It is not just in America either... A letter to a British Phone Company

Dear Cretins,
I have been an NTL customer since July 9, 2001, when I signed up for your four-in-one deal for cable TV, cable modem, telephone, and alarm monitoring.

During this three-month period I have encountered inadequacy of service which I had not previously considered possible, as well as ignorance and stupidity of monolithic proportions. Please allow me to provide specific details, so that you can either pursue your professional prerogative and seek to rectify these difficulties - or more likely (I suspect) so that you can have some entertaining reading material as you while away the working day smoking, and drinking vendor-coffee on the bog in your office.

My initial installation was cancelled without warning, resulting in my spending an entire Saturday sitting on my arse waiting for your technician to arrive. When he did not arrive, I spent a further 57 minutes listening to your infuriating hold music, and the even more annoying Scottish robot woman telling me to look at your helpful website. HOW? I alleviated the boredom by playing with myself for a few minutes - an activity at which you are no doubt both familiar and highly adept.

The rescheduled installation then took place some two weeks later, although the technician did forget to bring a number of vital tools - such as a drill-bit, and his cerebrum. Two weeks later, my cable modem had still not arrived. After 15 telephone calls over four weeks my modem arrived, six weeks after I had requested, and begun to pay for it.

I estimate your internet server's downtime is roughly 35% - the hours between about 6 PM and midnight, Monday through Friday, and most of the weekend.

I am still waiting for my telephone connection. I have made nine calls on my mobile to your no-help line, and have been unhelpfully transferred to a variety of disinterested individuals who are, it seems, also highly skilled bollock jugglers. I have been informed that a telephone line is available (and someone will call me back); that I will be transferred to someone who knows whether or not a telephone line is available (and then been cut off); that I will be transferred to someone (and then been redirected to an answering machine informing me that your office is closed); that I will be transferred to someone and then been redirected to the irritating Scottish robot woman, and several other variations on this theme.

Doubtless you are no longer reading this letter, as you have at least a thousand other dissatisfied customers to ignore, and also another one of those crucially important on-hold moments to attend to. Frankly I don't care. It's far more satisfying as a customer to voice my frustrations in print than to shout them at your unending hold music. Forgive me, therefore, if I continue.

I truly thought British Telecom was crap, and they had attained the holy piss-pot of awful customer relations; and that no one, anywhere, ever, could be more disinterested, less helpful or more obstructive to delivering service to their customers. That's why I chose NTL, and because, well, there isn't anyone else is there? How surprised I therefore was, when I discovered to my considerable dissatisfaction and disappointment what a useless shower of bastards you truly are.

BT - wankers though they are - shine like brilliant beacons of success in the filthy mire of your seemingly limitless inadequacy. Suffice to say that I have now given up on my futile and foolhardy quest to receive any kind of service from you. I suggest that you cease any potential future attempts to extort payment from me for the services which you have so pointedly and catastrophically failed to deliver. Any such activity will be greeted initially with hilarity and disbelief and will quickly be replaced by derision, and even perhaps bemused rage.

I enclose two small deposits, selected with great care from my cat's litter tray, as an expression of my utter and complete contempt for both you and your pointless company. I sincerely hope that they have not become desiccated during transit - they were satisfyingly moist at the time of posting, and I would feel considerable disappointment if you did not experience both their rich aroma and delicate texture. Consider them the very embodiment of my feelings towards NTL, and its worthless employees.

Have a nice day. May it be the last in your miserable short lives, you irritatingly incompetent
and infuriatingly unhelpful bunch of twits.

Regards,
John

Corporate Hell

I have had it. I am so frustrated with our society that I have decided to write about it, and hope that maybe there are others out there who feel the same way. Perhaps in our similarities, we can find some release from this.

I would say that 4 days out of the week, I spend several hours of the day navigating some menu or holding back my frustration with the person on the other end of the phone. There is always another fee, something that I didn't do, or an explination of how it is not their fault. What has happened to customer service? I have my own business, and I know that if I do not respond to my clients needs they will not return. Unfortunately, we do it to ourselves as consumers. Because we "must have" so many things, these companies can get away with it. Look at cell phones for example. Our society got along perfectly well without them for a long time. Now because everyone has one, and you are considered weird to not have one, the corporate structure is set up to take advantage of our weakness. They lock us into ridiculous contracts, charge us for partial minutes, and make it generally difficult to accomplish anything without dedicating our day to their system. It makes me sick.

Or another example comes from tonight. I have SBC DSL and wanted to hook up my wireless router. Instead of SBC saying "sure, let me help you figure out how to do that", there response is we only will help you if you buy out equipment. If it is someone elses equipment, it is your own responsibility. By the way... our equipment is crappy and overpriced. Thanks! I work hard to pay a bunch of money every month for their service, and the best they can do is tell me they can't help me unless I spend more money.

More money... that's what we all want. Only money will make us happy.

I think that I am too frustrated to actually write anything intelligble right now. Does this at least get the thought going for any of you? I look forward to getting further into this issue.