Imagine this. You are 18 years old. You want a tattoo. And after much thought and deliberation, you’ve decided your finally going to do it. You’re going to get a freakin’ tattoo. “Where should I get this tattoo placed?” you think to yourself. That’s when it hits you. The perfect spot. Your face. But why stop at one tat, when you can get three? This is going to be great, you think to yourself.
A few hours later, you arrive at your local tattoo parlor. As the tattoo artist begins his work, you find the sting of the needle soothing. You fall asleep. An hour later you wake up to take a look at the finished product. As you look in the mirror, you realize there has been a terrible mistake. There are not three tattoos on your face as requested, but 56. Yes, 56 star tattoos. Sounds pretty crazy right? Well, it’s a true story, and here is an excerpt from the original article….
…Kimberley Vlaminck, 18, claimed that she asked for only three stars to be tattooed near her left eye […] “When he started to tattoo me, I did not feel pain and I fell asleep. I awoke as he tattooed me on the nose and I saw what he had done. I counted 56 stars,” she said. “I cannot go out on to the street, I am so embarrassed. I just look ugly, a freak, mutilated….”
Now if you read the whole article, there is a “he said, she said” argument. The tattoo guy says she wanted the tats, she said she didn’t. Turns out, the woman’s story was in fact bogus. But had the story been true, this would have been the Worst. Service. Ever. Have you ever had crappy customer service? Here are two examples from my past….
Dairy Queen:
It was my senior year of high school. I was feeling a little hungry and had a few bucks on me. I decided to make a pit stop at the local Dairy Queen to pick up two cheeseburgers (I know, super healthy right?). I devoured first one down in about 36 seconds and was ready to go round two. As I took my first bite of the second burger, I noticed something didn’t feel quite right. Was there a hair in my burger? There definitely has to be a hair in my burger! It turns out there wasn’t just ONE hair, but a whole freakin’ glob. I immediately began projectile vomiting all over an innocent bystander (as shown in the dramatization below). Needless to say, I haven’t been back to Dairy Queen since.
Every Voice Prompted Customer Service Menu :
Oh my gosh, nothing makes me want to punch a baby turtle more than having to deal with those frustrating voice command customer service menus. You know what I’m talking about. You call your cable company and the voice recording says “For English, say English”. So you respond, “English.” It all goes to hell from there. Next thing you know, you’re getting chirped at by some robot machine voice in what sounds like a foreign language, all because when you said “English” the voice command thought you said “Russian.” I hate voice prompt menus. For the love of god, bring us back to the good ol days of pressing one for English.
Dealing with crappy service is one thing, but dealing with crappy service that you didn’t ask for (like getting 53 extra tattoos) is a whole different ballgame. I’d love to know what is the single worst customer service experience you’ve had?
Side Note: Since today’s article had nothing to do with Personal Finance, so I figure might as well include some right here… Money, money, cash, savings, money, booya. That is all 🙂
Actually, they found out that she had asked for the tats, when she got home, her dad freaked and told her to tell the made up story that she fell asleep to the media, so that the removal could be funded by someone else.
I figured that was the case. Do you have a link to that article? I’d be curious to read about the follow up.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1194910/Teenager-Kimberley-Vlaminck-56-stars-tattoed-face-finally-comes-clean.html
Can you edit that whole story out or update it to say that she lied. I love the blog and hate to see it contribute to misinformation… although I am a bit surprised that more research wasn’t done on that.
Hey, I know you’re trying out some new blog design choices and just wanted to throw it out there that I think the blue background that appears behind your comments is too dark. I’d go for a lighter shade.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/girl-who-said-she-woke-up-with-56-tattoos-on-her-face-admits-lying-20090623-cul9.html
Actually, the lie was her idea… Same difference..
Ugh..voice recordings..HATE them. You forgot the part when you answer the question and the voice recording says “I did not understand your answer and repeats the whole thing again” Then you’re voice gets louder and in no time you’re screaming into the phone at it.
Boy, hard to pin it down to one. My husband says it’s my fault because I seem to get outrageously bad service every time I have to deal with stuff on the phone or go out in public. Like, always, in a group at a restaurant I am the only one who gets the wrong meal, gets a cold meal, gets moldy strawberries, etc…
Most recently, we ordered new blinds. They arrived without mounting brackets. I called customer service and it was quite an ordeal convincing the lady that the brackets REALLY were not in the package. So she finally relented and arranged for brackets to be sent to me. When they arrived…they were the wrong size. So this time when I called, the lady ARGUED WITH ME (rudely) that that brackets I received were really the correct size and they would not send me new ones. I went to Lowes and the lady there agreed with me that they were the wrong size and called the company to send me new ones. I needed two. They sent six.
Hubby always makes light of the fact that when we go out, I am always the one who gets my steak not cooked to my specifications (I like it very well done, no pink at all), or finds something in my food that shouldn’t be there (like hair, eggshells and once some Brillo pad in my blueberry sauce for waffles). It’s amazing how many places of business will act like it’s not a big deal (it is to me!), and just pick out the offending piece of whatever, while I watch, and then hand me back my plate and expect me to still eat it. However, there are some restaurants who have great customer service, and will remake my meal, but usually by then, the rest of my party has already finished eating.
I hate mayonnaise. If you’ve ever seen “The Whole Nine Yards”, I hate mayonnaise as much as Bruce Willis’ character in that movie.
I ordered boneless buffalo wings at Applebee’s and specifically asked the waitress for NO DRESSING (Ranch is mayonnaise based and it grosses me out). Not only did the wings come with a little cup of ranch, but it had tipped over and spilled all over like 3 of my pieces. I was with my psuedo-girlfriend and the time and she traded me her wings without ranch spilled over them, but I was this close | | to burning that place to the ground!
Did I mention I don’t like mayonnaise?
I moved to Texas on January 1, 2008. I moved into my apartment on January 2, 2008. I requested same-day electricity service from the power company on January 2, paying $40 for this convenience. Unknown to me, the apartment complex request that their service be turned off to the apartment after I had placed my turn on request. I was without power for 5 days, sleeping in 3 hoodies and 2 pairs of sweatpants on one of those eggshell things, reading by flashlight, and generally being bored out of my mind.
I called the company at least 10 times, but they always told me that their records showed that the power was turned on for my account. I had to go out to the electricity box with my cellphone to confirm that it was hooked up before they would send anybody out.
Then, on the next months bill, they charged me $40 a SECOND TIME for another same-day service when they finally realized the problem.
I got a cookie from Eat and Park (for those who have never heard of this place, they have these sugar cookies with white icing and different color smiley faces…they are delicious). I was eating one in my car and suddenly there was something chewy. When I took out the chewy piece, I realized it was someone’s very large fingernail! After pulling over and throwing up, I went back to Eat and Park just to tell them about the incident to hopefully keep it from happening to someone else. They offered me another dozen cookies….yeahhhh no thanks!
CAA (Canadian version of AAA) left my friends and I on the side of an highway in Northwestern Ontario (Americans friends, imagine a few hours north of Minnesota) in the middle of the woods at night after my car broke down. It’s a long sordid tale that I won’t even get into, as the trauma is still roused in my soul whenever I start the whole story, but suffice it to say the police had to be called to rescue us, particularly after we started hearing the coyotes howl. My one and only ride in a paddywagon. It got even better after I lodged a complaint not once, not twice, but three times, and each time they failed to follow-up, stating that they had no record of my complaint in their system. I had to let go of the whole situation to save my sanity. I cancelled my CAA membership, my friends cancelled theirs, as did all of our families. Short story-don’t pay for CAA if you plan on traveling anywhere outside of a major centre.
that’s horrible! I couldn’t imagine the star tatoo thing….but really, who sleeps during a tatoo….on their face!!
Any time I have to deal with Comcast! Every time I call they act like this is the first they’ve ever heard of someone being over charged for their service. Then they credit my account and the whole mess starts over again the next month. In our area there is only Comcast and Dish. Dish coverage is spotty at best so the alternative is Comcast. Once they finish with the install of Fios, we’ll try them!
As for the tattoos…really? I have a couple of tattoos and not one of them was this pain-free experience in which I could have fallen asleep. Plus, anyone who has ever gotten a tattoo knows that the artist is only going to do what s/he thinks they will get paid to do. No artist is going to waste time/money going rogue on you when there is a customer who will pay them for the exact same thing!
I had a nasty chunk of hair in a burger 3 days ago. Let’s just say I’m off fast food. *Gag*
Vomit!
I guess I’m in the minority here, but I don’t mind the voice prompts. They used to suck, but they seem to have improved over the years, at least for me.
I’ve heard that most voice prompts are programmed to understand swear words and direct you to a real live person
I have to try that next time, instead of hitting 0 repeatedly.
We once had a waitress at Buca di Peppo who must have been high or just looney. First she told us that they couldn’t order a cheese pizza because it wasn’t on the menu. After arguing with her for five minutes, finally a nearby waitress took pity on us and told her to do a pepperoni pizza without the pepperonis. Then, about 20 minutes after she finished taking our order, she came back to take it again! When we told her we had already given her our order she said, “Oh, I’m sure I put it in, but just in case.” So we had to go through the whole cheese pizza ordeal again. Then, about 20 minutes later, she comes back, pulls up a chair and sits next to us at the table and asks how everyone is doing, and takes a swig of my dad’s drink! Then she asks if we’ve placed our order with our waitress yet. Finally a manager got wind of what was happening and took care of us, but it was the most bizarre thing I’ve ever witnessed in a restaurant. So, not exactly bad service since we did end up getting what we ordered, but definitely a memorable experience.
Um. I can’t stop thinking of hair in my food right now.
Once I ordered a side salad at a restaurant for my MEAL, it was off the menu, side salad, no substitutions. The waitress brought out everything else and said she was BEGGING the kitchen to make it and they just would not…no lunch for me? Weird. No tip for waitress.
Then Verizon sent us to collections three times for phone utility service that we canceled, three times.
I’ve heard that if you swear at the voice prompt things, you get an agent right away. Apparently there’s a list of words somewhere that take you directly to an agent. I hate those things.
http://www.gethuman.com
you’re welcome.
I may or may not be known for cursing at those voice-activated menus…. which for some reason they never understand. 😛 My bad customer service recently was when my cable company lied to me about what a new package included, and when I canceled it, the guy basically said *I* was lying about what I was told! He even tried to check the recorded tapes of the conversation just to prove me wrong… guess who got their money back? 🙂
We have no luck with gym memberships. About 10 years ago, I threatened to sue my old gym when they continued to take the monthly fees out of my account after I cancelled my membership… turns out I wasn’t the only one… they screwed so many people over, it warranted a 5-day report in our largest local newspaper! Just this past August, Hubby and I decided to cancel our 6 year gym membership because our Condo Corp had FINALLY updated the antiquated equipment at our condo’s gym. Since we already pay for the gym at home in our condo fees, we figured we’d save ourselves the $70/month membership. Fast forward to 3 weeks ago; we get a letter in the mail stating we owed a “miscellaneous” charge of $13.65 for the membership we cancelled 8 weeks earlier… WTF? When we cancelled, we were all paid up. Hubby went to the gym the next day and asked what the charge was for; supervisor-type dude said “it’s a miscellaneous charge”… well, ya, Einstein, we can read on the letter the charge is classified as “miscellaneous”, but what does it mean in this case? Miscellaneous can encompass a whole lot of stuff! Dude couldn’t answer the question… letters to the gym and their head office should be in their hands shortly 😉
Cow testicles???? Did no one else pick up on that?
@ Anna. I’m glad someone noticed the cow testicles. Did you know those are actually REAL cow balls in the picture!
Good thing that tattoo thing was bogus, or trying to remove them would be so much painful than getting them. But ugh, I recently had experience terrible service, I guess it’s more or less because of the crowd that day, but I spent an eternity at a Starbucks counter trying to correct my order.
Sorry about that Dairy Queen experience (especially for that bystander). The worse customer service that I’ve witnessed (didn’t happen to me, thank God), was at a local sub shop. A girl found a roach in her sub and took it up to the owner, he seemed annoyed and said to her, “So what!? Do you want another one?”! He was acting like she was unreasonable for finding a problem with the roach!
One of my bills went to a collection agency(NCO), so i contacted them and installed a payment plan. Lady i talked to said that they charge an one-time installment fee of 8 dollars. Which was ok with me.
However, few month later i noticed that in addition to the payment each month they took out the “installment fee” as well. Of course, i called them and asked that to stop and refund money or put it towards my balance. Agent apologized for mistake and said something like “the person who made a mistake is not working here anymore”. she also said i’ll get money back within couple of days and she will wave further fees.
Month later, money weren’t refunded AND they took out the “installment fee” AGAIN. So i called them once more and guess who did i talked to? Very first agent that i discussed my payment plan with, exact the same person who, i was told, wasn’t working there anymore. So, i went over the whole story once again, explained that i’m trying to get my money back. Money which i, btw, did not authorize them to take. what she told me? “ITS JUST AINT WORKING THAT WAY”. HUH???? For one, i felt dissatisfied with the way she talked to me, like im her girl in da hood. Second of all, what do you mean its “aint working that way”. How come they can take money out of my account without previous authorization but they cant put it back?
So, I asked to talk to the manager, “He is out for lunch”. It was 4pm. Ok, how can i reach him? “Ill leave him your contact information” Fine, couple of weeks pass by, no word from NCO whatsoever.I call back. “He is out for lunch”. it was 10 am. To make long story short, i called NCO over 20 times in next couple of month, all i got was “He is out for lunch”, “He stepped out of his desk”, and his voice mail which was full so i coudnt leave a message.
To this day i couldnt reach manager and cant get my money back. I dont even know how to handle this anymore
WORST. SERVICE. EVER