Circular Unreasoning

(I’ve been trying to buy car insurance online for about an hour, but the website has a broken link which keeps sending me in circles. I decide to call the sales team instead.)

Me: “Hi, I’ve been trying for about an hour on your website to take out car insurance but it doesn’t seem to be working, so I’d like to make the purchase over the phone, please.”

Rep: “Ok, that’s fine.  Have you tried our website? It’s much quicker if you do it online”

Me:  “Yes, as I said I have tried, but I’m not happy with your website so I’d like to do it over the phone.”

Rep:  “No problem, sir. It’s just that if you go online you’ll save yourself some time.”

Me:  “Your website has already wasted an hour of my time. Please just take my details and start processing this purchase. I was also on hold for half an hour before you answered, so I really would like to hurry this up now.”

Rep:  “If you’d taken out the policy through our website, you wouldn’t have had to hold on the phone.”

Me:  “I’ve already told you three times that I couldn’t complete the purchase online and that I wish to do this over the phone now. I don’t mean to be rude, but if you mention your website one more time I will hang up and call a different company.”

Rep:  “Alright, sir, let me take your name and address…”

Me:  *gives name and address*

Rep:  “You know, it really is so much easier to do this on our website.”

Me: “Goodbye!” *click*

(I phoned another company who gave me as good a deal as the first one was offering, and it only took 10 minutes on the phone.)