You’ve Met The Accounting Parrot

(I need to call a call center for a popular online store. I used to work for this place, so I know a little about their policies. This story is long, but I tried to write everything so you can feel my frustration.)

Representative #1: “Hi. My name is [Representative #1]. Can I help you?”

Me: “Hello. I am trying to log in, but as a security question it is asking for my billing address, and I don’t remember which I used because my whole family — all around the USA and Costa Rica — uses my account. I want to be able to access it with something else, like another address or card info.”

Representative #1: “Oh, sorry, you can’t. Without a billing address, you cannot access your account.”

Me: “No, no… I know you can. If you can’t, send me over to the team that helps people retrieve accounts. Please.”

Representative #1: “I can’t. I’m sorry. Without a billing address, you cannot access your account.”

(This goes around for over thirty minutes. I tell her she can, and she says she can’t and repeats the same speech. I ask her if she can ask her supervisor. She says she asked. I am skeptical, as she has not stopped talking to me even for a minute. I ask her to please ask someone else and she says she did. Again, at no point has she stopped talking to me.)

Me: *a little angry because I feel she is not trying to help* “Well, how about this? I’m going to list all of my families addresses and you tell me which is it. First, is it in Costa Rica?”

Representative #1: “No, without a billing address you cannot access your account.”

(The repetitiveness is starting to drive me crazy.)

Me: “Please stop repeating yourself; I heard you. I am trying. Okay, not in Costa Rica. Is it [Address #1]?”

Representative #1: “No, without a billing address you cannot access your account.”

(I read one by one for a while because there are a lot.)

Representative #1: “Which one is your billing address? I can only access your account with a billing address.”

Me: “Have you tried any?”

Representative #1: “I don’t know which one is your billing address. Without a billing address, you cannot access your account.”

Me: “Okay, that’s it. Get me a manager.”

Representative #1: “Without a billing address, you cannot access your account or get transferred to a manager.”

(Another thirty minutes pass, with me getting more and more frustrated and asking her to pass me to a manager and her refusing. I try to keep calm but am losing my patience; I don’t want to hang up, as I want to report her. She even tells me I should open a new account and leave that one; I explain that I don’t want all of our information in an unsupervised account. I’d rather get in and erase it. But she keeps insisting. Finally, after an hour of trying to contain my anger and failing, I try to say please after each request for a manager.)

Representative #1: “I’m going to transfer you now.”

Me: *almost in tears* “Thank you.”

Representative #2: “Hello! My name is [Representative #2], how can I help you?”

(In tears, I repeat my issue.)

Representative #2: “Oh, I see… mmm… how about you start telling me addresses and we check which works?”

Me: “Is the address in Costa Rica?”

Representative #2: “I don’t know. Let’s try it.”

Me: “Is it [address in Costa Rica]?”

Representative #2: “Yes, that is it. You are in.”

(I explode in tears out of tired frustration and the chance for some time to relax.)

Me: “Okay, I used this on my computer to log in and now it is asking me for the valid-thru date of a card I don’t have. It’s probably one of my uncles’ or aunts’; can you get it to ask me for a card in my name?”

Representative #2: “Hmm… No… but how about I transfer you to the team that helps people retrieve their accounts?”

(He did and they helped me. I couldn’t complain about the first representative, but I did leave a nice review about the other one and the one that helped me retrieve my account.)