HP deliberately adds 15 minutes waiting time for telephone support calls
theregister.com
theregister.com
It's the same as sign-up being one-click CC details input, but cancelling the account/subscriptions requires you to send a paper mail to America, with parcel tracking, and then The Company has 90 (business) days to "review your case", and they may as well decline it, to which your recourse is... take them to court? In California?
Compare that to the medieval market/bazaar: the seller shows you the goods, you show them the geld; you inspect the item(s), they inspect the payment(s). You either both agree to the exchange, or not. Symmetry.
And no, I'm not advocating traveling back in time. I'm advocating for more symmetry between the selling and the buying sides.
Thinking of things like how Comcast quietly bumps your bill up every year unless you call and argue with them. Or when I rented a storage unit at a Public Storage that opened next door. They automatically enroll you in their 15/mo "insurance" no matter if you already have a policy and the only way to "opt out" is to contact them in writing and submit a form at least a day AFTER you sign up.
All these little micro-grifts that make these companies millions of dollars at scale is definitely ASYMMETRIC.
Because none of these behaviors are a scam, all here is legal and spelled out in the legalese. And it is all possible because you have authorized _them_ to debit your account, whereas you did not get any way of debiting _their_ account.
As such the "onus of work" is always on you. This is why the "decline by default" to any claim is so powerful - it's marginally free for them, but it's a lot of work for you.
And it's even better with those call centers: have a number to call but no human to answer - how is anyone going to prove that there are no humans vs "you haven't waited long enough"? (...not even a rhetorical question, how could you?)
I have no good ideas how to solve it properly, because this is a balance thing and it's way too easy to reverse the positions instead of balancing them.
As a natural person (vs a legal entity) I do always try to opt for post-paid wherever possible. And I have heard and read about "escrow" but never seen it in practice... Though that idea would be my starting point.
<rant> I order about 300 packages per year, and usually only get ~3/yr that go this way:
Thanks for buying this very specific item of which we have 17 listed as available for the next day delivery! Unfortunately we actually have none of them. As you have already paid us we may [be bothered to try] obtain one for you, but it will take a month or more. Or you can try to select other items from our offer [which we may have or not have]. And finally we are legally obliged to return your money if you wish so, for that you'll need to fill the specific forms and we have 7 days to process, but we guarantee you'll get your money back eventually!
And at this point my thought is: Fine, just gimme the option to pay somewhere between 0 days and 3 months after I got the product/service. Oh and also given "next day delivery" is actually "next day to 3+ months later", I'd like the option to maybe-pay the listed price or perhaps 16% of it. After all details don't matter!... </rant>
You can physically go to one of their storefronts. Sadly, Comcast is my only option for internet service, and I've found Comcast's online or voice support to be pretty much worthless except for the most minor things. However, I can get more complicated things done by going to one of their physical locations and talking to a real, physical human being.
I wonder if this is required by law and that's why it works.
no joke did a firmware update on it ~3 weeks ago. found an IP on the network I didn't recognize, was the printer's DHCP, decided to get weird and log into the online interface, ran the update.
toner is comparatively cheap and doesn't dry out.
A few years later, HP bought their printer business.
Now I’m screwed and stuck with them again.
> To reaffirm the changes, HP says in the staff memo: "The wait time for each customer is set to 15 minutes - notice the expected wait time is mentioned only in the beginning of the call."
first, couldn't really do this (easily) without IP telephony, and having IP telephony everywhere; still more dial-up and analog out there than you'd think.
and there is little financial incentive for the company putting you on hold to give a shit or code in the feature to dial you back -- they don't want you getting on the call; it's in their interest for you to give up and hang up the phone. calls getting through == cancelled plans, refunds, and time used by support. so don't do the automation.
now it's so easy it's hard to ignore, and 3rd party tools will reshape that landscape.
reduces my overhead / wait time, doesn't have to do anything crazy or complicated, unlikely to give bad or wrong answers -- it just connects me when someone is on the other side -- and won't be especially expensive
Now, you'll probably wait that extra 15 mins just to "talk" to a bot 8-(
All we can do is continue to curse Carly Fiarina (and her pose)...
Everywhere you look, from egg prices to electricity prices to broadband prices to medicare care costs, you see price gouging. Some event might be used to justify those prices increases. Profits always need to increase.
Some people will look at all this and say it's fine. These people are modern serfs who think their billionaire lord and masters deserve to be their lord and masters.
Some will see this as a few bad apples and it's a lack of government regulation or a lack of competition, which is the same thing because companies will seek to increase profits by decreasing competition by buying up or merging with competitors.
Eventually you realize all of this is by design. It's a fundamental and systemic problem. It's the internal contridctions in capitalism.
Airlines do it too. One dark pattern I experienced during Covid was that the airline call system was automatically set to hang up after 30 minutes. If you were lucky you'd get to speak to a representative at around minute 25, but never get your ticket rebooked.