It's a sorry state of affairs when a call to a customer service call centre feels like as rewarding and fruitful as a bare knuckle bar fight. But it's a situation that many of us are all to familiar with. So called 'off shore' call centre's and phone drones who tell us that "management are not customer facing" are pretty much part of the standard armour that companies use to keep the average Joe from speaking with anyone capable of providing us with some real, heaven forbid, customer service!
In 2005 had reason to take up a complaint with 1and1 internet over a domain name that they automatically renewed, despite my attempts to request they do not do so. The auto-renew, in August, cost £10.45 which though it won't break my bank, is annoying nonetheless, however due to the fact that the debit card details 1and1 had on record were out of date, the payment for the auto-renew was declined, yet the domain was itself renewed.A few weeks later 1and1 'locked' my account and stopped all services running across various domain names I had on this particular account. I did make several phone calls to 1and1 to discuss the matter. Each time I asked to speak with a manager but on every occasion call centre staff told me in various different ways that management don't speak with customers, ever!
1and1 insisted the auto-renew was valid and they were under no circumstances prepared to show any latitude or understanding in this case whatsoever. I explained that should 1and1 choose to pursue the matter I would simply move all of my domains away from them and close other 1and1 accounts that I administrate. The operator I then said this would "hardly affect 1and1 now would it?"
In october 1and1 passed the disputed debt to BFS finance for collection. I spoke with BFS and advised them that this was a disputed debt, they in turn advised me to call 1and1. I did email 1and1 internet on Monday 24th of October (2005). I decided once more to try and speak with someone in management on the telephone, however the debacle only went from bad to worse at this stage. In a series of telephone calls to 1and1's abysmal customer call centre, I was repeatedly given wrong information, fobbed off, lied to, cut off and generally ignored.
When I eventually got to speak with Mr Daniel Bromley who I was informed was a manager, I found that he was in actual fact merely a lowly billing team leader incapable of using any discretion or customer service latitude in order to save the account and the face of 1and1 internet. In fact Mr Bromley adopted a fairly aggressive attitude and, like other before him, tried to push the issue to another department.
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