Customer Service Horror Stories

[scottcsmith]

I have a great one.

On Oct. 24, my Gateway laptop died. I turned it on that morning and the computer beeped at me. My background is in computer hardware/software, so I knew what the beeps meant, that the laptop's video subsystem had failed.

I called Gateway tech support and they agreed with my diagnosis. I was told that the laptop needed to be shipped to Sioux Falls, SD for service. The tech gave me an address, but didn't provide any instructions on the procedure for returning hardware. Other companies have clear instructions on the return of hardware for servicing. I'll give you an example. ATI makes video cards. If your ATI product fails, you go to ATI's web page, or call them, and fill out a form. You provide the part number, serial number, and other information. They review the form and then e-mail a RMA letter, with specific instructions on how to get the defective part to ATI.

Gateway doesn't have a procedure.

Considering how much money I had spent on my laptop, I decided to head to my local Gateway country store to see if they knew what I needed to do.

I entered the store and was greeted by silence. No one greeted me at all. I headed for a sales counter with my laptop.

After about five minutes, one of the associates came over and asked me what I wanted. I explained that I wanted to find out the procedure for sending in my laptop for repair. Did I have to fill out any forms?

The associate wandered off.

Meanwhile, to my right, a woman was being helped by three Gateway associates.

I stood at the counter for a few minutes. The guy that initially helped me came back. I asked him if he could get someone that could answer my question. He yelled out to another associate and I was told, "We don't service laptops here."

I sighed. "Yes, I know you do not service the laptops here. I just want to know the procedure for sending this back for repair. Do I need to fill out any paperwork? What do I need to do?"

The associate was perplexed, as was his collegue.

Finally, another associate came over, and I again explained that all I wanted to know was, what was the procedure for shipping a laptop in for repair. I told her tech support said to send it to Sioux Falls. She thought that was odd, she thought notebooks went to the Texas service center. She got on the phone, spoke with someone for a few minutes, and told me that, yes, the laptop should go to Sioux Falls. She handed me a sheet of paper and a pen and said to just write out my name, address and problem, and then ship it with the laptop.

That sounded like crazy talk, so I left the store and headed for UPS. I spent $60 to ship the computer to Sioux Falls. When I got home, I went to Gateway's web site to complain about the poor service I had received. This complaint triggered a lengthy e-mail exchange that completely failed to address any of my issues.

A few days later, I received an e-mail which stated:
"Scott, I would like to inform you that portable computers are not
serviced at Sioux Falls. Portable computers needs to be serviced at the service center at Dallas. Once your computer is received at Sioux Falls, it will be sent to Dallas for servicing."

You can imagine my response, which was very colorful.

My computer was scheduled to arrive at Sioux Falls on 10/30. I contacted UPS to confirm that it had been received.

By 11/11, I was wondering what had happened to my laptop. An e-mail exchange ended with the disclosure that no one at Gateway knew where the laptop was.

I contacted customer service last night, again to try and figure out where in the hell was my $1700 laptop. The end result was that its status was unknown. The customer service rep. said it probably was still at Sioux Falls.

"It's been there two weeks, shouldn't they have sent it off to Texas?"

The customer service rep. agreed that it needed to go to Texas.

At that point my head exploded.

I'm not a happy camper.

We can help each other to feel better by sharing our customer service horror stories. Please do!

[onebigbadwulf]

1. I bought a cell phone from Verizon

those bastards.

I signed the contract and went off. Made a call or two. Then my mom told me that I had to use sprint since we get a discount.

So I called customer service, held on the line for half an hour, finally they picked up and said I had to go back to the main office to return it.

I returned it, cancelled the contract (2 days after I got it) and everything was fine.


A month later I get a $600 bill from Verizon. They said I breeched the contract and owed them the charge of the phone, the first month of service, and a termination fee, etc.

California has a 3 day contract law, meaning you aren't bound to a contract until 3 days after it is signed. So I was in the right, but their billing department refused to listen and kept calling the house demanding their 600 dollars.

Luckily I was at college and my mom just told them I didn't live their anymore. Yeah it left a bad mark on my credit, but there's no way I was paying for that.

[BuelahWitch]

12. Verizon has a 15 day return policy

All you had to do was get some sort of receipt from them that you had returned the phone and most of your bill would have been eliminated.
How long ago was it?

[CanuckAmok]

2. Telus.

The phone company here in BC.

I have a pager through them that's prepaid, every six months.

Do I keep track of the six months? No, I'm busy.

Do they send me an invoice? No.

Do they send a remender? No.


A week ago, Mrs. Amok called me at work: "I called your pager, and it said the number is out of service"

I have my business dispatch forwared to this pager, so if it's out of service, I'm out of service.

I call Telus.

"My pager isn't working"

"Oh, your payment has expured"

"Oh, thanks for warning me"

"We couldn't get in touch with you."

"I have four phone numbers through you"

"We tried you at home"

"If I was always at home, I wouldn't need a pager. Why didn't you page me?"

"We don't offer that service"




:WTF:

[lowfive]

15. that's just ridiculous! [EOM]

[newyawker99]

19. Hi lowfive!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[wtmusic]

3. 'I'm eating lunch! Call back later!'

That's what the guy at JVC video repair who was fixing my video deck told me last week. :silly:

[tomzee]

4. watch out for time, inc.

Subscribed to Money Magazine for several years, decided not to renew, starting getting threatening letters saying that they couldn't carry this "debt" much longer and basically sounded very threatening. Got these repeated threats in mailings even after they quit sending me the mag after my subscription term ended. Turns out I was on a plan they call "continuous service" or "automatic renewal," under which they the sub continues unless you make it explicitly clear you don't want it any longer.

Bottom line, read the fine print on magazine subscriptions and don't get roped into automatic renewal plans. And by all means, don't pay them by credit card. Once they get that, you're screwed.

Say NO to Time, Inc. There have been a slew of lawsuits in Fla. over their subscription renewal tactics.

[TlalocW]

5. Sprint

When I first moved into my house, I got an extra phone line for my computer's dial up modem as well as a regular phone line and went with Sprint as my long distance provider. I didn't realize that Sprint decided to be my long distance provider for my computer line as well - I got my computer line months after I got my regular line, and Sprint never should have entered into it. Basically Sprint just made that decision for me.

I didn't realize it for almost a year because the bills for each phone line arrived far enough apart that I thought they were for one line - stupid me. So while I would pay $30-$40 for my long distance calls, I was also paying $15+ just to have a long distance provider on my computer line. So I call up Sprint and talk to some snot-nosed kid. He informs me that he's only going to be able to refund me the last three months. I inform him that he is just so incredibly wrong about that. I didn't ask Sprint to do this, and I want a full refund, and I would like to speak to a manager.

The little git tries to keep me from speaking to a manager by telling me that if I do, I'll forfeit my right to any refund. By this time I was pretty upset and let him know it by telling him that was something synonomous with bovine fecal matter, and he damn well better get me a manager NOW.

He again refuses to let me speak to a manager, claiming once again I'll lose my right to any refund. So I start rapidly saying over and over, "I want to speak to a manager; let me speak to a manager; I want to speak to a manager." While I'm saying this about fifty times fast, he's trying to interrupt. I can hear the "buts" and "sirs" and "if you would only..." while I'm chanting. Finally he loses his temper and yells, "Fine! You can speak to a manager!" I tell him, "Damn skippy I can talk to a manager, junior." I can feel him seething over the phone.

A manager comes on, and I inform her that I never requested a long distance line to be put on my second phone line which I use for connecting to the internet, and I am expecting a full refund of all my money (I had the amount from my records), and I am extremely upset over the 10 minutes of crap I had to go through from the service representative just to talk to her. She takes my name and number and tells me that she'll call me back. Five minutes later she does and informs me that I will indeed be getting a full refund.

The best decisions I've ever made in my life were to get cable for my computer and get rid of all land lines and just carry a cellular phone - faster connection speeds, and telemarketing firms aren't allowed to call me on my cell.

TlalocW

[BlueJazz]

6. My Nightmare with Best Buy:

About 7 years ago (when I was married) My wife and I decided to purchase
a laptop at Best Buy. Since I'm a Computer Tech and Network engineer
I knew pretty well what I wanted. Well, my wife and I didn't agree on the model. She thought I should get one that was 250.00 less then the one I wanted. After slightly arguing about it (just a little)
I said "OK, I'll be happy with the cheaper one."

So, off to Best Buy I go.
I went in the store and paid cash for the cheaper laptop.
Got home in about 15 minutes and my wife greeted me at the door and
said that she was sorry and I should get the more expensive model
that was actually a LOT better.

Great! I drove back to Best Buy, brought the computer in the store
and was told that there would be a 15% "restocking fee"

Which sounds fair..right? NO!...because I hadn't even opened the box yet! I mean it was exactly like the other unopened boxes in the store.

I asked to speak to the manager and was nastily told "That's not going to do you any good"

Fine, the Manager came over and I explained that the computer was still unopened and I wanted to buy the more expensive model.

Without going into the whole conversation, I was VERY polite and he
was, probably, one of the most rudest, condescending human beings I have ever met. I mean, after explaining the whole thing to him
he smirked and said "tough, what do you expect Best Buy to do about it"? I says "but, but I just paid cash for it 1/2 an hour ago and it hasn't been opened" HE: SO?

(Damn, I'm getting pissed just thinking of the bastard " :) )

THE ONE COOL THING THOUGH.. Heh Heh
Since I fix computers, ever since that little incident, whenever my customers ask me where to buy their computer at I tell them how shitty I was treated at Best Buy.
I can assure you my fellow DU'ers that over the years I've cost Best Buy at least $200,000 worth of business, just because of that one asshole.

[MercutioATC]

10. I went to Best Buy and asked them to price-match Comp USA once

on a wireless keyboard and mouse. Policy has always been that they call Comp USA, verify the price, and match it, which is what the salesperson in the computer section told me to ask for at the service desk. When I asked them to price-match, the person at the service desk asked to see the Comp USA ad. I told her that I didn't have the ad with me, and that the salesperson in computers had told me that she would call Comp USA to verify the price (which they'd done in the past when I bought items). She told me that she couldn't do anything without an ad. When I walked away, she asked when I was coming back with the ad.

I told her that I'd be damned if I was going to Comp USA for an ad and coming back just to get the same price, I was buying it at Comp USA.

[Guaranteed]

22. Best Buy is HORRIBLE for customer service.

Probably the worst company I've ever known.

[AWD]

27. The SAME THING happened to a friend of mine at a Best Buy

...but thiw guy is FAR more vindictive than you are.

He "tripped" into a display of CDRoms on the way towards the register, and laid on the ground moaning for a while. They attended to him in the office, where he asked to use the phone and called his wife. He told her to "call their lawyer and send him to Best Buy ASAP."

Apparently, you've never seen a smug little shit of a manager turn polite so fast.

[Papa]

7. We got screwed twice at a Diary Queen once

This is kind of a customer service story. It's kind of funny. My brother and I visited a Diary Queen in Oklahoma about 15 years ago and we got really shitty service.

I ordered my meal which was a double cheese and an order of fries. My brother ordered the same thing. I get my food, and then im waiting at the counter with him untill he gets his. He can see that the cook is only preparing one patty of beef. My brother gets the cashiers attention to say the he ordered a double cheeseburger. She calls back to the cook to cook another patty.

She rings up his order and it comes to $1.40 . My brother is perplexed, because the difference between a single cheeseburger and a double cheeseburger was only .80 cents.

So he said "Excuse me, why are you charging me $1.40 when the difference between a single and a double is 80cents?"

"Because you are ordering a burger with extra meat. extra meat is $1.40" she said

"But I didnt order a buger with extra meat, I ordered a double."

"Well, you may have think you did, but you DIDN'T!!" picture a mean ass version of FLO from the old tv series ALICE. I mean, what's the big deal, why argue with a customer over something that you might have heard wrong. Anyway...

We were pissed at what a rude little twit she was. As we sat at the table eating our food, I had the bright idea to trash our booth by being messy and ashing all over the place, and being a little careless with the ketchup. oops.

We needed revenge! But the little mess we made was not satisfying enough, we needed to do more. As we left, i thought we should drive thru the drivethru and order a bunch of food and then drive off and not pay for it. Ha, that'll really show em. So, we drive up to the speaker to order. We wait. we wait more. The twit comes on the speaker and tells us it'll be a sec.

We wait. 4mins have passed, nobody is in front of us. 4 cars are waiting behind us. As we are sitting there, we are trying to decide what to order. 8mins have now passed. My brother and I are getting agitated. Cars are pulling around us, squeeling their tires one after the other in frustration at a line that is not moving.

Finally a voice comes on the speaker "may I help you?". My brother starts our bogus order but is cut off, the lady says that they are having some kind of problem and it'll be just another minute. I scream over my brother's shoulder "We've been waiting 10 minutes already and we are not going to wait anymore!" . She tells us to pull up to the window and she'll take our order there. DRATS! FOILED!

we couldn't order at the window then drive away. We just pulled away and licked our wounds. Dairy queen got the best of us that day.

[lowfive]

14. food service always sucks

i had a similar experience ordering pizza: i'm a vegetarian and i wanted extra cheese as my free topping. was told i would be charged extra, because extra cheese counts a two toppings. i told the guy taking my order that the voucher said "large one topping for ______ price" and i wanted extra cheese as my topping, as opposed to say pepperoni or olives. he insisted that no, extra cheese wasn't one topping, it was two... we went back and forth and i wound up just yelling "nevermind!" and hanging up.

flight attendends are always rude to me, even though i say "please" and "thankyou" & don't ever make any ridiculous requests. once on a qantas (famed for their aussie kindness, etc) flight one even banged her damn cart into my left elbow. /:

[MercutioATC]

17. My favorite pizza problem was with Pizza Hut.

I went into the Pizza Hut (it was 2 doors down from a friend's house) and asked for their Supreme special, without the mushrooms. The guy at the counter told me he couldn't do it. When I asked if the pizzas had been pre-made, he said "no" and showed me the guy putting toppings on a pizza. When I asked why the guy making the pizza couldn't just leave off the mushrooms, he told me that the mushrooms were part of a Supreme pizza and leaving them off turned it into a 3-item pizza (with no special). I asked if he could perhaps persuade the guy making the pizzas to just PRETEND to put the mushrooms on. He didn't seem amused. I left and we ordered pizza from someplace else.

[laura888]

8. AT & T wireless

My cell phone died when I dropped it in a mud puddle. I called AT&T wireless (the company through which I got service) to have them send me another phone.

FedeX sent a new phone to my home address. I missed delivery because I was at work. I called to have them redirect the delivery to my work address.

I waited.

I called and asked to cancel the original delivery and have a new phone sent to my work address.

I waited.

I went to Sprint and bought a phone for free, but later found out my call to order a new phone from AT&T had obligated me to another year with them. I returned the Sprint phone.

Finally, I went to a AT& T wire less store. I was told I could get a phone, but not at the free charge promised by the original sales guy, as the original order had still not gone back to the warehouse. I yelled a little and got them to remove a month's worth of time from my bill.

So now I am waiting for the original phone to go back to the warehouse. And then I can call again and be put on hold and transferred and MAYBE be told I can go buy a phone down the street.

Thanks for letting me share.

[MercutioATC]

9. SBC Ameritech

At my last apartment, before I moved in, I contacted the local phone company (Ameritech) to have them install two phone lines (one for voice and one for my DSL connection). The salesperson asked if I needed them to do the inside wiring for the two lines. I told her that I did not. She became verry snippy and asked how I planned to use two lines if I did not have them do inside wiring (at additional cost). I gave her a short lesson in telephone hardware (Each tel line has 4 wires inside. A phone only uses two of these, so all houses are already wired for two lines, you just have to use the two other wires for the second line.) In annoyed tone, she confirmed the hookup for two days before I was supposed to move in and hung up on me.

A day before move-in, I got the keys and checked the apartment. No phone service. I called Ameritech and they said that they had hooked up service to the outside of the apartment building, but not to the telephone box inside the unit. When I asked why, they stated "you said you wouldn't pay for inside wiring" I asked them exactly WHO owned the gray box with "Telephone Interface - No User Servicable Parts Inside" written on it. When they admitted that they did, I demanded that they install service to the box, which they agreed to do the next day (it was their responsibility anyway). The next day, only one line was connected. I called AGAIN and was told that I would have to pay for inside wiring (a blatant lie). I hung up and opened the box that said not to open it again THEIR box), rewired it myself, and got both lines working.

Right about then, I realized that my countertop would be less cluttered if I got rid of my answering machine and ordered voicemail service. I made the call. The salesperson asked if I'd had Ameritech service before. I told her that I'd had service for a few days with Ameritech. Previously, I lived in a different area with a different local company. She told me that I could not get voicemail until I'd established a six-month service history with Ameritech. Flabbergasted, I told her "No, I just want voicemail". She repeated that I need to have a six-month history with Ameritech first (keep in mind, I had TWO lines, one of which had all of the bells and whistles (call waiting, call forwarding, 3-way calling, caller ID, call waiting caller ID, etc.)). Thinking she had just misunderstood me, I asked to speak with her supervisor.

When her supervisor got on the phone, I explained the situation. He told me that they'd be glad to give me voicemail...in six months. When I asked him why, he told me that by having voicemail without the history, I was a credit risk (at the time I was making about $100K/year). I told him that voicemail service cost $3.95 per month and I'd happily let them hold a $25 security deposit for six months if that would help. He said that there was nothing he could do, I'd have to wait. I switched local companies a week later.

I still get calls from Ameritech asking me to come back to them. I tell them I wouldn't go back if they offered me the service absolutely free.

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

11. US Bank

I had a savings account at US bank nearly four years ago. Originally, the bank was called Zapp Bank and was locally owned, but the owner decided to sell the bank to US Bank.
One day, around 10 am or so, I deposited my paycheck check in the account. Now, I know that checks usually take time to clear, but my paycheck was drawn off an account at their bank. That's right, the check was a US Bank check. When I needed cash immediately, I just cashed the check, since the bank cannot refuse their own checks, right?
At least, that's what the teller told me.
For some reason, the money from my paychecks always went through that day, practically immediately. I never questioned anyone at the bank, I just deposited my check, and if I needed money later on, withdrew it from their ATM. Never ha d a problem.
Until the day I got an overdraft. On my savings account.
After explaining all of this to the floor manager, she replied, "there is nothing we will do to help you."
I told her I was closing my account, then.
She directed me to the tellers, and as I walked away from her desk, I heard her comment to another person, "What an idiot. That stupid moron can't even keep track of his money!"
I stopped, wheeled around, and proceeded to give this woman a very polite, firm, quiet (we were in a bank, after all,) piece of my mind.
I don't remember what I said, but I know I didn't swear, question her lineage, or threaten her, but she went soooo pale.

To top it all off, I couldn't even close out my account, because the check hadn't cleared yet, or so they said.

[BlueJazz]

13. In my above post I said I was a Network engineer.....anyway..

..I happen to know a few techs that work at banks.

(This will really piss you off)

They tell me that an overdrawn check costs the bank about 18 cents
to process the overdraft....18 stinkin' cents and the bastards
charge people anywhere from 24 to 32 dollars...what a bunch of pricks.

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

18. I forgot to mention...

It wasn't even a check.
I took out money from the ATM, which said I had suffiecent funds.
I've done that numerous times, without any problem, or overdraft fee.
Like I said: an overdraft on a SAVINGS account? I didn't think it was possible.

[NicoleM]

20. US Bank is the WORST.

I used to work there. I never had an account there even while I worked there, because I knew often they screwed stuff up and how rarely they fixed it. I quit after about a year because I couldn't take all the customers yelling at me for stuff that other USB employees did and that I couldn't do anything about. Half the time I couldn't even tell them who they should talk to because the whole company is so fragmented and all they tell you is what you absolutely have to know. I hated doing that--"I can't help you and I have no idea who can."

[Missy Vixen]

23. Memories of US Bank

Here's our tale of woe.

DH and I formerly had an account of long standing at the local US Bank. Several years ago on December 31st, DH was paying off a sizable credit card balance via cashier's check. We also were depositing a large bonus check that had nothing to do with the amount of the cashier's check. By the time these various transactions were done, we had a low five figure balance in checking.

Since most people like to go out and celebrate on New Year's Eve, we went to a local Italian restaurant for dinner. To this day, I thank God we went somewhere that the owner was familiar with us. Upon presenting our debit card to pay for dinner, it was declined. Three times. After scrounging through DH's wallet and my purse, we had the cash for dinner, and not much more. We raced to an ATM about a block away -- why was our card declined?

The cash in our checking account was gone. Not only was it gone, we were overdrawn by $3500.00. I thought I was going to have a heart attack.

We immediately called US Bank customer service. Where the hell was our money? They insisted that our money was "safe", and that the three ATM slips we were now holding were "wrong". We spent two hours that evening on the phone with customer service, trying to determine where exactly our money was, and why we had a negative balance. The bank kept insisting that there was no problem, that their system would "update" at midnight, and we'd have a positive balance again.

No such luck, at 10:00 PM, midnight, and 2:00 AM, after three supposed "updates". The manager on duty was getting so desperate to appease us that he said he'd vouch for our creditworthiness if we went to the local grocery store and wrote a check for $100 over. At that point, I laughed and told him that it didn't matter if we were known at that particular store -- nobody on the face of the planet would allow us to write a check anywhere for $100 cash over the amount on New Year's Eve.

Amazingly enough, at 8:00 AM on New Year's Day, the cash was back in our account. We also found out (when we went in to close all accounts on the next banking day,) that our cash had been credited to someone else's checking account, and we were triple charged for the cashier's check amount as well.

Our cash had been credited to someone else's account previously. The bank swore that they had put systems in place to prevent it happening again. Evidently, their "system" had a hole in it.

Julie

[Philostopher]

16. Actually, my one experience with Gateway,

About ten years ago, was interesting but not unpleasant.

My boss at my old job bought a Gateway computer (back when you called and ordered it and they FedExed it to you, before they had stores). We didn't run into any trouble for a long time, but at some point, I got a bizarre software error when trying to run some kind of drawing program.

I called the toll-free number, and went through two techs before somebody recognized the description of the problem.

"Do you know anything about computers?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm pretty good with them," and I was. I'm a geek.

"Okay, you're actually out of warranty, right?"

"Yeah, well -- it's over a year old."

"Okay. First, take off the case. Then, there's a jumper on the motherboard you need to unplug ..."

We went through a reboot, then he had me plug the jumper back in. When I retstarted the machine, everything was okay. Something about the memory or the CPU that had to reset itself -- he said it happened now and then, but most of the other techs had no idea what to do, so all those calls went to him.

Compaq, however, was another matter. Boss had bought a Compaq with a two-year on-site service contract. It quit printing right in the middle of a letter, one afternoon. I spent eight hours over the course of three days -- and the boss had bought an on-site warranty for the Compaq, unlike the Gateway (bought later, and this story is why we didn't have a warranty contract on the Gateway) -- running the same ineffectual Compaq diagnostics program over ... and over ... and over; rebooting over ... and over ... and over.

Now, understand that I knew what was wrong already -- the parallel port had frizzled, or something on the motherboard was fried that communicated with the parallel port. One second the computer was printing, the next second it wasn't. The printer worked on somebody else's computer. The parallel cable was fine. My computer wouldn't print on anything else. That meant that either the motherboard was shot or the printer port was out.

Well, you try telling that to a Compaq technician who's being paid by the hour to try to avoid sending a technician out to your site to fix your computer. I guess they figured if they ticked us off enough, we'd take the computer somewhere and pay out of pocket to fix it ourselves.

When the day came, a week later, that the technician from the local Compaq approved repair shop showed up at the office, I stood and watched over his shoulder.

It took him five minutes with a circuit tester to determine what was wrong with the computer.

"Your printer port's fried," he said.

"Yeah, I know. I spent eight hours trying to convince the customer service office in Texas that's what was wrong."

"I know, they always do that," he said. "Sorry."

He had to replace the motherboard, because the printer port was integrated with it. In all, it took him about an hour and a half from port-to-port. Meanwhile, my boss had to pay me my hourly wage to hang on the phone with Compaq for eight hours, over three work days, to get that done. We realized, talking about it later, it had cost him more for me to spend three days out of circulation on hold with Compaq than it would have cost him to drive the computer to the repair shop and have it fixed on the day it went down.

Live and learn.

[REP]

21. Kaiser Santa Clara ER

Here's why I will not go to the ER again under any circumstance:

I called triage with lower right abdominal pain so bad I could barely stand and other symptoms of acute appendicitis, which I thought it was. They direct me too the ER.

I'm not made to wait too long, and am seen by Dr Dipshit, who can't rule out appendicitis so I have to have a CT. I, of course, explain I am diabetic and have a kidney disease called FSGS. Figuring since he's a doctor, he should know what FSGS is, but still tell him it's a non-diabetic kidney disease. He offers me something for my pain - so bad I'm hurling - and tries to give me a shot of a drug that can kill people with FSGS. I decline. They won't give me anything else since I drove myself there. Fine.

After an hour, I'm taken for the CT in a gurney since I can't stand anymore. After the CTs, I'm wheeled back to the ER.

Then I sit alone in the examining room for a couple of hours. Good thing I brought my glucose monitor, because no one is monitoring my glucose and I become severely hypoglycemic. Fortunately, I also brought a Coke, but I alert someone and when I become diaphoratic again in another couple hours, Ms Practice My IV gives me a painful IV in a tiny vein to push glucose, which hurts like a son of a bitch. IV push in, an hour later my BG is down to 40, and I figure I'd rather die at home where the bed is comfortable. (My stomach was empty from barfing, and giving just glucose won't stablize a hypo unless food is delivered within 30 mins or so.) I ask Dr Dipshit when my CTs will be read; after all, I've been waiting four hours and have become hypoglycemic repeatedly and the care had been poor (I had to fix the IV drip when the pump thingy stalled and I'm not a fucking nurse! and no one besides me had monitored my BG) and I'd like to go home. He tells me that if I leave, they won't read my CTs. I waited another hour and left, stopping for an emergency burger a block away and driving home when my BG was normal.

My CTs weren't read until two weeks later. I had a partial bowel obstruction from my small bowel being inflamed, which could have been dangerous. My regular doc tore someone a new asshole after I told him what I'd been through and he noticed when the CT was taken.

I know now that I'm unlikely to die from waiting overnight when I have that, so I just make an appointment with my regular doc when it happens.

[LizW]

24. Went to Jack's Hamburgers to pick up lunch for my boss

It was the only fast food place in this tiny little town where I worked. I also went there every morning to get a biscuit and coffee.

My boss HATED mustard, and for some unknown reason, Jack's put mustard on their chicken sandwiches. I ordered the sandwich WITHOUT mustard. The girl at the counter took my order and yelled it out (correctly) to the person in the back. Unfortunately, they were just out of chicken filets, so someone had to go to the back to the freezer and get more and put them in to fry. I stood aside while the girl waited on about twenty other people while my chicken cooked. She had already bagged the fries and they sat on the counter, cooling.

At long last, the chicken was ready and I watched as the person in the back made my boss's sandwich. Before my eyes, she squirted mustard liberally on it, wrapped it and handed it to the girl at the counter, who handed it to me. I said, "I wanted no mustard and there's mustard on this." The girl said, "No there's not, I told her no mustard." I said, "I know you did, but she put mustard on it."

The girl insisted the sandwich had no mustard until I took it out of the bag, opened it up and showed her. She snatched it out of my hand and flung it on the counter and told the woman in the back to make another one. By now, of course, they were out of chicken again, and I had to wait again while they fried more.

I was totally annoyed by this time, and when she handed me the bag and said, "I'm sorry you had to wait," I didn't respond, just took the bag and walked out of the store. I could have said plenty, but I restrained myself.

Well, the next morning, against my better judgement, I went through the drive through and ordered my biscuit and coffee, just like always. When I got to the office and bit into my biscuit, it tasted really strange, a taste that was familiar, but somehow "wrong". I couldn't place it. I opened the biscuit and it was filled with -- you guessed it -- mustard.

I have to admit, I laughed.

Of course, I also wrote a letter of complaint about the incident to the owner of the restaurant.

[bleedingheart]

25. I find you get what you pay for.

I have a customer service type job. However I am in a highly specialized market and my customer's pay a premium for support ($3000-100,000) a year.

I am an engineer and I am paid very well for my job...therefore I give a lot to my job and provide the consulting advice and assistance that my clients expect.

I have also found that my clients call me for help about other issues unrelated to what I do because of problems similar to what you have run into. I do programming work on our special platform but I get a lot of other calls from my clients because they can't get coherent help for other platforms or applications. They know its not my job to help but they have no one to turn to.

I empathize with you but Gateway, Dell and HP all sell laptops at more "reasonable" prices than they did years ago but...they scrimp when it comes to employing people... HP and even Digital Equipment (remember them...I think they are Compaq now..) were famous for having great support....it has gone down hill over the past few years...

Outsourcing is making this problem even worse in some cases... people are being trained to the task with very few having the ability to "think outside the box"....

I hope you get somewhere with your complaints! I find that while a lot of people complain they don't write or do anything about it...kinda like complaining about the government but not voting...With enough complaints perhaps they may do something to improve service.

Good luck!

[Papa]

26. i got another one

I was driving a car that was giving me a bad ride. It was stiff as a board and you could feel every groove in the road. I had the struts worked on 4 different times in a 5 year period. I was sick of getting the car "fixed" so I took it back to the auto shop that had worked on it recently. Oh, the other thing that was annoying was that the car leaned to one side. On one side of the car there was about an inch and a half difference in height from the tire to the fender.

So, I drop off the car and tell them to check the struts, it's a stiff ride, and the car leans to one side. I come back at the end of the day and walk into the store with my girlfriend. It was actually her car, but I did most of the driving. We walk in and are greeted by Jeffrey, an overly large employee in the 300 lb range. The initial mechanic was not there. Jeffrey says to us "What can I do you folks for?"

"Well, we dropped of the car this morning" and gave him my girlfriends name. He finds our paperwork and begins to read aloud the notes from the mechanic.
"...let's see...car leans to one side, due to weight of the driver..." Jeffrey looks at my girlfriend whose a 98lb rail, and then looks down at himself and says "Well, i can see if it was me, but YOU, I'm sorry , I'm not sure what's going on here".

Jeffrey took care of us and kissed our asses after also finding out that we'd spent close to $10,000 over a 5 year period getting our cars fixed there. He promised to make everything right and wanted to drive our car home that night so he could personally put it thru it's paces and see what he could diagnose. I agreed and he called me the next day to discuss what he found out.

He tells me that they will replace the front and rear struts, put new tires, and that all i have to pay is the labor. I agreed and Jeffrey told me he would have it ready that day for me. It was a Saturday so it wasn't a problem. He calls me at three and says they are having some difficulty but will have it for me by closing time which is 5pm. 5pm comes and goes with no call. At 5:30 I get the call to come get the car.

I arrive at the garage area and get out of the car to head towards my automobile. As I get closer, I see a sports blanket that I had in the trunk of my car lying out in the garage,on the floor all bunched up. Then I see an umbrella of mine, and then a flashlight, a candle, a jacket of mine, all the stuff that was in the trunk of my car was strewn all over the garage floor. I was thinking, what the hell is going on? Jeffrey walks up to me, along with the mechanic who was working on the car and says,

"Well, It's all ready, but I got something to tell you, I don't know really how to tell you, so I'll just say it........We caught the trunk of your car on FIRE and some of the things you had in there were burned." I could have tore his head off, but all I could think about was being in his shoes and how difficult it must have been to tell me, and that he was trying to make it right. The look on his face was priceless so I was cool about it and told them not to worry.

I went or a ride with the mechanic to see how the ride was. He told me how he caught the car on fire. There was a bolt that would not come off and he was using a blowtorch to heat it up. He was also heating up the trunk without knowing it. He started to smell something and when he got out from underneath my car he saw white smoke billowing out of the trunk. He was panicked and didn't quite know what to do, but they opened the trunk and put out the fire. There was a big black melted spot in the middle of my trunk floor and the car smelled like burnt rubber for about a week.

I remember thinking that i wish the car HAD burned up and taken the garage with it, it would have been worth it. That was the last time we went to there ace.