It's the dystopia of the film Brazil: someone makes a typo in a database, someone else's life is dramatically inconvenienced, and it's impossible for them to access any means of redress.
> Is this just how the US ticks right now?
Yes.
> Is this just how the US ticks right now?
Yes.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.Add to that the dark side of being "data driven," which is that stories like this one are just part of the 1% of edge cases. These companies also try to move away from actual customer service as much as possible because human labor doesn't scale as well as automation, so you'll fall through the cracks as long as the news that it happened to you doesn't get enough press to make it worth an engineer's or VP's time.
I know that sounds extremely cynical, but having been on the inside in situations like this, I saw how these dynamics converged despite good intentions. Stuff like this is why sending engineers through front-line customer support rotations tends to dramatically motivate engineering teams to make quality of life improvements. Once you lose the detachment that indirection from the user gets you, suddenly those 1% cases feel more important.