Community Chat

[Moonchilde]

No, this is not about QVC especially.

It was motivated by the Wells Fargo scam and mandatory "helpful reminders" and other "helpful features" from businesses whether we want them or not, going all the way back to having newspapers delivered door to door. It is NOT a restart of a deleted thread in which I was not a participant.

It seems to me that these days, employees are increasingly unethically forced into doing things, and having to deal with the fallout, in order to keep their jobs. This both puts employees in an unethical and/or dishonest place in order to hold onto their jobs, and highly annoys customers who can't get rid of often-screwed up "helpfulness."

Back in the day, when you took a job as a phone solicitor you KNEW you were going to get a lot of unpleasantness, contacting people who most likely did not want what you were promoting. That unpleasantness was part of the job and the employee knew it.

A lot of today's "helpful CS" is, frankly, not very either one. The purpose of it is not really to help you, although the attempt is made to make it seem so. The purpose is to get you to spend as much money with the company as they can squeeze out of you. Yes, squeeze.

This type of CS does NOT care what *you* want. They pay lip service to that concept, but in reality you are just a statistic for CS (who are not much more than telephone solicitors) to get paid by.

If you firmly tell CS that you DO NOT want something, they may well ignore you. Next month, you are bothered again. When you call to complain a second time, or a third or an eighth, all the person who answers the phone has to do is say "That wasn't me. I'm so sorry - I'll make sure your preference is noted." Rinse, lather, repeat as much as you will put up with it, until you lose it.

I am a moderately patient person. I excuse small errors here and there, no biggie. But when I say "no, I do not want that", it MEANS I want it STOPPED. Likewise when something is screwed up bigtime - I want it *taken care of*, period - and responsibility accepted and an apology made. This is very rare now, especially the larger and more nationwide a chain is.

Employees know how their company (local store on up to national chain headquarters) works. They *know* when they should not do something, and do it anyway. It's not "okay" because it helps *them* meet a quota or because *the company* will be annoyed with them if they don't keep the pressure on.

So, as bad as I might feel for an employee in certain instances, ignoring requests, screwing up those requests, and illegal actions taken by employees are NOT OKAY because "they're trying to help you." They're NOT doing anything for the customer, only for themselves.

And so, when I have been pushed over the edge by continued multiple ineptitudes and lies, I'm going to take that anger and frustration out on someone at some point. And AFAIC that person is not a "poor wee innocent cog" in the machine. They KNOW how things work.  Disingenuous "don't take it out on meeee!" is only just so valid, and then...it isn't.

[truffle]

Wells Fargo has an odd product that makes no sense to me as it costs you an additional $5 per month that is deducted from your checking account just so you can have free cashier checks otherwise they cost $10 each - it was an additional debit card - like who needs another debit card for the same account and I repeatedly said NO.  I was asked in person not over the phone.  Just recently, there was a new teller and she asked me too and it was about a year later and I again said NO.  

I have never been charged or signed up for something against my wishes so I did find that story in the news very odd.  

[millieshops]

The purpose of the calls has not changed.  Those calls were always designed in the interest of the business.  If that happened to suit you as the customer, you were lucky.

What has changed is that with the computerization of virtually everything, there is no privacy. Too many details are available and too many calls and texts and emails are being sent by all sorts of businesses everyday. 

Further, the competition is more intense than it ever was in the past because it's easy for us as consumers to spread our business among hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of companies with a few clicks.  That means bigger is better for business, but it's not always better for us at the bottom whether we're workers or consumers. 

It's becoming harder and harder for us to evaluate companies, to know when we're getting honesty, whether the people we're dealing with are giving us a good deal, etc.  The days of knowing personally the people you're dealing with are dying faster and faster.  I don't like it, but I recognize the process all around me.

[MyGirlsMom]

I HATE when you go into a store and the clerk asks you if you want their credit card.  

[Moonchilde]

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@truffle wrote:

Wells Fargo has an odd product that makes no sense to me as it costs you an additional $5 per month that is deducted from your checking account just so you can have free cashier checks otherwise they cost $10 each - it was an additional debit card - like who needs another debit card for the same account and I repeatedly said NO.  I was asked in person not over the phone.  Just recently, there was a new teller and she asked me too and it was about a year later and I again said NO.  

I have never been charged or signed up for something against my wishes so I did find that story in the news very odd.  

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I can only assume, at this point, that I'm not a Wells Fargo victim. I have been asked if I wanted to do this or that and said no 95% of the time, but whether they took no for an answer, I can't be positive. If what they did didn't cause another account to be opened and noticeable fees generated/removed I might well not pay that much attention if I had no *reason* to, until now.

I do think it's morally disgusting for an employee's job to hinge on how much they can either con people or ignore their express requests.

I also find it disgusting that some employees carry right on and/or throw roadblocks up or lie so that you can never locate the source of an error and address the guilty party.

[Kachina624]

I'm POed at Bank of America because they've closed all their drive in windows.  At the branch nearest me, the ATM is located behind the building, not visible from any street, next to some 20ft tall dense evergreens.  Anyone could hide in those bushes and stick a gun in your face.

A teller told me they closed the drive in because everyone (?) Is using electronic banking.  If this is true, why did I always have to wait in line at the drive in?

[Moonchilde]

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@MyGirlsMom wrote:

I HATE when you go into a store and the clerk asks you if you want their credit card.  

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That one doesn't bother me. I just say no and that's that.

What infuriates me are robo-reminders I never said I wanted in the first place, that I call and make a point of canceling, which is then completely ignored and it repeats the next month, over and over, until I lose it.

I've heard it wasn't me, I don't know who might have done that, I don't know how that happened, and the Answer for Everything, the computer system does it.

I have had partial issues that when investigated was told they agreed with me and couldn't say why another employee did (or didn't do) what they did, it didn't make sense. They "fix" it, assure me it's fixed, and then The Computer in the Sky screws it up again.

If I were the employee I would tell all customers to NEVER sign up for robo-anything - but the company pressures them to sign everyone up for it, faulty or not.

One example: I had, not through my instigation at all, two separate accounts at a major chain pharmacy. They created the second one because my first name was written out instead of shortened. I had at that point a 10-12 year history with them under the old account *and they were filling RXs under the old account.*

I hand-carried prescriptions in to the pharmacy and physically watched them being input into the computer.  About a week later I requested that they merge both accounts, which they said they would.

The next time I went to do refills - they had *deleted* the wrong account AND ALL THE PRESCRIPTIONS I'D WATCHED THEM INPUT. I had no medications on file at all!     Every single employee swore I had never given them anything (I "couldn't have" because it wasn't in the computer), they didn't know what I was talking about, there was no record of me at all, and more kwap upon kwap. It necessitated me having to call the doctor's office, explaining the pharmacy's idiocy and get all new prescriptions one month after my last visit.

[Moonchilde]

@Kachina624 I'm often nervous at bank ATMs. Some of them have less security than other places that aren't required to have it. I tryto get most of my "spending money" at the market or drugstore.

[ValuSkr]

I think you're right - customer service today is as much about trying to sell you something as it is about trying to help you solve a problem.  Many times what these people are doing borders on unethical.  I couldn't live with myself in a job like that.