Stupid Customer Service Stories

[sm4him]

I got an email from an online site I am a member of, saying that their prices were going up effective May 1, but that current subscribers could "lock in" the current pricing for as many years as they'd like by renewing before May 1.

Okay, fine. I go to the site, only to discover that there is NO OPTION available for choosing more than a one-year renewal. As I'm searching the site to see if I'm just missing something, I find that quite a few others are posing this question as well. The answer: there's no option for selecting multiple years, just renew for one-year and do that over and over as many times as you want.

Okay, let's ignore how stupid that is. Let's ignore what a red flag that would send up to my credit card, if there are suddenly five charges for the exact same amount, to the exact same place on a single day.

I was going to do several years, but given this new information, I decided to just renew for two years. So, I renew for the first year. Then I go back into the account settings to renew for another year.

NOPE. Now that I've renewed, the "renewal" option is no longer there at all!! Now I only have two choices--"Cancel subscription," or "Change Payment Method."

I finally email Customer Support and ask about this. The response was basically that they've set up a special link for just this occasion that allows us to renew again, and they provide that link. Fine.
But they also said this: "It's very rare for users to upgrade for more than 1 year at a time usually..."

I could not resist the urge to reply and tell them that PERHAPS, just MAYBE, it's RARE for users to subscribe for multiple years because IT'S NOT AN OPTION. I suggested that if they set up the option to select more than one year, they just might find that the number of people choosing that option increases significantly, over the number choosing that option when it simply doesn't EXIST.

That's it. I just found it humorous (after I was done finding it infuriating and annoying, that is). Rant over. But feel free to share your own Stories of stupid customer service.

 

[480sparky]

Sounds like they only want you to be able to renew once at the old rates. Then a year from now, you'll have to renew at the higher rate.

 

[Overread]

Sometimes companies don't think very smartly - or they hope they can make things sound like one thing whilst doing another thing. Or sometimes no ones looked at the subscription page for years and everyone is assuming that they put a feature there years ago when they never ever did

 

[sm4him]

Sounds like they only want you to be able to renew once at the old rates. Then a year from now, you'll have to renew at the higher rate.

That's exactly what *I* think it's about. Either that, or they really ARE just stupid. Either way, I kept asking myself if I really wanted to keep giving a place like that my money.
I renewed anyway, so now I'm not sure what that says about ME.

 

[sm4him]

Sometimes companies don't think very smartly - or they hope they can make things sound like one thing whilst doing another thing. Or sometimes no ones looked at the subscription page for years and everyone is assuming that they put a feature there years ago when they never ever did

I suspect this even MORE than I suspect that they are intentionally making it nearly impossible to renew for multiple years--I think they didn't have a CLUE that you couldn't do it until they'd already made the offer.

Back a "few" years ago, when paying bills online had become pretty popular but still wasn't EVERYwhere, I decided to get with the program and start paying all my bills online. Lo and behold, when I went to pay my ISP, I discovered that THEY did not OFFER online bill pay. The only way you could pay for your Internet Service with them was via mailing a check or paying in person. They didn't even do it over the phone. They DID take credit cards, but you had to go TO their office to pay by credit card.
Just seemed awfully ironic that I could use my internet service to pay so many bills, but I *couldn't* use it to pay for the internet service.

 

[Overread]

Yeah its amazing how many companies can simply tick over running smooth whilst making very basic mistakes or missing out very basic things. One would think they've review certain things regularly, or check up on matters, but nope often as not things just slip by.


*now hopes to dear powers someone doesn't point out an error/omission/problem with TPF*

 

[Steve5D]

If you want to experience superlative customer service, deal with Taylor Guitars. I worked in the Sales Department there for eight years (I was the Canadian Sales Manager), and I'm still in awe of how those folks down in Customer Service were able to routinely handle what were seemingly unrecoverable disasters...