On-Star Fucktardery

When I bought my car about a year and a half ago it came with ON-star. I don't have many regrets inj life but activating On-Star is one of them.

While the service is a great idea it just wasn't for me. I have my own phone that hooks up via bluetooth so I didn't need their phone service. I can find my own way around so I didn't need any help in that respect. It just didn't make sense to pay $45.89 a month for a service I didn't use or need. So in April of this year I cancelled the service. That is when the fucktardery began.

In early April of 2013 I called On Star's 1-888 number. I talked with someone going by the name Hazel. She went through their usual spiel when someone is cancelling. I stuck to my guns and cancelled. Unfortunately, that wasn't the end of it.

The next month I found another charge for On-Star on my credit card. I immediately called them to find out what the hell was going on. This time it was someone going by the name Brenda. according to her I did call in April to cancel their service. Hazel made note of it but never actually cancelled it. Everything was logged but nothing done. Everything was going to be cancelled at that point and I would be reimbursed.

Around June 20th I got a letter from On-Star telling me I no longer had On-Star and pitching for me to reactivate.

This brings us to Today, July 1st. I check my credit card bill and see ... a charge for On-Star. I call them up and get someone by the name of Antoine. After hearing the problem he transfers me to Bernadette in Billing. I get to repeat everything to her and then get stuck on hold for 22 minutes. Now, I worked this kind of job before. You NEVER leave a customer on hold more than a couple of minutes before checking back with them and letting them know you are still looking into things. I called them up on my cell phone after they had me on hold for 15 minutes. Informed the person what was going on and they hung up on me.

Bernadette finally got back to me, after 22 minutes on hold. She let me know that a dispute was set up and gave me a confirmation number. It will be 7-10 days before I hear anything back. I made sure she put down that I expect to be reimbursed for the last 3 months.

What do I really expect? A charge to appear on my credit card on July 16th for On-Star. Luckily, I have already advised my bank of the BS I have been going through and if a charge appears they will go after On-Star for me. I was going to deny On-Star access but IF they actually reimburse me the money I am owed they will credit it to my card.

What a bunch of fucktardery.

I would NEVER advise anyone to use On-Star. If they are this incompetent when it comes to cancellation god help you if you really need help.

Corruption or Incompetency?

Wrote this one a while ago but never posted it. Oops.

The headlines blared:

Revenue Canada corruption feared over $400K cheque to Nicolo Rizzuto.

It turns out that the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) gave a rebate  check of $400,000 to the mob boss even though he owes them $1.5 Million. After the media dug this nugget up the fit hit the shan. All of a sudden there are fears of CRA corruption allowing for the payment. An investigation is being done and will be completed by the end of the year (3 months away).

This story reminded me of one of my favourite sayings "Never attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity" but bastardized.

"Never attribute to corruption that which can be adequately explained by incompetency."

Based on my experience with CRA I can easily believe this happened because of bureaucratic bullshit and incompetency. As mentioned on another blog I have had my own problems with CRA since August. Even though I have filed tax returns since I returned in 2010, which should have changed my status from non-resident Citizen to resident Citizen, the branch of CRA that deals with expat Canadians WAS NOT TOLD. I had to contact them.

It has taken them a month to get back to me. Just to tell me that things are being reviewed and they will advise me of what they decide. Why it couldn't have been reviewed in a month I don't know.

Did Flint return to live in Canada in 2010? Yes.

Did he file taxes in Canada in 2011? Yes..

What about 2012? Yes.

2013 too? Yes.

Was he living in Canada and working at the time he set up the Tax Free Savings Account in 2012? Yes.

Paying taxes? Yes.

Does he owe us money for the TFSA? No.

What the fuck else is there to check? This couldn't have been determined in a MONTH by simply looking at my files at CRA?

So, while the mob boss getting the $400,000 could be due to corruption I think it is more likely a case of bureaucratic incompetency. How the hell they think they can investigate and resolve that in 3 months if they couldn't solve my problem in 1 month is beyond me.

Passport Renewal Rule Change

Damn ... they changed the rules. I don't need my birth certificate to renew my passport now. My brother did when he renewed his last fall. The last time I checked the website it said I needed it. That was probably last November or December. I should have checked again since it has been a while.

The other day a friend was talking about renewing her passport a couple of months ago. She didn't need her birth certificate. Sure enough, I checked the web site and voila the rules did change.

Now that doesn't diminish the tardery I have gone through with L'etat Civil and getting my birth certificate. It does make things easier though. :)

Getting a new Birth Certificate Part Deux.

I won't recap the bureaucratic bull shit I have already gone through trying to get a copy of my birth certificate. But the saga does continue.

I got a phone call from L'etat Civil today saying that they need yet another piece of information. A piece of information they DIDN'T ask for on their website or in the forms they finally sent me a couple of weeks ago. Now they need a copy of a bill, tax statement, or my bank statement to show my address. Now, that was supposed to be one of the reasons why I sent these Bureautards a copy of my driver's license ... it has the address and is an official piece of ID.

Then, surprise surprise, I was told that I could FAX the documents to them. What the kimchi?!?!?! One reason the process has taken so long until now is that I was told I could NOT fax the forms in and I am not eligible for using their online forms. That is why I mailed it in ... and why the postal strike delayed sending it in to them. NOW some btard says I could have faxed it in! And they wonder why people hate bureaucrats and dealing with the government.

So, I went to the bank to get a copy of my latest statement to fax. It doesn't look like a bank statement you get in the mail. It looks like something anyone could have whipped up on their computer. The clerk also gave me a cancelled cheque for my savings account. It has all the info needed as well. (My account is now set up so I can just get my e-statement and print it off. When it was set up 12 or so years ago there were no e-statements.)

The information is all faxed off to L'etat Civil and I have to wait again. Will I actually get my birth certificate? Will it come in a week? A month? Or will I get a call form them tomorrow asking for new information? Or a letter in a few weeks saying they need yet something else.

I actually find myself missing Korean Immigration or the Korean Pension people. They could teach our Bureautards how to run an office. Never thought I would ever say that.

Once I actually get the certificate I then get to deal with the Passport people. I am not looking forward to that because I just expect more bureaucratic bull shit.

Getting a new Birth Certificate.

I can't find my birth certificate and need it to renew my passport. Getting a replacement should be a simple thing to do, right?

It was actually a very simple thing to do when I lived in South Korea. All I had to do was fill out the form I got online, photo copy my driver's license, and fax it to the government office in Quebec. Easy Peasy. So easy one would think that there would be no problems actually getting it done in Canada. You would be wrong.

I printed off the form from the L'etat Civil website but couldn't find a fax number. So, I called their offices to be told that you can't fax the form in. All you can do is mail it or fill it out online. Ok, filling it out online is easier than faxing it.

Nope. Since I don't actually live in Quebec or have a tax form receipt for the Province I can't actually register to send in the form via email.

So, 2-3 weeks ago, I mailed the form in. Yesterday I got a letter from the department and it didn't contain my birth certificate. It turns out the form I printed from their site was out of date. I have to fill out a new one, and mail it in, in order to get my birth certificate.

What is the difference in forms? The cost. The price has gone UP from $15 to $38 for a birth certificate. Ah the government, finding new ways to fuck around with you and take your money.

Now I have gotten everything together and have to send it in again. Good thing I don't actually need my passport in the near future. God damn I hate dealing with the government.

Using Jargon at Work

When I worked at Convergys we were told in training not to use jargon with customers when they called in. Which makes sense, there are a lot of technical terms that people wouldn't understand. Basically we were to get them on and off the phone as quickly as possible. So why use language that would just lead to more questions and explanations?

However, we were also trained that if the customer asked a question we were supposed to answer it. Sometimes out calls were monitored "for quality control purposes". Which is a way of saying to make sure we are doing our job properly. We would get feed back, through or Team Leader, about any calls of ours that were monitored. There was actually a score given. This is where the bureaucratic bullshit mentality caused problems.

A customer called in and wanted some features added to his phone. No problem, an easy call. As I started the process he asked me what I had to do in order to install the features and start them. So I told him in simple terms.

"All I have to do is click on a few places, buttons on a web page, and then hit go."

Easy to understand right? Should be no problems right?

Well, 5 minutes after I finished the call my Team Leader came to my cubicle to go over my "report card" as he called it. It turns out that Quality Control monitored the call and "penalized" me for using jargon and holding a conversation with a customer. An offence that had to be dealt immediately by my team leader. The jargon? I said button. The conversation? Answering his question. Seriously.

I went through the call with my team leader and asked him what he would have done? He said the same thing I did. So what is the problem and why did I lose points? Because QC said I used jargon. Was it jargon? Not according to my team leader BUT according to QC it is. QC seemed to imply that I should have ignored the question, which of course would have then cost me points.

I asked me team leader if all the Quality Control people were such anal retentive idiots. I also told him I wanted to dispute the report because it was stupid. So I had to waste more time writing my rebuttal, which I worded more diplomatically than what I wrote here. In the end nothing ever came of it and I quit working there. Too much stupidity like that went on.