To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you.
To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you.
To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you.
Please provide your email address and we will send your password shortly.
Please enter your email to complete registration
Your account is not active. We have sent an email to the address you provided with an activation link. Check your inbox, and click on the link to activate your account.
The Bored Panda iOS app is live! Fight boredom with iPhones and iPads here.
We’ve all experienced bad customer service at one point or another: long wait times, terrible communication strategies and incompetent support, poorly trained agents, a lack of empathy, rude behaviour and bad attitudes – the list could go on and on.
Of course, everyone has bad days, and customer support agents are no exception. Working in such an emotionally draining sphere can be a total nightmare; employees are often under extreme time pressure and are expected to deal with complex problems and the tantrums of rude clients. Their job is very demanding, and there will be times when they won’t be able to hide their moodiness – however, there’s a limit to everything.
When a company is widely known for failing its customers with faulty products and missing deliveries, perhaps the issue is much more complex than the simple incompetence of its staff.
Image credits: geograph (not the actual image)
“You would have to take that up with the board of directors” – this netizen took to one of Reddit’s most popular forums to share a story about a time he made the malicious decision to follow a customer care agent’s suggestion concerning his missing stand mixer. The post has managed to receive nearly 10K upvotes and 506 comments discussing the situation.
The man began his post with a brief introduction: In the UK, there’s a huge store that sells electronics called Currys; it’s a well-known retailer that offers somewhat decent prices – however, it struggles with terrible customer service.
The OP was in the market for a stand mixer and was offered Currys gift cards for a 10% discount. Knowing the shop’s reputation, he was quite reluctant to use them but decided to take advantage of saving a bit of cash and ordered the appliance online.
Delivery was due in a week but – surprise, surprise – there was no mixer to be seen. Naturally, he rung up the customer service line to ask what happened, and after a 20-minute hold he was told that the product was out of stock and would take an additional 10 days to deliver.
Image credits: m01229 (not the actual image )
Since the author of the post was blessed with great patience, he decided to wait, but again nothing was delivered, even though the product was shown as “in stock” on the store’s website.
He contacted customer service, and their newest excuse was that there was an order backlog and they weren’t able to tell him when it’d be delivered. The man asked for a refund, but in the UK, if you pay by gift card, you can only be refunded in the same way.
According to the OP, at that point he had no desire to use Currys ever again – however, he didn’t need yet another gift card, so he decided to give the company some more time.
A few weeks went by, and he turned to the shop’s online chat to find out what was going on, but as he probably expected, the representative was unable to help. Out of curiosity and lost hope, the man asked what he was expected to do, and the employee said that he had no idea and suggested the author take it up with the board. Here’s where the malicious compliance kicks in:
The guy went on a register of companies and found a list of Currys’ directors. He spent some time on LinkedIn, tracked them all down and sent them a summary of what happened alongside screenshots of the live chat.
Less than a day later, the customer received an apologetic call from the CEO’s personal assistant, who claimed she’d sort it out immediately.
Image credits: TLC Jonhson (not the actual image )
By the time someone decided to do something regarding his missing order, the stand mixer had gone down by another £60. The “hero of this story” processed his order again and said that she would arrange for the team to send him a voucher for the difference.
He received his long-awaited mixer in no time, and a couple of days later received his promised Currys voucher. However, what’s amusing is that the company proceeded to send him three more vouchers over the next few months. The OP then joked that the admin team must be as useless as their customer service one, although he did buy a new oven that also turned up faulty and late.
Anyone can write on Bored Panda. Start writing!
Follow Bored Panda on Google News!
Follow us on Flipboard.com/@boredpanda!
Darja is a Content Creator at Bored Panda. She studied at the University of Westminster, where she got her Bachelor's degree in Contemporary Media Practice. She loves photography, foreign music and re-watching Forrest Gump.
Hey! I'm a photo editor. In my free time, I love going to art galleries, exhibitions, concerts or just hanging out in nature with my friends. My dream is to get an RV and travel around the world with my dog.
Not sure why this is really a story either on Reddit or rehashed on BP. I’ve worked for a number of electronics retailers in my years (maybe even the above…..;) ) and for a number of very big corporates and all of them have a C-suite escalation team with the ability to “fix it” even if that means throwing money at the issue. Some even have an internal system staff can flag issues for themselves or friends in order to avoid them using their privileged access to fix stuff.
Can't tell if these articles are written by an AI or what. Lots of repeating paragraphs rephrased out of order. If you're just running it through some algorithm, should probably run it by an editor of some sort.
They dark grey text comes directly from the source, and the black text is just filler to make it an original "article". I am not sure if the black text comes from a real person, but AI is definitely possible. I now just skip over the black text as it adds precisely as much context as random advertisements.
It's a terribly annoying aspect of BP that they (or it) writes a summary of the item they're posting screen shots of. Just need to skim for the posted blocks and ignore the rest.
In Canada, a few years ago Telus would cold call everyday. After telling them no, asking to be taken off the calling list, and asking for a supervisor to no avail I searched online and found the CEO's email address (probably gone now). I sent a frustratedly heated message. The next day I received a call from someone at the head office apologizing and have never to this day been contacted again.
Another one, a windows cleaning business in Calgary kept calling and calling after being told no. So, I said okay, I have 40 windows and let them set up the appt. They came, I ignored them, they left and never called again.
Not sure why this is really a story either on Reddit or rehashed on BP. I’ve worked for a number of electronics retailers in my years (maybe even the above…..;) ) and for a number of very big corporates and all of them have a C-suite escalation team with the ability to “fix it” even if that means throwing money at the issue. Some even have an internal system staff can flag issues for themselves or friends in order to avoid them using their privileged access to fix stuff.
Can't tell if these articles are written by an AI or what. Lots of repeating paragraphs rephrased out of order. If you're just running it through some algorithm, should probably run it by an editor of some sort.
They dark grey text comes directly from the source, and the black text is just filler to make it an original "article". I am not sure if the black text comes from a real person, but AI is definitely possible. I now just skip over the black text as it adds precisely as much context as random advertisements.
It's a terribly annoying aspect of BP that they (or it) writes a summary of the item they're posting screen shots of. Just need to skim for the posted blocks and ignore the rest.
In Canada, a few years ago Telus would cold call everyday. After telling them no, asking to be taken off the calling list, and asking for a supervisor to no avail I searched online and found the CEO's email address (probably gone now). I sent a frustratedly heated message. The next day I received a call from someone at the head office apologizing and have never to this day been contacted again.
Another one, a windows cleaning business in Calgary kept calling and calling after being told no. So, I said okay, I have 40 windows and let them set up the appt. They came, I ignored them, they left and never called again.
To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you.
Subscribe to our top stories
We're also on Instagram and tumblr