(Posted Wednesday 4-11-2001) ----- Do you ever sit at home after a long day at work and all of the sudden the phone rings? You pick it up and it’s something like, “Would you be interested in AT&T’s long distance….” “Can I interest you in…. Blah, blah, blah?” You know the garbage calls that I’m talking about and they just don’t seem to stop. Here’s my story about a US based company called CHASE Visa. For a number of months now, they’ve called anytime between 07.00a.m to 7.00p.m. Always asking for my wife and she’s never home when they call. When she does get in I tell her about the call and she always tells me that they’re just a waste of time. So two months ago she told me to relay the following message to these companies whenever they phoned. “Whatever they have to say, put it into writing, mail it to her and don’t call back again.” Sounds pretty simple doesn’t it, well read on and you’ll see how much of nightmare this company really is. In the past two months I told three different CHASE operators that my wife didn’t want to be bothered anymore and informed them of my wife’s wishes. Yet they still called! So, today at around 10.00a.m another CHASE operator rang by the name of Missy. Without being rude, I told her everything that had happened and that we didn’t want to be bothered anymore. To this, she replied, “I’ve put your request into the computer Sir, you’ll not hear form us again after 6 to 8 weeks.” “Hang on,” I said, “I just told you that we didn’t want to be harassed by you anymore, period?.” “Well it takes that long to get your wife off of all the Chase lists,” she said. I was still trying to absorb what she'd just told me. “So you mean tell me that you simply can’t send out an email, make a phone call or erase her from your lists.” “I can only take her off of the list that we have,” she said, “but Chase Headquarters may have her on other lists.” “So why can’t you phone them and tell them that my wife isn’t interested in anything that you have to offer. Why does it take up to two months to do just that? We’re not in the civil war here where it takes weeks on horseback to get a message from one post to another? I just don’t get it,” I said. By this point I was getting a little frustrated. This was getting nowhere fast so I asked to speak to a supervisor. After she listened, she even agreed with my frustration and said that she even gets calls of the same nature in her own home after 8pm. She told me, "that Chase headquarters don’t accept second policy requests and that there’s limitations in their process. Her department only has one list and Chase’s procedure is that a customer can call them and make a request to be deleted, if they wish.” Responding, I asked, “then why don’t give this option to the customer, opposed to saying that you’ll still be harassing us for up to two more months?” “Well, we’re not instructed to do that Sir,” she said. I was lost! What a fucking waste of time. By this point I realized that I was dealing with a company whose logic was far, far, far from simple. I asked her for the phone number to where I could get this resolved. I called 1-877-752-8572 and one of the first recordings that came on the line was, “Welcome to Chase, where the right relationship is everything.” Do I have to say anymore? If what I’d gone through wasn’t enough, I then had to deal with the intrusive message, “For quality purposes this conversation maybe monitored or recorded.” Yes that sure is a RIGHT RELATIONSHIP isn’t it. Basically, translated into simple English, ‘However you feel as a customer we’re going to wiretap your phone call whether you like it or not and while we’re at it, we might as well have a third party secretly listen in?’ I couldn’t think of a better relationship could you? So when someone did come on the line I asked to speak to a supervisor, as I didn’t appreciate my rights to privacy being invaded. Once I was put through and assured that I was on a clear line, I asked the supervisor his name. He told me that it was “Mr. Rocket” and I don’t know if he was being sarcastic or that that was his real name? I was really frustrated by this point. As I explained everything to him, his attitude was as if “I” were the one who was wasting his time? With an arrogant tone he continued, “well when sales people call me at home I simply tell them not to call back again.” Had he even listened to a single word that I had said? For a second time I tried to explain my point and he continued, “Well this is going to be a lot of paperwork for me and…” at that point I interrupted him and said in a very angry tone, “I don’t care how much paperwork you have to do, we don’t want to be harassed by your company any more! Do you understand this request?” His monotonous response was, “well, I’ll have to take action on this and I’m afraid your wife will have to call me in person and….” I slammed down the phone. I was beyond anger, this insensitive prick had really pissed me off. What gives these intrusive companies the right to call your home over and over and over again. And when you’ve really had enough of their continuous harassment and ‘simply’ ask them to stop, they have the fucking audacity to treat you like shit, tell you that they’ll continue calling for another 60 days and then have the cheek to say that it’s a lot of paperwork and certain actions will have to be taken!
This really disturbs me? What has society come to? In the beginning of the 21st Century do we have any rights or protection against this kind of shit anymore? I thank you for your reading and welcome any similar stories that you may have. Regards, Johnny Anderson. Back to Some really Pathetic people.Click below to see:-
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