I had another two inspiring conversations with large, corporate call centre agents today. You know, the kind that make you want to sever all connection with the institutions of capital, flee to the woods and never see another bloated imperialist banker again. Shitting in an outhouse and eating roots, berries and the occasional squirrel seems infinitely more appealing than trying to endure another day of participating in this absurdity we call an economic system.
First off, I was paying my bills this morning and tried to login to Vancity Visa’s website. It wouldn’t let me in, and I was forced to call the toll-free number for “assistance”. The usual signs of “help”: What’s your card number? What’s your date of birth? What’s your postal code? What’s your mother’s maiden name? (I’ve given so many people my mother’s maiden name that it can hardly still be a useful security filter).
Finally, she says “Your login name is edward2“. (Account details fictionalised here for security)
“No it’s not”, I answer. “It’s edwardh“.
“No. It’s edward2. Please login with that”, she answered smarmily.
I know very well that she’s wrong. “My login is edwardh and it has been ever since I’ve had a Vancity Visa card.”
She’s persistent. “Have you ever logged in as edwardh before?”
“Yes, I log in as edwardh every single month when I pay my bills. It has always worked, every time.”
A pause. “Well, it says here that your login is edward2“.
“Are you telling me that Vancity has changed my login to edward2 without letting me know?”
“No, it hasn’t changed. Let’s see, your e-mail address is eeblock@yahoo.com, right?”
That would be no. Clearly, she’s been looking at someone else’s account. So far, she has given me both the e-mail address and the login id for some other Vancity customer. I should have held out for the password, too. Maybe I could have been paying my bills from an account with more money in it. Rather, I very honestly point out her error.
“I’m a little concerned about the privacy and security of my account”, I said. If they’re that careless with eeblock’s account info, how safe is mine?
“Oh, don’t worry”, she said. “It’s all very secure. No one has any access to your account at all.”
Including me, apparently.
In the end, I needed to go back to the Vancity Visa site and register a new online account to access my credit card. I registered as edwardh without any problems. Presumably my previous account just vanished into the ether somewhere. As usual, 15 minutes wasted on the phone provided me with nothing except the reminder that whatever service I require will in the end turn out to be self-service.
But that wasn’t as irritating as the next call.
I need to rent a truck to pick up some bookshelves, so I looked at several rental sites and found one that will rent a truck for $49. A little steeper than I’d like, but I can’t carry them on my bike. Naturally, I want to use my American Express card to rent it so that I can use the AmEx insurance, avoiding the need to pay the rental company another $25 for LDW insurance. I’m concerned, however, that the LDW may not apply to a cargo van and decide to find out before I book.
First, I went to AmEx’s website. You’d think they’d want to avoid having people calling their toll-free number – tying up human resources – and would simply post a simple text file with the terms and conditions. But no. So I unwillingly called AmEx. Naturally, I had to enter my card number and other details in the automated system before a human came on, so that the human will have all of my account information on the screen when they answer the call.
“Thank you for calling American Express in Canada, this is Sarah, how may I help you?”
“Hello”, I said. “I’d like to find out whether the insurance on my gold card will cover a particular type of rental vehicle.”
“Very well, I’d be happy to help you with that request. First, I’ll need to ask you a couple of quick security questions”.
“Very well”, I answered apprehensively. I’m having flashbacks to other calls to AmEx.
“What year were you born?”
I answer.
“What is your mother’s maiden name?”
I answer.
“What is the 4 digit number to the right of your credit card number?”
I answer.
“What is your office phone number?”
I answer.
“No, that’s not it.”
I offered another number.
“No that’s not it either. Do you have any other numbers?”
I’m getting slightly irritated by now. “Look, I worked for the company for ten years and they did a corporate reorganisation every two years and added a new switchboard number. How am I supposed to remember which one I gave you in 1999?”
Alright, I have another question instead. “What is your memorable year?”
“My what?”
“You previously gave us a year in which something memorable happened, as a security question. What was that year?”
“Isn’t that a rather absurd security question?”, I asked. “A great many memorable things have happened in my life. Should a security question not be more specific, like What year were my parents divorced, or What year did I get my first bicycle?”
“Well, you gave us a year, so you just need to tell me…”.
Here I interrupted with a plea for sense.
“Look, I just want…”
She interrupted with more script.
I interrupted.
She interrupted.
I interrupted and aggressively made my point, drowning out her attempts to interrupt me further.
“Look, I just want a piece of information that has nothing to do with my specific account! Why the hell do I have do even give you my card number to find out something that is a standard feature of every single American Express Gold Card member no matter what their mother’s maiden name is? You could just put it on your website and I wouldn’t have to waste my time calling you at all, but no, I have to call and listen to runaround. Will you please just tell me about the Loss/Damage Waiver coverage!”
Pause.
“Let’s see. Ah, here it is. The Loss Damage waiver covers rental cars for theft or damage for up to $85,000.”
“What I would really like to know is does that cover a regular cargo van, or are they exempt from coverage”, I asked, calmly and politely.
“For that information, you’ll need to call the insurance company at…”.
I’ll leave the rest of the conversation to your fertile imaginations.
I don’t particularly like getting angry with call centre agents. But how can you not in situations like this? The fault isn’t mine, and the fault isn’t Sarah’s. The fault belongs exclusively to fatcat pricks who sit in ivory towers and try to suck as much money out of us as possible while providing as little actual service as possible. They’re behind the scenes, they just stuff the customers and the poor call centre minions into small spaces and let them pick each other apart. As long as they’re unseen and unheard by the CEO, and the profits keep rolling in, no notice need be given.
An interesting side note is that American Express was recently approved by the Federal Reserve to become a “bank holding company”. What does this mean, you ask? It means that they are now eligible for economic stimulus bailouts.1
I may put some wheels on the bookshelves and tow them over here behind my bike. And while I’m at it, I’ll put my AmEx card in the mail, addressed to the CEO, with specific filing instructions.
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My dear Edward:
As a fellow denizen of the soi-disant free market economy, which, roughly translated, means “unregulated greed and wanton waste”, I can all too readily identify with your anger. We have allowed and participated in the construction of a monstrous system and the despoilation of nature to such a degree that all that remains is the grieving while attempting to survive. You’ll see.
My new $870 monitor has developed problems. Again. The good lads at the manufacturer’s call centre have misinformed, misled and hung up on me, yet I remain a paragon of patience. Well, to a point. I now dread calling them so they can suggest idiotic solutions that don’t work. I dread mailing the damn monitor back to them in the original packaging, thank you very much for keeping it. I’m postponing it all, just as they hope, until one day my warranty expires, my monitor goes to the landfill, and I’m forced to buy a new one. As I remarked to my research assistant the other day, comely wench that she is, our birthright is to pull fish from the stream, squirrels from the branches, birds from the air, and fruit from the trees. Where did we all go so horribly wrong? And why aren’t we angrier?
Ed & Cory
“And why aren’t we angrier?” Well, it’s easy to get angry, stamp our feet, hold our breath and turn blue. The difficult question is what can the individual do to gain a little bit more control over their lives rather than being at the behest of the, “… bloated imperialist banker…” I, for one, don’t want to run off to the woods and hide, but would rather be more pro-active.
Thanks for your response, Pat, but I’m not quite clear on your position, since you have made an apparent criticism without providing a constructive alternative yourself. Your allusions to our childishness (“stamp our feet, hold our breath and turn blue”) could be interpreted as a variation of anger in itself. You’d rather be more pro-active, but are you? And how do you define “pro-active”? It’s not enough to say “stop your whining and take action”, but what action do you recommend? The nature of the system makes it exceedingly difficult not to participate in it, and therefore, to help perpetuate it. Although it’s not a path I’d be in a rush to take, one can begin to understand slightly why direct-action activists and “terrorists” feel compelled to act in ways that they do. I think there is productive anger and destructive anger, and what we are seeing in the world is far too much of the latter and a serious deprivation of the former.