... Automated Customer Service.

Here’s my experience with the ACS of an absurdly large and famous multinational company after they discontinued service due late payment of dues. I pay the bill, and call them.

ACS: To have service reconnected, press 1. For operator assistance, press 2.
I press 1.
ACS: To have service reconnected, press 1. For operator assistance, press 2.
I press 1.
ACS: To have service reconnected, press 1. For operator assistance, press 2.
I astutely press 2 this time.
ACS: The option you selected is not valid, please try again. (Hangs up.)

I try this a few times more, from two different telephones. Does not work. So I go to there and ask the polite little executive there about what happened. He says, “You pressed the wrong button. You are supposed to press 221 when they first ask you.”

“Er ... why, exactly?” I ask.

He grins stupidly at me.

Another, not so absurdly large but almost as famous, Indian company played a different game with me.

I pressed the button for operator assistance, and they forwarded the call, but no operator was available, so I was asked to punch in my phone number, and I would be called within the hour.

I wasn’t. Two days later, I called there again, and met with the exact same response. I punched in my number again. It’s been three days since then, and still no effing dough for me.

Maggots.

PS: Sorry for highly late posting – my broadband connection was kaput for the last three days, and now I am highly worried, because I have around 250 bloglines subscriptions, and now my unread posts are looming in the higher 2000s. And my plans to create a new and improved (and much more international) blogroll from my subscriptions have received a setback. Sometime next week for sure, though.