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Six little digits

Technology advancement is wonderful. Thanks to the relentless focus on data as a valuable commodity there are many means of maintaining contact with friends, family, coworkers, businesses and advertisers that are based on acknowledged relationships between parties. As a result, the majority of the communication I engage in does not involve a conventional phone call.

Consequently, it was with great joy and anticipation that I answered my phone recently only to be greeted with a voice wanting to offer me access to an amazing investment opportunity! What a frabjous day it was turning out to be!

Of course, my joy was entirely a function of the fun I thought I was going to have. My expectations were met in this regard – I was very amused. 

Give me your number

Scammy calls of this nature always have a predictable, boring structure. For the purposes of giving an example, we shall call the lying, vindictive belligerent party in this scenario Scott Morrison.

Scott: Hello! Is this Ultimate Arsehole? I am from Dodgy As All Fuck Fake Investments and I have an amazing, fantastic opportunity for you! We have many happy investors and are eager to share the details of their success with you and help you reach your financial goals quickly and without any risk. Would you be interested in us sending you more details on our products?

At this point, there are many ways one could respond to useless pricks like Scott. Some of my favourites include:

  • Really? What are my financial goals specifically?
  • Can you provide me with a link to the ATO ruling that covers your product?
  • What’s your company’s ABN? The form on ScamWatch won’t let me submit reports without that.
  • What is the Morning Star rating on your product?
  • I only invest in mud wrestling promotions and brothels for livestock
  • Are your expense ratios calculated before or after deducting time lost to management masturbating and them praying for forgiveness for masturbating?

As the person in question was calling from an Australian number and was in fact calling an Australian number, I decided to try out a well-worn shortcut so I could get back to perfecting my masturbating-whilst-investing technique. I simply asked, “What is your organisation’s AFSL number?”

Hilarity ensues!

At this point, “Scott” started making a series of statement about as coherent as an inexperienced teenager in a barrel of Vaselined eels. 

Scott: Yes, I am from Dodgy As All Fuck Fake Investments – DAAFFI

UA: That’s interesting, and not even remotely an answer to my question. What is your Australian Financial Services License number?

Scott: Yes, we provide investment services.

UA: This really isn’t that hard. You’re selling financial services, and to do so you need to possess an AFS License – I ask again, what is your AFSL number?

Scott: The numbers for returns on investment are only available to customers.

UA: I’m sorry, but do you have some difficulties with comprehension or basic English? I’ve asked a simple question, and you either need to give me the requested answer or admit that you’re engaging in a scam.

At this point, I really thought this person would cut their losses and go dial a bogan named Keith or Theo. How wrong and amused I was….

Scott: Our number is 612 8103 4313.

At this point, one should probably have two pieces of information:

  1. An AFSL number is generally 6 digits long.
  2. “61” is the Country Code for Australia as allocated by the ITU

I could scarcely believe it myself – Scott had somehow decided to give me a phone number to satisfy my request for actual credentials. At this point, I laughed so hard that one of my cats attacked one of my feet, the local neighbourhood nutter complained about the noise and I learned about the effect of mineral water and saliva on Razer’s green keyboard switches. Scott was not impressed by the remainder of my response:

UA: That’s a phone number. In fact, it’s the phone number that was presented before I answered this call. Do you have an AFSL number or not?

Scott: Our address is on Pitt Street in Sydney…

At this point, I decided that I was overdue for my third wank of the evening and decided to wrap this fuckery up.

UA: Again, that statement has precisely nothing to do with my question. Do you know that you’re participating in a scam Scott or are you a victim like the Keiths, Nigels and Teeshans that you spout this fuckery at? 

Scott: <click>

TL;DR: Scammer is asked for a license number – provides their phone number in response. Was amusing, would repeat.

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Your internet has been hacked!

How long I have waited! How long I have hoped for this wonderful day!

In the last 7 days, I received a phone call that commenced with the sultry tones of GlaDOS, assuming she’d decided to go out on a bender of nutmeg and kerosene:

This call is from Telstra.

Your IP has been been hacked and is compromised. You need a new IP and a new router, and this will be provided free of charge. Please press 1 to talk to our Senior Technician.

How could I refuse? I pressed 1 with extreme enthusiasm and proceeded to talk to a person who we shall call Percival as to protect their identity (apologies to all persons named Percival who aren’t actual pricks).

Speaking to Percival was interesting, in the same way that attempting to save a towel from being swallowed by one’s toilet is interesting.

Percival: “Hello, I be Senior Technician Percival. Are you a Telstra customer?”

UA: “You tell me Percival – which IP address did I last secure a lease on ?”

Percival:  “Yes, your IP has been hacked. Your internet has been hacked.”

UA: “I don’t have ‘an internet’. What does ‘IP’ stand for?”

Percival: “Sir, I need to access your PC so I can fix your internet.”

UA: “You were asked a very simple question – answer it or go bugger a goat. Or a cow. Or both. Perhaps you can upload the footage to ‘your internet’ so someone can scam your stupid arse when they claim that your ‘IP’ has been ‘hacked’. Also, ‘IP’ stands for ‘Ignorant Peon’ – when did you last wank whilst huffing perfume in a Chemist?”

Percival: “I will find you and KILL YOU! <click>”

Well, I seemingly upset poor Percival. So much so that his manager Clarence decided to call me and provide more amusement:

Clarence: Sir, my good name be Clarence. Your internet has been hacked! Percival need to help you!

UA: You are so full of shit you cry brown tears.

Clarence: You are a racist! We are legitimate business!

UA: Ok – what are the last 3 digits of my payment instrument used to fund my Telstra account? I know that those details are available to all sales and support personnel.

Clarence: Do be confirming your credit card number so I can be providing the detail.

UA: Err….no

Clarence: But sir, I must have the info for doing the needful.

UA: I like cheese. Please cease to exist. <click>

I tied up Clarence and Percival for about an hour, got a hold of their call origins and network arrangements, sent then on to various legal and commercial entities and hopefully made their lives somewhat harder.

I do hope they call back – their sobbing was quite unique.

 

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If you don’t ask…

Although I have precisely zero evidence to support such thinking, I am of the opinion that there is a reliance on customer apathy by many organisations when it comes to their customers. Specifically, I’m referring to organisations that impose undue difficulties on their customers when they need to have something addressed resulting in customers either not asking at all or giving up in frustration.

Here I present two somewhat-contrasting cases of what happens when one does ask.

Amazon.com

As I’m a hopeless geek, I had preordered the special edition of a very mature, culturally important video game that came with a collectible thingy. On the day of release, no shipping details were available so I wrote to the good people at Amazon to find out what was going on. The response I received can be summed up as follows:

  • We made a mistake managing our inventory
  • You’ll still definitely get the limited edition you ordered
  • We’ve upgraded the shipping on your order from 2 days to overnight at no cost
  • Here’s a $15 Amazon credit – we don’t imply that this makes up for the delay but we hope you’ll accept this gesture as a show of our want to retain your trust as a customer

This is an example of acknowledging, resolving and making the issue right with the customer. The cause of the issue has been stated clearly, the resolution laid out and things made right with the customer. I was extremely happy with this outcome, but seemingly Amazon weren’t. Later on that same day, Amazon sent me a UPlay code for the game so I could start playing it immediately, effectively allowing me to get started on the campaign before I would have otherwise been able to.

The game itself was more of a letdown than ordering a Meatlover’s pizza and having a Vegan’s Delight pizza delivered instead. With the pizza being cold, stale and missing all analogues of cheese. But that’s hardly Amazon’s fault.

Virgin Australia

In 2016, I had scheduled a month-long holiday in the US so I could be incredibly mature and ride as many rollercoasters as possible. Of course, I needed to fly Business Class but wasn’t willing to pay the asking price and used my wanker-ish status with the airline to upgrade using points.

At this time, Virgin Australia was in the process of refitting their fleet with an excellent, originally named Business Class product and a seat had opened up on a flight featuring this upgraded product. Of course this Arsehole immediately called (because making this change online is seemingly impossible), paid the required $100.00 change fee and secured themselves a seat in this much better cabin. Or so it would seem.

A few days later I’d noticed that my seat allocation had changed, and to my infinite horror it turns out that the flight I’d changed to still featured the old product without direct aisle access for all passengers and lots of other undesirable aspects. I wrote to the good people at Virgin Australia, explaining that I had now paid $100.00 to receive the following benefits:

  • The exact same type of service I previously had secured
  • Earning fewer Velocity Points and Status Credits
  • Having to get to the airport even earlier
  • My then-partner’s (yes, I date – don’t laugh!) unending laughter for securing all this for the incredibly reasonable price of $100.00

I wrote to the good people at Virgin Australia, requesting that this change be reversed (as the only reason it was made was to get access to the shiny new product) and was told the following:

  • Thank you for being a Velocity Platinum member
  • Cabin configurations are subject to change for operational reasons
  • Go away

Of course, being an Arsehole I did not go away. I wrote back, providing screenshots of my seat selection, requests that the call recording be checked and asking precisely what sort of person would want to spend any funds on the “benefits” I’d received by making the change.

At this point those that knew of my arseholery were hoping for imminent defeat, with my antics somehow resulting in me ending up Economy (or the cargo hold) to restore balance in the universe. Alas, a wonderful person named Linda from Virgin Australia called me, credited $100.00 to my Travel Bank balance and added the deficit of points and status credits to my account. It was also admitted that an issue at the airline caused the problem that I saw and the initial response had not considered all the facts, with additional training and reviews being considered to stop this from happening again.

All-in-all, the issue was sorted satisfactorily but at the cost of more effort than was warranted.

The moral of these ramblings

Things are going to go wrong, regardless of how much is put in place in terms of safeguards, planning, mechanisms and good intentions. Focusing on the manner in which issues are dealt with is infinitely more important than focusing on the issue itself.

 

 

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Please, don’t always be an Arsehole (and when to consider being one…)

As mentioned in some of the posts on this questionable site, there are certain rules that one should follow when being an Arsehole, one of the most important of which is to have basis for being an Arsehole. One must remember that the person who will be hearing your words, reading your missives or questioning the right of Twitter and Facebook to exist is a human being who is performing various tasks as part of their employment and is deserving of respect and to be treated as you yourself wish to be treated.

A recent event occurred that reminded this particular Arsehole to post on this subject. My family and I decided we were going to head to New York and had booked flights and accommodation to facilitate this, even though the trip would see us have to get up at 05:00 (a time that I personally think doesn’t deserve to be acknowledged). At 17:47 the day before, we were informed that our flight had been cancelled due to an absolutely shocking storm impacting the US North East.

The airline did the right thing here, and also indicated they’d be rebooking us as soon as possible.

Which they did.
Via Phoenix.
On a red-eye flight.
In Economy.

I really wasn’t enamoured with the idea of at least 2 of the “features” of this new itinerary and my family was even less enthused. We decided to do something else and the airline happily refunded the flights in full, however the hotel was under no obligation to do so and a $500 cancellation fee seemed to be unavoidable.

One catches more flies with honey than with vinegar

Upon calling the hotel and explaining the situation, they very happily asked for our original flight numbers and cancelled the reservations at no charge. I’ve since written to the hotel to express my thanks and bring attention to the staff member who made the process so incredibly easy and efficient.

The particular hotel superchain involved has gained a larger share of my accommodation spend as a direct result of how they responded to a friendly request. In this particular instance, there was no need to be an Arsehole.

 

 

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The AA incident – the aftermath

After flying back from the US thanks to claiming victory over American Airlines, this particular Arsehole decided that they’d gotten off way too easily:

  • I had to get myself back to Melbourne after the SYD-LAX leg was terminated
  • The Melbourne to Sydney leg of the journey was not reissued
  • The Sydney to Melbourne leg was also not reissued
  • I’d spent about 3 hours sorting the situation out

I thought I’d give AA the chance to make things right, so I wrote to them.

Dear AA,

Due to an operational decision made by AA, my journey to Los Angeles needed to be rescheduled and the original MEL-SYD and SYD-MEL segments that were purchased were not included in the reissued fare. Please detail how AA will be addressing this issue through either an appropriate refund or awarding of AAdvantage miles.

Sincerely, an Arsehole

Amazingly, AA responded with a well-intentioned but ultimately inadequate offer of 10,000 AAdvantage miles. Although that’s better than nothing, it’s not quite what I had in mind.

Dear AA,

Although I appreciate the gesture, 10,000 AAdvantage miles is not comparable to the value that was not delivered by the reduced itinerary provided. Considering the miles, EQMs and EQDs that I did not earn due to this change and the costs I incurred as a result, I would require that the amount be increased to 75,000 AAdvantage miles to consider the matter settled.

If this does not occur, I will instruct my card issuer to raise a chargeback against the transaction.

Sincerely, an Arsehole

AA responded with “Sorry, there’s nothing we can do” to that particular missive. Of course, that isn’t true and served as excellent evidence for the chargeback process.

The particular issuer of the card used to purchase the airfare unfortunately relies on systems that were designed in 1974 and seemingly have decided to outsource their chargeback handling to an adult daycare centre that provides vodka intravenously. The process went as follows:

  1. Arsehole sends description of issue to card issuer
  2. Card issuer sends a generic e-mail requesting more information.
  3. Arsehole provides extensive information, and includes the statement “Please provide specific questions if any additional information is required”.
  4. Card issuer states that they do not have enough information and close the dispute
  5. The entire process is repeated 3 more times (!!!)

After the third attempt, I decided that the only way I could ensure that I would get any satisfaction at all is by being an Arsehole to the bank involved. So that’s exactly what I did:

Dear Dodgy Bank Corporation,

I have now attempted to comply with your chargeback handling process 4 times and have been given no information as to why the process has been stopped on each occasion. This conduct is in violation of the Scheme rules and is an egregious drain on my time.

Should I not receive confirmation that my case has been escalated and is being handled by someone qualified to and capable of ensuring that the dispute is raised with American Airlines in the next 48 hours, I will be referring the case to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Should I receive additional generic, non-specific requests for more information, I shall take this as an indicator that my request has not been actioned.

Love, an Arsehole

Of course, the only response was a phone call asking me to state the specifics of my dispute. Upon telling the person to stop wasting my time and look at the voluminous correspondence that I’d already provided, they committed to getting back to me the following day. They didn’t.

At this point, I had more than enough material to make a solid case with the FOS. There’s a very convenient online form for this process, and more-often-than-not does not require speaking to any humans. After 5 days, the bank in question made an offer of $1,000.00 to settle the complaint.

10,000 AAdvantage points and $1,000.00 in cash – victory!

 

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Yes, you will pay for my time

It’s quite simple really. If a company selling me something demands that I call them to make something happen, I expect to be taken care of quite quickly.

When an organisation instead offers multiple means of contact, makes statements via said means indicating that my request will be actioned and then engages in manufacture of alternative facts, I expect that they should know that they’re going to have a bad time.

After Australia’s grossly inept government managed to somehow appoint a bloke named Chad to install a VDSL2-capable DSLAM in the basement of the building I live in, I went looking for an option to get connected to the NBN that is currently being pushed toward all Australians (bogans and higher beings alike).

Because of the multitude of connection options offered by NBN Co to we lowly serfs, a multitude of qualification criteria also exist. As a result, my options were Telstra, Optus and a company called Belong.

Belong is special, in that they’re likely to eat your shoes if you look at them without disdain. They’re also a subsidiary of Telstra that uses none of Telstra’s network capabilities as it was easier to engage Telco In A Box to actually build a provider ready to provide service in less than 2 decades.

After signing up, downloading a bunch of stuff and then confirming that the 25/5 service that I was being provided was well below what my gear and access method was capable of, I requested that Belong give me 100/40 access.

Belong gave me the following responses:

  • NBN Co does not offer better than 25/5 in your area
  • NBN Co does not offer better than 25/5 for your connection method
  • We have decided that we cannot offer better than 25/5 due to backhaul concerns
  • Your service is not eligible for better than 25/5 because of transition rules

After some research, I confirmed that these were all untrue and churned to a provider that can actually tell me the truth and present a mild facade of competence.  An online churn request resulted in my service being moved over inside of 2 days with no downtime and things were good. Download speeds were high and my porn was free of buffering.

After many previous attempts to get an answer on the speed issue from Belong, I decided to confirm my cancellation with them via all of online chat, e-mail, website contact form, Twitter and Facebook. I was repeatedly assured that I would be called by a Belong representative to confirm said severance. Said call did not occur. I had attempted to make multiple phone calls to Belong to confirm cancellation, including on the day of churn. However after being on hold for over an hour on multiple occasions, I decided that I would rather contemplate how my urine stream circles the drain in my shower whilst I was using a toothbrush to clean the spaces between my bathroom tiles.

After hearing nothing for 3 days, my coworkers decided that they’d like some entertainment during lunch and would like to hear how terrible the Belong hold music was. After 30 minutes (!?!) of waiting, I was greeted by someone named Bertha.

After I explained to Bertha that I had moved my connectivity elsewhere, had wasted a significant amount of my time attempting to confirm cancellation and simply wanted actual confirmation, I was told the following:

  • NBN does not give us churn details (this is provably a lie)
  • You have not attempted to contact us (this is also provably a lie)
  • After insisting that I had made multiple attempts and had been promised call backs, I was told that outbound calls were impossible (this is in direct contradiction to what I was told)
  • After detailing the interactions with the social media team, I was told that the social media team had no record of speaking with me. After stating that the inability of the social media team to keep decent records is not my problem, I was instead told that my contact attempts had been recorded but that the requests I made of the social media team were beyond their remit (no statement of this nature was made during my conversations with them)
  • I had made many phone calls and stayed in a queue for significant periods of time and doing so has no appreciation associated with attempting to do the right thing.
  • Cancellations involve no refunds being provided for the days of service that were paid for in advance but not provided

Oh dear….

Of course, I would not put up with this. There is only one way to deal with such idiocy:

“I’ve done the right thing here. I’ve made multiple attempts to get the service I need from your company, given fair warning of churning away, made multiple attempts to confirm cancellation and am now being told that my attempts are not being recognised. Refund the days I did not use please.”

Of course, Bertha had precisely zero regard for logic and refused to consider my request. When I asked to speak to her manager, she responded with a statement indicating that her manager would say exactly the same thing and that it was a waste of everyone’s time.

Although one should not be an arsehole, I had decided that I was dealing with a person with no regard for logic. My next statement was as follows:

“If you refuse to escalate my request, I will raise a chargeback request with my card issuer, raise a dispute with PayPal and lodge a complaint with the TIO . This will cost in excess of 10 times more than the refund I am requesting and, beyond that, I will get the refund anyway. Is that really what you want to do to the company that provides you a wage?”

The only response was silence. And then the call ending.

Being a complete arsehole, this Arsehole followed through on all of the statements made.

3 days later, a bloke named Bill from Belong’s parent company (Telstra) called me and gave me a refund of 2 months access fees.

Victory!

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At least his average call time stayed low….

First, allow this Arsehole to provide some context.

In 2015, two things happened in Australia that impacted those amongst us that could be classified as points enthusiasts, each involving a major supermarket chain/corporate conglomerate:

  • Wesfarmers decided to make their Flybuys program relevant and provide a means to transfer points to the Etihad Guest program arbitrarily in reasonably-sized increments. They didn’t extend the program to cover their various other brands (like Officeworks and Bunnings), but they did improve the program.
  • Woolworths decided to tell everyone shopping at their stores that they could fuck right off if they were interested in collecting Qantas Frequent Flyer points. The colocation of BWS stores with many Woolworths outlets, the fact that 1 QFF point was earned per dollar spent over $30 in a single transaction, checkouts being allowed via a BWS register and the excellent earn rates on certain American Express cards resulted in a simple decision of supermarket when it came to shopping for cheese and wine whilst being a wanker. Alas, idiocy disregarded this segment of valuable shopper and instead focused on promising discounts to bogans.

At this point, the maximisation of earning stuff for no reason required that I gaze upon Dawn French’s smile and dig out my Flybuys membership card from my bottom kitchen draw where it had previously been placed with spare lightbulbs and pamphlets from hardcore Jebus promoters offering to wash my car in exchange for sponsoring a tarp for their next orgy.

After spending a few dollars at my local Coles outlet and scanning said card, I received a wonderful phone call from a bloke claiming to be named Josh. It was extremely unlikely his name was actually Josh, but that’s not really relevant.  The call unfolded thusly:

Josh: Hello. As a valued Flybuys customer, we would like to offer you an excellent rate on your car insurance with Coles Insurance!

UA: Thank you for the offer Josh, but I’m not interested in changing my insurance arrangements at this time.

Josh: (Violent disconnection)

Josh hung up with incredible prejudice! How very dare he! Up with this the Arsehole would not put!

Feedback should be targeted and immediate

Google is a wonderful thing. It allows one to very quickly determine who to complain to when their sensibilities are not carried aloft to the clouds in a pillow of honey whilst employing an army of amoeba to cushion their hemorrhoids. Immediately after this call, the following e-mail was composed and sent to Coles Insurance:

To whom it may concern,

One of your representatives called me today as a part of the outbound marketing campaign currently being run by your organisation. Upon politely informing your staff member that I was not able to consider the offer he was promoting, I was treated with complete and total contempt and hung up upon. I have confirmed that the call was terminated explicitly and that no network issues resulted in this schism of conversation.

I am sure that this conduct is not at all representative of the manner in which Wesfarmers seeks to engage with current and/or potential customers. I would like to include Wesfarmers-issued insurance products in future as appropriate, but would require confirmation that the treatment I experienced is an aberration that has been examined such that it not be repeated.

Sincerely,

UA

Sending this e-mail was admittedly an example of what is called a zero-sum game. Either I would receive a response that I was able to then do something with (and gain something for free), or I would not receive a response and have basis to escalate my concerns (and thus gain something for free). Although an automated acknowledgement of my e-mail was issued, I received 3 further phone calls of similar intent and script to that employed by “Josh” in the week prior to a deafening lack of response being received.

As insurance is technically a financial product in nature, the Financial Ombudsman Service is an escalation point available to all customers in Australia. The very name instills fear in the hearts of call centre staff and complaints managers everywhere, so I decided to take the path of least resistance and do just that:

Attention: Coles Financial Services Compliance Department

G’Day,

I recently wrote to CFS with feedback regarding an extremely poor customer service experience I received. Although I would have expected the outcome of this experience to have at least resulted in no further experiences of this same poor nature being inflicted upon my person and accounting for a disproportionately egregious amount of my time, my expectations have not only been left unmet but have been failed terribly.

At this point, I require the following:

  • Formal acknowledgement of the inappropriate conduct of the agents who have made contact without regard for previous interactions.
  • Specific details of how this issue will be addressed such that it does not reoccur.
  • Recognition of my time in having had to repeatedly address this issue .

Should I not receive a written response from CFS by <insert date 5 business days from now>, I will have no option other than to submit the details of this issue to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

In accordance with prophecy,

UA

To my astonishment, CFS was in contact within 12 hours! My details had been expunged from their outbound calling database, the persons involved had been counselled, scripts reviewed and 20,000 Flybuys points deposited into my account as a gesture of apology.

This is an example of a company doing the wrong thing on a few occassions and then actually subscribing to the Acknowledge, Resolve, Right principal. Not once was the term Goodwill mentioned, but actually the term apology.

So impressed was I that I later signed up for 4 different Coles Financial Services products, mainly so I could quadruple my Flybuys points haul so I could fly all the way from Adelaide to Port Adelaide after spending $20,000 each week for 3 eons.

All in all, victory!

 

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Don’t be an arsehole!

There are a few rules that should always be followed when dealing with an entity that has done the wrong thing. Counter-intuitively, they’re summed up thusly:

Don’t be an arsehole!

This is, of course, a complex statement.

There are a few simple rules that should be followed.

Never make things personal

The person you’re dealing with is another human being, attempting to do their job and deserves the presumption of their intent being to do everything they can to help you. It’s extremely unlikely that the person answering your questions had any intent of actually causing you inconvenience (or worse) and they’re in a position that is charged with assisting you in spite of the difficulties that the bureaucracy they operate within. A modicum of understanding goes a long way here – help them help you.

Avoid the word “you” where at all possible. Use the name of the company and use the word “we” when asking about next steps and getting a resolution.

Facts only

Keep the conversation on point, focused on what has happened and what has been done thus far. Don’t confabulate or otherwise embellish the situation as this actually weakens any position you hold and will give any detail-focused manager the means to draw an aspect of your case into question.

Keep emotion out of it

Getting angry, aggressive or otherwise emotive is unlikely to lead to any outcome other than the conversation being terminated. Customer service staff are generally given the option of terminating a call or interaction in response to profanity, aggression or any form of threat (amongst other things).

Acknowledge.  Resolve. Right.

Three simple words, and the easiest template to go into a situation with when correction is required.

For the avoidance of doubt, the company’s representative should acknowledge the problem that their conduct has caused, resolve the issue that you have been afflicted with and right the relationship with their customer. The last of these is the most variable, with some companies refusing to accept that the time of their customers has any value, which conveniently leads to…

Keep track of your time

The only reason you are spending any non-zero amount of time is due to a misstep on the part of the provider in question. Should you not comply with the expectations of a bank, airline, insurance provider or any other of a multitude of professional organisations the penalties involved are specific, punitive and executed with efficiency. The basis of said actions is the additional cost or loss of revenue the provider claims to be subject to.

The reverse is very rarely acknowledged by large organisations without specific prompting, and said specific prompting is an incredibly powerful tool.

Prepare, prepare, prepare

Have all of your facts, research, previous communications and expectations in front of you, a pen/keyboard to record proceedings as they progress and to take notes regarding developments in the company’s position. Do not allow any statements to go unchecked or unrecorded.

Listen very carefully, for they shall say this only once

The person you are interacting with may make mistakes or misrepresent the intentions of the company inadvertently. Recording these aberrations when they is important as to demonstrate the lack of coherency in the company’s approach and reinforce the need for your time to be appreciated.

Set your goals early

As fun as it is to hear your drunk mate (who we shall call Theo) tell you that “I paid my bloody bill on time! Those bastards at Telstra are going to pay for cutting off my internet!”, there are a few things wrong with that statement.

  1. In all likelihood, there was a poorly constructed process that resulted in Theo not being able to participate in some odd fantasy football league for 20 minutes and no “bastards” were involved.
  2. “My internet” is incorrect usage of the term. If Theo has any sort of private network containing things he has obtained via an Internet connection, I’m betting that cutting it off from the rest of the world may save the eyes and mental health of many.
  3. The statement is entirely qualitative and unactionable

Technically Theo has made the provider “pay” if they promise to deduct one cent from the balance of his next bill. Of course it’s highly likely that Theo will return to the local pub at the next reasonable opportunity and call a bunch of people at his provider of choice bastards again for only paying him such a paltry amount whilst drinking VB and waiting for the nearest pool table to be free in the hopes of making his mate Keith circle the room sans pants for being a crap shot.

Know what you want in terms of restitution from your target prior to picking up the phone, typing an e-mail, searching for the company via Facebook Messenger or Tweeting at them with a profane hash tag.

Ask why

Things happen for a reason. Theo drinks VB because it helps him forget that barracking for Melbourne in the AFL is about as rational as expecting proper journalism from A Current Affair.

There will be some reason for whatever egregious transgression you’re enduring being inflicted upon your person. The question of “Why?” is incredibly powerful and tends to result in escalation and awareness from staff with greater means and/or latitude in helping you get a resolution and/or compensation.

Be gracious

The most important aspect of any interaction is the outcome. If an awkward date results in you eventually marrying the love of your life, that’s surely infinitely more preferable to having an awesome date that featured free drinks and roaming midgets carrying lines of cocaine for your enjoyment that led to warts and 3 different restraining orders.

If the company you’re speaking to has done everything they can to make things right, met your expectations and shown their clear intention to keep you as a customer then there should be due consideration given to said intent.

Fuck telemarketers and scammers

Telemarketers are a whole subject in and of themselves that will be gotten to in due course. None of the above apply to scammers – the more psychological trauma you can bring yourself to inflict, the better.