Sometimes it seems that I'm never happy and all I do is complain (I know my brother in law is nodding his head right now - knock it off Nathan) but this post is totally off the farm topic and will be my working complaint clearing it all out post. This post is about dealing with customer service and ordering infommercial products. It's probably not pertinent to any of my readers, but what the hell, I'm getting it off my chest.

Regarding dealing with agents when you order from infommercials:

• Yes, believe it or not, there is VERY fine print on that there television screen as you watched the program and you DID, in fact, miss what I'm telling you.
• Yes, the shipping for most of these products is OUTRAGEOUS. Think about it. They are offering you a money back guarantee on "the purchase price" so if you return it, they are still going to cover their costs by charging you the extra for shipping.
• If you're getting a buy one get one free product - trust me, you aint gettin nuttin for free. You're paying for it somewhere, somehow and don't yell at me when you finally realize that. NOTHING IS FREE!
• I work for two companies who handle most of the infommercials out there and most (not all) of the clients have additional offers for related products and then some type of affinity program - magazines, or shopping programs, something like that. I do not, and it bears repeating, I DO NOT, determine what the other offers are nor do I determine what programs to offer you. I have no control over that. The client alone decides it.
• Yelling at the agent on the phone for company issues is not going to do you a bit of good. I don't know a single infommerical product out there where it's own company employees answer the calls. You are calling a sub-contracted phone center or at-home agent and we have NO power or authority with the client.
• When the agent tells you that you're under no obligation to purchase anything and continues on reading upsells, that's because...... it's THEIR JOB. Saying, "I don't want anything more" will NOT cause the agent to stop reading them. We only get paid if we read the script in front of us and we CANNOT not read it. So get mad all you want but it won't stop the agent from reading.
• If you truly don't want anything else simply say, "I know you're doing your job but I will cancel my order if you offer me anything else." That's the ONLY time we can skip the other crap. Would you believe that in the 9 months I've done this I can count on one hand the number of people who've said that?
• Asking me "is it safe to give you my credit card information?" really doesn't do you any good because I'm either working for legitimate companies that have done background checks on me and have all my personal information as well as a complete record of the call we're on or, now listen closely, you're calling a thief and ASKING if it's safe probably won't get him to tell you, "why no, it's not. I'm going to steal your information and run up a huge bill!"
• Yes, you're correct, you just listened to an infommercial and when you call to order you get ANOTHER infommercial! Someone paid a lot of money to determine that someone with cc in hand will buy other things a certain percentage of the time. Yelling at me, cussing at me, flushing your toilet in my ear, putting the phone down, repeating everything I say to someone else, or any such nonsense will not change the fact that I have to do my job or I don't get paid and frankly, your opinion doesn't matter at all to the client -- only your money. Like it or not, that's the nature of the beast.
• And last but not least, if we ask for your ZIP CODE please for the love of all that is holy, give me your ZIP CODE - not your address, phone number, credit card, or child's name. See, it's that whole listening thing - and you wonder why you didn't hear that it was an UPGRADE to express shipping that's free, NOT FREE SHIPPING.
• One final tip, for pity's sake, ask what your total is! As unbelievable as it sounds I'm rarely asked how much the cc will be charged today. Chances are, ALL of the shipping and taxes as well as the first payment are coming out today so it could be significantly higher than you expect. Even more unbelievable are the people who don't ask what shipping costs are and I work with several clients who charge more for the shipping than the actual product - it's how they make money!

Regarding dealing with the customer service agent for a company:

• Brace yourself because apparently this isn't common knowledge, most (and I really do mean MOST) of the customer service for cell phones, credit cards, floral numbers, home inspection or siding/contracting type work, insurance, information gathering (i.e. life insurance products), shopping networks, and even catalogs is performed by at-home agents. We log in to the client's actual system and can perform a limited number of services to your accounts.
• When the agent tells you, "I can't waive that fee for you" responding with, "Yes you can, you're just too much of a bitch to do it" will most certainly NOT get me to do it - even if I could. If the agent tells you they can't - they really can't. Because we are at-home agents we are monitored VERY closely for any credits or changes to customer's accounts and will lose our contract in a heartbeat if we do something like that.

I do want to be clear, some of my favorite household products were purchased from infommericals - I'm not down with infommericials or the companies or the products! I just think if you're going to spend money over the phone like that you need to do a little research or listen carefully to what your getting.

There. I feel better. Off to do afternoon chores.