I seem to keep coming back to this topic. Perhaps it’s because they can call us any time they like, but getting through to them might take until next Wednesday.

It was a normal morning with me answering a call every 20 minutes, making sure it was spam by listening to the first few words of their spiel, then blocking them. I took satisfaction in the fact that my blocked list had grown to over 1,200 numbers. But they still keep on calling…

My blocking actions were redirected by the thought that I had some online banking to do. I pulled up my bank’s log in page and typed in the username and password. I never allow my computer to store my bank account password or username. The username is actually a password in itself. My confidence in my browser being able to keep all of this information safe is low.

Maybe my coffee hadn’t taken effect yet. Perhaps it was the phone ringing alerting me to the next spam call. It could have been a brain fart. I get those now and then. Whatever the reason, the wrong password or username was put in and I received a notification. The second try was no better. The new notification asked me to change my password. I went through the steps as directed but the new password wouldn’t work, and I was given directions to choose an authentication method. This gave me a six-digit number which appeared in my phone. I used the code and typed in the password. Another notice popped up proclaiming that the information I had used was not in their database.  It did give me a number to call which I did.

To make a long story short, I told the automated voice my name, account number, address, yada, yada, yada, yada, and did it in only 7 minutes. Then they asked me for my phone call pin number. What? I couldn’t ever remember having a telephone pin number. I tried a couple of numbers but none of them worked. In the end, I remembered that I had a friend who worked at the bank, and they had given me their direct number. That rectified the situation, and we were able to straighten out the bank program that had gone bad.

After wrestling with the bank, I looked at the clock and saw that it was past time for the exterminator to come do a check. Five years without a mouse in the house and suddenly they were taking over. The exterminator had not given me a card and my daughter arranged it for me, so there was no number in my phone history. The website did provide several numbers, one for each of the different towns in the area. I chose the one for my town and was immediately connected to an automated voice asking me to wait until a representative was able to take my call.

After a 15-minute wait, the representative answered, He had a lot of questions. Name? Address? Zip? Phone? Email? Then he threw a screwball- “There is someone else on the account. We need their phone number and email address before we can proceed.”

“It’s my daughter,” I said. “She set up the account for me. I don’t remember her phone number and email address.”

Now, I want to ask you, “Is this level of security needed for a person to talk to a pest control company? Do we have a rash of people impersonating other people to send the pest control to their homes? Maybe a terrorist group is plotting on sending pest control to your neighborhood, too. That should make you tremble in your boots.”

After taking the chance of disconnecting him, I found my daughter’s phone number on my phone. He pretended he was doing me a favor by allowing me to proceed without her email. Horse biscuits! He then spent a couple of minutes looking over his schedule before telling me that the next day they could get someone out would be in three weeks.

Three weeks! Lord a-mighty! The mice in the traps would stink by then and without resetting, those not caught in the traps would have great grandchildren.  

My exclamation caused him to reconsider, and he came up with tomorrow at 8. He had to transfer me to the main office for my town to confirm it, so he put me on hold to wait for them to answer. After 15 minutes of waiting, the line was disconnected. Crap!

What happened to “customer service?” Don’t these companies want our business anymore? Have they fired all their customer service help and just expect to lay back and collect our money? Have I somehow traveled into another dimension where people expect to be tortured with flute music and have their time wasted? Where are the torches and pitchforks?