Dealing With the Frustrations of Automated Customer Service!

About six weeks ago, I decided it was time for me to get an online account set up for one of the credit cards that I haven't had for very long.

Just to clarify, I'm not fond of having credit cards but they do seem to be a necessary evil in our modern world. At least if you want to book a hotel in advance, or rent a car.

Anyway, I went through the motions of setting up the account and going through online forms that generated all sorts of information. When I finally completed the process I got a "congratulations" message with the words "you can now log into your account!"

So I proceed to at least try to log into my account. Which seemed to go okay until I got to a screen that said "we don't recognize this browser, so we need to verify that this is you. Please choose how you would like to receive a special login code."

At which point I was presented with the option to either get a text message, a phone call, or an email. Which should all be good and fine except for one small detail: I don't recognize either of the phone numbers or the email address.

Strike that. I actually do recognize the numbers and that email address because they are phone numbers I had when I still lived in Texas which was prior to 2006! I also haven't had access to that email address in at least a decade.

So you might wonder how the heck this is even possible, given I just set up an account with all new information... but it is definitely possible even though it makes no sense... because I did have a account with this particular bank 20 years ago, but the account has been long closed and I haven't even had a new credit card for the account since probably 2006.

So anyway, when I first encountered this issue some six weeks ago I spent a long time on the phone with customer service and after a really long time of going in circles managed to get to a human being who actually claimed to have reset my account so that the new information I just input would be the correct and current information.

So, fast forward to today, which was the due date for my monthly payment so I went to log into my account online. Guess what happened? Once again I needed to verify that I was me and guess what options I was given? Yep, I still had those old phone numbers and that old email address which I thought we had managed to get corrected!

This time I first spent about 10 minutes messing around with the online help system in the vain attempt to see if I could get it resolved and get a one-time code to log into my account but that was impossible.

So with a deep sigh I got on the phone again to try to resolve the problem... only to spend a few minutes being sent around in a circle by the automated customer service robots, and then finally getting to a place where somebody with an automated voice promised me that "the next available representative" would help me. Estimated wait time is 34 minutes!

Here's what's ironic about this whole circus: I can call the customer service number on the back of my credit card from my cell phone and it recognizes me and brings up the correct account information (I provided six weeks ago) and I can use my phone to make a payment... so I know the correct information is there. But if I try to log in from my computer it somehow determines that I need to be the person I was back in 2005! Extremely frustrating!

After waiting on hold for about 5 minutes I decided I just didn't have it in me to wait the entire 34 minutes to talk to a human being who likely wouldn't be able to help me anyway, and I wasn't really in the mood to deal with it. So it'll have to be handled at some other time...

Thanks for reading, and have a great Friday!

How about you? Have any good "customer service" stories that make no sense? Do you find "automated" services frustrating... or helpful? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

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Created at 2023.08.03 23:42 PDT
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