Asklemmy

The only time I ever did was with Microsoft years ago on the Xbox 360.

I bought a game online then a couple days later it kept telling me I didn't own the game but they still took my money. So I called customer service and after being transferred for the 6th time I finally lost my shit. I explained multiple times that I'm not angry with the rep but that this whole situation was completely unacceptable and it either needs fixed immediately or I'm trashing my Xbox and buying a Playstation.

They gave me a full refund and let me keep the game.

When I'm dealing with ISP or phone customer service, I always ask for the cancelation department. They are motivated to keep customers so sometimes they'll throw in a coupon, especially if you treat them like a human.

No, but that's because my brain is weird. I have a lot of difficulty getting angry, usually I just get really frustrated but it almost never boils over into actual anger. Even when it does I'm not that angry. Sounds good probably, but every emotion is useful and it tends to lead to me not standing up for myself.

Yes, although for a good reason.

I ate at a fairly well-known cafe where I live, and had a sandwich and side salad. I finished the salad, and near the end I felt a weird crunch in my mouth. Suddenly I could taste blood near my gums, and when I looked at what was left of the salad I could see broken glass.

Obviously, I was a little panicked, and my wife quickly called someone over to say that there was glass in my food. One person stayed with me while the manager went to the back, and found out that one of the chefs had broken a glass on the table, but had just washed the salad clean rather than throwing it. By this point I was really embarrassed because around 30 people were staring to see what was happening, given that I had blood coming out of my mouth

I said that this was probably in other people's food, so they should probably tell others, but instead of responding they handed me cash to cover our meal, apologised, and walked away. I shouted at them to say that they shouldn't ignore it because others were eating the same salad. My wife chimed in and told everyone that we had found glass in the salad and that they shouldn't eat it.

I've never gone back, but a few years later I had told someone that story and they said that they'd heard a rumour about it from locals, so it seems that people remembered that story and stayed away.

My dad always told me the squeaky hinge gets the grease. Generally I try to make it eady at first, but if nothing works, thats when its time to start getting angry.

Can you file a complaint straight to a regulatory agency? In Brazil, thankfully, whenever ISPs or telcos give you too trouble, you can simply complain straight to ANATEL (Brazil's telecom regulator agency), saying what you're trying to do and which, if any, protocol ID (you get one whenever you get on line with their customer ~~blockage~~ service) you've had. Companies will reply and fix the problem the next day.

One thing I hate is when I finally reach a human being and it's clear that the rep is being forced to read a script. And that means they probably have little to no ability to solve my problem.

Management is wasting both our time with their CYA, boilerplate BS

Not on the phone but I had to threaten the Bitdefender E-Mail rep with a lawsuit in order to get my money back.

A few months into my 2 year subscription I changed my e-mail associated with my Bitdefender account. Thereafter all mail I got from them went to that new email, as it should. A short while after that I switched over to Linux and my "need" for an AntiVirus evaporated entirely between Linux' workflow not really requiring one anyway and me learning how little AntiVirus Software offers over the default Windows Defender. Queue forward to the end of that 2 year subscription (whose auto-renewal I had disabled before leaving Windows exactly to prevent what happened anyway but alas I have no proof of that anymore) I notice a really weird charge while reviewing my credit card statement. A charge that by all accounts should not have been there and one I was not made aware of beforehand. Guess what, those fucks sent only the mail about the upcoming renewal to the old email account which I had no reason whatsoever to suspect would still receive mail from them. Curiously the mail about them cancelling the renewed charge after I went off on them was sent to the new email again...

Initially the customer service said "oh well can't do anything here's a 50€ discount" until I lost my cool and threatened to sue them for theft because by all reasonable standards I could not have expected them to inform me on my old email about this upcoming charge.

On that note my stance was reaffirmed: Between and AntiVirus and an actual Virus I'd pick the latter, at least those are upfront about their motives and intentions instead of pretending to provide you with a service.

Ya, I definitely swore at them and raised my voice. I immediately apologized and said I was upset at the situation and not them because I know they are trying to help and are just trying to get through the day. The call went pretty well after I apologized. There was one time the person seemed like they were being intentionally unhelpful and a smartass when I was super polite. I did lose it on them and called them a fuck face and told them to fuck off.

I worked phone support for a few companies for a few years, this is how to Karen: Try to bait the ai, companies are liable for promises made by their hallucinating chatbots. Chat support first, who wants to talk to people? If you do need to call, enter identitng information once, then repeatedly press 0 to get human support. Ask tier 1 support, if they say no then flex that Karen superpower "I'll need to speak your manager"; those people are individuals just collecting a paycheck. If the floor manager (many have a 3x request policy) can't see the situation from the human perspective and resolve/waive, they will only care if someone above them gets upset, the ways to do that are threaten legal action. No sovciet bs, but it helps to use contract terminology like "agreed upon terms", "failure to meet industry standards" and "breach of contract". If they don't get jostled immediately, your next escalation is tag the intern on social media with a negative sentiment; or Google the company name followed by email for the office of the president. This is the pr address, CEO assistant or community director which again have the power to step in and resolve. You can also think outside the box and leave negative play store reviews (different intern).

Each conversation should be less then 2 minutes + wait time and if that can't resolve it, you need to close your account (which might take you to retention!) or potentially move. You can justify 1 more call during a different shift. There is no need to get mad, state that are you upset and are looking for resolutions. Use an I feel statement, and be sure to ask to leave notes on the account regarding your conversation. They have a UI with comment fields in the ticket that are displayed while you are on the phone and it helps sell the situation with comment history.

There has been four times I remember where I've either lost my temper or just got really frustrated when contacting support teams. Sorry if this seems long winded, I like to vent every time I can about some of these.

The first time was when I tried to contact Samsung because I was having an issue with the Galaxy Store. At the time when I was trying to contact them they only had two contact methods, which were by phone and through some form of a support forum. As someone who hates talking to people through phone calls and prefers to just use emails, I opted into at least trying the support forum. As I expected, Samsung's support team ignored my post and I only got replies from users who either had no idea what I was talking about or were just bots.

I just gave up trying to contact them after that and I haven't used the Galaxy Store very much. If you're interested in knowing what the issue is, basically, the "recommended for you" section keeps recommending me apps that I've already rating, even if I gave them a low rating.

The second was when I tried to contact the support team for Hideout because I couldn't get videos on their website to work in any web browser on my tablet. I did everything I could to provide as much information as I could, even providing screenshots whenever I thought it would be helpful. After a few days of doing everything they asked me to and continuing to provide as much information and as many screenshots as I could, the CEO of Hideout came into the conversation and proceeded ignore everything I stated up to that point and insinuated that I wasn't being cooperative because one of the browsers I was using "looked outdated" and that the issue would have been fixed if I just updated that browser.

I don't remember exactly how I responded but I remember calling them incompetent because YouTube working perfectly fine on my tablet but Hideout didn't and reminding them that I stated multiple times that the browsers I tested were reinstalled before testing to make sure that my settings wasn't causing any conflicts, so none of the browsers could have been outdated. They never responded after that and eventually marked the ticket as being solved when it very clearly wasn't. I stopped using Hideout after this but I probably still wouldn't be using it because sometime after that I heard that they stopped paying their users or something like that.

The third time was when I contacted Discord's support team because I had an issue where email notifications just randomly stopped working for me. They had me try all sorts of things, like contacting the admins of the servers I joined and making sure that my Discord inbox was cleared regularly. This also included changing my email address on Discord, which caused them to temporarily refuse helping me for reasons that I don't understand. After I asked them why they were punishing me after doing what they requested of me, they claimed that there was a miscommunication on their end and continued trying to help me.

Eventually, they determined that my issue needed to be looked at by the dev team and sent the information to them. I was expecting them to either fix the issue or at least tell me how to fix it on my end but when they responded about a week later, they gave me some bogus answer, stating that "email notifications don't work for servers with more than 5000 users". I know for sure that this was a lie because I was told by the admins for some servers that the email notifications are working for other users but the rep kept ignoring what I was saying and refused to fix the issue. I just gave up trying to reason with them and filled out the survey they gave me, even though I'd imagine that no one at Discord actually read it.

The fourth time was when I contacted Google because I was having an issue with the Play Store. The issue was that there was an app that I wasn't able to review because when I tried to review it the first time, it glitched out and only used half of my review so I deleted it but I kept getting error messages every time I tried reviewing it again. I was using Firefox in Ubuntu at the time and I figured that the issue was something on their end and that contacting them would be quick and easy but I was wrong.

I was emailing them about and fourth for a little over a month because they kept giving me suggestions that were irrelevant to my issue, requesting that I use features that didn't exist on any of my android devices (which still don't as far as I'm aware) and forgetting everything relevant to my issue, even what my issue was in the first place. At one point, I thought that they just gave up and redirected me to a bot that ghosted me because all of the emails they sent prior had the name of the rep I was talking to and a message about some survey they'd have me fill out when the conversation was done. I received about three emails that didn't contain either of those before they just stopped emailing me entirely.

Given that I thought that they wouldn't respond, I decided to reply to the last email they sent with an angry email. I have once again forgotten my exact words but I remember expressing how I felt and that if they're not willing to help me with my issue, that I'd want them to just give me the survey they mentioned in previous emails. They did respond after about a week but I really just wanted the conversation to end, so I repeatedly told them that I didn't want to talk to them anymore and after a few emails they ended the conversation and gave me the survey. While I have no idea if they actually did anything directly but the issue seemed to be fixed about 6 months after that.

It's hard for me to do that to them, they're not the people I'm upset at. Unless the high school office counts as a customer service rep for high school. I might as well have left their property by now with a permanent impact crater.

I was the lowest rung CSR punching bag for many years, so no. I think that whole experience is what conditioned me to do what I've always done when I have bad service: cancel, chargeback (if necessary), move on. I've probably only left one or two bad reviews in my life, just to warn others of egregiously unsafe practices. One of those business reached out afterwards to "make it right". Nope, no contact.

Those years also taught me that if you fill out a customer service survey and you give anything less than straight 10's across the board then you are actively hurting the employee.

My answers below, but for your current issue, put in a complaint with the FCC or email the CEO of the company directly. Most major companies have a process to resolve issues that normal agents can't access if you can get to the right level. Emailing the CEO works with many companies, but telecom companies are sensitive to FCC oversight and would rather fix your issue than deal with the FCC.

https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/articles/115002206106-Internet-Form-Descriptions-of-Complaint-Issues

Yes, the agent agreed with me that the company owed me money, but told me they couldn't do anything about it. I told them I understood, but please put in a ticket to someone that could do something about it. They just kept telling me they couldn't help until I got mad. They eventually relented and put in a ticket, which was then denied without reason a month later. I resolved the issue by circumventing the call center entirely and getting directly to an escalation team similar to what I recommended above.

Yes. They started the rudeness and I was done being the polite one. It was clearly a misunderstanding that led to a mistake on their part but once I made that obvious to them, they doubled down.

I was getting more and more blunt, think 'so what you're telling me...' type tone. And then I heard myself and internally cringed.

Yes the fuck up was theirs alone. But having worked in a similar role 20 years prior, I remembered how one interaction like the one we were having would completely ruin your day.

She was flushed red in the face and neck and I remembered being young and making the (wrong) decision to double down when I'm caught out in a fuck up rather than admitting fault and working on a remedy. It's a lesson only learnt in time and humiliation.

I think she'd learnt it at that point but it was too late. And an angry middle aged woman ranting at her was not going to do anything.

So I stopped and said 'I'm sorry, I shouldn't be speaking to you like this. I've already had a bad day and this has made it so much worse. But that's got nothing to do with you and you don't deserve to be spoken like that by customers. When's the next available appointment?'

She gave me a curt 'that's ok' - and believe me that almost made me snap again, but we sorted it out.

I noted the next time I got a confirmation for my appointment that they'd included my suburb in my surname - I think to differentiate between me and another customer (the reason for the crossed wires). That's a win. But I hope she learnt a lesson about seeking truth rather than victory and I hope she wasn't too upset.

Yes, after the rep had personally been trying to play dumb for almost 30 minutes. As a CSR myself I know it shouldn't take 30 minutes to explain your delivery person THREW MY PACKAGE OVER MY 8 FOOT FENCE FEDEX I FUCKING SAW THEM DO IT. THE PACKAGE SAID FRAGILE ON IT YOU STUPID CUNTS WHY IS THIS SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND I HAVE SECURITY FOOTAGE

I kinda blacked out because I absolutely loathe being unkind to customer-facing workers but dear Christ this was a $300 object and I could hear the smugness as the guy played up his Indian accent (suddenly much more understandable after I snapped) while saying "I'm sorry sir I don't see what the problem is they delivered your package????"

Fuck that guy, he deserves nasty customers every call

I'm certainly close right now. I bought a laptop from System76 in December (the Pangolin). It has not, any any point, worked acceptably. First the USB ports would frequently disconnect and reconnect. Then the trackpad started freaking out, registering constant false clicks and not letting the cursor move.

The first time I sent it in, they shipped me back someone else's computer.

When I did get my own laptop back, I found that the trackpad issue hadn't been fixed. Then it stopped waking up after being suspended.

So I sent it in again, and got no updates from them for 30 days. They said their usual turnaround time was 7-10 days. And the first time I sent it in, it took them about a week to send it back. Well, to send a computer back. So something was wrong here.

On top of that, the support ticket has a "Last Updated" timestamp, and it kept changing every couple of days. I asked them for details, and only received generic "sorry this is taking a while, we're working on it" responses. I specifically wanted to know why the "last updated" timestamp was changing every few days, because of course I'm imagining that they've shipped my computer to someone else.

I finally responded in all caps, asking where my computer was for that unexplained month, and why the timestamp kept changing. The support agent replied:

Your computer was at our warehouse waiting to be worked on.

Bless up,

(Support agent name)

Bless up? Fucking asshole.

I always want to be patient with those working in customer support. It's difficult and often thankless job. I know how unfair it is when a customer blows up at someone in customer service, not to mention how unhelpful it is. And usually the customer is yelling at someone with no power to fix the situation. But this System76 thing is getting ridiculous. They're literally just not responding to emails and dodging questions when they do respond.

Honestly yeah not blow up levels of anger more passive aggressive with a hint of sarcasm when I was talking to them instead. It happened when I tried getting help at an at&t store to port out my number from at&t prepaid. Yes I know now its not the same branch or something but damn they were rude and at least could've told me who to call. Iirc they were watching a sports game so they probably just wanted to rush me out. At&t prepaid's reps were nice though just thick accents.

N is for NIGHTMARE

Yes. There was a new streaming service that I signed up for. I used an email alias and the confirmation email never arrived. They had no way to change my email address or activate my account except for me clicking the link in my email.

After a month my free trial expired (without me ever being able to log in), they added a second month of free trial while trying to activate my account. This went on for 5 months, finally the 6th month they did not give me another free month and I was charged. Still no solution for the situation. 7th month arrives and I get charged again. The 8th month I lost it. I knew most of the support and customer service reps at this point as I had talked with also all of them multiple times a week for months. But with no solution in sight and being charged for multiple times months I finally lost it on one of the CSRs. Surprisingly while I was on the phone with them they were able to cancel my account and issue a refund.

Define "help" I've blown up on unsolicited cold-callers like military recruiters, and political campaign fundraisers multiple times and it helped me feel better. If I'm calling for support then I'm already vulnerable and blowing up is like biting the hand that feeds so no, that doesn't help. Power dynamics matter when taking your anger out on others. Self control matters so you don't have to

I did. Back in the old days we had phones connected to wires called land lines. The phones were controlled by shitty companies similar to cell service providers or cable companies (almost as archaic as land lines).

I was having trouble getting my land line up and running after a move. A bad day at work, money trouble, and a phone that still wouldn't work, set me off. I totally lost my shit on a poor, under paid rep. I mean, I went off. It was brutal. I think I made her cry. The people in the room I was in (rental office at the new apartment complex) all left the room.

After a solid 2 or 3 minutes of me just ripping into this innocent person, I caught myself. I realized what I was doing mid-rant and just stopped. I sort of gasped and said "oh god. What the fuck is wrong with me?" or something similar out loud. I spent the next couple of minutes apologizing and telling this person how big a shit head I was being. I admitted that I had crossed a line, commended them on their professionalism, and took full responsibility for making this their problem when it clearly wasn't. I was sincere and I was honest. I told her that she should hang up on me and make a note in my file that I'm a problem. I also said that I'd never yell at a rep like that again. And humbly asked if ther was anything she could do to help me. She did. She solved whatever bullshit problem there was and was so rad to me.

She went so far above and beyond after I treated her like shit. That was close to 30 years ago and I still have never even raised my voice to a rep since. As bad as some places are, as poorly trained as some reps are, even as shitty as some reps are, I'll never forget how rotten a person I was in that moment. I don't want to be like that. That's not the kind of world I want to live in. And frankly, fuck a dude that would talk to me like that.

Yep, but i felt really bad afterwards. Purchased tickets on American airlines on short notice due to the death of my wife’s close aunt. The trip had a connecting flight and our first flight got delayed by an hour (np plenty of layover time left). then when we land the plane taxied for over an hour giving us about 10 panicking minutes to make the connection, but if we ran we could make it.

we didn’t, The terminal was much farther than expected. in the rush, my wife lost her ID, which added to further frustration. maintaining decent composure up until we go to the AA desk to schedule our alternative flight. The flight we were supposed to go on was the last flight for the day. and the next one wasn’t until next day evening.

well that was not going to work because the funeral was in the morning. We asked if we could fly to another city (equidistant to rural home) but the clerk was really firm on that the flight had to be to my destination. after all, our bags made it there.

that was what cocked the hammer back for me. I asked to speak with someone higher and they gave me a number, and boom i was pretty irked and very rude to the service rep who had the patience of a saint. She did get us on the soonest flight to the other city. My wife was crying with relief and i was sobbing my gratitude and apologizing for my behavior. the Service rep brushed it off like it was business as usual and tells me to have a nice flight.

Aside from having to go purchase new clothes at 1am, we made it to the service a few hours later.

I had a flat tire at midnight once. Tried for about an hour to change it myself before calling a tow truck company that said it was open. Got routed to a call center who said they had to contact one of their freelance trucks, after paying $250 over the phone. A little more back and forth and about 90 minutes later (when they said it'd be 30 minutes), no truck ever appeared. The call center (third rep that night) called and said the one person they had working tonight broke down outside of cell service, can they come out in the morning? I said that won't work, I'll just cancel and get a refund. They said it'd take 3-4 business days to get the refund and there'd be a $50 refund processing charge.

I didn't quite blow up at them, but any time I have to stand up for myself I get shaky and struggle to keep the anger out of my voice. I explained (several times) that there was no way that was acceptable and that I would like to speak to their manager. "I spoke to my manager and there's nothing we can do, that's just the cost of processing a refund." Well I paid for services that I didn't receive, due to no fault of my own. Let me speak to your manager. Another hold. "My manager is willing to pay the refund himself this one time." Yeah ok sure thanks bye.

20 minutes later my tire was changed by a different tow truck company who had a real employee answer before the second ring, had multiple trucks on duty, didn't even ask for payment until after the work was done, and it was about $80. I fully expected to have to issue a chargeback for the first company's charge but fortunately it never showed up on my card statement.

There've been a couple times. I make a distinction between frustration at the company and the person, but sometimes you run into reps that are willfully unhelpful or actively malicious for their own gain.

Two cases come to mind. I've had an ISP rep call me about updated prices, who then proceeded to try and sell me a broadband and streaming bundle subscription. I would have gotten a slightly faster speed, plus the streaming BS. Same price as I was already paying.

I specifically asked if unbundled contracts had also been changed, and the dude said "no". I checked the prices online while still on the call, and the bastard was straight up lying. Without the streaming bundled, the price was lower and came with even more speed. I told him this, and he asked "oh do you want that then?". I replied "yes, but not if it gives you a sales bonus", so I hung up and signed up for the new contract via the ISP website.

In the other case I was shopping for jeans, and the store rep repeatedly handed me elastane-ridden skinny jeans a few sizes too small, insisting they'd look better, even as I kept telling him the exact size I wanted, and that I preferred the 100% cotton denim, loose fit jeans. At the fourth pair of skinny jeans I told him to fuck off, and just went through the store myself until I found what I was looking for.

In person at an apple store.

I bought an iphone used off a friend who stopped being my friend immediately after. I never wanted an apple product, but my phone broke, I was poor and he sold it to me for $50.

I didn't know you needed the apple id and password to SIGN OUT of anything. I sent him messages, did the whole "click here to request a new password" thing so he would get an e-mail about it...to his apple e-mail which, let's be honest, no one uses.

Not being able to use the full functionality sucked, but I could manage. What was worse was receiving pictures and messages intended for him.

I did what any sane person would do and brought it to the apple store. The first person who helped me repeated "Our security systems protect your privacy" so many times, no matter what I said, I lost my shit, shouted "I would like to sign out so I can stop seeing nudes of this guy's girlfriend!"

They didn't help and I bought an android.

Yes I have, and no it does not help. Always apologize and tell them it's the situation, not them, that you are upset with.

I've done that job before and most likely they would help you if they could, but the company won't train them or make any solutions available because it costs money. Your impression that they don't know what they're talking about is probably accurate.

Your best bet is to keep escalating to a higher department ("manager", "office of the president").