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.

I've just 💭 of another one. Well known french soap company. I made an order online, waiting ages for delivery, wasn't in a rush. It said on my account online that it had been dispatched but when nothing showed up I contacted them and they said. One of your items is not in stock so it's sitting on the side waiting for you to confirm. What did I want to do?. I said my word did you not think to contact me ? Apparently they emailed me but I have no such email and when I said so what were you going to do nothing ? Try and contact me since you had no heard anything ? You have my money and have not sent my order and why does it say dispatched when it hasn't been ? They said to create a postal label they have to push it to dispatched. I said is that not misleading!? I looked at it and it said you item is on its way but it's not ; they got pretty arsey about it..soap was good though

It’s such a convoluted process! Apparently they can’t acknowledge my empty parcel that arrived for 48 hours?! It’s a Christmas gift too 🤦‍♀️

Omg yes! I'm trying to get my autistic 7 year old into a special school. You would think I was trying to pass a new law or make Tesco change it's think 25 policy

Tried to pay for street parking. Ringo app would not download. Called them. Omg, I have changed cars. What a palaver.Eventually sort but FFS, also have a new payment card. I gave up. All to try to pay to park. Oh to stick change in a machine and get a ticket. It's not just you. The above sums up my life

HMRC won't let me close a business because apparently my address doesn't correlate with their records. When I call they cannot just change the address, or explain why they have a different one on their system.

Funny how they have all of my details INCLUDING THE CORRECT ADDRESS TO SEND ME REMINDERS that it's time to pay my tax bill!!

Next swear blind they have refunded me. I've chased for weeks to get a transaction number for said refund. Can't bring myself to ring my bank because I know it will be a barrage of passwords I have forgot, and then be told to do it through the app with the bot who has no idea what I'm talking about! 🫩

Oh, I completely agree. It's such a rarity to encounter half decent customer service and we're a good 30-60 mins drive away from anywhere selling anything useful, and in any case the poorly paid staff give no shits and always want to email a receipt.

Outside of shops, I spend SO much of my life (at work and home) going round in circles with nonexistent customer service chatbots, or systems geared to ensure I never get further than multiple people making me repeat myself for an hour while telling me how very sorry they are for the inconvenience. And the endless bloody codes!

Since Covid they've all continued the enraging recorded message about "unusually high call volumes". Not unusual any more ffs, you're just trying to pay nowhere near enough ACTUAL PEOPLE to sort shit out for ACTUAL CUSTOMERS and we've all become used to receiving abysmal help or service with anything.

Menopausal rage is running the show most days here...

And another thing! Paid to park via an app (only option and running too late to find different place) in unfamiliar car park in unfamiliar city last week. Realised I needed longer towards the end of the time. Tried to extend the time. Wouldn't let me. Rang them. Was informed by a bored girl that as I hadn't signed into an account but paid "on a casual basis", it wouldn't let me. Wtf? Kept trying. It let me pay for another hour 15 mins after the first period had expired and both have left my account. I am convinced they'll send a parking ticket because despite trying SO hard, I didn't realise I needed to sign my life away to add more time as nothing made that clear! But they'll nab you electronically the instant you drive in or out. Those systems are precise. Ugh.

Parking apps are the worst. Why the hell can't I pay contactless like I do for everything else. I don't need the Lidl, Tesco or Boots app to pay for their stuff so why should parking be different?

Whoever thought chatbots were a good idea. Going round and round in circles answering the same questions only to be passed to a human because the stupid bloody bot can't answer. That's what I wanted in the first place.

The AA…i have sadly broken down three times recently..long story. Each time the only way of getting assistance from AA was via the app…when i tried to call the phone line..it just directs you to app so you can’t actually speak to anyone. Three times the app got my location wrong..the best one was when, after waiting over 2 hours, a patrolman rang to say he was on his way… trouble was he was in Darlington and i was in Essex! When i did get help, the AA man said it happens all the time and the app keeps giving them completely wrong location for the customer. I have cancelled my membership now…spurred on by fact my renewal quote was double what i had been paying despite being a loyal customer for many years and never calling them out before this recent spate caused by a series of unfortunate events. When you have broken down in a vulnerable position all you want to do is speak to a human being not grapple with a bloody, useless app

Absolutely
@ASimpleLampoon

I hate the world now.

British gas is absolutely joke, been calling them every 3 days since April and have an upheld decision by ombudsman that they still cannot put right.

Virgin Money took over Clydesdale and Yorkshire and made redundant all the experienced staff and the branches direct you to the call centre for everything.

I got a new boiler with the hive thing. BT was bought over by EE so had to change WIFI box. Boiler no longer connects to wifi so need to call to speak to a technical team to get it set up but they have no direct number, just a automated system that no one ever calls you back. Life was so much easier when I had a thermostat on the wall and I clicked 1 hour boost and the house was cosy.

The only thing I bought online this year was 3 books that I couldn't source in my city. The cardboard box was promptly dumped in a puddle and left at the front door for hours in the rain and all 3 books were ruined.

God yep hmrc
i found a small pension that I hadn’t claimed tax relief on for few years
sent them the details
all my historical tax records and payments were sorted at this point
some idiot deleted all my other pension tax records over several years and replaced it with the small pension, instead of adding the small pension

i have spent hours and hours calling ( and being cut off) about this. They expect me to re create years of tax records as they messed up

aargh…

and yes countless othe poor customer service

arghh

I was JUST thinking the same thing yesterday, OP! There are times when everything I touch goes wrong.

Recently, I ordered a whole bunch of things for a party and they arrived in dribs and drabs over two weeks, too late for the party. I needed to do some banking but lost my card device. When I found it I was overjoyed, but its batteries were flat. Then I went to see a production of The Nutcracker that I was really looking forward to and they had dumped the entire first half of the score and replaced it with some really rubbish music. 😡

Then, I have a shipment of items coming home to me that I bought while I was abroad for a while, and they wanted EIGHT different forms, which wasn't easy for me as I have ADHD.

Then, it transpired that my shipment has been picked out for extra inspection and they charged me 120 pounds extra for the privilege! Then, I decided to store the items at the port as I'm not going to be able to receive them for a while due to renovations, and despite me asking THREE times on email for storage, they contacted me to arrange delivery on Saturday!

Yes, everything is so difficult, and I'm so busy dealing with all this nonsense, I don't have time to have any fun between this and a busy job! I woke up to a slew of demands from others this morning. I feel like a dancing monkey.

Dare I mention HMRC?

Bunch of thieves.

Can I add banks? It's so ridiculous that they are closing existing branches then trumpeting the news that they are creating hubs with the Post Office to provide access following closure of the hubs 🤦🏾‍♀️ Makes no sense and you can't do much banking in the hubs other than print a statement.
Family member works for a bank with about three branches in the city. I'm horrified by the stories of customers who are shunted between branches for fairly standard tasks because some incompetent can't be bothered to deal with it.

Brexshit.

Had to pay picking up a parcel from UK. Customs shit.

Never again.

Yes. 100% YES. To EVERY single post on this thread. Modern life is shite

The parking app in town was charging more money. It turned out that if you have the notifications on , it’s 70 p more. Didn’t make it clear. How many 70ps is it getting from people who didn’t know ? Apparently you’re meant to know this stuff when all you want is an hour for parking.

I started working in retail banking in the 1980’s. I am very sad to see its demise not least because of all the good local jobs that have now disappeared that previously existed in every town. The “hubs” were never going to be able to provide more than a very narrow range of services due to security. The post office counter worker will never be able to view your account. The “hubs” in my local library seem to be more about showing people how to do stuff on the app.

Totally agree with pretty much all posts! Apps that don’t work, shitty customer service, outright negligence…it gets worse and worse and no one running anything gives a fuck.

Yep. Customer service standards really are on the floor lately. Poor pay/unsocial hours/nobody wanting to do the jobs…staff not caring? Companies all about shareholder/CEO profiow, cheap ineffective AI .., who knows?

HMRC – I’ve had a tax code change saying that over the last two years I haven’t paid enough tax. How does that even happen? I’m employed in the public sector and I’ve actually reduced my hours and earnings. Yet somehow I now owe thousands?

FRASERS – once a genuinely decent company, now just another Mike Ashley emporium. I read the returns policy, wasn’t thrilled about paying £4.99 but accepted it.
The item arrived, but the packaging was a mess and it’s a gift, so it needs to go back.
Tried to arrange an online return:
“We are aware of technical issues meaning returns arranged by us are not working. Please arrange your own return at your own expense via a courier.”
No phone number. Just a chatbot, then a virtual assistant. A long wait, only to be told:
“You have five minutes left on our waiting list before we end the call as you’ve reached the maximum waiting time.”
It honestly feels like FRASERS is designed to make returns so difficult that people just give up.

NS&I – three days of back-and-forth on Messenger. Every new responder asks me to explain the whole issue again. Please just read the messages above – it’s all there.

Customer service used to be about helping customers. Now it feels like a test of endurance.

The only positive is today I am shopping local, in the independent businesses that provide a service and who care. Maybe a much needed return to the high street will follow.

Openreach. Just typing the word gives me the rage.
They refused to fit full fibre to my house as they couldn't confirm who owned a small 1ft strip of concrete next to my garden. I do, I'm on the land registry as I've paid the mortgage off. The council got arsey with openreach as they said they were fed up with them asking for permission when they'd repeatedly told them to go ahead with all domestic full fibre installations. Apparently openreach asked other people for permission but weren't allowed to tell me who they asked. After an epic saga, two months later, they cancelled my installation and got stroppy when I didn't send the new router back quick enough. Openreach are incompetent idiots.

Yep Student Finance England… they don’t have an email. They suggest using their Webchat that hasn’t been available once in 3 months of my issue.

So you have to call them. The options mean sometimes AI decides you don’t need help and hangs up on you. Having figured out how to speak to humans…. 2/3 times the person doesn’t speak good enough English to understand what I need/the issue.

Hours and hours and hours spent on the phone.

I use TrustPilot as a review site…haha…Trust!

I posted a genuine review of DPD about them saying, repeatedly that they have tried to deliver and never have. They take packages to a drop off, meaning a round trip and with larger items, a real struggle to collect (new toilet).

In the review I included tracking numbers, customer numbers, my email etc only to receive and email saying that unless I provided ‘tracking numbers, customer numbers, my email’ they would consider the review to be fake…i provided everything again but the review was never published.
What is the actual point if only good reviews are accepted.

Etsy was the same. A genuine, poor review about a seller delaying, again and again and sending an extremely rude response when I asked for a refund, was rejected.

Omg this 100%%% I have just managed to secure an EHCP through Surrey county council after 2 years of fighting- it has been a complete joke from start to finish