For those of you who are not familiar with Camel cigarettes they're part of the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company based here in the US. With every packet of Camel cigarettes that (I'm aware of) you get a free Camel Cash Dollar. When you save up enough of this Camel Cash, you can get free products from their catalog. Sounds simple enough doesn't it and I'd of thought the same until the bullshit I went through with this company on the phone one day. Well this is the feed back that I got from the R. J. Reynolds tobacco company when I called and tried to ask them a simple question about purchasing merchandise from an expired catalogue. On Tuesday December 1st, 1998 I called 1-800-926-8814 just after 06.00a.m. PST. Once connected a voice informed me that the caller would be wiretapped when an operator came on the line. Well for those of you who've read my 'Toshiba story in Pathetic People' you should know by now what my opinions are on that kind of crap, but that's not my main focus here. Within a couple of minutes I get Brian on the other end of the line. To me he had a sarcastic tone to his presence but with phones I'll be the first to admit that you can often be wrong. My first request was that I not be wiretapped, tapped or monitored as the conversation continued. Brian's first question to ask was my name followed by my date of birth. "Well that's irrelevant," I told him, "the reason that I've called is to ask about an expired Camel catalogue." Like he wasn't even listening, once again came the 'Date of birth crap.' "OK, it's 7-7-77," I said. Is that your date of birth?" he asked again. "No, I just made it up so that we can continue this conversation here and I can get to the point. "I'm sorry, if that's not your date of birth then I can't help you," he continued. "OK," I said again, "it's 7-7-76." "Are you a smoker?" he then asked. "No, I'm not," I told him. It was then that came the most pathetic part of this whole ordeal "Then I can't answer any questions for you unless you're a smoker," he continued. "So you mean to tell me that I'm being discriminated upon here because I'm not a smoker?" I said. And his final reply to that question was, "I can only help you if you're 21 or older and smoke cigarettes." By that point I'd heard enough and simply put the phone down. Is there something radically wrong with the above story? Or am I behind the times here and this is how companies of today operate and achieve what they want by any means necessary. To me this company is expressing the same ethics towards non-smokers as racists have done and still do toward those of the skin origin that they oppose. Do I need to say anymore here? Thanks for your reading, Johnny Anderson.
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