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A word to the wise: Never get your website put in redemption. I don’t know if it’s me, or the domain company (who shall remain nameless), or just all-around bad luck, but my dawnhalliday.com website has been offline for almost a month now. This is not for lack of me trying to get it back up. But every time I call my domain company in an attempt to get it back online, this is their response, “Oh, you need to do xxx, and then wait for another three days and then we’ll get it back up for you.” I follow directions. I do xxx, and then I call back in the prescribed time. And what am I told? “Oh, you need to do yyy, and then wait another 24 hours…”
(((SCREAM!!!)))
I’m tired of calling them, and I’m tired of this roundabout response, and I’m tired of being misled! It’s making me crazy. Today I was transferred back and forth between four different departments with this company, and I was shaking with frustration from head to foot by the time it was over. I’ve been on the phone with them for two hours total today. Verdict: I have to wait another five days.
What can I do? Nothing, unless I want to come up with a new domain name.
Sigh. Sooo frustrating.
Since Dawn is “gone” for the time being, I’m going to be giving away some of her books here on my blog. Just respond to this blog with a “bad customer service” tale of your own for a chance to win one of the following books (your choice while supplies last):
Highland Obsession by Dawn Halliday (verrry spicy historical)
10 Days in Paradise by Dawn Halliday (spicy contemporary)
Sins of Summer by Dawn Halliday, Marie Harte, Mackenzie McKade, and Annmarie McKenna (verrry spicy contemporary)
I’ll give away 5 books in total in the next few days! So please let me know your horrible, foot-stomping customer service stories–I really want to hear I’m not alone here. LOL.
February 3rd, 2010 at 7:54 pm · Link
My cell phone broke down -I had never gotten it wet and it wasn’t at all damaged, but when I made phone calls, all I got was static. I don’t have a landline in my dorm, so I couldn’t call the cell phone insurance company, Asurion, or Verizon to get it resolved. I took my phone into the local store -no results. I was in there 3 times over the next two days trying various things, and then using their phone to call Verizon’s corporate office, who referred me to Asurion.
Asurion’s representatives, over the course of the next 4 days, referred to me as Billy Perkins, Hayley, Harry and Kayley and asked me if my father’s name is Jim Richardson. My name is Bailey Shoemaker Richards, and my dad’s name is James. In the midst of their total inability to identify me correctly, I was hung up on no less than 7 times (each time having to repeat a 10-minute process of buttons, transfers to other departments, etc.) until I got someone who said he could help me.
He couldn’t. He “ran some tests” on my phone (meaning he called it and hung up every time I answered) and determined that nothing was wrong with it, despite the fact that I couldn’t hear him and he couldn’t hear me. I finally asked to speak to a supervisor about the situation, and talked to a woman who could be described, nicely, as a harpy. She refused to help me, and insisted that there was no one higher in the corporation than her to whom I could speak -and then hung up on me when I asked if she was the CEO or just lying.
At that point, my phone flat out died. Before that, I could at least send text messages and emails, which was nice.
Long story short, I had to go back to Verizon, use their phone for another 2 hour phone call and speak with another 3 people before someone agreed to replace my phone. It took 11 days and 19 hours of phone calls to get them to ship out a new phone…which they sent to the wrong address.
You are definitely not alone. 🙂
February 3rd, 2010 at 8:25 pm · Link
I recently bought a new house and it is what like an act of congress. I had to give them my whole life and my parents life story, because my father gave me some money for Christmas and it was not a lot. They asked to see his bank records to see if he could afford to give me the money. I told them to take a flying leap and went to another lender, but it was the same song and dance.
I got my house and it’s big and beautiful, but the mafia was probably the lender, because of everything I had to go through.
There was a three hundred dollar discrepancy on my final paperwork and when I asked the lender at closing, “he was on the phone,” I said where did this come from and he said, “I don’t know.” I said, “but you told me and he stopped me dead and said, I know I can add.” Extremely room and I think that if he had been there my husband would have jerked him across the table and made him apologize.
But, I believe in karma and what goes around comes around.
February 3rd, 2010 at 9:47 pm · Link
I don’t have any recent stories about bad phone customer service, but I do have a story about going to a restaurant recently.
My author friend and I have a Mexican restaurant that we like to go to because it’s fairly inexpensive and has good food. We were hanging out with her sister, T, and T’s young son. We all got hungry & couldn’t think of what to eat. Mexican was our first choice, but they didn’t want to go to a restaurant no one had ever been before. So, we drove from Burbank to West Hollywood on a Saturday night to go to this restaurant.
First, it was super crowded, but we were able to get a table. We got our menus and when the waitress came around, she took my order, my friend’s and T’s but she never asked us if the son wanted food (even though we’d been given a children’s menu and 3 adult menus). It took forever for the waitress to come back with our water. I tried to waive down another waiter who’d first brought our menus, but he would never look back at our table. He was mainly paying attention to the men’s tables.
Finally, the waitress comes and brings the salads and soups that go with our meal, but she kind of threw my salad down and she gave the other two their soups. She didn’t refill our waters.
Probably 15 minutes or so, maybe more, goes by and we don’t have our food. Our waitress hasn’t refilled our drinks and no one will look over at our table even when coming close by. Eventually, she comes with the food and gives me and my friend our meals, but she doesn’t take away the salad and soup bowls, she shoves them aside and stacks the plates down on an already full table. She didn’t bring out T’s taco, and says it will be out later.
So, we’re all eating and eating and time is passing and passing and there is no taco. We try to get the attention of the waitress (which is no easy feat). Eventually, we get her and tell her there was no taco. She looked as if it wasn’t her job to bring the taco–the kitchen should have done it.
Eventually, we get the taco (our water was never refilled once nor were we asked about desserts or coffee or other drinks).
Now, my friend and I eaten at this restaurant several times and gotten nothing but good service and I’ve even had above and beyond service here. We felt terrible. The waitress basically kept messing up on T’s order and threw our food at us.
We finally decide that we should mention it to a manager because the service was so horrendous. Luckily, the manager took care of everything, but my friend’s sister will never step foot in there again, even though the food was good.
February 4th, 2010 at 3:36 am · Link
Hi Jennifer, mine is a bit of a reverse customer-service story as I work in customer service/at a book and gifts store. I do try to be helpful and approach customers as they enter the store. Two ladies walked in together, and in response to my offer of assistance, one of them replied: “no thanks, I never buy anything from here” which startled me a bit – I thought she could have just ended at the “no thanks” but that’s just my opinion! Feeling for you though. Hope it works out sooner than (even more) later 😛
February 4th, 2010 at 7:52 am · Link
I went to a nice clothing store and picked out a pretty sweater and a pair of pants to wear over the Holidays. I hate to shop so this was a grueling experience for me. The sweater was marked down and I loved it. I took it to the checkout and the sales clerk refused to sell it to me at the sale price . She said it was miss marked. I should have called for the manager but I just walked out. I’m still mad and I refuse to go back there ever again.
February 4th, 2010 at 8:29 am · Link
Jennifer,
That is horrible! I can’t believe it’s been a month and is still not resolved.
My current frustration is with a telemarketing company. My phone number is on the do not call list, but this particular company believes they are immune. The call sometimes several times a day, and when you talk to them and tell you to take them off their calling list, they hang up on you. One time I pretended to be interested just so I could find out who the company was and try to get a phone number to turn into the attorney generals office in my state and he wouldn’t give me the company name, and after we hung up I tried to call the number back and it was an invalid #. I do have caller id, but sometimes is comes up as private caller, so you can’t have the number, and other times it comes up as a cell phone call that once you hang up lists it as 000-000-0000.
It is extremely frustrating and I have never met more rude people than the ones that are harassing me. I finally got one number and tried to do a reverse look-up online and found that this particular company actually curses people when they ask to be removed from their lists, then they refuse to do so. It’s not a collection agency, it’s a telemarketer and it seems they can’t be stopped. So I feel for you. I can’t seem to resolve this issue, much like you can’t seem to resolve yours.
February 4th, 2010 at 9:02 am · Link
I’m not going to enter but wanted to give you my sympathies for the difficult time you’ve been having. What an unhelpful way to be treated! I hope things do get better. I hope you send a scathing complaint letter.
February 4th, 2010 at 11:04 am · Link
I had a run in with Directv years ago when we first had it installed. I can’t even remember all the details, but suffice it to say I got passed around from customer service person to customer service person. Finally after days of calling and struggling I got a supervisor who ultimately sorted it out. But I literally had to tear them a new a$$hole to get them to even try. It was CRAZY! Iwas so mad I wrote a letter to the president of the company and complained. As a result, I got 3 months of free service. 😛
I think the bottom line is, you don’t always have to be rude about it, but the squeaky wheel get’s the oil. 😉
February 4th, 2010 at 11:58 am · Link
OMG! Those are some crazy stories. Bailey, I seriously think I would have been banging my head repeatedly against the wall if that had happened to me! Just reading that story raised my blood pressure!
Viv, wow! I wonder what that waitress’s problem was? Seriously, maybe she had just been dumped by her boyfriend or something. I can’t really blame your friend for not wanting to go back there!
Allison, what an incredibly rude customer. Sounds like a total snob!
Laurie, clearly that salesperson never heard the saying, “The customer is always right.” Grrr. I wouldn’t shop there either!
Booklover, OMGosh, nothing makes me crazier than pushy telemarketers. They are the absolute worst! A few years ago, we changed our phone number because this one company would not stop bothering us.
Stacy, thanks so much for the sympathy! 🙂
Danielle, I had being transferred all over the place. Most irritating is having to repeat your situation again and again…and again. Grrrr. Glad you got the 3 months free, though–after that, you deserved it!
February 4th, 2010 at 12:01 pm · Link
Winner! Okay, I’ve decided to pick one winner today and once I hear from her on her choice of books, then I’ll pick another, etc etc until all five are picked.
I went to random.org and it picked post #5! So Laurie is the first winner! Please email me, Laurie, with your first choice from the three books listed.
Thanks for your stories, everyone! They actually made me feel much better (and a lot of sympathy for you guys, too!).
February 4th, 2010 at 1:04 pm · Link
We recently signed up for a 2 year package with our cable provider. We had a month to try it before it was locked in. We received our bill and were shocked (ok not really) to see that it was higher than quoted. So we called to disconnect, before we got stuck with it. So after a 30 minute argument with the customer service rep my husband got the service switched back to our previous plan. Or so we thought. Last week we got a cable bill of $280.00 (includes phone, internet and tv). It should have been $150.00. When we looked further we saw that they had also charged our CC for the $185.00 (2 year deal), even after we had canceled. Then proceeded to remove all of the discounts on all services. Apparently the rep thought we want to keep the deal and pay more for it. It has been resolved now, after another hour of arguing, at least I hope it has been.
February 4th, 2010 at 2:01 pm · Link
My story is regarding our satellite provider. We had one of our tvs lose reception so we called the satellite provider and they said they would send someone out in a week and that they were swamped at the moment and couldn’t come any sooner. The repairman comes says that it is the receiver and he orders another one. I get two in the mail. Neither works. We call again and it will be two more weeks before a repairman can come. Then, I start getting threatening calls regarding my defective receiver and the extra receiver that says I will be charged a huge fee if I don’t mail them back within 5 days. Second repairman comes and tells us that the dish needs to be repair before new receiver will work. It will cost 250 if he calls in what is really wrong with the dish (which he shows my husband in his paperwork) but he will sell us the part for 40 cash and replace the part on his truck and tell them it was something else that is covered by the plan we have. After not having tv for almost a month we buy the part from him and he fixes it. Now we know that if something goes wrong with the satellite to work on it ourselves first before calling customer service.
February 4th, 2010 at 2:02 pm · Link
Dawn, hope things gets back to normal with your site. That must be terrible as I know I get very upset when things goes wrong with ours. susan L. Thanks for friends who will share with you.
February 4th, 2010 at 2:41 pm · Link
We were having trouble with our wall heater and after three trips from the repair man it still would not work right. We finally called the company and got just a bit demanding and they sent another repair man who fixed it. Now here’s the low down….All he did was ask for a drinking straw..he blew around the pilot light and it was fixed. Such a simple deal but no one knew that secret. susan L.
February 4th, 2010 at 8:32 pm · Link
our TV wasn’t working right and still on warranty; the store said to send it to this repair company or take it ourselves; we took it for the 3 1/2 hr. drive to the repair shop.
Phone call after phone call and no one seemed to know what was going on. Neither the repair shop or the head company who made the TV’s. We even talked to the local store manager of the Electronics dept. and he said if it isn’t resolved within so much time call again. Dh did that very thing after a 8-9 month waiting extravaganze(lol). The manager then called us back and said “just come in and we’ll give you another TV b/c I don’t know what is going on”. Yay!! Thank you.
February 5th, 2010 at 1:24 pm · Link
I was a member at Literary Guild. It was time for me to pay off the contract but there was no books I wanted at the time. So I paid the contract (which was 6 books) and have had a credit with them since. But since I had paid off the contract, they cancelled my online account. I can’t access the site anymore to see what books are available. So, I have a credit that I can’t use! I’ve tried emailing and it’s like they are deliberately misunderstanding the problem. They answer by telling me to look at a different site to see the books available. Well, that site shows a variety of books clubs and some will let you access their available books. However, Literary Guild does not so I’m back to where I started. This has been going on for about 8 months and about 15 different emails.
February 5th, 2010 at 2:01 pm · Link
Well, I had a bad experience with Polaroid recently. The camera I got worked fine, nothing wrong with that, but the software that was supposed enable me to get the pictures from the camera to my computer didn’t. They don’t seem to be into answering their e-mails. If this is their idea of customer service, they can keep their cameras.
February 5th, 2010 at 3:49 pm · Link
It seems whenever I get bad customer service its always been retail clothing. I hate to try things on at a store so I try to choose as wise as possible. Well, when I tried to return a pair of jeans that quite didn’t look right, the gal at the counter said I could only get credit for it because it was on sale! No money back. I needed at least 2 weeks to get calm enough to go back and recoup my money/credit. Needless to say I never returned after getting satisfaction finally.
February 5th, 2010 at 10:29 pm · Link
My frustration and bad customer service is currently happening. I purchased my laptop 4/14/08 from Office Max. I also purchased an extended 3 year warrenty at the same time. October of 2009 the fan stopped making noise, the computer would get hot, one of the shift keys stopped working, and it would freeze up or I would get the clue screen of death.
I contacted Office Max and sent it off to be fixed. I received it back in about a week and they said the fan was working fine, they replaced the keyboard and it passed the 24 test. They said all the other problems are software related and the warrenty doesn’tcover that.
Since I’ve gotten it back it still freezes, I still get the blue screen of death or it fades to black. I’ve had to reformat it twice and it makes funny clicking sounds at times. I’ve updated all the drivers as well, and I have less software on it now then before.
Everything I’ve read says it’s the hard drive. I’ve contacted Office Max warrenty department and have left three different messages with my number to call me back. They have yet to return and every time I call I get the same message that I’m number one in line and they’ll be with me shortly. Thirty minutes later I’m still getting the same message. I still have 14 months left on my warrenty and no one will honor it.
OH, it took me three times to be able to post this response…GURRRR!!!!!
February 6th, 2010 at 1:38 pm · Link
I have had some of the same problem as the people above. Satelite companies are read bad, every time we have a receiver go out they will send another but it want work either. One time they sent us three different receivers and none of them would work.When we first had it put in the guy putting it in said it had to go on the roof or we would have problems with it, we had always put one on a tower we had but this system just had to go on the roof so he said. We didn’t want it on the roof but he put it there anyways and every time it rained it would go out. Finally a year later after replacing two receivers they sent someone out and the thing wasn’t lined up right to the satelites, oh but it just had to go on the roof to come in. We were so mad, because now we have holes in a new roof.
Another thing is the phone company I hate to ever go there. I have been disconnected on a service call there. Every time you call them your on the phone for at least an hour then by the time the end the call you have a lot of extra crap added to you phone that you didn’t want and your bill goes up and then your calling them again to find out why all this extra crap in on there and why your bill has went up. Then they take the crap off and add more crap and the cycle goes on and on.
February 6th, 2010 at 4:02 pm · Link
Robin and Crystal–gosh! I don’t understand why cable/satellite provider have to be so difficult to deal with! We’ve had issues with ours too.
Susan, there’s nothing like spending tons of time and energy trying to figure out something as simple as blowing a straw around a pilot light!
Robyn, omgosh, I think you deserved a new tv after waiting that long! Geesh!
February 6th, 2010 at 5:32 pm · Link
Lisa, Oh my gosh–that is beyond annoying. I would be furious! They owe you!
Minna, I agree–I wouldn’t want a Polaroid after that, either.
Armenia, I’ve noticed retail stores are doing that more and more recently. It stinks!
Terry, argh. So sorry about your computer issues–that does really stink, especially since you’re on warranty still. I’ll remember that about Office Max. 😛 It’s also a reminder to back up my files. And so sorry it took you three times to post–ugh. I know how frustrating that can be.
Quilt Lady, I am with you about satellite companies. And so true about the phone company–why can’t these places just hire competent people who can help with issues right away?
February 6th, 2010 at 5:34 pm · Link
The second winner, per random.org, was Robin K. Thanks so much, everyone–you’re all still in! I’ll try to post another one tomorrow! And congrats, Robin!
February 7th, 2010 at 6:25 am · Link
Thank You Jennifer! I’ll e-mail you right away
I’ve been working 10-8 PM. It doesn’t allow me a lot of time for blogging.
February 7th, 2010 at 8:44 am · Link
I thought I left a comment, but dont see it…
What horror stories. I know I have had some, but cant pull any out of my head right now. The worst I guess is getting help from my health insurance carrier – they have you on hold forever and then keep transferring you to someone else.
February 9th, 2010 at 5:12 pm · Link
Pat, I always kind of go blank when people ask me questions like that–like “what’s your most embarrassing moment?” Um…I forgot. Probably deliberately! But it is so annoying to keep being transferred from department to department when you want to talk on the phone!
The third and fourth winners: Lisa F (post 16) and Quilt Lady! Congrats to both of you! I’ll drop you both an email. I’ll post the last winner tomorrow (Wednesday).
Thanks again for your responses everyone!
February 9th, 2010 at 8:29 pm · Link
Oh great! Thanks so much – I’ll wait for your email.
February 11th, 2010 at 12:04 pm · Link
The final winner is Terry F, post #19. Thanks so much for your comments, everyone! They were fun to read and definitely made me feel less alone! ((hugs))