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.

Why can’t we all ‘ rise up’ about how these banks and big companies have managed to make everything just awful and hard and not for anyone’s benefit apart from their own ? Nearly everyone moans about t don’t they, but nothing is ever done about it.

The thing that makes my fucking blood boil is being endlessly told to download another app if I want to have any kind of service or response to a question. Each with its own plethora of passwords and stupid questions which need to be answered.

And when, in utter frustration, you give up on the shonky tech and try to speak to a person on the phone they insult your intelligence by playing a recorded message asking if you have checked the website? Fuck me I never thought of that…

I don’t mind companies using AI and tech to make things run more smoothly if it actually works. Invariably though it doesn’t. The reason you call and ask to speak to a human is because your question is too complicated or nuanced to be answered by a computer. Can companies stop pretending that every single thing can be fixed with technology!

Yes, I miss the pre internet days of all companies having a phone number that customers could ring with any query and you got a competent person answering and doing their best to help. And if they couldn't help they put you through to their supervisor. All worked fine.

I work in a school and I was going through some old records for shredding today. It was records of cash payments for various things, before we had payment apps. God, it all worked wonderfully, quickly and easily. Paper letter sent home requesting payment for milk or a trip or something. Parents sent cash in an envelope, the admin ticked off each child on a class list. The only proper admin that had to be done was counting and banking of the cash. So so easy. Why didn't we realise how good such basic ways of doing things were? They worked, didn't take ages to sort out, wasn't complicated, there were no technical glitches or parents who didn't know what they were supposed to do or couldn't get the app to work...

I can’t agree more why is life soooo hard atm . Everything you do online they want you to sign in . Cookies. They want your details for
every move you make . They want to give you an email for buying a carrier bag , you phone the bank and it’s press for this option , then tell us why you’re calling , then oh sorry we can’t understand , back to the main menu to do it all over again ….

honestly it makes me so mad !!!! Why isn’t life simple anymore .

You buy in shops and they ask if you want to buy chocolates , insurance , a store card . Before you’ve got to the door there’s someone trying to get you to sign up to donate to a charity. Oh then you gotta pay for parking , you’ve gotta download an app and find out your registration details .

Honestly you can’t just “pop” somewhere anymore , or make a quick phone call , everything is a long sequence of events . No wonder we are all stressed out .

I agree. In the space of a week I’ve had a cardboard parcel containing a book left in a puddle behind my wheelie bin. I was home, they just couldn’t be arsed to make it to my front door.

Another parcel left in torrential rain in a cardboard box (again I was home and they didn’t knock), luckily the item inside was in plastic this time so wasn’t ruined.

And another delivery where they have said it is out for delivery on 3 consecutive days but as soon as it gets to the end of the slot time it reverts to “we have it”. Each time I’ve contacted them they say they will look into it and email me, but they don’t bother. No idea where my parcel is.

Nobody seems to do their jobs properly anymore.

I feel your pain . Nothing seems to function in this country now . Trying to contact any major retailer / service provider is impossible. Spent all morning trying to find a parcel delivered to the wrong address and other than a useless web chat there is no way of contacting them .

My local council is undertaking a “transformation programme’” which seems to be largely about introducing AI. They are paying external consultants £5M to help them with it

Hilariously since posting this I have received a request for a trustpilot review.

I was brutally honest.

Yes trying to get refunds is a pain in the arse these days.

Honourable mention to Lands End, who have real people who are helpful and possess common sense picking up the phone.

The hospital at which I have an appointment tomorrow is very lucky that another (unrelated) Dr told me about it. No letter, just a text reminding me to attend at the place and time detailed in my letter. That I haven’t received. I know it’s Royal Mail, but if the NHS could email me the letter, or even include the time and place in the text, that would help.

YANBU. I received a fully sealed and intact, yet flat and completely empty Amazon parcel yesterday. I’m baffled as to how it left a warehouse like that. You could tell it was empty just by handling it, thin as paper.

Offering a gift card for something delivered damaged is terrible customer service, so is having to force the customer to raise it again.

Yes, totally agree. Having to chase a company to put right their error is infuriating. It's clear in some cases they hope you're just going to give up.

Last week I ordered a serum, package contained a travel adaptor. Amazon customer service couldn’t get past thr fact that the order had been delivered, and there was proof of delivery - yes, but the parcel had the wrong item in it! I got there in the end but bloody hell, it was SO annoying, and I still had to reorder the thing I wanted and get a refund rather than them send a replacement. (But if anyone is off to the States and needs an adaptor, holler.)

This post has spoken to me today!

1. Currys let me order an item and then it just never turned up. No tracking. All online help useless. Forced to phone to be told it’s ’probably out of stock with the third party supplier, I can wait or cancel’. Why do I have to call to find this out?
2. Evri. Tried to refuse delivery because I knew (too late) the item wasnt genuine. Driver forced a photo as I was saying ‘No, NO!’, then took it away to start the ‘returns’ process. Of course it’s now lost and I am out of pocket.
3. Amazon today, my initial fault, used an old Amazon account to keep a gift secret and accidentally sent to old address (same village). Managed to accost Amazon driver who assured me had the parcel and would get it to me but had to show it had gone to the listed address first. Lo and behold, photo of item delivered to old address outside of closed door, new residents don’t have it. My husband laughed as I organised a little gift for the driver on his mythical return. What a mug.

Also sick of the endless chat bots that cannot solve your problem. The millions of different options that don't solve your issue.

Whilst I get that banks need to check for fraud I recently had to spend 40 mins doing security checks because I'd lost my bank card after moving house. There were so many questions and I'd clearly got something wrong which is why they kept going I can't remember the bloody number I was given to set up my online banking....which is different from the number I use to log in. I was genuinely starting to wonder what would happen, how would I ever get my money out of this bank if I couldn't pass the online security? They don't have highstreet branches. Would there be somewhere I could go with my passport to prove I am me? Or would they just keep my money forever. I'm starting to see the appeal of hiding it under the floorboards.

You're lucky. When I log into my HMRC account it says my tax hasn't been calculated yet. It appears they have a backlog. Good thing I'm not desperate for the refund.

Try having a child with SEN. EHCP’s and the LA/NHS are a joke. Constant battle, tribunals to get anything done. And even when it is done, schools don’t fucking follow it & the LA do nothing. Bane of my entire life!

Absolutely 100%. Life is too fast, too chaotic, not at human pace and people cant cope. I genuinely think we need to go back to a slower pace of life. Everone is under so much pressure that nobody iscreally able to do their job properly, hence all the cock ups and bad service. And everybody passes the buck.

Avoid online shopping wherever possible?!

Trying to get a rail refund for nearly 4 months. Been in touch with at least 5 people, have given them the correct information. Next day get an email from a different person who says I haven't given them enough information.

Trying to cancel a washing machine policy today because they can't send anybody out until the 30th. "We have no record of that policy". Three times. Finally forwarded them their own email with same information.

Can I speak to a human? No chance.

Drives me round the bloody bend.

Omg yes! I ordered a few times to collect from Argos, I order 3 items. They all have different f number and PIN codes and all sorts to collect..dear god who do they think is showing up to collect my items. Can't I just tell you my address ?!!. Anyway DH came back with 1 item due to the confusion.
Can't remember the last time I actually had good customer service tbh

Also delivery from Amazon, apparently delivered to my safe space which is the back door. They took a picture looked like it was behind the bins. Checked everywhere could not find it. Ordered a replacement and a day later reversed out of my drive and the parcels were under my bloody car

Last one in my town shuts on Saturday. They say people weren't using them when open but trouble was they started opening shorter and shorter hours so no one could bloody get their in opening times

I agree with you. I am currently mentally preparing to go to my CC to get money back for wrong product where the company simply doesn't communicate and are very obtuse over a phone if I manage to get through.
It's like 5th thing in last month that got fucked and took waaaay too much time for me to sort. Like whole day waiting for engineer because job kept being pushed back only to find out it wasn't even them I needed.

Then to not shop online I go to physical shops. Who don't have the thing I need anyway and suggest to me I order it from their websites. Afternoon wasted because I needed it that day...

Get fucked with "We ArE lOSInG StOrEs, YoU nEeD tO uSe Us Or lOsE Us".

Totally agree OP and don’t even get me started on useless bloody AI chatbots 😡

Oh and going to bank branch only to be directed by staff to the machine. I was the only person in that branch!