I got a call yesterday. Now normally a phone call is a good thing, or at least it should be. This one however came from a computerized telemarketer. They are the worst. The computer told me that I had to act quickly in order to extend the warranty on my vehicle. The computer gave me two choices, one to talk too an agent or two too be removed from their list. Since I have received several of these calls before and hitting two didn’t seem to help, I pressed one.
A person who called himself Steve came on the line and asked me for the year and model of my car. I in turn asked him for the name of his company. He immediately replied “nunya”. I told him he wasn’t being funny before he had the chance to complete his “nunya business” joke but he went ahead and did it anyway insulting me in the process. He then called me names, while I tried again to pry the name of the company or its location out of him. He then said “my job sucks” and hung up on me.
This was at 5:55 pm last night and I immediately tried to call Qwest to see if there was anything that could be done to identify, block or reprimand said caller. After all we are registered with the “Do Not Call” registry for just this reason.
The Qwest phone was answered by a computer. Computers have no business being on or near phones. Computers don’t understand English even though they pretend to be bilingual. After 15 minutes of convincing the computer that I wanted to talk to a human I was finally put through to customer service, or that is I would have been if they were open having just closed at 6:00 pm. Remember that I started this call for assistance minutes before the closure but got tangled up with a computer.
I tried again as I was furious with the rude caller and now with the lack of service rubbing salt in the wound I was determined to find a solution. I recalled from the previous attempt that one of the selection items was for technical support and it was offered 24/7. Another round of confused computer got me to a human. He unfortunately worked the internet issues but Ryan was at least kind enough to try and help me with the problem. He put me on hold while he tried to find someone that could help.
Warning, for a telephone company Qwest has the absolute worst hold recordings. It is one annoying voice that repeats over and over the same Qwest advertisements to you trying to convince you to sign up for more of their products. No musical interlude, no real variety, just the same lame 6 sentence script repeated over and over and over.
Ryan came back on and told me that he also found the customer service department closed but gave me their number again and the hours of operation and wished me well. 30 minutes later and still no results.
Later that night, 8:12 pm to be exact, the phone rings again and the same computer with the same automotive warranty offer is calling me. Again I press 1 determined to find out who is dumb enough to try this yet again. If it is Steve, he is about to get an ear full.
This time it is Jennifer with the same opening question of what is the year and model of your car. I reply in a kind voice, “Jennifer what is the name of your company”? Without as much as a sigh she hangs up the phone on me. Cold dead silence. No I really want to do something. This shouldn’t happen to me and it shouldn’t happen to anyone I know and it shouldn’t happen to anyone I don’t know. This company does not deserve to exist.
Today I try again to take action. I call Qwest. Again the computer answers, it still doesn’t speak my language but it finally puts me through to someone that does. This does not help. It turns out that they do not have access to my records and cannot tell me who called. They would have to have a court order to access them. I was also told that they do not keep those records. They offered this solution, hit *57 immediately after to start a trace. They will then charge me a fee, $1.85 in this state, to run the trace if it is successful and no charge if it is not. She also told me that the chances of it working were not good. She then offered to sell me an upgraded package for the phone including caller id, caller block and some other nonsense that would double my phone bill. No thank you.
She then gave me the phone number for their annoyance department. I called that and guess who answered. After going the rounds with the computer yet again, I finally got to talk to a human. Much the same we can’t do anything about it, sorry, and have your tried our extra services along with their extra fees. She did tell me that this is happening a lot and that the government is aware of the problem. She ended by giving me the number for the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) and the states attorney general.
I looked up the attorney general on the web and after perusing their site I found nothing that gave me any confidence that they would actually do anything about this problem. They do have a buyer beware list posted but it mainly is a list of business they have fined over the past couple of years over technicalities. And like any good government agency I am sure that they kept the fine for themselves and the defrauded consumers get nothing. I never will understand that.
I then went ahead and called the FTC and talked to someone that took the information for a complaint and sounds like they will send me a form to fill out. I at least got a reference number. She relayed the fact that there are a lot of automotive warranty scams going on right now. I told her the timing was right as I had just gotten the African e-mail scam yesterday (you can see it in one of my other post).
So I still don’t have a solution, and I am still pretty miffed. If the government knows about this why aren’t they actively pursuing the criminal activity and bringing justice to bear? If we can have a war on terrorism, why can’t we have a war on fraud? Why is it we spend more resources picking on people that disagree with archaic asinine speed limits that serve no other purpose than controlling the general public, than we do to track down and put an end to people that willingly and knowingly commit theft through fraud and abuse? What these people are doing is no accident, it is deliberate and intentional. They should be held accountable.
I know I get easily flustered by this and it makes me far more upset than I should allow, but when our government that is meant to protect us from just this kind of thing, does not live up to its responsibilities at the high costs we pay, maybe it is time to start cutting back. Quit expecting everything from our government but at the same quite paying everything for it as well.
And what about Qwest? You would think that a company that brags about its customer service over and over and over would take a little more active role in resolving those that would abuse the telephone services of their customers. You would think that they would work more strongly at ensuring their customers had a worthwhile and satisfying experience with the use of their product. Of course, I would like to see the internet community ban together and eliminate the spammers, or at least put a big hurt on.
Am I expecting too much? Yes, and No. I do expect better. Especially when better is so easy to identify and better is so simple to do. But if it was so simple wouldn’t they be doing it? Some do, and some don’t. Either way, I know that they could. And when expectations are not met for whatever reason, disappointment comes in and the business/consumer relationship is strained. Therein lays the problem and also the opportunity. Businesses that continue to disappoint their consumers will eventually find that another business will come along that is willing to fulfill their consumers’ expectations. Those consumers will no longer be their consumers. The same applies to governments.
Changes take time but they do happen. Let’s keep our expectations high and our outlook for the better. We don’t always have to accept as we look for what we expect.
This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farr West.
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