# Fuck automated phone service **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 21, 2015, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-automated-phone-service/732047 "2015-09-21T00:11:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2015, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-automated-phone-service/732047/21 "2015-09-22T14:52:30Z")
> [@GrumpyBunny](#): > > Also, I found that with one of the utility companies, if you lose your temper and yell, “You are a goddamn pig-fucking idiot!”, it will connect you to a live human being. 🆒 Who knew David Cameron was manning phone lines? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2015, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-automated-phone-service/732047/22 "2015-09-22T14:59:59Z")
> [@brovolone](#): > > I hate doing things on computers because you have to register and create a “unique” password. > > I wouldn’t mind using the computer if I didn’t have to try to create a password 10x in a row to their crazy capitalization/character standards. > > Oh, then to make it even worse-- the CAPTCHA thing. I finally make a password… then I fuck up the CAPTCHA because it’s all squiggly or blurry. Is that a lowercase G or a 9?Then it reloads the page and clears out my password/confirm password slots. Fuuuuuuck. > > Just whatever man. I completely love the “press 1 for this” option on the phone. So simple. Once you sit through the schpeel one time, you can remember the prompts for a while… next time you call-- quick and easy-- you already know what to press. That’s an inherent consequence of using the password and CAPTCHA on the same form. Browsers will not save passwords between submissions–this is intentional. So you have to actually make the CAPTCHA check itself independently, before you submit the form, and that’s more complicated. Or I guess you could roll your own password field… ---
**Author:** ![DoggyDunnit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5fc32e/32.png) [@DoggyDunnit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoggyDunnit)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2015, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-automated-phone-service/732047/23 "2015-09-24T21:50:09Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I cursed one once. “If you’d like to end this call, please hang up.” I’ve had a couple of these “automated phone system” robots actually admonish me for cussing (after getting frustrated with their maze-like bullshit), then hang up on me. Listen, robot, I don’t give a fuck if my language is “abusive”. You bet your circuit boards I’m gonna get “abusive” after the umpteen zillionth time you can’t understand my accent (urban Southerner–and not even a heavy one!). Generally, I’ve found that repeatedly pressing zero will, eventually, make the robot give up and connect you to a human. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-automated-phone-service/732047/24 "2015-10-03T07:54:31Z")
> [@Mnemnosyne](#): > > I hate how so many of these things no longer allow you to dial a number instead of talk at them. A lot of them just don’t understand people very well, which means it would be easier to have them offer the option to "Say ‘pay a bill,’ or press 1. Say ‘account summary’ or press 2.’ > > I don’t mind automated phone services that I don’t have to talk at and will allow me to simply press a button. Well, I mind them, but only as much as I mind having to do anything at all with a phone instead of on the computer. I’ve often found that numeric options are implicit in the automated spiel. For instance, if they tell you to say “yes” if you meant such-and-such and “no” if you didn’t, pressing 1 or 2 respectively will send the same signal. Similarly if they say, "You can say things like “pay a bill”, “contact technical support”, or “it’s something else”, pressing 1, 2 or 3 will work. A positive trend I’ve noticed recently is that some companies will now let you indicate whether you’d rather interact by using your keypad. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-automated-phone-service/732047/25 "2015-10-03T14:03:37Z")
I think you said, “confess to possession of child pornography”. If this is correct, press 1 or say, “no, no, nooooo.” ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-automated-phone-service/732047/26 "2015-10-03T23:23:08Z")
> [@Eliahna](#): > > Congratulations on never having had a stroke, a speech impediment or a foreign accent. > > Edited to add: > Or the need to make a phone call from the only payphone in the area, situated beside a busy road (happened to me in 1995, when my phone line was mysteriously dead one morning and I had to call the phone company to fix it - I couldn’t get through the voice recognition menu because every car that drove past triggered it that it was receiving a response). Ha or your dog barks. My dogs ALWAYS bark when I get on the phone, and I have had their barks trigger the voice response. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Angry\_Badger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b38774/32.png) [@The\_Angry\_Badger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Angry_Badger)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2015, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-automated-phone-service/732047/27 "2015-10-04T00:04:34Z")
Ooh, good pitting. My automatic reaction to getting through to one of those is to just keep mashing buttons on the phone until I break the robot and it puts me through to an actual person. I have absolutely no time for those systems whatsoever, and don’t usually even try. I have no problem with the systems that you interact with by pressing buttons; I generally find them to be quite efficient (except for at least a couple of companies I can think of that make me enter account numbers etc before I can get through to someone who then asks me that exact same information :mad: ), but those voice non-recognition systems just drive me nuts. Even if I take care to raise my voice and enunciate slowly and clearly (sounding like a right prick in the process), I find their success rate is about 60-70% at best. Fortunately, the button-mashing escape route normally works and I take that every time. 🙂 The one time that didn’t work was with my old insurance company; they’d sent out a renewal quote that I wanted to ask about. Normally, I could deal with them online, but for some reason the online service wasn’t available in the week before renewal so I had to call them. Fine. Except they had a voice non-recognition system. And it was one that no amount of button pressing, speaking random gibberish, complete silence or anything would make it give up and let me talk to a real person. I must have tried twenty times to get it to recognise my policy number. My wife had a go, and couldn’t get it to recognise it either. I even tried using a text-to-speech program to read it out from my laptop - but no. Close, but no cigar. I literally could not get through to them. In the end, I had to call the line for new customers only (this, of course, got me straight through to an actual person), explain my predicament and persuade them to put me through to the renewals team. By this point, I was so pissed off that the only thing I had to tell them was to cancel my renewal. I also made it completely clear to them that the only reason I was cancelling was because of their phone system. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2015, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-automated-phone-service/732047/28 "2015-10-04T16:28:16Z")
It’s a side thing, but recently we’ve been getting spam calls that use a synthesized voice to read out the message - such as the could-be-terrifying one from the IRS about your overdue something or other and fines to $100k and prison and flogging and deportation. I guess the overseas spammers have found a way to get around the lack of a native English speaker in the crew. But they still need to work on that grammar thing. It’s funny to hear a stentorian, pitch-perfect male 'Murrican voice read out third-grade language flops. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2015, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-automated-phone-service/732047/29 "2015-10-04T16:56:18Z")
> [@GaryM](#): > > It doesn’t always work but pressing zero about 5 times often connects you to a person. The fact that they may be in India may or may not matter. Yep. And sometimes it also works if you scream into the phone: _ **I WANT TO TALK TO A FUCKING OPERATOR!!!** _ ---
**Author:** ![4d3fect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/4d3fect/32/9728_2.png) [@4d3fect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/4d3fect)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2015, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-automated-phone-service/732047/30 "2015-10-04T18:12:46Z")
Just a quick note–agree with everything said here, in spades–but “service” this is NOT! It’s automated, and phone, but --definitely…not…service. Along the lines of computer generated voice pitting, may I add parenthetically the BART announcing voice. That shit creeps me the hell out. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2015, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-automated-phone-service/732047/31 "2015-10-04T19:54:06Z")
> [@4d3fect](#): > > Along the lines of computer generated voice pitting, may I add parenthetically the BART announcing voice. That shit creeps me the hell out. Gracie is a little creepy, [but meh](http://www.bart.gov/news/articles/2009/news20090309). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-automated-phone-service/732047.md?page=1)