Thursday, May 1, 2008

Hello, May I help you?

*I am depressing myself with the posts about the breakup. It's somewhat therapeutic to write about it - but today, I need a break. I imagine you do too. Thanks for staying with me even though I have been down.*

Due to the nature of my job - I travel. Not a whole lot, but enough. I was in Boston last week, and I am headed off to St. Louis for the day tomorrow. Like most professionals, I have a corporate card - an AmEx. It's everywhere I want to be - or is that Visa? Either way, I abuse the hell out of it. At hotels, I order $30 room service breakfast followed by a Venti Starbucks latte in the lobby. When my luggage gets lost, I expense the "good makeup" from CVS to get me through the next day. I take a $45 cab ride home from the airport instead of $2 public transportation via the blue line. The way I look at it, if I have to be away from home, I am going to find small ways to enjoy myself on the company dime - ESPECIALLY if it cuts into my weekend.

Before switching to American Express, my company used Diners Club. Diners Club had it's perks (i.e. no late fees for paying the statement late - even though if I was reimbursed in a timely manner it never would have been late to begin with - thank you very much), but it also sucked because who-the-fuck takes Diners Club? Nobody, that's who. When nobody takes your card, it becomes more difficult to expense stuff, making KC very unhappy.

In addition to the trouble just using my card, I had numerous problems with customer service. If, God forbid, there were strange charges or a problem with my statement, I could forget about speaking to a rational human being. In fact, I am pretty sure that Diner's Club customer service reps are actually patients at local mental hospitals. They are shuffled into a room under the guise of "arts and crafts time" and are forced to listen to angry customer complaints about their statements while they make cotten ball bunny rabbits. An actual conversation may look like this;

Rep: Hello, Sunny Acres Mental hosp- I mean - Diner's Club - how can I help you?

Me: Hi, I have a question about my bill.

Rep: I can tell that the government has been speaking with you. It's clear you know the secrets.

Me: What? No, I just am confused about a charge on my bill. Can you help me with that?

Rep: When was the last time you spoke with the president?

Me: ....

Rep: *Whispering* Help me get out of here.

Me: What? Do you need help? What is going on?

Voice in background: What are you doing? Get back here! :::ZAP:::

Dial Tone

So - you can see why I hate calling these people. I was so excited to cancel my Diners Club Membership when I got news about our company switch to AmEx. I paid my last Diners Club bill and breathed a huge sigh of relief. After all, one less corporate card held by me might mean one less mental patient forced to complete "Arts and Crafts time." I am a freaking humanitarian - always thinking about others.

I wish I could say that my Diners Club relationship ended there.

Apparently, I over payed my bill by one cent. ONE CENT! Oh the humanity! When you overpay your bill, you get statements telling you that you overpaid. You get these statements twice a month...for 5 months.

Upon receipt of my first notice, I called the crazy farm customer service to inform them that I cancelled and should not be receiving statements. They recognized my cancellation and informed me that they would be sending me a check for the over payed balance. Rather than discuss the obvious idiocy of paying to send me one cent, I let it go. I figured I could keep the check with my countless $0 checks from my time as a waitress. Besides, the poor customer service people go through enough without my logic making their crazy little heads explode. See? Humanitarian.

After about 10 more statements reminding me that I was owed one freaking cent - I called again.

Me: Hi, I cancelled my card, but I keep getting statements saying that I am owed one cent.

Rep: Ok.

Me: The last guy told me a check would be coming, but I really only want to stop receiving mail from you.

Rep: But you owe us money.

Me: No, you are not listening. You owe ME money.

Rep: Oh.

Me: So how do I get you to stop sending me stuff? Can I gift you the money? I will verbally authorize you to keep my one cent as a donation.

Rep: We can't do that.

Me: Can you just send me the check for one cent, then?

Rep: We can't do that.

Me: Well, what can you do?

Rep: Can't you just throw out the statement?

Me: Sigh. No. I am sick of receiving statements. Not only is it a waste of paper, but you are spending 41 cents on postage every time you send me the statement for ONE cent. Don't you see the irony?

Rep: God I hate Arts and Crafts time, the damn Easter Bunny keeps eating all my paste.

Me: What?

Rep: I said we cannot write a check for one cent - that would be a waste of money and resources. You can disregard the statement or you can re-open your account and we will apply a credit.

Me: This is pointless. May I speak to a supervisor?

Rep: Sure

Supervisor: You are cutting into Macaroni and Popsicle stick time ma'am. What's the issue?

Me: Never mind.

3 comments:

Aunt Becky said...

Bwahahahahaha!

You should frame that. Seriously.

becky said...

OMG I would KILL them. I cannot stand dealing with customer service. IDIOTS.

But I love the arts and craft time reference :)

Anonymous said...

I did the same thing once with a 44 cent balance. They sent me statements for 2 years before sending me my $0.44 check even though I had closed the account. Big business stupidity at its best.