Oh wow, you actually get "tips" like this?

Bryan is making a fine argument for homeschooling.

What's funny is that the 'born again' comment wasn't a religious comment (to me anyway), but that it seemed that the CSR was telling him, in polite terms, that he failed at life, and needed to try again.

OH MY GOD.

Okay. Fess up. Which one of you is it???? There's no way this person isn't a commenter here.

@mythago: in fairness that CSR didnt fight a strong case for evolution ;)

This is the kind of guy that would do himself damage in order to prove a point. Cutting off his nose to spite his face...

Was born again even in reference to religion? I could swear she just meant his life was so much fail he'd have to start all over.

Damn. I do feel sorry for the kids. Especially if Bryan can not understand what the CS rep is trying to say. I have a fourth grader and if he is any indication you have to have good comprehension skills to get what he is saying in his written work.

As to the "born again" thing. I didn't take that to mean in the religious sense. But that the CS rep was telling him that while her problem can be fixed with more schooling, there is no help with his issue. Something similar to this, supposedly said by Winston Churchill:

I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.

He disses the poor representative, and then misunderstands what she means by "born again"... where does this guy teach, so I can never send my kids there?

I think most people don't understand how a large organization functions. They don't realize that 99% of the time the rules are in place to prevent fraud (that results in higher prices), and incompetence on the part of the employees. When a situation arises, they think that the world has come to an end and that their problem must be fixed. 9 times out of 10, its an unusual circumstance that would eventually get escalated to a high enough level where something can be done tos olve the problem. You can't give that much leeway to minimum wage employees and expect the company NOT to be screwed and defrauded. Fact of life, right there. Thank you Consumerist, for showing that customer service is a two way street.

And Bryan, seriously? C'mon man. You're a dick.

Bryan is your typical asshole with entitlement issues. Yes, we all value good customer service and it's nice when everything goes the way we planned. But the problems stem from Bryan's lack of a deliverable address, and then he demands things that can't be done.

This is the reason why eBay is in such big trouble with their foolish and poorly thought out new system. The buyer can be a complete dick and screw over a very good and helpful seller making business on the site difficult.

Interesting to see that Amazon is no different.

You know, I don't think the CSR was saying "born again" in the religious sense... perhaps someone is too quick to jump to "zomg religion!"? There wasn't any other "religious" reference, and the religious people almost always throw in a "in our Lord/Savior/Christ" or something like that.

It came across moreso as a "Hey, I can change my bad English, but the only way for you to not be a jerk any more is to start life over from the womb", almost like that "can't change stupid" phrase or whatever.

If I were the CSR, I'd have just stopped replying and forwarded every consecutive emails to my superiors.

I guess it never occurred to this guy that English isn't everyone's first language?

yeah reading the comment. She wasn't making a comment about his religion, he was stated he would indeed need to be raised again from a child and learn some f'n manners.

@jamar0303:

I am willing to bet these types of exchanges are very common.

Way too common.

@homerjay: He's probably one of the people whining about how the new comments policy stifles free speech and spells the death of the Western intellectual tradition. :P

2 of my favorite sites is the consumerist and notalwaysright.com. One is pro-consumer and the other is stories from CSR about horrible customers. This sounds like the ridiculousness I read on the other site!

It boggles my mind that their are people this arrogant.

wow, she was providing awesome customer service. and this dude was being a real dick... i feel really sorry that she had to deal with him...

@hollywood2590: I don't think it was, it was just a fantastic insult.

It was clear to me (and frankly, I detest fundies and what they do to others) that the customer rep was not using the phrase "born again" to mean religion. From the grammar used (which while not perfect was perfectly understandable) I'd suspect that person didn't even know the phrase ever referred to religion. It seemed to me that she was saying that to go thorough basic school and learn something, you'd have to be starting over in life.

And man, this Bryan is a nightmare, and to top it he obviously doesn't see himself as one. He thinks he's in the right here! There's a guy who makes things harder for every one of us who ever has a legitimate complaint. Every time a guy like that precedes you in the complaints cue he sets up the business's rep to react badly toward the next person.

If Adorama had the tilt/shift lens I want, I would have bought it just now. Too bad!

"You are very disrespectful, maybe my problem can be solve going back to school but in your case you will have to be born again"

That means that you, Brian, will have to die and start life anew to have any chance of being a better person. That could be taken as religious, but I think it was more of a general insult "you fail at life".

And I agree.

@hollywood2590: Good news you're not the only one. I'd be hoping for someone to press his cosmic reset button with a pointless and shallow tirade like that.

I must say, though the customer service was good, the language really was distractingly bad. I mean, it made my head hurt a little trying to read those e-mails. I can't imagine a scenario where I ever would have commented on it, but I certainly would have been very aggravated trying to engage in any kind of written conversation with Paola.

Yeesh. Some people just want an argument. Sounds like that was definitely the case here - past a certain point it wasn't about getting the issue resolved and just became him being pissed about her typing.

Hopefully in future, she'll learn that the proper course of action in that case is to completely ignore that sort of argumentative behavior and to stick to the matter at hand.

A simple, "If something in my previous statements was unclear, please let me know what and I will be happy to explain further. Now, at this point, I can do either A or B. Which would you prefer?" would probably have worked better - and sticking to that even if he came back with more venom. Not that it's her fault he was being rude, but when you work with people, you have to learn how to shove them in the right direction.

Sometimes appealing to whatever shred of humanity they have works too. A firm, "Hey, I'm the person trying to fix your issue - yelling at me is not going to help. The sooner we get this resolved, the sooner we can be done with this. Now, let's move forward and get this taken care of," is often useful. Of course, that assumes that the person you're talking to actually -has- a shred of humanity.

Does this guy know he could have called UPS and changed the shipping arrangements with them? It would have been easier.

That aside, what a friggen jerk. Its so rare to get a good CSR these days and this guy finds one who is willing to help him after after he acts like a 2 year old. What a shame.

Sounds like they are in another country and they are using a translator.

Is it just me, or did it sound like maybe English was not this CSR's first language? And you know, shouldn't a "teacher" be able to pick up on that?

@slim150: "It boggles my mind that their are people this arrogant. "

You should work in higher education ; ) You haven't seen entitlement and arrogance until you've seen what happens when you combine PhDs with fresh-faced college students.

Bryan...if you're reading this...please resign from your teaching position, burn your teaching license, and never again set foot in a classroom (unless it's an adult education program on "How Not To Be A Huge Bag-O-Douche.")

There are a lot of teachers in my family (wife included). I read this story and just shook my head. Paola gave him SO many chances to have it made right. That was excellent customer service wrapped up in some fairly decent English. And that's ok. I took five years of Spanish and can barely remember any of it.

You fail, Bryan. With an 'F.'

This is what is wrong with our educational system. Someone actually hired this schmuck to work with CHILDREN.

I think I had a similar teacher in 4th grade. She threw a stapler at a kid in my class. Of course, she had tenure.

Perhaps 4th grade is where they try to traumatize the children. A life lesson of sorts, I suppose.

@TemporaryAphasia: Yeah, he reminds me of a customer I had recently that just wanted to yell at me. Since I had a response for each of her problems (since they were actually her fault...I tried to be polite, but there's only so much you can do) she just kept finding something else and just kept yelling.

Eventually I just sent her to a supervisor while she was in the middle of a screaming tirade. I learned a valuable lesson to just let people yell at you, smile and nod, and move on.

That way, at least you're secure in your knowledge that they're the jerk.

@parad0x360: I was actually really confused by that myself. I've changed the shipping instructions on several packages with UPS, and I think some of those were ordered through Amazon.

What's funny is that the 'teacher' makes some quoted comments but doesn't put the period in the right place. In the sentence:
'[...] and I am NOT receiving "good customer service".'

The period should be inside the quotes, like "good customer service."

pwn'd

used to work next door to adorama, and it's run by ultra-orthodox jews. The notion that a fundie could work there and get away with it is laughable.

@hollywood2590:
I certainly didn't think it was a reference to religion, but more, "You are a total waste of a human being that the only way for you to be 'schooled' is to start your life all over again and try to get it right this time.".

I work as a CSR for a company I will not name...but, respect towards any individual goes a long way. The CSR in this situation she was very professional, even after being insulted, and she still provided good customer service. I would have dropped that chat/phone call like a bad habit if anyone talked to me like that.

As a CSR, I cannot count how many moronic people I have spoken to. Even if they can't form a simple sentence, I still attempt to help in any way I can. If only that worked the other way around.

P.S. I suck at spelling too; Spell Check and Google will save you!

The fact that Bryan actually thought this was reasonable is crazy enough, but worth posting on Consumerist as an example of poor customer service instead of something for him to be ashamed of? This pretty much points to him being a sociopath. I can understand losing your temper and shooting off an e-mail in the heat of the moment, but threatening a persons job over a mild inconvenience that's stated in their shipping policies? What the hell?

I ordered a Holga from Adorama a couple of months back and received great service from them.

@wcnghj:
That was my first thought when I saw all the "typos". I assumed the CSR's first language was not English, therefore the presumption to ridicule her grammar is even more of an asshat act.

Thanks for going to bat against minimum-wage, English as a second language, just-trying-to-get-by CSR's whose hands are tied by corporate policy, Bryan. My hero.

Way to go Brian! Great job telling off that woman who was trying to help solve your problem, and then end up with no resolution.
You are my hero!

(not)

@sophistiKate: It really isn't that bad. You can get the point, and really the exchange should have ended at 2 e-mails when the choice of a refund or shipping to a new location was offered. Would you really have been aggravated at that point?

Damn, I totally should have said, "Wy 2 go brain, yu totaly told that women of! Yuo are so samrt!!!!?"

People like Bryan is why we quit selling on ebay and why I no longer freelance directly with consumers.

Ugh, I bet Bryan is like this in all walks of his life. It really doesn't concern me how grammatically correct the response from customer service is, as long as the message is clear and helpful. Kudos to Adorama for allowing their customer service reps to go off script.

You know, it would be kind of funny to have a company that provides insulting, inflammatory customer service (but still fix the problems). That certainly would make it a little fun to report a problem.

@MightyWeasel: My guess is that a lot of e-mail and chat CS positioned are outsourced.

I think I'd rather have a CSR with bad grammar and good intentions than someone with good grammar and a bad disposition.

As "uneducated" as she comes off, at least she was accommodating, unlike Bryan, who is like the CSR's we complain about.

It's people like Bryan that give companies the fuel and excuse to continue bad service.

And people are confused as to why our schools suck?

@squablow: Just out of curiosity, how does the new eBay system screw the seller?

@MightyWeasel: That is exactly what I was thinking. I bet Bryan can only speak one language. I'd love to see him try to speak and write in a foreign language. He'd probably fail miserably and then throw a tantrum that everyone should just speak English.