Druff's Customer Service Hall of Shame

[Dan Druff]

As I have dealt with a lot of incompetent employees and poorly run companies in my half century plus on this earth, there are a lot of candidates for this.

However, in order to make the Druff's Customer Service Hall of Shame, the following criteria must be met:

- Egregious billing issue or other fail where I was 100% in the right the entire way

- More than 10 hours must have been spent attempting to resolve it

- More than 1 month must have passed in between attempting to resolve the problem and finally fixing it (or giving up)

- The implications for not resolving it must be a loss of at least $150

- Situation had to appear completely hopeless at some point


While there were some more offensive situations than the ones listed below, they were resolved (or given up on) in less than 10 hours / 1 month, or the amount of money involved was under $150.

These will be listed in no particular order.

[Nikki]

Tomatoes on the side

[Dan Druff]

Company: Verizon FIOS (not cellular)

Year: 2011

Time wasted: 20 hours

Months to resolve: 3

Amount lost if unresolved: About $80/month for 24 months

Description:

I signed up for a promo advertised on billboards all over LA, regarding a Verizon FIOS "triple play" deal, giving you TV, home phone, and internet. It was a great deal at the time, and very publicly advertised for months.

I did it through the Verizon website. After hitting submit, I fortunately had the foresight to take a screen shot of the plan details and price, as I had a weird feeling there might be fail.

Sure enough, I got my first bill, and it was MUCH higher than promised. I called to correct this, believing it would be quickly resolved, as it was a very public promotion, which just concluded weeks prior. Surely all employees had to be aware of it, right? And I had a screen shot of the promised deal!

Nope!

Every call to resolve it was worse than the next. Some employees denied this promotion ever existed. Some conceded it did, but said I must have signed up for the wrong thing. Some seemed very helpful and believed me, and told me to hold on, and I'd find myself disconnected after about 15 minutes of hold time (presumably when they saw it was non-trivial to fix). Some told me I had to speak to the "internet promotions department", and when I tried that, I was told they only handle direct sales, and cannot adjust existing accounts. I even got a few reps who conceded I was probably right, but told me there was "no way to fix it at this point".

The most tilting ones were the people telling me I was wrong, but also refusing to look at my screen shot.

Could I just leave Verizon and move to the cable company? Nope! I was on a 24-month contract, and would have to pay a $300 penalty to terminate it.

I also noticed that calling between 5-6pm PST was a mistake, as I would often get "accidentally disconnected" when the clock struck 6, which happened to coincide with when these afternoon employees no longer had to take customer service calls.

I felt completely helpless here, and wasn't getting anyone to budge, nor was I finding anyone even close to competent enough to fix this.

Calling the retentions department was even worse, as it was staffed with people even dumber than the main customer service reps.

Finally, I decided to call another department -- I forget which one -- and plead my case. I got a manger on the phone and begged them to find someone who could help me. It worked. They got me over to an intelligent manager based in Pittsburgh.

She looked at the account and couldn't believe what she saw. Literally 20 or so hours of logged phone calls about the matter, none resolved, none escalated, and all with notes basically backing up what I said -- that everyone was either unable or unwilling to help me.

"This looks like a complete nightmare, I'm so sorry," she told me.

She also explained that the ridiculously expensive plan I was erroneously forced into didn't even exist online anymore. "Someone should have noticed that," she said. "This plan isn't on our website, it hasn't been on our website in a long time. Nobody is on something like this who's a new customer. I am very surprised nobody was able to see this was an error."

She also noticed that a lot of employees refused escalation because they were (incorrectly) sure I was wrong, or wrote notes like "customer is confused about billing, educated customer on how bill breaks down", which she knew was just them attempting to avoid doing their jobs and looking into something nonstandard.

"I can only imagine how you felt making this many calls and getting nowhere. I'm embarrassed for our company," she said. "This isn't even very hard to fix. If you don't mind holding, I will get all of this right."

She put me on hold, and 15 minutes later, came back and promised it was resolved. She gave me her direct extension in case I had further problems. I then asked what they could do for me now that it was proven I was right all along, and wasted 20 hours on the phone resolving it, over a period of 3 months.


"I see you have a balance of about $320 right now after adjusting off the overcharges," she said. I replied that I was paying the minimum to keep the service from being disconnected while we were resolving this. "Well, I'm wiping it. I'm removing it all. That's the least we can do. And you know what? I'm going to put another $150 on there, so you'll see that credit on your next bill. Again, I am so sorry, and I think it should be fixed now."

It was, and I saved $470. Not at all worth it, though.

[Dan Druff]

Company: AT&T

Year: 2015-16

Time wasted: 12 hours

Months to resolve: 5

Amount lost if unresolved: $600

Description:

Usually I hate cell phone trade-ins, but there was a great deal on new iPhones, where certain old models traded in would get you $600 off a new iPhone. Unfortuantely, I only heard about this late at night on September 29th. The promo expired at close of business on September 30th, so I had one day to get this done.

I was busy that day but was able to find time at about 8pm to go down there on September 30th.



At first it seemed standard. There was an hour left before they closed, so I wasn't showing up at the last second. First they had all kinds of problems getting the promo to "take" on my account, for reasons they couldn't understand. They kept calling their help desk, but weren't getting any coherent answers.

Finally, I was told that they forced it through, and I would be getting the $600. However, that $600 would show up on my bill as credits against a charge for the phone, broken down over 24 months. It would also take 2 months for the credits to start appearing on my bill.

I felt uneasy about this, as I wouldn't know if fail occurred until 2 months later -- and they'd already have my old phone!

However, I had no choice other than just walking out and giving up on this, and I really did want a new phone for $600 off.

Well, as you might guess, it didn't actually take.

Much like the Verizon FIOS thing above, every employee I called was clueless, and denied the $600 deal ever existed. I had no paperwork proving that I had the $600 off, as they couldn't provide me any at the store.

I tried every department at customer service that I could, but each and every one of them gave me a more ridiculous answer than the next. Remember, I was not only out the promised $600, but they also had my old phone which I could no longer get back!

The worst call I had involved my question of why I wasn't getting ANY kind of credit if I supposedly traded in my phone. "You denied I'm getting $600, but I haven't gotten a penny. Why would I trade in my phone to get $0?" She responded, "You didn't get nothing. You got the privilege of breaking up the payment over 24 months."

Terrible.

I felt helpless. No matter who I reached, no matter how much I escalated, no matter which department I called, I hit the same brick wall.

Finally, I thought, "Why not go down to the store where it happened?" I did, and the manager sympathized with me, and said he'd look into it. I got a call about a week later from him with the good news. "You were right. I'm having the $600 credited."

Done?

Of course not.

I had to wait two months for the credit to show up. Nothing.

I called back and told him. "That's weird," he said. "I know I submitted it. Let me look into it." Then he forgot to call me back. Then I finally reached him, and he told me that his adjustment got rejected by the national office. "I'll get my boss, the district manager to do it," he said.

Then two months passed, and once again, no credit. I called back and once again raised issue. "This is so strange. Let me talk to my district manager and ask what happened."

He called me back and said that the district manager had it rejected, but that the head of all AT&T stores in LA would put it through. Well, that certainly has to be the end of the story, right?

Nope!

I got a call back about 2 weeks later. "This is really frustrating for all of us," the store manager said. "My boss, and his boss both got rejected by the national center. I can't believe it. The head of all AT&T stores in Los Angeles County had his credit to you overruled. We're going to see what we can do here. I am so sorry about this."

About a week after that, I got a call. "Okay, it should be done. It had to go all the way up to the head of all AT&T stores in the southern California region. They rejected it for him too, but he had the pull to force it through anyway. In fact, he really gave it to them over there about rejecting his credits, as nobody in that national center has the authority to overrule him. I'm really sorry it took this long. And we're not doing the monthly credit thing. We just dropped two $600 credits on your bill, one to fix the issue, the other for all the trouble."

I was told that the problem occurred because it was processed after 9pm PDT, which was after 12am on the east coast, which was on October 1 when the promo had expired. He had no excuses why this was so difficult to fix.

I thanked him, and indeed $1200 credit was on my bill -- $600 which was owed to me, the other $600 which was a gift. Not worth it, but at least the nightmare was over.

[Dan Druff]

I'll post more later.

[desertrunner]

Tomatoes on the side

Doesn’t meet the criteria in post #1, correct?

[Cerveza Fria]

Hey Gringo, should you really shaming others on Yom Kippur? Get to Shul and repent for your sins.

[Sloppy Joe]

Great way to celebrate Yom Kippur.

[tyde]

Great way to celebrate Yom Kippur.

your slugging % lately has been off the charts

[Dan Druff]

Great way to celebrate Yom Kippur.

This way I don't eat

[lol wow]

guess what couldnt be an arbys TIP TO TAIL NOSE TO SNOUT WE FEED YOU WEIRD MEAT THE ARBYS WAY BUT ALSO ELITE CUSTOMER SERVICE

[lol wow]

oh are your fries not curly enough literally will have sonatine on the floor curling them for you is that gross guess what youre wrong hes wearing gloves

[FRANKRIZZO]

My favs where car tow away and the CU tomorrow sir

[NickyPipes]

Brother what does your wife think of this behavior?

One time I spent a few hours on the phone with comcast over a minor billing error when I was broke and it was one of the most frustrating experiences of my life. I understand it’s designed that way

Brother the girl I was with when I did this told me I was being a loser and the money wasn’t worth it