They haven’t always been titled exactly that way. but the first “The Unabomber Was Right” post went up in 2017, and there have been nine since, with the most recent being here, in January. Today, however, I experienced an all-time classic.
Getting up earlier than usual, and waiting for my coffee to cool, I tuned in DirecTV channel 71 as I have been doing for, oh, 30 years or so. That channel is “News Mix”, which allows me to see sxi screens: CNN, Fox News, MSNow, BBC America, and two weather channels. To my surprise, the screen said the channel was not available, because I did not subscribe to it. Even more perplexing was the language of a second screen that popped up. “Newsmix is blocked. Our search for another channel does not indicate that your selection is available.”
Now that is the notice I get from DirecTV when a baseball game is blacked out because of regional restrictions. The news is blocked? Were we conquered by Iran overnight? I tried everything. Shutting down the TV. Disconnecting the satellite box. I kept getting those alternating screens.
So with a huge sigh of resignation, I realized that I was about to enter, once again, “The Customer Service Zone”:
“You unlock this door with a futile key of naive expectations. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of annoying AI bots, a dimension of infuriating repetition, a dimension of incompetence. You’re moving into a land of both impenetrable accents and ineptitude, of scripts, disconnections and ass-covering. You’ve just crossed over into… “The Customer Service Zone”!
DirecTV has a new, perky, sexy female voiced AI, but after I gave her all the information I asked for, she handed me over to the old AI, which asked me exactly the same questions I had just answered. I was told three times that the conversation might be recorded, so maybe someone will hear my shouts into the phone of “I already answered that!” and “And I answered that already too!”
Ethics Alarms 
Most customer “service” departments no longer have anything to do with providing real service to customers, they are there to pacify and end the call as fast as they can. This is the kind of customer service that I got from any company I did business with that was in California for 30 years and it has spread like Ebola.
You have two choices. Take what they give you, or stop paying them to give it to you. They only understand one thing: money come in / not come in.
There is a reason I hold on to my husband – he handles calls like this. You and he are so nice. I’m pretty sure I would have resorted to some fairly un-lady-like language. Hope this gets straightened out for you.
I just hung up after ten minutes’ after being in Customer serivce for American Express hell. They congrtulated me on being over 50, offered me a;free medicalalert bracelet, medicare plus plans, and somethng else. I was trying to contact them concerning their website which has been “temprarily not in service” for over two months.
Three diiferrent bot voices, I didn’t even get to any Indo-asian mumblers, who I alsways look forward to asking”What did you say” of “Can up repeat that slowly? ” repeatedly, self blaming my hearing deficit.
I see your DirectTV and raise you one Facebook stupidity. Check this out:
I joined Facebook back when it became the replacement for MySpace. My profile name has always remained the same. But, about two years ago, I noticed that the algorithms changed with Facebook becoming more of an ad-driven page than content driven, so I lost interest in the website.
Well, in February I received a Facebook message that my profile had been updated and the changes were set. “Funny,” I thought, “I haven’t been on the site in weeks and I certainly did not change my profile. What gives?” I also received a text from a friend asking if I changed my profile name. Well, I checked. Someone hacked my account, changed my profile name to “Jameone Johnson.” Odd. Who is “Jameone Johnson”? So, I went to change my password, my profile name, and updated contact information. Well, Facebook declared that I could not make those changes because I recently made changes. Facebook also stated that I was denied access to Facebook Marketplace because of complaints received about my activity (remember – I have not bought or sold anything on FB Marketplace).
So, I contacted FB to resolve the issue. I spent thirty minutes with the FB AI bot, it resolved nothing. I had to wait 60 days to change everything. It was a massive waste of time.
jvb
Oh, and check this:
About six or eight months ago, my law firm received an unemployment claim, filed by me claiming that I had been wrongfully terminated as an employee. News to the firm, and oddly, news to me, too. So, I called the Texas Workforce Commission to see what happened. The claim had my name, SS#, firm, firm address, but a different residence address. I talked to a Workforce representative to figure out what was going on. She was helpful and courteous, acknowledging that these types of claims get filed all the time. She denied the claim and closed the file.
But, when I asked more about the claim, who the claimant was, what address, etc., she told she could not discuss it with me, citing privacy concerns of the claimant. “What? The claim is filed in my name, against my employer, with my SS#. How are there privacy concerns with the claimant, who would technically be . . . erm . . . me?” She said, “well, it’s because we are concerned that if we give out that kind of information, someone – not necessarily you because you seem like a decent fellow – but someone not so reasonable might hunt down the fraudulent claimant and beat him or her to a pulp.” “Oh,” I said, “That kind of makes sense . . .”
jvb
Ray of hope –
I had occasion to call the Shutterfly customer service line. While there was a bot, I quickly asked for an agent, was referred immediately, and though she could not fix my problem, was otherwise helpful, friendly, intelligible and courteous. She also is referring my feedback to the tech department. New editing software has a few glitches, but the company is being very helpful and responsive.
Perhaps other companies can look to Shutterfly for inspiration.
For a lot of dealings with the IRS, you need to set up an account on irs.gov.
For a lot of people this is not a major problem. You do need to set up an account with id.me to verify your identity, which involves taking a picture of your driver’s license and a selfie. Again, lots of people have no problem doing this, although it can be a little daunting if one has no idea how to use their cell phone.
However, I recently was trying to help someone set up their id.me account — we did everything it asked, but it was to no avail. Everything would be good up until the end, and the app said ‘Something went wrong. If it keeps happening try Customer Support’ or words to that effect.
id.me’s customer service is a maddening AI bot, that leads you around in circles and keeps giving the same suggestions (that you’ve already tried).
So, my next thought was to call them, even though it would likely involve being on hold an indeterminate amount of time.
Well, I did some research online. Then I did some more digging, looking at articles, reddit threads, websites, etc. As near as I can determine, id.me has no customer service phone number. There is no way I could figure out to call them — if anyone here knows a way, I’d be grateful.
So, finally, I told the guy his only other option was to talk to the IRS in person. I gave him the address and phone number of the local office. Apparently that worked, but he and I spent several hours trying to get this simple task done.