Andrew is trying to redeem some miles from a credit card. After several minutes of recorded messages, he actually reaches a live person who announces himself as a “customer care representative.” That customer care representative (read skilled specialist in mental tortures) asks several minutes of questions, only to announce, at the end of all that, that he can’t help.
Before Andrew has a chance to say boo, he’s transferred to the next customer care person, who starts all the way back at the beginning again, only to reach the same outcome.
After exactly four customer care representatives (how many customer care representatives does it take to change a light bulb…), Andrew is put on hold yet again for the next one. Ever the optimist, Andrew patiently sits there–and sits there–and sits there.
“How long do you think you’ll have to wait this time?” I ask.
“If I knew the answer to that, I’d know where to find God.”
Oh my gosh, I had almost the EXACT SAME THING happen to me! I don’t have a credit card, I don’t have enough money, but I did a movie for my American Theater between the Revolutionary and Civil Wars (how appropriate!) and the computer wouldn’t read the blank DVD! So we went online to customer suppport, and the lady gave me, like, the exact same thing over and over again, telling me how to burn the file onto the DVD, while what I really needed to know was what to do when the computer claimed that there wasn’t a disk in the drive, when there was, and there had been the last five times as well. Finally, we figured out that what we needed was to use a different type of disk, and it all worked out. But, the customer support representative was completely useless! We spent two hours and forty-three minutes going in circles! And what is worse, is that I told her that she was telling me the same thing over and over, and she didn’t listen until my mom took my place and was mean to her, at about two and a half hours. It was Torture!
Hi Jody, I agree with your words of caution. But there’s no advice in this post–and no point scheme– just a little humor for anyone who has to deal with any kind of beaurocracy.
The true advice should be to avoid credit cards and if you have them to truly avoid any point scheme.