Set Up To Fail
The TV Licensing Agency rang me back.
Turns out, they had a process. The process crashed and burned. In January, this was brought to their attention and the process was changed.
Do you want to know what the process was?
It went like this:
Person calls to change address.
Person is forced into voice recognition service.
Person tells voice recognition new house number, street and postcode.
Person tells voice recognition new house number, street and postcode again.
Voice recognition system sends person confirmatory text.
Voice recognition has actually failed out.
Recording is sent to ‘overseas’ office.
Recording is listened to, but not understood.
Recording is deleted.
Address is not changed.
Person receives nasty letter six months later.
Person calls up TV Licensing Agency and flips out.
I am more than a little boggled by the fact that they left out a fairly major step when they created this process. Two, actually. Because it’s kind of a dick move to have a foreigner listening for change of address details from the UK. Have they seen the way we spell street names?
Anyhow, in January this was apparently brought to their attention. They changed the system. However, they decided not to bother checking the black hole of calls which had already failed. I found this perturbing. I asked why they thought this was an acceptable thing to do, given that they were in fact leaving me vulnerable to fairly serious legal consequences as a result of their actions? I asked how I was supposed to have found out about this?
I was told I hadn’t been listening to his explanation.
I WAS LISTENING. I HEARD AND UNDERSTOOD EVERY SINGLE WORD AND NONE OF THOSE WORDS WERE “BECAUSE”. ALL OF THOSE WORDS DID IMPLY THAT YOU WERE HAPPY TO LAND ME IN COURT OVER YOUR OWN STUPIDITY THOUGH.
Man, I dislike being told I’m being unreasonable when I ask a perfectly legitimate question. I think if you promise to call back with an explanation of your cock-up, and part of that explanation involves admitting you knew there was a problem in January, the next part should involve why you didn’t do anything about it until I phoned you in June. Since you have a record of the failed calls.
So. There we stand. If you moved house before January 2014, and you used the phone system to change your TV Licence, I suggest checking that they actually did it. And telling them why.
Turns out, they had a process. The process crashed and burned. In January, this was brought to their attention and the process was changed.
Do you want to know what the process was?
It went like this:
Person calls to change address.
Person is forced into voice recognition service.
Person tells voice recognition new house number, street and postcode.
Person tells voice recognition new house number, street and postcode again.
Voice recognition system sends person confirmatory text.
Voice recognition has actually failed out.
Recording is sent to ‘overseas’ office.
Recording is listened to, but not understood.
Recording is deleted.
Address is not changed.
Person receives nasty letter six months later.
Person calls up TV Licensing Agency and flips out.
I am more than a little boggled by the fact that they left out a fairly major step when they created this process. Two, actually. Because it’s kind of a dick move to have a foreigner listening for change of address details from the UK. Have they seen the way we spell street names?
Anyhow, in January this was apparently brought to their attention. They changed the system. However, they decided not to bother checking the black hole of calls which had already failed. I found this perturbing. I asked why they thought this was an acceptable thing to do, given that they were in fact leaving me vulnerable to fairly serious legal consequences as a result of their actions? I asked how I was supposed to have found out about this?
I was told I hadn’t been listening to his explanation.
I WAS LISTENING. I HEARD AND UNDERSTOOD EVERY SINGLE WORD AND NONE OF THOSE WORDS WERE “BECAUSE”. ALL OF THOSE WORDS DID IMPLY THAT YOU WERE HAPPY TO LAND ME IN COURT OVER YOUR OWN STUPIDITY THOUGH.
Man, I dislike being told I’m being unreasonable when I ask a perfectly legitimate question. I think if you promise to call back with an explanation of your cock-up, and part of that explanation involves admitting you knew there was a problem in January, the next part should involve why you didn’t do anything about it until I phoned you in June. Since you have a record of the failed calls.
So. There we stand. If you moved house before January 2014, and you used the phone system to change your TV Licence, I suggest checking that they actually did it. And telling them why.