Customer Disservice
May 22, 2024
As some loyal readers are aware, I have a Gmail address that seems oddly popular with others who think it’s theirs. There was an idiot in Florida who used that address to sign me up at more than 200 different websites over the course of two-plus years before the light finally came on inside that black hole he calls a brain. That experience became the material for one of my books.
But even though he’s finally in my rearview mirror, there are others who keep using that address to sign me up at a variety of places ranging from Las Vegas casinos to the South African Revenue Service to Tax Free Norway to grocery stores in the UK. On average, I get one of these every week. From what I’ve read online, this is a common problem and something not unique to me. But it’s still maddening.
Often, it’s just a matter of removing myself from an email subscription. But other times, they create an account. Sadly, in both cases, the vast majority of companies don’t bother confirming whether or not the email address is correct or not. Which leaves me, time and again, to have to go through the same old routine of going to the company’s website, resetting the password, logging in and deleting the account. That the burden is most always shifted to me as the unwanted recipient to have to get out of subscriptions and accounts created under my credentials rather than remaining with the person who wants the account makes me almost as angry at the companies as I am with the dunderheads who figure their email address is close enough to mine that it doesn’t matter. Kind of if a letter addressed to you ends up in your neighbor’s mailbox. No worries. Your neighbor will bring it over. But it doesn’t work that way with email.
What angers me still further is when companies don’t even allow deletion of unwanted accounts without calling them or contacting customer service. For your security, they say. A hollow boast from the same people who don’t care enough to verify an email address when the account is first created. Such as the case with a supposedly reputable major brick-and-mortar US retailer who another scatterbrain signed me up with recently.
So I went to their website and started a chat session with a customer service agent. This is how it went:
Me: Someone named [name redacted], phone number [number redacted] created an account using my email address. I never confirmed the address, yet the address remains on your files. I want my address taken off this account.
This person had given her phone number and her birthday during the signup process, which this security-conscious company kindly deposited into my inbox. They did ask me to verify the email address, which I didn’t, yet that didn’t stop them from creating the account and adding me to their subscription list.
Company: Hi, my name is Ronald. One moment while I review your question. We have a short survey after we disconnect the chat. Please consider completing it as your feedback is very important to us.
Hi! Good day, I hope you are doing well. Just to confirm are you referring to facing issue while login to your shopping account? Thank you for reaching out to us, we appreciate your time. Let me check and help you with the best possible options.
I am sorry to say that as a chat agent on chat we do have some less access on this due to some security reasons, I request you to call our support team they help you with this. However, we have assigned a perfect team to take care of this on phone. Please call our concerned team toll free number as soon as possible. Once made a call, rest will be taken care of.
Me: Please stop treating me like a circus animal. I am sick of jumping through hoops.
I was prepared for this. This was the second time I had contacted them and got the same answer. The first agent promptly disconnected from the chat when I asked if she was serious.
Company: I hope you understand my situation and limitations on this. Let me check this with my supervisor.
Me: I shouldn’t even have to go this far to get an unwanted account off your records, let alone having to beg and plead on the phone.
Company: For verification please help me with date of birth in secure reply?
I sent the birthday that was dumped in my inbox.
Company: Please allow me a minute. For security reasons please help me with full date of birth in secure reply so I can help you in better way?
Me: I don’t know her full date of birth.
Look, all I want is to get my address off [name redacted]’s account. Too much to ask?
You know, if [company name redacted] cared enough to verify the email address before creating the account, problems like this wouldn’t happen in the first place. Some sleazy dating sites are better than this.
And indeed they are. Spoken from a lot of personal experience with the aforementioned idiot in Florida.
Company: Please not to worry I will help you close this shopping account.
Please not to worry I have successfully closed this account for you.
Me: Very well, thank you.
Company: Thank you for understanding, I appreciate your cooperation. Thank you for contacting us, have a wonderful day ahead.
Sadly, the moral of the story here, as I’ve found throughout experiences like these is that asking nicely and politely gets you nowhere. Only when you start acting like an asshole do you get some action. Which in a sense, is fitting, since so many of these companies are acting like assholes themselves.
As they say, nice guys finish last.
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