Bad Customer Service Experiences?

[NotYou]

This is not just for camsites or the platforms you're on, but rather, any customer service responses you have had from any product you have bought or wanted to buy.
I am confident we have all had the experience/s numerous times.


Right now, I had the stupid one where they don't answer you at all.
I went to the gym 2 years ago and bought some products from a website (MyProtein). One product is some Creatine powder. =I did this January 2019, I have half of it left and I have started the gym again.
I sent them a simple question asking if it's still safe to use and will I still receive the benefits, with the fact it's 2 years old.


Their response?

"I understand that this is disappointing, and I am sorry for any trouble this may have caused.

Please be advised to send a picture of the item, the bath, and the expiry date, please.

Can you confirm if the item is open or still sealed?"


Send a picture of the BATH? What now...
I am not sure if this person sent his answer to me but it was meant for someone else's query, or he is not a native English speaker and there is some translation error (but what would bath be? Back? haha I don't know).


I have had many bad experiences with various customer support, what is your funniest, stupidest and worst?

 

[ElektraDivine]

I'd imagine "bath" meant to be batch number btw.

I'd have assumed that they had a spell checked auto message for this kinda thing though!

 

[norcalmd]

This is not just for camsites or the platforms you're on, but rather, any customer service responses you have had from any product you have bought or wanted to buy.
I am confident we have all had the experience/s numerous times.


Right now, I had the stupid one where they don't answer you at all.
I went to the gym 2 years ago and bought some products from a website (MyProtein). One product is some Creatine powder. =I did this January 2019, I have half of it left and I have started the gym again.
I sent them a simple question asking if it's still safe to use and will I still receive the benefits, with the fact it's 2 years old.


Their response?

"I understand that this is disappointing, and I am sorry for any trouble this may have caused.

Please be advised to send a picture of the item, the bath, and the expiry date, please.

Can you confirm if the item is open or still sealed?"


Send a picture of the BATH? What now...
I am not sure if this person sent his answer to me but it was meant for someone else's query, or he is not a native English speaker and there is some translation error (but what would bath be? Back? haha I don't know).


I have had many bad experiences with various customer support, what is your funniest, stupidest and worst?

They probably meant batch/lot#
Edit: oops already answered

 

[Brit]

Trying to cancel a subscription to anything that forces you to call the provider. Worst experience I had with this was trying to cancel my siriusxm subscription many years ago. My commute was 1 hour each way to work and I spent ~15 hours a week in my car. I loved siriusxm and had zero issues with it for the ~5 years I had it. I sold my car and was moving overseas to a country where I wouldn't be able to utilize their service. I explained this to the person, they tried to get me to keep it so that it would "increase the value" of my car when selling it. The car was already sold. Then it was "when you come back to visit, surely you'll want it then". No, I'm not going to pay $10/mo for something that I might use for 2-3 weeks of the year. I was on the phone with them for like half an hour just trying to cancel my subscription, explaining that my car is sold, I can't use their service, the person I sold my car to doesn't want it, and had to talk to 2! different people before they finally let me cancel it.

I was really frustrated, but realized that it's not the fault of the employees. As someone who has worked in some form of client facing job for much of my working life, I know that there's so much pressure from corporate to retain customers. People can and do get docked if they don't meet certain goals. People receive small bonuses when hitting certain goals. This creates high pressure sales and retention. Hell, I was one of those people. When I worked at a bank, the goal was to get each person that came in to get at least 1 new product to "deepen the relationship" aka "cross selling". Trying to get rid of that overdraft fee? No problem, I'll waive that if you open a savings account. Need a new debit card? Let's get you a credit card too. Need a mortgage? Let's get a line of credit to go along with it in case of emergencies. And on and on it would go. I'm not proud of it and it does in fact gross me out that I did that. It's sad because when I started there, the culture wasn't like that, but it slowly became that way over time as we got new RMs. I digress.

The point is, that annoying salesperson, who just won't seem to accept that you do not indeed want some window cleaner with your new knife set purchase, may be close to losing their job, getting their hours cut, missing out on some bonus, or some other thing, which is why they are pressuring you. Some places require that you ask a customer x amount of times if they would like this or that or if you are sure you want to close x out. Some places have secret shoppers that will get you written up if you don't try to sell things that corporate wishes you to sell. Try to show those front liners kindness and empathy. Unleash your wrath and annoyance in an email or letter that you write to the CEO. Address it to the shareholders.

I know this post isn't really in the spirit of this thread, but I kinda felt the need to write it because I often see people complain about customer service without showing empathy towards the workers. Not saying that you're doing this, @Brett M , I just wanted to throw in my 2 cents before I saw something that could potentially cause me to go on a whole diatribe longer than this. Yes, sometimes people just suck. That's the way we humans are. But there are always reasons behind that and I feel it's important to try to think of the "why" so that we can better ourselves and our treatment of others.

 

[Smores]

Trying to cancel a subscription to anything that forces you to call the provider. Worst experience I had with this was trying to cancel my siriusxm subscription many years ago. My commute was 1 hour each way to work and I spent ~15 hours a week in my car. I loved siriusxm and had zero issues with it for the ~5 years I had it. I sold my car and was moving overseas to a country where I wouldn't be able to utilize their service. I explained this to the person, they tried to get me to keep it so that it would "increase the value" of my car when selling it. The car was already sold. Then it was "when you come back to visit, surely you'll want it then". No, I'm not going to pay $10/mo for something that I might use for 2-3 weeks of the year. I was on the phone with them for like half an hour just trying to cancel my subscription, explaining that my car is sold, I can't use their service, the person I sold my car to doesn't want it, and had to talk to 2! different people before they finally let me cancel it.

DirecTV takes this same approach with the interesting addition that they have multiple "departments" to handle a termination call. As you whittle down the resistance of each department, they concede that you are leaving the service and then tell you that you need to go to another department that "handles these situations". After you work through the whole process, that's when they bring out the mafia guys who inform you that you need to pay them for the equipment you have been renting from them, even though you point out that you purchased the equipment outright. They pretty much had me convinced that two gorillas with plumber wrenches were going to break down my door at 2am if I didn't pay them.

 

[AudriTwo]

We got new health insurance this year since my husband lost our previous one moving to part-time. I got it in my name because I handled getting the new one set up while my husband was finishing up the last things needed before nursing school starts up. My husband and I also have different last names. Our new insurance only gives out cards with the primary's name on them. His school needed proof of insurance with his name, and since our last names aren't the same, they weren't accepting the card. There is no way to pull any of that up on your account online and print it off yourself. All I needed was anything from the insurance that says he has coverage.

I was put through the wringer for over a week and we were getting to the point where his deadline was like 4 days away. I had spoken to several reps who lied about the timeframe on sending me proof of insurance. Briefly worked in the industry, and I know there are ways to expedite these things instead of having the customer wait almost a week for an email. I understand when they are sending emails, it has to be approved, and encrypted, so it's not really that simple, but I know it can be done. So the last woman I spoke to, I wasn't getting anywhere with her other than "well this is policy, you have to wait 3-5 business days." I asked to speak to a supervisor, several times. She wouldn't get me one. She kept telling me the supervisor won't be able to help and will say the same thing. I kept explaining, all I need is an email with proof of insurance with his name over and over. I got frustrated and handed the phone to my husband. He said explained the situation exactly like me. She then puts him on hold for few minutes and was able to help him.

It was some serious bullshit.

 

[LeftistLibbie]

I still remember going to a McDonald's on a road trip once that was horrible. I started to order some burgers, and the cashier was like, "we're out of burgers." So I'm like, okay, nuggets then? And she bends over laughing at me, apparently a little practical joke. Which, okay, whatever. But then I tell her my order again and she's not actually listening properly. I can tell when I open my hamburger to find it smothered in cheese. Whatever, I go up to the front and mention the mistake. I get the DIRTIEST look from the line worker, who snarkily says to me, "if you don't want cheese, you have to actually SAY that." Wow, ok, mama mia, bitch. I got dirty looks the rest of the time I was in there. For daring to want what I ordered, after being rudely laughed at and half-ignored.

Luckily, because it was on a road trip, I never had to go back there. I sent in a complaint to corporate, but it just bounced to the manager, who was essentially like "yeah thanks for complaining, but whatever."

 

[yummybrownfox]

When it took me having to talk to THREE different live chat agents (And waiting several minutes in the queue for my turn) to get someone to close my unemployment case for me...because our live chat agents giving me inaccurate information, and then ending our chat sessions before my issue was resolved.

The Taco Bell employee lying to my DoorDasher by telling her "I put sauces in the bag" (After the dasher asked her if there's sauces in there), so then I've gotta eat dry-ass tacos without sauce. LOL. That shit had me furious, so now I keep a bunch of Taco Bell sauces (Leftover sauces from my previous orders) in my kitchen for the future orders when they'll forget to give me sauce.

The Lyft driver that I had last night who had me a little scared, and questioning whether or not I should just get out of her car and wait a long-ass time for a different driver instead? Her driving was awful, and at the red light someone even asked her "Um...are you okay to be driving?"

 

[Dan Epstein]

The worst experience I ever had was at the unemployment office due to Covid. I was facing a bunch of ignorants yelling at people. Luckily I’m not unemployed (at the moment at least). Somehow government offices hire the least capable people and give them tenure.