Please Press 1.

Please press 1.

I was panicking on the streets of London recently after receiving a letter from my previous bank indicating that I owe them much more money than I have ever possessed. Sweat began to form in more than its usual five places so I decided to dial the bank’s ‘emergency’ number quicker than you can say ‘ombudsman’. This letter was full of aggressive words and phrases which were, I am sure, taken from ‘The Banks Big Book of Bullying’ . ‘Action will be taken’, ‘our people will be around’ and ‘court appearance’ were mentioned in different areas of a letter, which was absent of smiley faces and scented paper. In fact, if it had been scented, I would imagine the sickly stench of cigarettes, cheap digestive biscuits and potent, putrid coffee, all immersed together in a layer of fur on the tongue that sealed the envelope, would have overpowered ‘delightful dandelion’?

Although I knew this was some kind of mistake, I envisaged a big bald brute, clad in duffel, bat in hand, (baseball bat, that is, not the nocturnal creature, although, who knows?), would, at any minute, be around to take action so I went in search of my mobile phone! Exactly where I left it, under the couch, just out of arms reach, next to a pen, a magazine and six English pence. I dialled the number provided by the manager in the letter only to be told by a Stephen Hawking sound-a-like to drop the first ’0′ and dial again for a free call. Why then, was this ’0′ included in the phone number in the first place? There was a vein in my, by now, very moist forehead, attempting to escape as I redialled, minus the first ’0′.

Hawking was back! This time to offer me obscure options to fuel the fire of frustration burning above my brow. ‘Press 1 for me to mention more numbers, Press 2 if you like option 1, Press 3 to vote for your favourite number, If you find my voice annoying, press 4 or for anything else press 5!’.
I Pressed 5…..
More options! ‘My voice puts my kids through high school, to discuss, press 1, how many toys had two little boys?, press 2, If, by now, your hair is in your hands and you would like to speak to a human, press 3!’ Oh I pressed ’3’. I pressed 3 like I was poking an enemy in the eye, I pressed it hard, not that I thought I would be connected quicker, but secretly hoping someone somewhere in their customer service would fall off their chair!. ‘I am sorry but all our agents are busy at the moment, please press 1 to return to the main menu or alternatively hang up and try again later’. WHAT????????? Did you not just feel the force of my finger??. At this stage, I was not only running late for work, my lunch was cold and I was at boiling point. I returned to the main menu and tried to go a different route through the maze of mindless options hoping to find, ‘press 1 if you would like to talk to us about a scary letter we sent you in error’. Instead I was subjected to an encore of numeral nightmare scenarios.

I decided to be canny and took option 47, I believe!, ‘thinking of leaving us?’, to see if I would have some joy and prompt a human response. Almost immediately, Vikram took charge of the situation. I remember his name because at first I did not understand what he had said, so I asked him to spell it. He replied, ‘My name is Vikram, ‘V’ for Vikram, ‘I’ for ice-cream’, at which point, I stopped this ‘Barney’ educated employee. After taking my details, phone number, date of birth, shoe size, ethnic background and what my mother’s surname could be should she choose to divorce my father and marry her favourite actor, we got down to the reason for my now, at least, 30 minute call. Not that I timed it, but I had seen the start of Deal or no Deal and as they were now down to the ’5′ box offer, 30 minutes was a fair guess. Who needs a clock when Noel Edmunds is muted on the TV?

After reading his script, Vice-cream, I am sorry, Vikram and I, got down to the business of my letter. To be honest, I think I had more chance of resolving the issue with the automated, number loving Hawking I had previously listened to. Vikram had me on hold so much I was actually singing along to Katy Perry’s Firework song which at this stage infuriated me more than the money I was told I owed. When he was offering advice, support and his sincerest apologies, Vikram was actually a nice chap, ‘C’ for Chap, ‘H’ for hap, ‘A’ for ap, and ‘P’ because I had a lot of water before that call. Other than being nice, he could not solve my problem and just tried to reroute me to some other complaints line that there was no chance he would ever answer.

Without going into the reasons this letter bomb of bad news arrived on my doorstep, it has now been sorted out and it was a mistake, a big mistake. It took well over 8 months, a lot of phone calls, confusion and a little bit of money for an end to this blunder, this bank blooper which, at times, threatened my sanity. Why, instead of this ridiculous automated option based ‘service’ do they not just have trained staff that can deal with queries and questions that they, themselves, have led us to ask. I say ‘down with automation, up with the human population’. Create jobs, provide training, help Vikram reduce my stress! Press # to stop reading….