Needless to say, between sorting out tickets to go back home and getting condolence calls from a billion people, I ran over my minutes by – like, a ton.

About a week before my bill was due (hubby was a customer also) – we called Sprint to see if we could sign up for an installment plan, since we were students and could only afford so much each month.

First Sprint thanked us for getting to them in a timely manner, i.e., calling before the bills became overdue. Then they checked our accounts (this was before the days of family plans) and said the following:

1. Your hubby’s bill has already been processed, so unfortunately, we cannot waive that. We’ll put him on a payment plan immediately. Done – in about 5 seconds.

2. For me – Ma’am, we’re very sorry to hear about your loss. Your bill has NOT been processed yet, but we see it’s in the $250 range based on usage. We would again like to offer our deepest condolences for your loss. Your bill HAS BEEN WAIVED IN ITS ENTIRETY. You will only be responsible for the nominal tax on the account – $2.50.

You read that right. 2 dollars and 50 cents.

Last Spring, I was asked by a well-known company if I wanted a three-month free trial of a postage meter they produced. This would be for my very small business.

I accepted, given that I was suffering health issues which made getting my mail done rather difficult.

Right from the beginning (ie the promised delivery date) they made errors. They ended up charging several months rent (did I say this was a free trial??) to my credit card, which I had not authorized them to use for that purpose (as it was a free trial).

I returned the machine on time, and with relief, and proceeded to spend hours on the phone, mostly on hold, trying to get my money back. I do have to say that their wait times improved greatly, but their help desk people did not improve at getting my money returned to me.

Finally, in October, just a couple of weeks before I faced major surgery, I finally got a check for most of my money. At that point I was willing to cut my losses.

Then, last week, I got a past-due notice from them. I guess one of their attempts to charge my card did not go through. Anyway the charge was 392 days old, by their reckoning. And just now I got the bill…for something I never owed in the first place.

When I called, the help-person noted that I’d had some correspondence with them in the past (uh, yeah…) and said he’d try to get the bill written off. When I asked him how I’d know if it had been written off, he said, “Well, you won’t get another bill from us.” So helpful. It took them over a year to send the last one!

@ Brad – While I understand your frustration and agree that many people can be rude and make decisions we would not, I do think it is the customer’s responsibility to act civilly. There’s nothing that says you have to be overly polite, in fact, my post kind of shows that. If I were being overly polite, I would have left and not made a big deal about it. But, consumers get caught up in the whole instant gratification thing and forget basic manners. Common courtesy is a two-way street. Just because someone works in the service industry does not mean we get to treat them with disrespect and nasty attitudes when we don’t get our way. I’m not saying you did this, by the way, I’m just speaking in generalities. On the same token, customer service people who don’t really want to deal with the public and all that entails should consider another job. There’s no reason to inflict their issues on other people.

@ Renee – I work in service as well, and it’s true. If you come in yelling at me, my instinct is to get you out of my face as quickly as possible. This is precisely why I don’t want a management position. I will help you, but I’m not going out of my way for you if you can’t be reasonable and polite. Mistakes happen and I can probably fix the issue pretty quickly, but if you’re rude, arrogant, cocky, and just generally an a-hole, well I’m less inclined to go the extra mile for you. But, on the same token, there are those customer service reps who generally don’t care and whether the consumer is polite or rude makes no difference, they’re not going to help either way. That irritates me because it gives the rest of us a bad name overall. I just think everyone needs to remember their manners and have a little common courtesy to other human beings and we’ll all get along just fine.

I just spent less than a minute getting my money back (on a $12 transaction.) They had promised me over the phone that the item would be as pictured; it arrived and was not; I called and mentioned the item number and they assured me that it looks as pictured (that was my easy and justified entrapment of them – I had to first establish that they don’t know what they’re selling, otherwise they might claim to know nothing of whatever the prior CSR said); I revealed that it had just arrived in the mail and looked like the other item linked on the page, which was my suspicion of what might happen in the first place, thus my earlier phone call to verify what they were sending. They knew they had screwed up, not having the pictured item in stock at all but not originally knowing what was actually being shipped out of their warehouse, and they thanked me for calling it to their attention and credited the money back to me without even requiring that I send the item back (I asked but they declined. Not worth the shipping since the item itself was $3 before shipping. It’s a freebie to me now)

You had to spend more time but a lot more money was riding on your situation. Good for you, that you held them to their promise.

Thank you for the detailed comment on the World Card, also! I wasn’t in a hurry and didn’t mind waiting, and I appreciate the response from someone “in the know.”

I was tired of her attitude and unwillingness to help so I just hung up (something I never do. I mean never.)

Needless to say I complained to the company. I never do this. I do not expect a follow up or any kind of update and I don’t want one. I will simply never do business with their company.

I don’t think it is the job of the consumer to spend hours of their time arguing or being overly polite to people to get things the company advertises or promises. Sure it helps to have common courtesy and I would hope humans keep TRYING to be nice to each other despite that clearly not being our strong suit.

There’s a reason companies are failing and people are out of work these days. Most people are rude idiots and it’s catching up with them.