Peppering a company’s Facebook page with questions and comments appears to be yesterday’s form of communication, as the social media site announced today that it’s giving users and companies the ability to chat with each other through its messenger app. [More]
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Dish Network Chat Rep Compliments My Name. Is That Creepy?
By 6.12.14
Kaleb had a basic question for Dish Network, so he logged on to their customer service chat to, well, chat to a company representative about it. Something strange happened during a lull in the conversation, though, and Kaleb isn’t quite sure what to think about it. Is it friendly or creepy? We weren’t sure, either, and submit his chat log to the Consumerist readership for your judgement. [More]
This T-Mobile Chat Transcript Shows Why Online Customer Service May Not Be A Huge Improvement
By 1.25.13
More and more businesses are pushing customers toward online chat as a preferred form of customer service. Best Buy even ditched its e-mail contacts in favor of chat. But is chat really any better? [More]
This Verizon CSR Really Wants You To Know How Great A Customer You Are
By 12.21.12
For those consumers who expect to get a grumpy, unhelpful customer service rep, it’s always a nice surprise when the CSR in pleasant, professional and willing to work with you to resolve your issue. We don’t often hear cases of CSRs gushing about cooperative customers, but we’re not Kevin. [More]
Dell Redacts Prices And Dates From Sales Chat Transcripts, Rendering Them Pointless
By 7.19.12
Usually, it’s our job here at The Consumerist to do the redacting, removing employee and location names in order to prevent Internet mob harassment, among other reasons. But now Dell has gone ahead and pre-redacted chat transcripts when customers try to save them, erasing the evidence of price quotes and sale dates that they’ve discussed with potential customers. That’s what happened to Julie when she tried to discuss a financing offer over chat. [More]
Verizon Makes Online Chat Just As Crappy As Calling In
By 9.27.11
Verizon FiOS has done an admirable job with their online chat-based customer service, making it seem incredibly real and human. You almost forget that you’re not talking to a person over the phone. One of the ways they make this simulacrum seem so life-like is that you can be transferred from one agent to another, and then there’s silence on the other end because there’s no one there — just like the real thing! Reader Michael shares a recent chat transcript to illustrate: [More]
eBay Chat Agents Live In The Mythical Nation Of "Chat Session Ended"
By 1.10.11
D. suspected that his customer service chat rep at eBay didn’t really understand what he was saying. So he asked where the rep was located. We suspect that hanging up on the customer is not the eBay-endorsed response to such queries. [More]
Facts Replaced By Asterisks In Sprint Chat Transcripts
By 4.7.10
Sprint has an interesting new strategy: after you do an online chat with one of their customer service reps, they provide you with a transcript of the chat, but it’s missing a few important things. Namely, any specific numeric details like dollar amounts, dates, minutes, or months cited by the rep have been replaced with asterisks. Here is one such transcript: [More]
Nigerian Scammers Break Into Your Gmail, Ask Your Friends For Money
By 5.19.09
Andy logged in to Gmail on Sunday, and his friend Jeff started to chat with him. Things seemed a bit off, but Andy really became suspicious when Jeff asked him to wire $500 to an injured friend in Nigeria. The real Jeff, of course, was off playing XBOX and has no friends in Nigeria. Like the scammers hitting up people’s friends for money via Facebook, thieves can log in to your e-mail and chat accounts, pretending to be you.
Earthlink Tries To Sell You Anti-Virus Protection When You Contact Them To Cancel Your Anti-Virus Protection
By 7.31.08
Sometimes we feel sorry for CSRs who have to try to sell you stuff you don’t want or need when you’re contacting them to correct a billing mistake. It’s just so sad. Reader ajlei contacted Earthlink’s chat support to cancel an anti-virus service that wasn’t supposed to be included on her bill, after canceling, the chat support rep kept asking her if she wanted a more expensive version of the service. When she said no, the chat rep asked her again, in bold this time… because asking in bold will make customers want more expensive versions of services they just canceled?
Comcast Declares Reader’s House Nonexistent
By 12.19.06
According to Comcast, reader Peter’s house does not exist.
AOL Hates Hugs.
By 8.2.06
Although several hundred 14 year old boys lose their virginity to portly displaced man-children pretending to be women in AOL’s chat rooms every day, AOL has bigger fish to fry: the sleazy, nefarious hug. Or “((Hugs))” as it is known in AOL chat parlance, where ‘Hugs’ is replaced with the name of the recipient.
Skype Censors Chinese Chat
By 5.23.06
Like Google, Skype’s a great service, but their flexible ethics when it comes to user’s privacy lacks the same quality of excellence. We shortly mentioned that Skype’s user agreement includes wire-tapping provisos, but now they’ve gone the whole hog: their Chinese service includes a special chat censorship feature.
Overstock.com Actually Understocked, Manned by Soulless Robots
By 2.15.06
It’s all about the “Oh damn, you’re screwed” for Heather who tried to buy some perfume for her girlfriend (yes, that kind of girlfriend). She could’ve gone down the road to the department store but was enticed by the online retailer’s promise to have it delivered on time for Valentine’s day. Needless to say, it didn’t happen. She took her case to Overstock’s customer service chat bots who display an extremely disarming and hilarious void of concern for her angst and their fumble. Full transcript, as posted to Craigslist: Portland, after the jump.
CLOSED: Getcher Comment Invites Here!
Last week’s open comment invite give-away went so well, let’s do it again… this time, at a time hopefully a bit better suited to our West Coast brothers and sisters.