Hi. Barb here. We’re taking a little stroll down Memory Lane today with a post I originally wrote for Maine Crime Writers during February 2012. I wish I could say things have improved, but if I told you about the series of conversations my husband had last month with our phone insurance company, Apple, and UPS after UPS lost the phone for which the insurance company had sent us the UPS mailer, you would know that things are not.
One day…
Me: Dial, Dial, Dial
Automated attendant: “Welcome to the Aetna Health Insurance Member’s line. In order to improve our service, your call may be monitored for quality control. Are you an Aetna member?”
Me: Did I not just dial the Member’s line? “Member”
AA: “How may we help you? You can say ‘Claims’ ‘Benefits’ or ‘What are my choices?’”
Me: “Claims”
AA: “What is your member id? Your social security number? Your birthdate? Your mother’s maiden name? Your eye color? Do you prefer frozen or fresh-squeezed? Pulp or no pulp? Have you heard about that new one that kinda has a little pulp?”
Me: Answer, answer, answer, answer.
AA: “We have several claims for you here.”
Me: “That’s actually why I’m calling. You seem to have stopped paying my husband’s—”
AA: “For each claim, we need the provider number and the exact date and time of the claim.”
Me: “Wait, what? The time of the claim, not the service, because how would I know–AARRGGHH!”
Me: Dial, Dial, Dial
Automated attendant: “Welcome to the Aetna Health Insurance Member’s line. In order to improve our service, your call may be monitored for qual—?”
Me: “Member”
AA: “How may we help you? You can say ‘Claims’ ‘Benefits’ or ‘What are my choices?’”
Me: “What are my choices?”
AA: “Your choices are ‘Claims’ or ‘Benefits’
Me: “I hate you.”
Welcome to the Aetna Navigator website: For your protection, we’ve randomly assigned you a user name you will never remember and then we’ve hidden the area of the site where you can change it! Also for your protection, we require all passwords to have two consonants, three vowels, a number between 30 and 50 and any symbol that cannot be created by your keyboard. Good luck!
Aetna Navigator: We see you’ve accessed our site! What a surprise. Now that you’re here, our Automated Attendant Ann will answer any questions. Please click here.
Me: Click
Ann: No response
Me: Click
Ann: No response
Me: Click
Ann: No response
Me: “Ann, are you by any chance related to the Automated Attendant who works on the Member’s line?”
Aetna Navigator: Send a secure message to Member Services. We will reply to the e-mail address below.
Me: After 15 months, you have apparently decided my husband is no longer covered by our policy. This seems a little random to me because I am still covered by the policy, we pay on the same bill, and our payments are up to date. Please advise.
Aetna Navigator: For your safety, this response to your e-mail has been encrypted. Click on this link. No, not that link, the other link! No, the other, other link. Now download the document. Enter your password again. No! Not that password. You are never going to be allowed to read this message.
Me: Grrrrrrrrrr
Me: Dial, Dial, Dial
Automated attendant: “Welcome to the Aetna Health Insurance Member’s line. In order to improve our service, your call may be monitored for qual—?”
Me: “Member”
AA: “How may we help you? You can say ‘Clai—’”
Me: “REPRESENTATIVE!”
AA: “I don’t understand what you said.”
Me: “I HATE YOU. I HATE YOU WITH THE WHITE HOT HEAT OF A THOUSAND SUNS. WHENEVER I HEAR SOMEONE ON TELEVISION SAY WE HAVE THE BEST HEALTH CARE SYSTEM IN THE WORLD, MY HEAD EXPLODES AND FIRE SHOOTS OUT OF MY NECK!”
AA: “You can choose ‘Claims’ or “Benefits.”
Me: Dial, Dial, Dial
Automated attendant: “Welcome to the Aetna Health Insurance Billing line. In order to improve our service, your call may be monitored for quality control. Please listen carefully to our menu options because they have recently changed.
If you have questions about a payment, press 1.
If you have questions about an invoice, press 2.
If you like spicy food, press 3.
If you think puppies are cuter than kittens, press 4.
If you are a Starship commander, or are otherwise responsible for a Starship fleet, press 5.
If you are unhappy with your health insurance, wave your hands over your head and scream like a chicken.
Or, to speak to a customer service representative, press 7.”
Me: 7!
AA: Click, buzz, silence.
Me: Dial, Dial, Dial
Automated attendant: “Welcome to the Aetna Health Insurance Billing line. In order to improve our service, your call may be monitored for qual—”
Me: 7!
AA: “What is your member id? Your social security number? Your birthdate? Your mother’s maiden name? Your eye color? In what city were you born? Was it a difficult birth? How long was the labor? What do you think about that Kim Kardashian?”
Me: Answer, answer, answer, answer.
Human Being: “Can I help you?”
Me: “God, I hope so. I do not actually have a billing problem, but since Aetna deems it appropriate to have human beings solve billing problems, and not claims problems, let’s pretend this is a billing problem, okay?”
HB: “Okay. In order to help you, I’ll need your member Id.”
Me: “I just gave that to the computer.”
HB: “Yes, but it doesn’t come through to our system.”
Me: “That seems incredibly inefficient.”
HB: (placating tone) “If you think so.”
Me: “I am quite sure I’m not the only person who thinks so. Anyway, here it is.”
HB: “What is your question?”
Me: “You’ve stopped paying my husband’s claims.”
HB: “Yes, we need his social security number.”
Me: “He’s been a member and you’ve been paying his claims for fifteen months, and now you need his social security number?”
HB: “We don’t have his social security number.”
Me: “I don’t understand, did you lose his social security number, or never have it or what?”
HB: “I don’t know, ma’am.”
Me: “Do you know what would happen to the productivity of this country if I had the time back I have spent on this? Not to mention the people in my husband’s doctor’s office and pharmacy who now have to re-submit these claims? Not to mention your time? Our national economic problems would be solved! The stock market would soar, and—”
HB: “If you think so, ma’am.”
Me: “I am quite sure I’m not the only person who thinks so. How long will it take to reinstate him?”
HB: “The computer will be updated overnight. It will be all fixed by tomorrow morning.”
Me: “If you think so…”
The Next Day
Me: Dial, Dial, Dial
Automated attendant: “Welcome to the Aetna Health Insurance Billing line. In order to improve our service, your call may be monitored for qual—”
Readers: Have you had a notable customer service debacle? Tell us about all about it. I will make you feel better, I promise.
The Wickeds 
So well put, Barb. Yes, I have had debacles, too many to count. I hope your current situation straightens out soon.
But also a couple of bright lights. After a couple of unfortunate glitches in an otherwise delightful anniversary getaway we took two weeks ago, I sent feedback as a reply to an email I got from the small hotel in York, Maine where we stayed. Someone in charge read my message, got back to me with a personal note (even though I apparently had responded to an automated email), and offered me twenty percent off next time we stay there. Lovely!
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The difference between a small business and ones that I constantly refer to as “too big to be managed.”
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Yes, I had the same conversation you had. I keep pressing numbers and when I can’t get any action, I dial again and press 0 waiting for a human person to answer the phone. I think they don’t think we can’t tell a human voice from a computerized voice. Yes I can. Get me a freaking human, preferably someone in America. When human gets on phone and you can tell when they are reading from the book, get me a manager.
Barb, I hope your husband is back on the policy.
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Bill is insured, that goodness. Though how they “lost” his ssn after 15 months, I will never know.
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UPS literally dropped a package from their truck onto the roadway in our condo development. I picked it up and went into the house to call UPS. The package was in the right development but definitely not the right block. Calling UPS was interesting as the attendant used a reply that must be in their idiot script. “Your package will be delivered before 9 P.M. ” No matter how many times I explained that it wasn’t my package, that I’d found it on the ground where the truck had been parked and that a driver should come back for it, I still got the same idiot reply. If they didn’t know by then that I was not the person waiting for the package, they never would. I requested the manager and was told it would be about a 20-minute wait. It was more than 30 minutes. In the meantime, I called the addressee’s number, he came to pick up the package and I stayed on the line. Finally, the manager came on the phone and asked the issue. I explained how pathetic their phone scripts were and that there didn’t seem to be answers for contingency issues, not very good customer service, and told them that I had called the addressee, but they then didn’t have their usual proof of delivery in case someone filed a claim. Too bad they have scripted and automated so many things for “better” customer service.
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And then when you do get through to a person they are neither trained nor empowered to solve your problem and then you have to wait and wait like you did.
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Ugh. I feel your pain. And I’ve had so many of these. Besides the insurance companies, some of my most frustrating have been with different departments within our state government’s website.
Thankfully, they’ve improved it, although that first time through the updated system was a nightmare:
Enter your password
That password is not in our system.
Reset password.
You cannot reuse and existing password.
ARGH!
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Oh! I’ve been on that merry-go-round!
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Been there, done that. I’ve had the password situation like Annette, too. My go-to on the phone is to keep pressing 0 until I get a person.
The one that gets me is my bank. My id and PIN are never acceptable, no matter what I use, so I’ve pretty much given up on it.
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I have a relationship too where we’ll never agree on my password and I have to get a new one every time. Someone told me that’s actually more secure.
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At least you made us laugh! I have a doctor’s office where the recording will say, “you are twentieth in line, if you would like for us to call you back, press five.” I press five, give the information, and I’ve now been waiting two and a half years for them to call me. Okay, I gave up after a day and a half and called back. “You are nineteenth in line…”
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Now I’m laughing (so I don’t cry). Two and a half years!
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Oh, I feel your pain. I hate having to talk to a machine who can never understand what I’m saying or connects me to the wrong “department”, which then I’m sent on the road to hell being transferred to one after another that say “that’s not my department let me connect you with someone else”.
Had a similar experience with an item I sold on eBay. Sold it, bought insurance through eBay cause they said they would sell it to us cheaper than the USPS. Well, the USPS broke the item. In fact the package looked more like elephant activity than the enclosed elephants shipped off. Was told by eBay that I would have to refund the buyer and file claim with insurance at USPS, which I did. Fought with USPS with the help of our local postmaster (he was extremely helpful) filling out forms that got lost twice (even though the postmaster has faxed them) and sending photos of items shipped (thankfully I had taken photos of items and also showing how they were packed (guess that’s foresight for you). Each time they would deny claim and said they needed more information. Did this back and forth for over a year. They finally paid, but only $50 saying the rest had to be paid by eBay. Well, by the time I got back to eBay showing USPS had paid, they said the time limit to file a claim had expired. Situation where I did everything within my power to do it right and I still got screwed both by the USPS and eBay. Not only was I without the merchandise, but I was also out money for nothing in return. I will not buy or sell on eBay any more and don’t ship through the USPS unless I have no other choice.
2clowns at arkansas dot net
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Faxed it! Sheesh. This sounds like the same awful triangle my husband was in with UPS, the phone insurance company, and Apple. The phone insurance company insisted we had to file a claim with UPS. When my husband pointed out it was THEIR mailer send from THEIR UPS account and we had no way or standing to file a claim…and that’s only how the fun started.
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Unfortunately, this seems to be the norm these days. My favorite is when you finally manage to get through the long list of automated prompts, are told to wait for a representative, then get disconnected as soon as you make it to the front of the queue.
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That happened to my yesterday! (On something else).
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Hi Barb, sorry but your post made me laugh out loud!
We’ve had issues with speaking to a real person with our bank. There were two different customer service phone numbers available and the first one kept disconnecting. I finally got through on the second number and was able to get what I needed done.
My husband was calling to speak with a customer service rep (I can’t remember the company) and he had difficulty hearing the service rep because of chickens in the background!
Customer service isn’t the same anymore.
Hope you got your situation resolved.
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I am laughing about the chickens. Perhaps someday they will come home to roost?
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Oh- the customer service issues!
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Oh–and other words–indeed!
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I also meant to mention that in my town, packages get misdelivered ALL THE TIME. People are constantly posting to a town FB group with the picture of the package delivered to their door – which is addressed to a number and street across town. Not even close! Or the photo of the porch that isn’t theirs. I was sent a picture of a delivered package, which blessedly was next door. The photo SHOWS the house number, which is different (off by two) from the one on the package. Idiots!
I also have a big clear sign on my front door that reads, “Deliver parcels to deck on the side.” Amazon unfailingly delivers to the (seldom-used) porch under that sign. Sigh.
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As I read this I am remembering my granddaughters lying on their front stoop last spring. When my daughter asked what they were doing they said, “Pretending to be Amazon pacakges!”
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Hahaha!
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Customer “service”. Which seems nonexistent, at least to a lot of companies.
Our home phone and Internet bill doubled a few months ago. The company would not just provide Internet and a landline (which has been my husband’s business number for 60 years, so we keep it), insisting we include cable. Which we do not ever watch, and hate paying for. I finally went to the storefront to talk face to face with a human being, and got it straightened out, taking back all the cable boxes, etc. at the same time. He assured me we could have just Internet and phone, for a price slightly less than we were paying before the price doubled. At the time he said “This says you will get an installer coming, but you don’t need it, so you can ignore it.”
The phone company (AltaFiber) sent me emails urging me to schedule the unnecessary install, so as advised, I ignored them. One morning at 7 AM the phone company BROKE THROUGH the “do not disturb” on my cellphone (the landline is forwarded to it, so they had to go through some fancy footwork to do this), to advise me that an installer would be at my house that morning. I told the woman we didn’t need an installer, that the customer service guy told me to ignore the service request, and that I had only needed to plug in the new equipment (an updated router). She laughed and wished me a nice day.
I had been assured that our next bill would be very small, to reflect a prorated billing change, so imagine my surprise when I got another doubled bill, with all the same services I’d had before. Now I’m marching in to the service center again to ask what the heck is going on. That morning call, apparently, reset our bill, for an unfathomable reason. They assumed I was just kidding? Who knows. I now have more paperwork that shows our next bill will be small, but that tiny, prorate? Vanished.
If Verizon’s Internet worked here we would have switched already. I know a lot of people have their issues with Verizon, but we never have in the 25 years we’ve been their customers.
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Dropping cable seems to be a trend. (See April’s comment.) We’ve had only streaming for few years and it works well. I insisted we get a streaming channel that would get us live TV in case of national emergency, etc., but other than that, there’s been no accommodation.
We’ve been Verizon customers for decades and there have been a few little glitches, but they were the only not-guilty party in my husband’s recent phone debacle.
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And then there’s the ear-piercing, staticky, distorted “music” they play to let you know you’re still waiting.
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I always put the music on my speaker so I can do about my other activities–also so that music isn’t right in my ear. But then I’m disturbing everyone else in the house with it.
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And the music is usually horrible, or they play the same 15 seconds of it, over and over. Or they repeat the same messages over and over, until you start wondering if we could just vanquish our enemies by blasting the hold music and/or messages to them day and night until they begged to be allowed to surrender. Or blasted them over loudspeakers at the border – no-one would Ever want to come here.
p.s. I love the things you shouted at the phone – I’ve never been so creative.
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“If you think puppies are cuter than kittens, press 4.” – I laughed so loud to this – thank you. It’s just what I needed this morning.
I’ve recently had a ridiculous conversation with my cable company that was almost as bad as your health customer service call. I ended up dropping cable rather than deal with them every again for fear my blood pressure would skyrocket to the heavens. 🙂 aprilbluetx at yahoo dot com
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Dropping cable seems to be a thing. See Karen from Ohio’s comment above. It’s one thing that people are dropping cable because they’re going to streaming, but it’s an own goal for the cable companies if they’re dropping it due to pricing or customer service issues.
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Funny you should ask. At this point the one unresolved “service” call is trying to get hooked up with Word Press. I want to be able receive emails showing the responses to the other respondents to your questions. I keep being told that I have to create my own ownership account, i.e., I need my own domain. Huh? I haven’t found a way to talk to a real person. And the only way I can get my responses posted with my name instead of as Anonymous is to respond on my iPhone. Frustrating as hell.
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I checked our security settings again to make sure it isn’t us. Does it happen with other WordPress sites?
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I don’t use any other Word Press sites, so I don’t know. Thanks for trying.
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My favorite is when I call to make a dr. appointment that need to call to me, and, while I sit on hold for 30 minutes, they remind me every 30 seconds that I can make most routine appointments online. One reminder is enough, thank you. And if I could make an appointment that way, believe me, I would.
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And then when you get them, the next available appointment is in 11 months.
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What a horrid recount of your attempt to have interactions with a huiman being…I fear for what’s coming with AI taking over…I frequently have exasperating situations like the one you recounted, but I have never had anything that bad. I sometimes reach someona after 15 inutes of aggravation, only to find out the person has no clue regarding my concern, so i hang up and have tp call back and start all over, hoping for someone with a larger grain of intelligence to pick up the line… God bless you for your patience dear Barb!!!
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As my husband frequently says in these situations,, “I’m a retired old man and I can do this ALL day.”
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Oh so wonderful! I hope it got resolved, but just reading it made me feel better. Let me share a secret I discover working for a law office. There is an app called Get Human. It often is able to connect you to a human (remember those) or have one return your call. It’s not as good as it used to be, but it’s still pretty effective. Don’t tell anyone. Let it be our secret.
My husband has an on-going debate with Amazon. They have an outdated email address for him. They also have his current email address, but the old one, from a now defunct provider, is listed as primary. He can’t ever get through to Amazon customer service because although they acknowledge his current address, and send all his updates, etc. to it, for refunds their system has to verify you are really you. It does that by sending the verification email to your default address. Which he can no longer acess, and which Amazon won’t change until he verifies the default address. Catch 22
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Aaarrrgggghhhh!!!!!
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