This would be funny except it's not [telecom]

My cell phone is out of service. I can't call out or be called.

I borrowed my wife's phone to report the problem.

Verizon wants to know the PIN that applies to the account. I keep trying to get to a human, and their mindless mechanical droid keeps demanding the PIN that applies to the account. I keep trying to get to a human, and their mindless mechanical droid keeps demanding the PIN that applies to the account.

Perish the thought that a warm body should be made available to take down a report. Having already charged my credit card for a another month, Verizon seems to feel that I'm not entitled to anything like an actual person to write down a report: I guess the money was spent on bonuses for the executives and bribes for politicians and PR to fend off their customers.

If anyone knows how to reach a human at Verizon Wireless, I'd love to hear about it.

Bill

Companies have been competing lately on who can deliver worse customer service, largely by putting up more impregnable IVR jails. Nowadays it's more like IVR fortresses. Comcast used to be reachable if you said "agent" enough times. Now that gets you to a recording that, if triggered, sends a text to your mobile phone which can activate their appydoodle on the phone which has a sort of dumb text chat, but no phone capability. Essentially useless.

But I did find one way to get through which I suspect works with Verizon. Call from a phone number not theirs, so they don't recognize it and try to jail it. Then pretend you're a potential new customer and get connected to sales. Then demand that they transfer you to a real person, and stay on the line until a real person answers. That is apparently the only way to reach Comcast technical support now, which it seems is pretty much all in the Philippines. Not that they are likely to be able to fix much.