah it’s not just you OP and even being able to call sometimes doesn’t solve the issue.

I called my local opticians to ask where my contact lenses I’d ordered were. The woman I spoke to was so dismissive and fobbed me off saying maybe they’d arrive tomorrow despite the fact they were already late.

Came into the branch two days later still weren’t there and they had no explanation as to why the order was late or when it was coming.

They were all geared up to just fob me off me again until I insisted something must be done that very day since I was going on holiday in three days.

They found some trial packs of contact lenses in their storeroom and then eventually got the ones I ordered 2 weeks later. But it was such a carry on to get what I had paid for .

I see your goods and services

I raise you - The SEND system.

Thinking about it, the root of much of this evil is online shopping. I feel a bit stupid for not having realised how much of it is related to that and lack of a phone number. Note to self - try to avoid online shopping if you can.

Not all of it because utility companies and the government and parking companies are as bad.
@Aplycrumbly indeed in person may not always be any better

I want to go back and live in the 1990s. A simpler time when you could phone the bank and have someone in the local branch (which existed) answer the phone.

British Fucking Gas...

Informed them of mums death in September, emailed them death certificate, letters of administration, date we handed property back to HA, Photo of meter - which as it was a pay as you go meter showing £73 in credit should be a simple refund.

After 19 emails back and forth - me reminding them each time to stop heading their emails 'Dear Dead mum Name' A supposed issue in the accounts department, more Dear Dead mum name emails they have now decided that they have read the meter ( even though it is in a locked garage) and rather than sending a cheque for the £73 that was showing as pre paid credit on the meter, they have finally managed to post a final bill somehow working out that i owe them £267???

So back to help line, to be told will refer back to accounts, they know bill is wrong, but will take at least another two weeks to produce correct bill - cant seem to explain how a pay as you go meter that has always been in credit needs a bill, or how it could possibly owe £267, if it was showing credit when the keys were handed back.

They have been a complete nightmare to deal with, but they can fuck off if they think im letting it go

Most of the banks in our town have gone.
They rely on the apps now , which is just another way of fobbing you off.

Couldn’t agree more. I have now unfortunately reached a stage where I do have to let the money go most of the time, as I just don’t have the time or inclination to sort it out. Life is too short to waste an hour on the phone to save $10, though I do resent it. I suspect people ‘giving up’, like I do, must be a fairly substantial source of revenue for some companies.

These companies hope that people ‘ let it go’ by making it harder to deal with them.
I am convinced this isn’t just one of my own ‘ conspiracy theories’ !

I’ve experienced this too - refunds issued in parts. Each time I was told I’d been refunded but when I checked it was only some of it, eventually I got so fed up with chasing them that I ended up going to my bank for a charge back. I think the company hoped I’d just give up.

I did manage to speak to a human at the bank on the phone, who was perfectly pleasant , but couldnt help with my particular query.
If you go to a shop that has manned tills ( no scanners or self service ones) you find one poor soul on their own and a long queue. The cutbacks they have made in some shops make the whole thing a pain.

All dressed up as it's better for you the customer.
No it's better for the service provider us the customer working for free for the duration we have to deal with said organisations.

I'm 8 weeks into a five day 'we need you to move out because of the toilet and shower' bathroom renovation.

Bathroom company didn't deliver when they said, turned up the next week and then following days with 'oops we forgot this'.

@Bedtimewithoutissues123don't start me off on the 'we need ro replace your water meter' appointment/not turning up thing. And the 'your smart meter doesn't work' and they don't turn up either!

I just had to verify my partner's ID through Companies House as he's a director.

First of all I tried doing it for me and the instructions didn't work. Typical. Then I tried verifying myself manually using my passport and the system told me I don't exist and I now have to go to a PO to prove I do exist.

I don't live in England.

Then my other half tried to do it and spent about a week with the whole process not working even though he was following HMRC's and companies house's online instructions - it asked him to scan a QR code that wasn't anywhere to be found.

In the end he reluctantly contacted Companies House online help. And they told him they now had a new app you have to use which is NOT MENTIONED IN ANY OF THEIR ONLINE DOCUMENTATION.

He used the new app and verified himself in about 2 minutes.

AAAAAGH.

Hope it was popped and not pooped!! 😂

Definitely popped ! lol

I will counter..... Three or four issues with deliveries recently, either gone to the wrong place ( my fault),, not delivered at all, a jumper that went wobbly after one wash..... Emailed and/or phoned. All instantly refunded and replaced, without even getting the returns. I was really impressed.

Big shout out to White Co and Boden in particular.

Totally agree

One of the reasons I don't think I'll ever stop banking with First Direct is the ease of speaking to someone there. Just really easy and they know their stuff. Compare and contrast with Smile, who I also have an account with but it's not and never will be my main one. An absolute pain to get through to by phone - think I was on hold for about 30 minutes last time.

I have had cause to contact Sky 3 times in as many days but in fairness it's pretty easy to speak to someone there. I flirted with the idea of moving to Virgin earlier in the year and had a package all sorted but their appalling customer service and the challenge of actually speaking to another human put me off and I stayed with Sky.

Have to praise M&S this week. I returned a jumper I'd bought 2 months ago with no receipt and I'd taken the label off. The woman on the tills couldn't find the jumper on their system but then showed me how to go onto my Sparks app and get the digital receipt for it which I did and duly got a refund. I was impressed as at best I thought I'd get a gift card.

Online chat drives me potty - it's obvious they are talking to about 10 others at the same time as the wait between responses is insane. The not being able to just pick up the phone and speak to someone has got to a ridiculous point.

Yes ordered something off Amazon at start of December and still not arrived. Impossible to contact seller directly (dodgy Chinese company I realised afterwards) and just going round in circles trying to chat electronically 🤦‍♀️ Eventually managed to get a refund but such a palava. Had the worst experience last year purchasing 2 of those love 2 shop gift cards - the cashier mistakenly put it through as an online code (not on the card as requested) and I wasted hours between the shop and on the customer services to be told I could neither transfer to a card or have a refund. Everything is so complicated these days 😬

Yep - easy to pay £10pp deposit for an online booking for 4 people, where Ts&Cs state ‘deposit refundable for cancellation up to 72h prior’.
Easy to cancel on line 24h later - just click ‘cancel booking’.
Not so easy to get deposit refunded - wait a few days, call the restaurant, they say it’s automatic but takes [more than the number of days you’ve waited]; wait twice that long, try repeatedly to call, voicemails not replied to. Finally get through, someone says they’ll talk to manager. Repeat last steps, finally refund made.
Makes me deeply uninclined to book with them again.

DP bought a pair of pints of warm, wazzy, horrifically overpriced cider at a Christmas 'market' last year. They were served in two squashy plastic pint containers for which he was charged an extra £1 per container 'deposit', just in case uncontrollable avarice overcame us and we decided to steal these desirable items to display on the mantelpiece at home. Cards only, no cash accepted. He went to return the priceless plastic and reclaim his deposit, only to be informed that his two quid would be returned to his account in 8-10 working days! Needless to say, it never was. Imagine how quickly and how massively these non-returned deposits would have mounted up over the three weeks the 'market' was there! The organisers must winter in the Caribbean every year!

BT - I’ve been dealing with them for about 3 weeks now over a fault with my broadband and landline. They have actually driven me to the very brink of insanity. I actually cried in frustration yesterday. I have quite literally been on the phone for hours and hours whilst they mess about with things their end and tell me it’s fixed -when it isn’t. They take gaslighting to a whole new level.

I’m sick to death of “virtual assistants” and “ diagnostic bots”.

Even though I’m quite technically competent and knowledgeable I can quite see that as I get older I will just give up with lots of stuff

My dad died and had an outstanding holiday booking with a friend. My dad was the lead name on the booking. Friend still wanted to go on the holiday but the travel company refused to change the booking to make alive friend the lead booker - as they needed permission from my dead dad to do so. No amount of reasoning with the travel company would make them change their minds / accept my authorisation as the executor, nor would they refund us, so dad’s friend missed out on the holiday and the money he’d already paid. Beggars belief.

As well as frustration and loss of £ for the customer and loss of work for those working in retail/service industries, this automation of everything is also damaging human connection and communication; community. Granted there have always been people who don’t want to engage with others around them, but for most of us it’s vital. The impact of community on individuals’ mental health and ability to cope with the world. Cohesion with our neighbours. Productivity- because we can all achieve a lot more with support.

The result is more and more individualism. Each person, couple or family spending more and more time in their own homes, never needing to have a conversation or ask a question of a shop worker or bank staff. I think it’s really, deeply sad and worrying.

I agree about shopping being so needlessly complicated, too many decisions to be made.

• Do you want to buy one more thing to qualify for free P&P?
• You must create an account.
• Do you want to round up your purchase to fund a chief exec's 6-figure salary?
• Do you have a loyalty card?
• Do you want a loyalty card?
• Which courier?
• Don't forget to review your purchase.
• Don't forget to rate your courier.

And I remember witnessing this in a Sainsbury's petrol station, with about twenty pumps, so they ask the customer to confirm the amount. Somebody who didn't speak English well didn't understand the question, and eventually screamed "can I just pay?". Then came the next question in the cashier's script:

"Do you have a Nectar card?"

Have a break, have a Kit-Kat.

I had to renew my DBS check through an ID app. I kept failing their check. I couldn't get through to a human that could help, either from the organisation asking for the DBS, or the app company.
It turns out, the app refuses to recognise you as a human if you are wearing glasses.
It does not tell you this anywhere.