with a hotel … trying to work through a bad contract (negotiated prior to me) with a corporate group who, I believe, is actively acting in bad faith, so that I cannot fulfill the contract.

The way I've felt for at least a couple of decades.

I'm not sure when it happened but buying anything now is an ordeal. It's almost never a pleasant experience. Customer service seems to be designed to deliberately fend off customers.

And insurance, especially health insurance? Nightmare.

The rest of the world thinks we're crazy to put up with this.

I just wish it were easier to refuse to buy anything at all.

If they are going to starve us, we should do the same to them...

Almost every day there is a new ridiculous hassle that would have been rare or unthinkable just a few decades ago.

And now they've gotten most of the way there.

They no longer need to worry about competition or government reining them in.

I miss the days when the only way banks & airlines could compete was with service.

"ordinary people get lip service "

What do we call "lip service" when the "lips" are actually AI bots?

I mean, today's companies don't even give us the courtesy of telling us we are screwed to our faces.

Do AI agents get the same satisfaction that a human gets when denying a medical claim?

I've had three horrible experiences with big corps in the last 45 days.

Spectrum offered me a great deal to bring fiber into my valley. They told me that they would do a construction survey and advise me of the installation date. They sent the agreement--it had a free cancellation policy, so I said yes. They proceeded to cancel my current phone/internet service--they called my current provider and cancelled my service--and when I called my current provider, they said that only Spectrum could reinstate my contract. What the hell!? I have to give them my pin number and blood to just pay my bill and yet Frontier let Spectrum cancel my contracted service. You can't make this shit up.

Right after the war started and the fuel prices went up, my garbage service (for my business) implemented a $50 fuel "surcharge."
It is in the contract that they can do that. So, the next month comes and they raise it by $150 more dollars per month. Really? I called around and found a small local company that would do it for less than half of my monthly fee. Well the contract with Republic doesn't end until 7/27, and the cancellation clause said that I had to pay a 6 month cancellation fee. I did the math. I was mad that they didn't even send me an email about the price increase, and so I started trying to cancel. It took daily calls and 10 different contacts and 45 days to get the container removed from my property. Ironically it was their collection department that finally forced through the cancellation. Now, let's see how long they send me collection notices.

The other situation is so stupid. Went to my orthopedist (old...not 47!) and they made me pay the full amount instead of billing Medicare first. New policy with their billing department. I said I had met my deductible. They didn't care. So then I got my Medicare statement and they paid the doctor. So I called the doctor, they said to call their billing department. People with foreign accents told me they would keep my money because I have an appointment in 6 months and that money can be applied to the next appointment. So you think you can keep $280 of mine for 6 months. Hell no. I had to cancel my doctor appointment and call the billing department back and do a "formal" request for my refund. I keep meticulous records....I won't let them forget about my money. I'm changing doctors....he also put a new charge on his bill: "Medical Office Rent." FFS.

It's almost as if they don't need customers any more.

And if people can't earn enough to afford their products? Are the MBAs that stupid?

I would like to see them disappear. No other country has a system like ours, and that is for a reason, it don't work.

The corporations treat their employees as disposable and this attitude now permeates their relationship with customers.

Rinse and repeat. Fist thing and only thing MBAs learn.
I had an argument with a home insurance company. Told me why it’d be so expensive to insure the house I was moving out. It’d sit vacant forever, might not sell and wasn’t worth what I said it was. Told her houses in that area averaged 32 days on the market. I was asking way under the quoted market price. Said I’ve been in sales for 50 years and had a Realtor license years ago. I had an inspection done and be glad to show it to her. Sales depend on price, condition and location.
Then I told her she was trained to defend, defer, delay and deny.
I paid one month of insurance and had an offer the next day and close a month later.

but only because I leave big tips. It fits with lostnfound's original post. I pay a fee to be treated like that.

But the freebies are long gone. Every fourth drink used to be on the house and those happy hour hors d'oeuvres were magnificent. Any bars not offering those things went out of business.

Management company. Charged me a late fee that was erroneously charged and then charged me a late fee on that while I was disputing it and now another late fee on that one.
I told them it’s elder abuse!

. . . for Christmas my mother gave me a Cuisinart a couple of years after they were first introduced. She questioned my sanity for wanting one - she asked, I answered, and later got her one. The center post jammed while slicing pepperoni. I called the company and spoke to a customer service representative. She gave me instructions for shipping it to them so they could repair it. It was sent back to me, not only repaired, but with a new lid, the old one having been gouged. It is now forty-nine years old and still going strong.

Prior to that, I had a wool Pendleton coat that I wore throughout college and into my early marriage years. The lining had begun to shred. I called Pendleton, spoke to a customer service person, and sent the coat to them for relining, at no cost to me.

Those were the days. Lostnfound, aren't we fortunate to have those days to remember?

Squeezed out of you and me.

They are such job creators, especially with AI.

At the time I was saving over $50. a month by making the switch. Gradually the cost rose to the point where I'm paying a lot more than I was with Verizon. But, their ads tell me it's so cheap to use T-Mobile.
I'd like to switch again, but my family likes the service, so I'm stuck with them for the time being.
The cost of cable TV has also gone up a tremendous amount. I get my internet and TV from Optimum; don't really have a choice, and it's over $300. a month. And that's with a fairly basic plan.
So, cellphone, internet, and TV costs me over $550. a month when you put it all together.

To say that sucks is to put it mildly.

The institutions have us consumers cornered.

A lot of it is cynicism, laziness, bad upbringing, and bad education at root, imo.

That means a work force with a fully understandably, bad attitude, working for inept, bloated, non-mission-focused administrators. The administrators do everything they can to turn the work over to automation, especially any work they themselves have to do (above and beyond sit in meetings).

Web sites and phone banks are now expertly designed jails. They sell to you, can get information from and about you, can force you to wait forever, force you to commit to costs and obligations.

"Would you like motor oil or puddle mud on that BLT?"

"Mayo please."

"I'm sorry, I didn't get that. You can say motor oil or puddle mud. To return to the main menu say or press 4."

"Agent... agent... agent!"

"I'm sorry, I didn't get that. Did you know you can access most of our services online. I can text you a link. Just say 'text' and I'll do that."

... That sort of thing should simply be illegal. If a company wastes your time, they should be forced to credit your bank account on a per minute basis.

She wanted to keep the same number and
Verizon seemed to stand in the way of letting that happen. She spent days on the phone sitting in Xfinity and Verizon locations being sent from one company to the other being told that Xfinity was waiting for the number to be released. She gave up and went back to Verizon.

as a general rule. If they’re giving you the runaround, you should let them know that you can file a complaint with the FCC, and they can be fined. Even now, they’re federally required to let you keep your number.

You need to go to the new provider first to set up an account and tell them you want to keep your number. Don’t cancel with your old (current) carrier first, or you could risk being without service for a period and also losing your number.

For more information:

• How To Switch Phone Carriers: 9 Easy Steps (tips from consumer finance expert Clark Howard’s team) - https://clark.com/technology/switch-cell-phone-need-to-know/


• Porting: Keeping Your Phone Number When You Change Providers (FCC) - https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/porting-keeping-your-phone-number-when-you-change-providers


• Enabling legislation (Telecommunications Act of 1996) -
  https://workinggroup.numberportability.com/sites/workinggroup/files/2022-09/fcc96286_WzUY2cg.pdf

and there are major differences between the two.

The closest macro client relationship that citizens can possibly have is with their representative government, not with any business entity or corporation.

A customer or consumer buys or uses a product, usually for short term use or gain while a well represented client's long term interests are taken into account as well. There is a fiduciary responsibility when dealing with clients.

If your interests are only for the short term, global warming climate change simply doesn't register, although that reality will become increasingly difficult to ignore.

This is why one of first strategies of the GOP was to come between the people and their elective government, starting with Reagan's put down joke "I'm from the government and I'm here to help" this coming from the President of the United States all for the sake of corporations and the people with serious money.

Since that day, the American People have ever been considered as customers or consumers, by the corporate media in the vast majority of their coverage. Corporations and extremely wealthy people were the actual clients either via ownership or major commercial purchasing. The American People were largely just somebody to sell something to whether it be a product, candidate or WAY OF THINKING. Meanwhile the corporate media both increasingly conglomerated into ever fewer hands, but also changed from actually gathering critical information and distributing it to the American People to giving their top down controlled opinion via punditry as to what reality was.

A half century of those dynamics gave us *rump and the only way he can possibly consider the American People is as customers to be sold any product except the truth.

Thanks for the thread lostnfound

And, yes, nowadays, they don't even try to hide it behind good presentation.

But, we still make them rich, so...

I bought a Chevy Equinox last year, about this time. We felt like our timing was great because they lure you in with Memorial Day sales. I'm also a disabled veteran and so we thought we would get a discount for that. Nope Neither. I complained to high heaven after they quoted us the price with no discounts. They said disabled vets do not qualify. So I have been pretty down on GM since that experience. I asked them about the Memorial Day savings. They had to go back and take some off You gotta watch these guys. Shame on GM for not looking out for veterans. We paid cash for the car and they were pissed off.

Enshittification.

so-called 'tort reforms' that made it more difficult for the average consumer to sue, and a decades long Republican attack upon consumers' rights, and specifically, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Elizabeth Warren's brainchild that, prior to Donald Trump's SABOTAGE of it, helped millions of American consumers.

Just another example of how TSFk and his filthy rich conies have made us 'great again.'