Please Give Me A Sedative, I Need It!

Why can't ringing up large companies be effortless and stress free?!!
I have just rung BT to ask why I was charged 24p x 2 for just ringing twice , not answering my Tesco mobile phone when I mislaid it in the house recently! I also wanted them to clarify whether calls to 0345 numbers were included in my free 'unlimited' calls plan.
First, I had to say to a Mrs Non Human, what my call about. 'My bill', I said in a loud voice! ' Your bill? 'Yes''! I answered. After waiting ages and told by a recorded voice how busy they were and I was in a queue, a man from a foreign land answered. Don't ask me what he said but it seems I was charged a 24p x 2 connection charge for just hearing my mobile phone ring for a few seconds!
He then started to tell me about 0345 numbers but I was totally lost. I said, I didn't understand a word he was saying and said I was ending the call before I had a stroke, or heart attack!!
What are your experiences of ringing these companies? Why is it such hard work just to find out an answer to a simple question?
Or maybe it's me lacking patience when I don't know a word they're saying! Perhaps, they should offer translators for us!

Re: Please Give Me A Sedative, I Need It!

LOL I know exactly what youre talking about Art,had many calls similar to yours over the last few yrs...you get no further forward even after being on the phone to them for ages.
Its a total waste of time!
I usually just ask pleasantly if they have someone that speaks good English that I can talk to.
Its a ridiculous situation.

Re: Please Give Me A Sedative, I Need It!

Art I don't telephone these companies unless there is no other choice, I can't cope with the time wasting automated responses I prefer to email them instead.

Re: Please Give Me A Sedative, I Need It!

Same here.

Re: Please Give Me A Sedative, I Need It!

Easier to write a letter or email to their complaints department or if they're on FB, post on their page they don't like complaints being seen so generally get back to you very quickly!

Re: Please Give Me A Sedative, I Need It!

We have the same with Talktalk, can hardly understand the people who are supposed to be helping you. OH gets very up tight & usually hands the phone to me. Last time we had a complaint he really made a fuss & in the end they gave us 3 months free BB because the service is terribly slow.

Re: Please Give Me A Sedative, I Need It!

My broadband and home phone is with TalkTalk and I had a lot of problems with them. They use foreign call centres where staff were hard to understand and also had no idea what I was talking about. It would take over an hour to get an answer to a simple question so I asked to speak to a manager. I said if things didn't change then my long running account with them would be moved to another company. They cancelled my charges for the next 3 months and told me to always ask to speak with a manager in future. I said OK , but if he doesn't help within 15 mins I will go elsewhere.
Things have been much easier since!

Re: Please Give Me A Sedative, I Need It!

Oh I do so agree with you TessA. I do the same. I tried to send an email to HP in England, tried many times, each time it simply "greyed out". I tried telephoning, gave up. I went on HP face book page and sent a private message. It was replied to in seconds. A bit of a long story, but the man who I was in contact with, henceforth known as "HP Eric" was in the USA, but he was so helpful. After some messaging back and forth he organised for an English speaking Spanish person from HP Spain to call me. A man from HP Spain, now known as "HP Juan" did indeed call me. He was brilliant, he sorted out the problems I had by remote control, with just a little help from me. Not only that he called me every week for a month to check that my laptop was still working correctly.

Only this last week I have done exactly the same thing with Gigaset because I couldn't get to grips with the new phone set up we have. They also replied within a day and I now have an "understandable..I hope" set of instructions, which I will do battle with later.

Re: Please Give Me A Sedative, I Need It!

That was like us, Twink, but we still have very slow BB.

Re: Please Give Me A Sedative, I Need It!

I think it has got worse since they were hacked, but their servers have always been sub standard. I get pleasure from complaining about bad service, but seeing as I get free broadband from them ( a method they used to get phone customers to accept their broadband service) I can't complain too much.