
Ask HN: What do you do when you run into poor or deceptive customer service? - jMyles
I have been chatting all day with Simple Mobile.<p>And honestly, I&#x27;ve never encountered such ugly service.<p>It now appears that a promotion that they sent out was actually a deceptive tactic for getting me to re-up.  They offered 10GB extra data, only to later deny that any such promotion existed (even going so far as to say that they weren&#x27;t responsible for the contents of a subdomain of theirs).<p>You may find my chat with them to be entertaining:<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jmyles.github.io&#x2F;simple-mobile-drama&#x2F;chat-publish.html<p>What do you do when you encounter something like this?
======
tehwebguy
This car rental p2p company in LA still hasn't paid me nearly $300 that it has
owed since early October.

Their policies were very sound, otherwise why would I rent my car out to a
stranger? But they completely blew off policy and have just stopped responding
to me.

Sometimes they post on Who's Hiring posts here, I've replied there to get a
response but no dice. Emailed the founder, called all the numbers I had (they
never pick up my calls now).

I sent the founder another email today after seeing this thread, but I'm
filing a lawsuit next week (it's like a 3 page worksheet in LA) and then I'm
blogging about the process.

It's crazy to think that suckers like me are out there lending their cars to
these guys based on the trust and policy of the platform when in reality there
is no policy (and therefore no platform worth trusting).

~~~
joshmn
Total aside, but you should rent it out again (perhaps to someone you actually
know) and then contact them saying something's amiss....

~~~
ReedJessen
Can you clarify this a bit? I don't understand your suggestion.

~~~
joshmn
Sorry —

I want you to rent out your car to me through the service. I'm going to hit a
deer with it, or maybe a bear. You'd then have another reason to communicate
with the service provider, right? They couldn't ignore you then.

Exaggerated, but I think you get where I'm going.

------
chris11
Worst case scenario, I've found that credit card chargebacks are usually
pretty effective. You don't need to deal with customer service anymore and you
don't need to worry about getting your money back. I wouldn't really go there
if you were still interested in doing business with that company though.

~~~
sjg007
This. Always buy an appliance on a credit card.

------
oldmancoyote
I'm afraid this won't help anyone in the U.S., but it will suggest what we in
the U.S. could learn from Mexico.

I live part time in Mexico. I had a problem with Telmex (the phone company).
Five times the said they would come and fix the problem, but they never
showed. I walked down the street to the Profeco office, signed in, and in half
an hour someone from Profeco was on the phone with Telmex laying down the law.

Profeco carries the legal force of Mexico's federal government.

The next morning at 9:00 A.M. Telmex was at my door and didn't leave until the
problem was fixed.

Some might think that the U.S. has all the answers, but we don't. I wish we
had something like this in the U.S.

~~~
EvanAnderson
A state's attorney general or a public utilities commission are probably the
best US analogs.

~~~
desireco42
Yes but they don't work like prefect does, they have similar concept in
Europe. It works really well when it does, and it seems to work in Mexico.

------
zachrose
I once dealt with a deceptive and/or fraudulent gym by filing a complaint with
the Better Business Bureau. The gym called me almost immediately and gave me
whatever I wanted.

It turned out that the gym was being sold, and the BBB complaint was probably
a negotiation liability many times greater than what they actually owed me.

------
waterphone
Simple Mobile is a subsidiary of América Móvil, who also own Tracfone. Their
customer service and that of all their subsidiaries is a nightmare, in my
experience. If you can manage to get past that, you can get good deals, but if
they fuck you over, you're usually out of luck.

I upgraded from a feature phone to a smartphone with Tracfone some years back
and they deleted most of my minutes/data in the process, and then gave my
phone number to someone else as well. It took contacting about 13 different
customer service people and posting publicly on their forums before I finally
got someone who would reinstate the data (but my number was lost).

Most of my communications with them were very similar to this, incredibly
frustrating, with people on the verge of moronic, who would disconnect me and
stop chatting when I got pushy about wanting what I paid for back.

------
otakucode
Depending on what you're dealing with, I tend to go legal/regulatory. For
instance, I was building my own PVR like a billion years ago (had outgrown my
hacked Tivo and cable companies hadn't started offering their own in an
attempt to destroy personal recording) and found out that there were federal
regulations which required cable companies to provide a cable box with a
working Firewire port.

Talking to the local cable companies customer service and techs was useless,
they either had no idea what I was talking about or insisted that it was not
possible. So I found out that cable companies are regulated by the Public
Utilities Commission. Placed a call to them. They had no idea what I was
talking about either, but I cited the law and they looked it up and agreed.

The next day I got a call from the owner of the local cable company franchise,
and he was very concerned. I got the impression that getting a call from the
office of the public utilities commission is not a great day for a person in
his position. Turned out all they needed to do was check a checkbox on my
account and the firewire port started working. Had it up and going later that
day!

If a company screws you properly, it usually means they broke a law. Find out
what it is and who is in charge of slamming their hand in the door when they
step over the line. Contact those people.

------
protomyth
Complaining on twitter works if you can get someone to notice you unless its
Apple (they don't care). At work, it is basically telling the next sales rep
to call that I don't do business with companies I cannot trust. Some companies
are easier to deal with than others. HP did right by me when we had a lot of
hard drive failures in their netbooks ("uhm, that's getting to be a really
high failure rate.. uhm... you got techs there right? well, why don't I just
send replacements for all of them?"). Some forget they were supposed to return
the computer after it was repaired.

I think its a lot like working with any individual. What they care about is
particular to the company and it is often hard to know the correct thing
unless you have experience with the company.

I did ban one company for about 5 years over a conversation that had me
shouting at my phone and saying a word I don't normally say. It was quite
strange as I normally speak slowly and lower when irritated while I try to
figure out if I'm just being stupid or the person I'm talking to is actually a
world class idiot.

Their rep (a different person) that called five years later was new and
getting a lay of the land and I wasn't as diplomatic as I should have been. I
imagine cold calling former customers is not a fun part of a reps day if their
CRM doesn't warn them. I amazingly was still mad, but kept my voice even.

Sounds like Simple Mobile could really use a decent CRM or record every call
because I get the feeling the metric is time needed to get you out of the
queue or customers per hour. Reps do adapt to the metrics set not the goals of
customer service or later sales.

------
lebanon_tn
Sometimes emailing a higher up executive helps. I had placed an order for an
iPhone 6 a few years back when there was a 1 month wait. While waiting, the
card they had on file expired and the charge failed when my phone was about to
be shipped.

Conversations with customer support were going nowhere and they were going to
place us "in the back of the line" again. An email to T-Mobile CEO's response
team and SVP of customer support seemed to do the trick and our phones were
shipped the next day.

------
sslHell
I stop doing business with the companies, and avoid them permanently.

Residential Cable and Fiber Optic utility companies are companies I refuse to
do business with.

Their employees hate their jobs, and I hate the prices the companies charge.

Realizing that there is likely a balance to draw between pricing and employee
compensation, I don't fault the employees at all, for despising the living
they must earn to put a roof over their heads. I also realize that running an
infrastructure project like a fiber optic plant [0,1] is no small challenge.

Nonetheless, I _really_ do not benefit from the service, considering what I
get for the chunk bitten from my wallet on a monthly recurring basis. To
compound this, having to negotiate with unhappy people, clamoring for a drop
of power taken from my life and added to theirs, when something doesn't go
perfectly, really leaves me dissatisfied enough, to never go back.

Paying an ISP money ( _my own_ money), I'd rate as a task about as enjoyable
as maintaining SSL certificates.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outside_plant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outside_plant)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_plant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_plant)

------
Broken_Hippo
It depends if I've options: Sometimes one doesn't, especially with prepaid
mobile carriers.

Some years back, I had a pre-paid phone through T-Mobile and had ordered a
refurbished phone from their website. Wound up needing repairs, under
warranty.

Since it was prepaid, no loaner phone. The cheapo I picked up worked better as
a flashlight than phone. But back to the story: I sent it in, and it didn't
come back. I called a few times, being told that nothing was there. Then being
told it was returned to me and I should have it. Each rep had a different
story.

Each time I called, I had to go through the same troubleshooting to even be
able to get anywhere. Most refused to escalate the call. This is pretty on-par
with pre-paid phone customer service - I remember at&t had 2 separate
departments for it. At the time, if you didn't have a contract, you didn't
matter.

I finally got online and found an e-mail address for their cooporate office,
complete with the name of the service manager for the company. I wound up
speaking with one of his people in the main office.

Soon, I was sent a replacement phone.

Other times, usually with more traditional utilities, I've not been so lucky
as the state i lived in had a weak public utilities commission.

Much luck to you.

------
alistairSH
For a vendor I can live without, I just stop doing business with them. And a
chargeback on whatever CC I used for the transaction in question, if I feel I
was defrauded in some way.

For somebody like an ISP or cellular provider, where I don't have much option
(in the US), I'm pretty much stuck complaining on Twitter, for the good that
does.

For problems with consumer goods, Twitter can be good at getting quick
responses from the vendor. Usually better for niche items, where the vendor
has an image to uphold. As noted elsewhere, Apple probably doesn't care enough
to respond.

Thankfully, I've never had a problem that was large enough to consider legal
remedy through the court system. I came close on a car insurance claim, but it
resolved days before I visited the local court (after months of being jerked
around).

------
jMyles
I really hope people will take the time to read these chat transcripts.
They're truly insane. I almost can't believe it.

------
philippnagel
Complain on their social media channels. Public shaming works.

~~~
jMyles
That's an interesting angle. Just like... tag them? On Facebook and twitter?

~~~
OJFord
Nobody who works for $company cares about you, the individual. But $company
employs a whole team of people whose job is to make them look good on social
media.

------
px1999
I had to get historical bills from a terrible cellphone provider in Canada
(Wind mobile, now Freedom mobile, now owned by Shaw communications) a little
while back.

Their customer support process was useless (they'll send historical bills to
third party organisations for stuff like background checks, but they're afraid
that consumers will use the bills to prove that they're misapplying charges).
Thinking I'd just just have to navigate their customer service departments, I
started recording the calls (legal in my jurisdiction).

After several conversations with friendly but incredibly unhelpful CSRs
(thanks to corporate policy), I started to look at other ways that I could get
my info. I issued a formal request for all of my personal data under Canadian
federal and provincial privacy laws (PIPEDA). Their legal department claimed
that I issued the request incorrectly ("by email"), so I responded by citing
the relevant clauses (never mind that there was a paper version that I sent at
the same time). Then they made a couple of other similar claims (that PIPEDA
doesn't apply to them, my reply was that telcos are _specifically_ named).

Seeing that they were drawing things out, I started to respond with expansions
to my request (asking for potentially damaging things like a list of who they
intentionally or unintentionally disclosed my personal information to), and
threatening to report the issue to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

Some combination here seemed to do the trick, someone from their corporate
security department reached out to me by email, and had the authority and
power to give me my data. They ended up charging me an exorbitant amount for
the original request's export (and never actually fully complied with my
request for disclosures), but I ended up getting what I wanted.

I now take the opportunity to share my experience whenever possible, and
figure that these types of stories being out there (along with the potential
customers they lose) will provide the financial incentive for them to change
their processes long-term.

TL;DR: CS process first, then recording, then escalating the request slowly
using privacy laws to your advantage, then expanding on the request to give
them time pressure (that eventually you'll request data they legally have to
provide but practically can't), then providing pressure to respond by
threatening to take it to a federal regulatory body.

------
enitihas
A friend of mine once had such an experience with an e commerce company. He
wrote a script using the facebook API to comment his problem on every Facebook
post of the company. He was contacted soon by the company reps and his problem
was taken care of.

~~~
nextos
I am having issues with 2 scammy companies and I would love to employ this
method. Would your friend be willing to opensource his script?

------
laughfactory
My wife and I, after years of excellent service from Amazon, had a couple
spectacular failures. It was always from their India-based customer service,
not resolved by talking to supervisors, required multiple calls and hours. In
each case, after doing our best to get things resolved, we emailed Jeff Bezos
directly. His executive care team efficiently and satisfactorily resolved our
complaints. We hope that we're driving meaningful change there, and we
appreciate his team patching things up, but it would be far better if the
India folks would just get it right the first time.

------
drewjaja
In Australia if it's telecommunications related, raise a complaint to the
Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO).

For anything else raise a complaint to Australian Competition and Consumer
Commission (ACCC).

------
nnn1234
Have the facts straight Complain loudly including twitter Write to the CFPB
and BBB Call out the CEO on social media. Customer service has been a loss
leader for companies existing in oligopolic structures. Time to follow the
Amazon model and make customer service a USP

------
walrus01
Set up a VoIP system that records all calls. When you call the customer
service department at any company, open with "I'm calling from a phone system
where calls may be recorded, is that OK with you?". Unless you are in a
universal single party consent country such as Canada.

------
a3n
Complain to your state's Attorney General and whatever they call their
consumer protection division.

------
Norfair
I use 'hess' to find all the email addresses of their company that I can
possibly find on their website and start emailing all their employees every
few minutes using a little script and a cron job.

~~~
jMyles
What is this 'hess' you speak of?

------
denzil_correa
The best way is to threaten to take them to courts and hope they will wilt
under that threat. You could also try lodging a false/misleading advertisement
complaint.

~~~
riffic
This is a good way to get a CS rep to stop being interested in helping you and
instead refer you directly to legal@

I'd never threaten a suit unless you intend to file right then and there.

~~~
AznHisoka
actually I had a serious issue with my COBRA administrator (health insurance)
and threatening to sue was the only wat they escalated my issue and fixed it
for me promptly.

------
DanBC
> What do you do when you encounter something like this?

I write a letter on paper and send it by mail to their complaints department.

~~~
duiker101
has sending a paper letter actually made any difference in your experience?

~~~
DanBC
Yes.

One time a bank sent me an application for a credit card. I wrote to them to
explain that I was on the Mail Preference Service lists and that they should
not have mailed me, and could they please i) remove my name from their lists
and ii) make sure they've suitably cleaned their lists. They apologised and
sent a cheque for £25.

I found a large splinter of wood in a food packet once. (The food was in a
plastic sealed wrapper, inside a card box. The splinter was in the box, but
outside the plastic wrapper.) I sent the splinter to the company, and said
they might want to know about this for their quality control. I said that it
hadn't put me off the product, and that I would continue to enjoy the product
in the future. They sent me vouchers for about £30 of any of their products.
(This was in the late 1990s) The vouchers had very little limitation - they
weren't "50p off an item, no more than one coupon per item", I could use the
vouchers to get free product.

A company sent me three premium rate SMS messages. I wrote to them to tell
them I was on the telephone preference service lists, and that they should not
have sent me the texts, and I asked for them to repay me. They sent a cheque
to refund the cost of the text messages. (I also contacted the regulator
because it felt like a scam).

There are a few others.

It's the price of a stamp and a few minutes writing a friendly, polite, letter
to let them know they've got a problem which obviously they, being a high
quality organisation, want to do something about.

The only one I've had no luck with are Virgin Media, who keep sending mail to
me.

~~~
duiker101
Very interesting! Thanks for sharing!

------
deafcalculus
Turn to Twitter.

------
erik14th
Hate the game, not the player. Being mad at the underpaid support guy won't
get you anywhere, being nice might.

Capitalism trends towards monopoly, and a monopoly doesn't have to give a shit
about how they treat customers as customers have no choice. So a radical(as
in, rizomatic) solution would be to make people aware of the actual problem
and claim for better regulation or lobby if you have the power to do it. Now
for a personal solution, good luck (:

~~~
jMyles
Whoa whoa, was I mean? I tried to be as clear, polite, and light-hearted as
possible. Can you tell me which part of this chat you thought was mean?

~~~
erik14th
"You: Eduardo, do you think that this is like regular data, but sparkly? You:
I don't feel particularly sparkly. "

Ok, maybe mean wasn't a good word choice. I just assumed you were kinda mad,
and with reason to be, my point is being nice to people usually works better
than demanding what's "right". It's their job to drive you into surrender,
they're trained to do it, unless you overcome the medium abstraction and gain
some empathy, you won't get anything.

