It’s bonkers, really is. I hadn’t been abroad for 8 years up until the last few months. Done a couple of short trips, Lisbon still seems relatively reasonable compared to here and you don’t feel like you’re being constantly fleeced (a coffee is just that, a cup of coffee and not something to eulogise over and is priced accordingly) . Even Paris seemed to be relatively OK - just goes to show how much we’re being ripped off for most stuff in dear old Blighty. Appreciate if you’re from further afield the whole continent can feel like one massive money pit.
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Portugal feels like the last outpost of value in Europe.
Britain = the Brexit gift that keeps on giving. An extra layer of cost at a time when prices are going up everywhere. It’s criminal. At least really good pills are still only a fiver. It’s all we have got left.
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Interesting…we just got back from 2.5 weeks in Central Europe (Prague, Budapest, Vienna, Munich, Frankfurt) and everything felt incredibly cheap compared with Seattle. Munich was by far the most expensive but still around 2/3 what we pay here for food/drinks. Ibiza even feels cheap compared with Seattle…
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USA is crazily expensive if you are on the £ tho. Europe generally feels much like the UK to me cost wise although we were in Montenegro last month which was really cheap and good quality living.
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why DHL can’t admit they lost my package.
after jumping through 937 online hoops to get a number to call, who then give me a ‘special investigation’ link where I write a message. the auto reply is my name does not match the tracking number, (sender made a typo)
called number again and now they claim sender used same tracking and I should enquire with sender.
despite package no longer in Spanish system.
despite package being in custody of dhl.
despite package status still undelivered
starting new investigation using wrong typo name
wish me luck!
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I had a long “chat” with Amazon Customer Services earlier, chasing a missing refund. It went on for about 60 minutes. Really trivial amount of money involved - I was just doing it on principle, but oh my god was it stressful.
I lost the chat history once it ended, which was a shame, but what turned out to be my winning angle went something like this:
“We can’t help you”
Unacceptable, put me through to your manager.
“We still can’t help you”
This is poor customer service, put me through to your manager.
“We only want you to do some ridiculously complicated thing to resolve this”
You are making this much harder than it needs to be, please put me through to your manager.
Talk to your manager.
Escalate this to your manager.
Etc.
And then, finally, a manager appeared and everything was resolved.
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I’ve read that frequently the “manager” is just the CSA at the next desk over. Back when they had desks I suppose.
Amazon claim to be very customer oriented. I’ve had pretty good luck over the years using the phone for communication with Amazon and various other corporate kerfuffles. Sometimes, I find understanding the accent of the CSA the hardest part of the whole thing. Unfortunate ‘cos it’s not a glamour job and you can be sure they get a lot of angry unpleasant shit thrown their way - and simply talking louder doesn’t help. Their working conditions at call centers are reputedly not very appealing.
It is never the fault of the individual CSA about what’s going on. Always the corporation and its systems that may or may not be reliable, well designed and customer friendly. I’ve found that politeness and persistence can produce astounding results. Treat ‘em like a human. Got a new computer out of Apple once and a reversal of a phone bill near $500 that was due to a misunderstanding about the terms of the contract on my partner’s side by not haranguing them. ‘Course as AI comes along this may not work so well. When they say “calls may be recorded for training purposes” it means AI training. So, make sure AI is getting the training that works for you!
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I had a similar experience with my phone service provider recently when upon arriving in the UK my roaming would not activate for the first 3 days.
First step - try to phone company, no number to call for my specific issue, I got put through to an online chat help desk.
Help desk person gave me a case number to quote back, which I did. Then told number is not correct and my account will be shut down for 48 hours. Meaning that I couldn’t even start to fix it.
I repeatedly asked for a supervisor/manager only to be told that there is nothing they can do and terminated chat.
I was without data for 3 days, so no booking info, travel tickets, Air Bnb check in etc ect.
To say the least I was stressed, but that is now the modern customer service model. Place it on a platform that cannot be archived and offer no assistance.
Sounds like a nightmare!
Ground is shifting under our feet.
Cell phone/mobile companies are notorious for their utterly abusive customer service, but this experience of yours takes the biscuit.
What I don’t get here is how one of the most technologically advanced industries of our time cannot
A) be technologically advanced enough to operate at the speed of light, which after all is the basis of their business
And
B) cannot be arsed enough to even pretend to provide halfway competent customer service.
You think it’s a scam? Or a conspiracy?
I think it’s both.
Corporate grifters will eat your children.
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Contradiction in terms!
Those ‘customer service’ helplines are THE worst things ever.
I had a load of protracted nonsense with I think Domestic & General(ly shite) over an oven once. Truly painful and life sapping hell.
A few years later a brand new Vaillant boiler had an issue so phoned up to start warranty purgatory.
I was instantly ‘triggered’ (before that was a thing) by the hold music as service had been farmed out to the above.
I wanted to cry
I have to deal with this sort of thing as part of my job, deliveries going missing, so frustrating. DHL are useless, but UPS are even worse.
Lets not even start on Hermes.
Is it true they rebranded to Evri, because Evri other parcel goes missing?
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I think the name Hermes gave people the impression that they were quick.
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InPost are worse. I had two parcels go missing and it took 8 months to get a refund on one. Never got one for the other. Impossible to speak to anyone or complain to anyone. I’d never use them again.
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Interestingly I’ve never had any issue using InPost (who I believe are a sister company of Evri, who I’ve had nothing but issues with), although I use them for selling mostly. Every parcel I’ve sent through them has arrived at its destination in 2/3 days, and the local InPost driver is a really lovely chap. The lack of customer services or contact options did worry me initially but luckily haven’t had to search for them.
I was the same - sent maybe 50 parcels without a problem, but as soon as one (or two) did happen, there was no support. One of the items was something I sold on eBay for £90. Even though it was insured, I never got anything back - just endless stalling and delay followed by total silence.
Some of the buyers on Vinted, some absolute entitled tightwads on there
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sounds like we need to recruit some postal industry people to TPf for insider knowledge 