The government is concerned with more systemic issues. As an example, when there was $1.3 Billion dollars in harm across more than 11 million accounts, they stepped in with Wells Fargo: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-order...
I too feel like the person above you: my day is weighed down with doing tasks that either used to be part of what you were paying to get, and now have been outsourced to you (and lest we kid ourselves, the price didn't budge) or tasks which are effectively "hey, company, can you do your job?".
I'll reuse the example I used in an earlier thread along these same veins: my SO caught COVID. At the time, I only suspected it: so I ordered a test from Walgreens. This was done online, and the online flow told me: "we'll contact you when the order is ready for pickup". Great. Hours pass. I call in, and get the chatbot. I navigate its menus to "lookup order status", and input the information: "there is no order under that number" — fine, sure, lie to me. I try a few more things, and finally cave & ask for a human. Hold for 20 minutes for "we're experiencing above average call volume" (more lies) and we get a human: "oh, your insurance declined."
Like, okay Walgreens … let's say that's true: you decide to just blackhole my order, and gaslight me when I try to find it?
And further, now I have to get in contact with the insurance, since … they're not suppose to decline. Walgreens knows they're not supposed to decline, but instead of telling the insurer "that's some hot garbage", they foisted the job of getting the insurer to do their job onto me.
Nowhere, here, is anyone doing anything economically productive. The only person doing anything is me.
The test was paid for out of pocket.
It's an example, yes, but it's one I've been dealing with across companies, across the economy, for months? years?, has been getting worse, and is continuing to get worse. It no longer seems isolated to your usual bad actors like airlines who can't get planes from point A to point B to save their lives, it's everywhere.
Consumer protection laws, regulatory action, class actions (if we could! I.e.: more consumer protection laws…) is the systemic level fix to this nonsense.
> on your bill that takes a 15 minute phone call to fix.
It's never a 15 minute phone call.
It's never a 15 minute phone call.
Why do people keep telling me this? I'm only going by what OP said. Tell them they were lying when they said they were on the phone for a quarter hour :)
> ...or I give up some of my valuable time to call them and go through the hell of phone customer service, a 10-15 minute commitment minimum.
Anecdotally, I find the 15 minute time frame to be the minority of the calls. But, 15 minutes is not a trivial amount of time, especially if that need comes in the middle of doing something else important.
Edit: I see you're other comment where you were referring to their one particular instance but everyone else is talking about the general problem.
A COVID test has substantially fewer 0s on the pricetag, but that's the death by a thousand paper cuts that the article describes. It'd be nice to exchange money for service.
The line between this and Wells Fargo is much thinner than you think. Nobody has managed to prove actual malice at the board level at Wells. A company like Xfinity is likely prioritizing bugs by revenue. As a result, bugs that result in overcharging will be fixed last, if ever. It is unrealistic targets, crappy policies, and bad incentives all the way down. The only way to actually make them care would be fines which would move it up the revenue list.
In the end I got the charge reversed, cold comfort, I was out a quarter hour...