To find the toll-free phone number for US-based
companies, call 1-800-555-1212 (AT&T) or 1-800-CALL-411
(Microsoft). The Microsoft number is better if you are
calling from a mobile phone since it is totally hands
free and automatically connects the call and even
delivers the number to your cellphone as a text message.
To obtain company and government phone numbers at no
charge, the best solutions are either 1-800-GOOG-411
(Google) or 1-800-CALL-411 (Microsoft). These work
great from a mobile phone since they are hands-free and
they even complete the call for you at no charge. They
both also deliver the number to your cellphone as a text
message. Another service (1-800-FREE-411) is available
that provides free business and residential phone
numbers. You need to listen to audio ads, though, which
are pretty gross and you need to dial the number which
makes it a challenge to call from a mobile phone.
For companies who try to hide their phone numbers, many
times the Google search will find a page from a
disgruntled customer who exposes the phone numbers for
that company. For example, see these gripe pages about
Amazon.com and
PayPal and
these for eBay and
Walmart.
getting to a human
For calling enterprises that are not in the gethuman
database, you will need to figure out how to get to a
human. Once you have a phone number, here are some tips
to try to get to a live human:
Interrupt.
Press 0 (or 0# or #0 or 0* or *0) repeatedly,
sometimes quickly. Unfortunately the same keystroke
does not always work for each company. Many
automation systems will connect to a human after a
few "invalid entries", although some will
hangup. :-(
Talk.
Say "get human" (or "agent" or "representative") or
raise your voice, or just mumble. :) The IVR
might connect you to a human after one of these key
or unknown phrases.
Just hold,
pretending you have only an old rotary phone.
Connect to account collections or sales or
account cancellation; they always seem to answer
quickly. First ask them for their name and rep
number (so they know you are writing it down, and
thus so they are more likely to help you.) Then ask
them to transfer you to the department you need.
Sometimes they will put you ahead of the queue,
although sometimes they will send you to the end
(and thus in those cases this tip is useless).
Toll call.
For credit cards, if the expected wait time is too
long, hangup and try to call back on their
non-toll-free number, as they often have shorter
queues.
Selecting the option for Spanish will
sometimes get you a bilingual human more quickly
than if you just waited for an English-only
operator.
When you do finally find a human, ask them how to
connect directly the next time (in case your call
gets disconnnected etc), and be sure to tell us so we
can then list their number
here. :-).
English
Increasingly, American customer
support people are being laid off, with their jobs being
replaced by computers and/or by overseas operators.
