The strength of a monopoly can be guessed at by calling customer support
blogs.harvard.edu
blogs.harvard.edu
1. I was audit by the IRS this year and so far I've logged about 6 hours of waiting on hold over ~15 individual call attempts of which I was never able to speak to someone beyond their initial call center.
Then I sent in the requested receipts as per their instructions. They told me the receipts -they- requested weren't proof enough, so I had to provide additional paperwork.
This has been an ongoing process for around 8 months and it's still not revolved. They haven't contacted me in about a month since the date they told me my case would be reviewed, so who knows what happened. Given they haven't asked me anything else or sent me a notice or bill warning, I'm guessing they finally figured out I wasn't lying all along.
2. I also once got denied a new social security card because I had an expired driver's license and no credit card. I brought a ton of documentation as per their website and had enough proof of ID. The lady at the desk told me "I'm sorry, I can't issue your request" so I showed her their own website with the proper forms of ID and she just repeated the same phrase. I left the place and mailed everything in along with a letter and my card was renewed but it took over 3 weeks.
3. After waiting 2.5 hours on hold for health insurance I finally got a person who told me they can't handle my request (even though this was the number listed on their website), so they forwarded me to a new number, and then I waited on hold for another hour, and then as soon as I got connected, they asked for a million pieces of information from me and hung up before processing anything. It was like 4 hours of a total waste of time and then I got penalized thousands of dollars in the end for not having insurance.
The worst part about this monopoly is we pay a ton of money towards taxes but get treated so poorly.
I once witnessed some little girl twist her ankle on a severely broken side walk. It took the town 3 years before they finally decided to fix it. It also took them 3 months to complete the job which was to redo about 20 feet of side walk.
The number is (08) 80087355 - which is leetspeak for oh eight boobless.
Anyway, one year I discovered calling Centrelink from that number bumps me to the top of the phone queue because the 08 8008 part of the phone number is assigned to a geographic region in remote NSW, even though the area code is 08 because it's closer to Adelaide than Sydney (Broken Hill's area code is also 08).
It looks like this still works, as per the Centrelink website here:
https://www.humanservices.gov.au/individuals/subjects/paymen...
Our rural call centres answer calls from dedicated catchment areas in rural Queensland and South Australia. Our specialist staff answer all calls made to Centrelink 13 numbers from the catchment areas. They also answer all calls made to the Farmers Assistance hotline from anywhere in Australia.
Bonus points for being able to keep this number on a $0 per month pay what you use plan.
This was to change the address on my Medicare card as it's all Human Services now.
Straight to the back of the cue if you get disconnected or can't answer every identifying question off the top of your head.
Nevermind the fact that the IRS wont go away till there isnt an income tax anymore.
Not just congress uses this tactic. See: CFPB.
In a well run government, everything the government does should result in a benefit to the civilization and by it, the government. For example, adequately maintaining roads or other public infrastructure will save money on expensive urgent restauration works (e.g. when a water main explodes or a bridge collapses), as well as promote company growth (e.g. by building real, fast internet connectivity via local government owned utilities, thus enabling modern companies to work) which causes tax income to rise.
Even stuff that does not seem to be profitable at all in the long run makes profits. Take environment protection as an example: preventing or cleaning up pollution saves cost in the medical system (and even if it's a mess like in the US where most of it is privatized, the "win" is more worker productivity because they're not ill as much as before and can work more - or criminality decreases like w/ lead exposure), and trying to prevent climate change due to rising temperature will prove worth the money when the government saves money that would be spent on relocating people on the coasts.
Ever wonder why we have the grant system we do?
Well, if your infrastructure explodes like that bridge in Italy, then the survivors will sue... it's gambling, just with lives at stake.
Governments (worldwide) should be forced to a different accounting model - where maintenance for everything they build (infrastructure) or buy (IT software!) over the lifetime has to be budgeted for. No more expensive nutjobs like Olympic Games which will be unmaintainable after the single use...
Just below the article someone comments that the Australian tax office has excellent support. Several European ones I have been in touch with have been very helpful as well (UK, Germany).
One thing that does differentiate the US from those places is the existence of a strong political force hostile to the idea of federal government ("drown it in the bath tub").
So the hypothesis that this is a home made political problem rather than an inevitable structural outcome of incentives fits the data better.
Generally New Zealand govt services are fast and painless. If I ring the IRD (==IRS) they just register the phone number and call back. The person is genuinely helpful, and they generally are just keen to get your money with the least amount of hassle to anyone. Very simple taxation policy helps too (e.g. totally reduced the special taxation cases, such that most people have to spend zero time filing taxes, it is done automatically and you just get a bill or refund!).
I ordered a replacement passport last week - it was all online including the uploading the photo - and it was couriered to me a few days later.
This is repeated in many different services. There are horror stories -- mostly I hear them about health/ACC and sometimes Work and Income (social welfare). But you regularly hear good stories about those too.
So it is at least possible for monopoly services to be good.
[1]that’s also why we have a bunch of tax havens and generally a lower tax rate, as all cantons and even the communes within them are in a competition.
Is it me, or is does this seem like a case where they simplified so much that they lost some of the inherent checks and balances in the system?
I guess if I need a fake passport, I have a lead on how one can be made. Just social engineer the info to access government services out of a New Zealander...
Replacements and renewals can be done entirely online because of facial biometrics (to compare the previous passport photograph with the new one and to see if the new picture may be used elsewhere) and digitization of other records for internal comparisons.
ABC (Australia) has an interesting video on Youtube describing the process.
I just looked, and apply by mail is only available in certain situations, one of which is that it must be a renewal, and the prior on must have been within the last 15 years and you must have been over 16. It sort of makes sense with those rules, but still seems somewhat lax to me.
In fact, repair of sidewalks between private property and the street are almost always the responsibility of the property owner.
It is when health insurance is mandatory (enforced by the US govt) and not having it causes you to pay unavoidable penalties which get added to your govt taxes.
> In fact, repair of sidewalks between private property and the street are almost always the responsibility of the property owner.
This really depends where you live. In this case it was the town's responsibility (and it's documented in the town's codes).
It was a really dangerous road too. It was one of those decently trafficked 30 mph suburban roads with properties alongside the road. If you tripped the wrong way on that sidewalk you had a decent chance of ending up in the middle of the road.
How does that follow? The government says you need insurance. It doesn’t say you have to buy from that company or that companies can’t compete on customer service.
If your car insurance company has bad customer service, do you think it’s your state government’s fault, too? My mortgage company requires homeowner’s insurance – is it their fault if I pick a company with bad support?
The ACA changed this dynamic in areas with competitive markets by providing subsidies that allowed people options. This is going away.
The unsubsidized options would cost almost 1/2 of my pre tax income and my wife has major medical difficulties that preclude her continuing her career and cost significant sums. I have asthma difficulties which without insurance would 4000 just so I can keep breathing.
I would have options if we moved to a cardboard box in order to pay for different insurance.
Oddly, my situations were all very pleasant. My contact with the IRS was all by mail. Each time I'd mail them something a clock would restart (6 weeks or something like that) and they'd respond a few weeks later (clock restarts) and we'd go back and forth me sending them some paperwork, and they asking for something else.
Eventually they got what they needed and we all moved on. It was a bit drawn out but I also enjoyed the amount of time I had to respond.
On the other hand when it comes to insurance I had a run in with State Farm who I'm 99% sure has a system entirely setup to ask repeat questions (same person asking the same questions and they're looking at the paperwork where I already answered it too...), provide inaccurate information, and simply delay you long enough to drop whatever claim you have. It felt like an actual scam...
At one point I printed the wrong thing entirely... they just sent a letter telling me I sent them the wrong thing and the clock kept restarting.
It's just taking forever and they sent a lot of paperwork that conflicted with other letters they sent. They kept sending bills stating I owed X by Y when in reality I had sent in what they asked for which would null those bills a month before that bill arrived.
The people on the phone also typically said they can't help because the questions I were asking could only be answered by my auditor, but I was never allowed to talk to that person.
Customer support is something I partly do for a living (supporting the video courses I create) and I think keeping people in the loop and providing more information rather than less is really important when something goes wrong. No one wants to feel like they are getting ignored or tossed around in a system with millions of others.
For context, I single handily do personal 1 on 1 support for around 40,000 people and it doesn't take that long because I invested a lot of time in my product and systems to make things as streamlined as possible. I'm confident I could continue giving high levels of personal support even with 100,000 people just based on time spent doing support now vs doing other things.
Here's a fun fact. As of 2014, the IRS had 94,516 employees. I'm sure it's grown since then, there's also 325 million people in the US. I know not each employee deals with customer service but that's a ratio of 1 IRS employee to every 3,438 citizens of the US. Even if only half of those people are doing customer related services, that's an abysmal ratio -- especially considering those people are doing that job full time and the IRS has spent a ridiculous amount of money running this operation (11 billion+ a year) to create a nearly unusable product.
But then they're prevented from simplifying - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17751383
Now, the experience with Google Ads, that I can wholeheartedly echo. Every time I've spoken to them, it's just been a further waste of my time; and I can say the same of Yelp, too. So I think the core idea has merit - a private business' need to maintain and grow a customer base can be identified by how well they support current customers rather than how aggressively they advertise to new potential customers.
But like boys and girls, public government and private business are different.
https://blog.callenq.com/irs-hold-times-disconnect-data-10k/
And that's if you're lucky enough to get to talk to someone. One third of calls are summarily disconnected.
> Our study showed that 1 out of 3 calls to the IRS Collections Line for Businesses would be disconnected, with this sometimes occurring after 2 hours of waiting.
The disconnects are the worst part of so-called customer support because I know it is likely to happen especially as the hold time goes on. Worse when you call back they've somehow lost all the information you previously gave them 3 times over.
Adjusted wait time = avg(wait_time) / (1 - p_disconnect)
I don't mind paying taxes just make the system streamlined okay.
You can vote out your representatives but you can't usually directly vote out any element of your civil service.
I had firsthand experience of this when I called to try to resolve some issues from a prior year. I talked to the agent and then acted on their advice. I later received a letter in the mail stating that the advice that was given was possibly not legal and that I would be on the hook for any fees and penalties if I followed it.
Luckily for me there was no consequences, but it made the whole process extra stressful.
I have a few anecdotes about the DMV. I wonder if research would back up my hunch that the DMV is really bad at customer service. I'd certainly bet on it in a prediction market.
I'm from Norway, and the only time I've had to visit our DMV was when I took the driving test to get my license.
You do have to renew your drivers licence every x years, but in some states you can do that online at times. Instead of the population register, where you update your address, most places in the US do that through your drivers license. Most people's main form of ID is their license as well and most states want pictures to be updated. Some states have different backgrounds for those under 21 (the drinking age) as well.
Buying a car requires a trip to the DMV as well. There is no option of simply waiting for your papers in the mail. To complicate things further, in some states the physical license plate isn't associated with the car, but with the person owning the car.
In many states, you have to also register your car every year and update your plates. Some states you can do this online, however, in many cases.
That is on top of things like getting your drivers licence, learning permits, and all of those little things.
I would see it more as an application of Popper's falsification principle.
That depends on the state, honestly. I am from Indiana, where they worked on improving that experience. I haven't lived there for 5 years, but even before then I noticed a vast difference. It was no longer a soul-sucking experience that had the very real potential to eat your day.
https://www.sagamoreinstitute.org/case-study-in-culture-chan...
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/cra-blocks-cal...
I had an issue with a sheriff's deputy pulling my wife over on her way home from work twice a week for a month. Same deputy each time, and unfortunately my wife couldn't take another route. The deputy would only say she looked suspicious and then ask her personal questions.
I mentioned it to my boss, who was formerly an important person in the region, and he made a phone call. My wife never saw the deputy again.
In what I can only assume was retaliation, I suddenly got called for jury duty. Every other week. After the sixth notice, I mentioned it to my boss. He made a phone call, and put me on a list of people who should never be pulled for jury duty (for celebrities, etc...) in that county.
We moved to another state a few months later.
Computers sometimes seem to make the system easier to corrupt, rather than keep it from being corrupt.
They only really compete for new customers, so if you ever ring them to sign up, well, boy howdy that's a whole other experience. Calls answered immediately by knowledgeable people.
Duopolies - for when you like pretending you have a competitive market.
Hell, when I was in the Oz I was a PM for Telstra working on getting better call center infrastructure setup for offshore calls...
I'm also reminded of what it was like to hire a taxi in the days before Uber and Lyft.
https://www.sagamoreinstitute.org/case-study-in-culture-chan...
As with any tax authority, you shouldn't try to keep them from their coin, but it seems like somewhere along the way they figured out that they didn't get more money if they had shitty service, but rather the other way around. It's probably also easier, and cheaper to retain people if not everyone hate your guts simply because you work there.
They've also modified their Wish List/Gift List to remove the "Buying this elsewhere" button. Now you have to purchase from Amazon.com or ruin the surprise if using a friend's Wish List. This isn't reflected in Amazon's help site[0] and their customer service spent three weeks investigating this only to tell me they're "Constantly trying to improve the site"(???).
My point is, that Amazon's CS is slipping. It used to be fantastic, now it is fine, but definitely getting less friendly in terms of policy even if the agents themselves are still pleasant. They're more or less ruined their own Wish Lists.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...
Had them repeatedly ship something glass in inappropriate packaging, it showed up shattered every time. Pleas to "please package appropriately" were repeatedly ignored. Finally I gave up and decided I didn't really need the item anyways.
I can't imagine anything worse for PR. Post a "Happy New Year" picture and have 20 people mob that post complaining about terrible service and how they're unable to reach customer service.
I receive their call back in seconds. I usually talk to someone in India whose both highly enthusiastic about hearing from me and apologetic about the circumstances. If anything, they're too nice since it comes off as unbelievable. They've credited my bill without me asking maybe twice. When I need a tech, they're usually backed up a bit but bump me into next day somehow. Ive always suspected that was a gimmick.
That's the gist of it. They know what they're doing, really polite, better connection quality than past maybe, and super helpful. I think Comcast is both trying to improve its image for leverage in public debates and/or using better support to improve retention. Im loving it either way. Plus, the remote reboot feature on the mobile app. Saves time and trips.
I usually talk to someone in India whose both highly enthusiastic about hearing from me and apologetic about the circumstances.
Their converter boxes are cheap, energy hogging crap, and they hang frequently. The cure is to have them reset, but they usually fail to issue a reset despite claiming that they did (you can easily see the process when properly triggered). Power cycling doesn't always work.
I finally gave up and keep an extra, then rotate the cold one in when there's a problem.
And even when you do call, they generally omit the day credit they owe you.
Comcast can survive only as a de facto monopoly. Few users choose them of their own volition.
You keep copies of everything included in each mailing, that way if it reaches court you hand everything over and your documentation does the talking.
I have found as soon as i take this approach it gets sorted straight away and is never a problem as they realise that they dont have a leg to stand on.
In another case a business always had their used cheques returned to them once processed by the bank.
When the tax office repeatedly stated a payment had not been made.. their accountant said over the phone to the tax office "thats funny because i am holding their processed check returned to them with the tax offices recieved stamp on it.." it was then magically immediately fixed.
I think its because of people not wanting to do their job within their department so they handball it when ever possible, on the smallest excuse.
The mail was sorted into two piles, registered and unregistered. The unregistered was thrown in the trash.
Always use registered mail.
Surprisingly, MS support was quick and absolutely helpful in resolving this for me - took no more than 15 minutes - and they ended up simply waving my arrears so i never paid that $10 - and let me enter new payment method.
The worst offenders in the UK have been cell-service providers, where the competition is fierce, and companies like Sports Direct, where the margins are tiny because the competition is so fierce. Good luck with low-cost airlines too, where the Heathrow-monopoly-abusing (according to VS) British Airways are also great on the phone.
The entire system was segmented. I was in the "disconnect department" - folks late on their bill and about to be disconnected or newly disconnected (this was for landlines).
We literally could not do much more than that. We did not have any access to billing tools and could not fix those. We could not put in a repair ticket at all. We could not see cellular service. Basically, if it wasn't a disconnection reconnection or payment plan we couldn't help you.
Some of this was a knowlege thing: National call centers needing to learn the ins and out of different state laws (some states public utility commissions were stricter and more powerful than others). Some of this was built in: We literally didn't have access to these things. I'm sure some of it was because training on all of the things wasn't cost effective. There were also things we simply weren't allowed to do without being a supervisor (Which was often an experienced rep working a hotline for a few hours).
It does provide horrible customer service in many cases, especially if there is a wait time to another department. It would make it slightly easier if you could jump to the start of the other department's queue, but that wasn't the case. ON the other hand, many states had laws about how quickly you were supposed to answer the phones and queue jumping probably affected that.
https://www.justice.gov/atr/competition-and-monopoly-single-...