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.

Oh student finance facinates me. I also had someone with very, very weak english and I don't think that's acceptable considering their staff are UK based! I even interviewed couple of years ago for these positions (didn't make it through, but not sour about it since I ended up in different location anyway) so was really taken by surprise and triple checked I called actual SFE number.
And they were absolutely chaotic anyway with emails and statements not coming but obviously had proper contact details as other comms from them were coming to me fine.

Many websites take down the more negative feedback my old company does this too! Made me laugh how I read something on Facebook about them and within seconds it was taken down if it’s not praise. We knkw their game.
I do struggle with accents on the phone too. I had to phone up the bank and the ladies accent was so strong I really couldn’t understand her that well. She was also having problems understanding me too.
It’s definitely a problem and I think that sometimes people are having more problems actually articulating how to solve the problems as well ( which adds to the frustrations)

Agree. Bought a rug from Wayfair. Returned said rug....offered us a gift vpucher...no thanks...ill gave the cash.

Worse than that. Of course there were people who found it hard to deal with other people directly, but by actually having to do it, it gets easier and most of such people probably went on to being functional simply due to experience and confidence as they knew they had to do it. Nowadays, it's too easy for that kind of person to stay home and hide behind their keyboard. I'm convinced it's driving the ever increasing numbers of mental health problems and youngsters unable to work etc. Yes, I know there will be extreme people who never could navigate real life in the past, but I think the modern world is driving more people to be introverted and excluded because it's more comfortable for them whereas in the past they'd have to find ways to live a more normal life.

Oh God I’ve now got to deal with them (via BT) as an engineer visit has confirmed what I already knew which is my constantly dropping connection is not anything to do with the set up in my house

Completely agree. None of the systems seem to work. It’s exhausting trying to navigate them

I ended my broadband contract with BT yesterday - I was out of contract and they had increased my bill, so I called them (which took ages to get through) and they refused to offer me the lower price showing on their website. So after some quick research I cancelled and went with sky , straight afterwards I’m bombarded with emails and texts from BT offering me a lower price! Too late!

Why can’t these companies keep their existing customers by offering them the lower prices instead of chasing new people ? Admittedly , plus net did with us and it went down 6 pounds a month so we stayed with them. It’s not hard for BT and others to do the same
ive heard that virgin are terrible to deal with, but plus net haven’t been too bad with us tbf.

It's "mug pricing" as they know most people won't bother shopping around and changing. Supermarkets and restaurant chains do it too. I.e. there's always online money off coupons for Bella Italia so only "mugs" pay the menu prices as it's so easy to find the discount codes. Likewise Tesco et al with their "loyalty" cards which basically bring the prices down to what they should be (and down to the price in other supermarkets!), only "mugs" pay the over-inflated "before discount" prices because they can't be bothered to get/use a loyalty card.

The likes of Sky and Virgin know that a customer who moves to the other for a cheaper deal will move back again at the end of the contract when the original one has a cheaper deal than renewal.

Sadly there’s no point me switching at the moment as it’s looking like an open reach issue which will mean I’ll have to the same problem whichever company provides the hub at the front end

Yanbu. I feel like I never catch a break, disabled children in the house, the send system a previous op mentioned is bloody relentless in itself, reviews, changes meaning we'll end up at tribunal AGAIN. Multiple ongoing complaints almost constantly and that's before you start on the fucking life admin that shouod take 10 mins but takes forever because your password doesn't work, you need an app, you can't checkout with registering an account you don't want, something the house going wrong, elderly parents needing some help, what should be a straight forward job is never straight forward. Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Wait until you have to do banking for an elderly relative using Lasting Power of Attorney. That’s a whole other level of madness. I have a whole list of banks and companies I will never use again.

A classic for me is buying a car park ticket, it gives me the rage everytime!!!!

I share your frustrations, OP. Seemingly straightforward and everyday things are never straightforward and involve untold levels of aggrevation!

Buy online only with PayPal. They move when something goes wrong, and big firms know it.

My husband passed away unexpectedly in August and I still haven’t got round to changing everything over to just my name, due to the endless waiting for someone to answer the phone when you ring these companies/businesses. Some days I get upset as soon as I say my husband has died, on those days I’m good for nothing else, my brain power is depleted. Most companies it takes at least half an hour to sort out.
A case in point - received car insurance renewal, this reminded me that I hadn’t changed it to just my name, rang and sorted it, had to go through all the questions as if it was a new quote, told this would trigger the renewal in just my name. As the house/contents insurance is with same company they put me through to that department - a bit quicker sorting that. A few days later renewal in my name came, £23 more so I queried it - told prices change daily and that was new figure now. Shopped around but cheapest comparison with companies I’d actually heard of was neither here or there. Ended up paying the extra amount. Then letter arrives about house/contents insurance, I owe them £5.63 (!) and if not paid the insurance is invalid! Rang, letter should never have been sent, amount should have been wiped off by them. Just exhausting, nothing goes smoothly.

I actually got to speak to a human straight away when I phoned AO. I've always found their service good.
If they can do it, why can't others?

And don’t get me started on on the DVLA….

Influencers do that too. I rememmber posting a comment on a post of a fashion influencer who'd bought a few new items. She had a pair of ridiculous sunglasses on which didn't suit her at all, she looked so silly. I posted feedback that I thought she looked great in everything but the sunglasses which I didn't think were flattering. My post was quietly removed, and instead there was one post after the other of "oh you look fab!", "those sunglasses are amazing on you", "you really suit that whole outfit, the sun glasses are so unique" etc etc.

It was the first time I really realised that influencers are just a LOAD OF BOLLOCKS, and just a different form of advertising. None of it's real. Same goes for most online reviews, and now general comments on chat forums are getting the same treatment. Just very little that's actually genuine.

Yep, they're made to use systems and processes which they know are less efficient than the tried and tested way of doing things, have to seem positive about it to customers when really they know it's a load of shit and worst of all the people bringing in these "improved" systems haven't factored in staff time to try to resolve resulting unforeseen issues. Both customer satisfaction and staff morale drop (because people generally DO want to make their customers feel satisfied) but even the customers don't have enough time to spend trying to get things resolved, so nothing gets resolved, there is just low level unsatisfaction all round.

It’s all a total shit show and so fucking exhausting.

I feel like when all this online customer service stuff started, it was within a framework where everyone accepted that customer service should exist. It should be possible to fix things, get things right - but maybe it could be a bit cheaper or quicker if customers help themselves a bit with the standard stuff. Over time, the idea that it should even be possible seems to have totally eroded. It used to be a different way of getting help (in theory) but now it’s just a symbolic act of ritual pointlessless that stands in for a giant pair of two fingers flicking the v’s. You can’t get us! We aren’t going to help you! There’s nothing you can do!

I hate it on here when posters berate other posters for expecting better. Dont forget what life used to be like! Once you could see doctors! Once you could get refunds on blatantly faulty goods! We aren’t crazy to long for those days back!

I had to fill in a triage form yesterday for my son to be seen by the doctors (he is recovering post op and needed meds for new condition) and was out at the pharmacy so had to do it on the phone. It is hard to type because the screen is so small. I am middle aged so God knows how elderly people do it. They must give up :(

I had put my name in a box instead of my son's name. Even though I had clearly stated in the description that I was looking for help for my son, they text me and asked me to fill in a completely new form before they could go further.

This is not in any way to do with the incredible and hardworking NHS staff and I'm sure it helps with the sheer numbers of people who need to use the system but it used to be so much easier. The last thing you want to be doing when you're ill or someone else is ill is grappling with fiddly forms.

I agree. I've done it for family and also some clients over the years. My list of banks not to touch with a bargepole include Post Office and Halifax, both of which I've found to be slow and utterly useless several times with different people. I closed my own accounts with them a while ago as they don't deserve business the way they poorly treat the elderly, their families and families of the deceased customers.

Others have been really good such as Yorkshire Building Society, Nationwide Building Society and LLoyds TSB. It's no coincidence that these are the banks I have our household accounts with and I recommend them endlessly to family, friends and clients.

Nail on the head and why I try to use service providers who offer a better service, including banks/building societies that still have local branches, shops that employ empathic humans rather than grumps, even online firms where you can actually speak with a human relatively easily (I tend to scope them out in advance by calling customer service before I buy or commit to anything just to see how easy it is). We shouldn't have to put up with crap service, whether from businesses, public sector organisations, etc. and need to vote with our feet and complain. We certainly shouldn't accept the general malaise of having to put up with crap everywhere because "that's how it is these days". People power still works!

Agree with you on Nationwide. Skipton was good too. Handy to know about Yorkshire Building Society as they have a branch nearby.

The worst was Santander.