tips for each company
The gethuman site has detailed customer service info for many companies.
Simply click on any company name to find tips specific to that business. Otherwise, see below for more general customer service tips.
See tips for a specific company »
Recent tips and stories from others
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mary ellen anderson:
5 days ago for Time Warner Cable
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"i have a dell and last jan i had tons of trouble with it and talked with the techs in india who are m ostly rude and you cant understand them.this week the same thing. im being pushed from one to the ..."
more »
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marnie:
5 days ago for WestJet
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"looking for your answer to our feedback enquiry on mrs joan bracken file x4lqcr sent to you on dec 29 2009 what is going on phone agent 6133424791 or pax 6133423067 ..... where is your custo..."
more »
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verna unger:
5 days ago for WestJet
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"complaint- no compensation from abbotsford to vancouver airport when our flight 554 was cancelled. NNSSFX"
more »
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(anonymous person)
5 days ago for Tracfone
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"Tried this number and website phone number. Both times machine hung up on me. My sister tried to resolve this same problem and was on the phone for an hour or more, with problem unresolved."
more »
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bob-a- lou:
5 days ago for Turbo Tax (Intuit)
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"they trick you into paying a refund processing fee while they advertize 'free'income tax prep...also have it set up so its almost impossible to delete state taxes so peaople will give up and just pay ..."
more »
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finding a toll-free phone number
To find the toll-free phone number for any US-based company, try calling
1-800-555-1212 or search Google for company name plus "phone numbers".
Or maybe even searching for the company name and "president office"
or "investor relations".
Tip: did you know that your phone company charges
$1.49 or more each time you call 411? Instead, try using
1-800-FREE-411 or 1-800-GOOG-411 (Google's free 411 service).
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.
For a public company, you could also try searching
EDGAR.
The "10K" report includes information about corporate officers
and the official company mailing address.
Got a good general tip for others?
Tell us your tip for getting better customer service »
Got a good tip for a specific company?
Find a specific company first and add a tip for that company »
getting to a human
Once you have a phone number, here are some tips to try to
get through the computer 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 IVRs will connect to a human after a few "invalid entries",
although some IVRs 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.
- (recent tip from a GETHUMAN user) "Whenever I call places that have a high call volume,
I listen for a company directory. When it asks me for a last name keyed in,
I type in one letter and it gives me a list of corresponding people. I keep
doing this until I get someone. It's worked a lot."
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.
:-).
If one of the above does not work, the
gethuman database contains tips and shortcuts for many different companies.
Got a good general tip for others?
Tell us your tip for getting better customer service »
Got a good tip for a specific company?
Find a specific company first and add a tip for that company »
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