Have you ever called the IRS ? If you have you will be able to identify with this I am sure 
Well I got a letter in the mail indicating that they had made changes to my 2006 tax return and that I was due some additional money back – GREAT! The letter said that I should receive the refund in 2 weeks time and now it has been about 4 1/2 weeks and still nothing. So I called the number on the letter and it was later in the day so I basically got the “run around” in their menu system. In fact it told me to call a different number with a specific extension. I called that number and went through the voice prompts only to have it tell me that I needed to call – get this – the same number I was dialed into with the exact same extension … HUH ? Okay what happens if I press 0 or 00 or even 000 .. will that get me to an operator ? Nope ! So I gave up for the day.
This morning I decided to try again thinking that I may have better luck since everyone on the west coast was still asleep. I dialed the same number I did yesterday (with the specific extension) and I actually got farther and it put me in a queue telling me that my wait time was more than 20 minutes – okay I can do stuff while I wait – like write a blog entry or two. After about 15 minutes it tells me that it is transferring me… awesome finally … oh wait “we are having technical difficulties and your call is being transferred” … no no don’t do that .. please .. ugh ! So I get transferred thinking I might still get a human but no I get transferred back to the beginning of the voice prompt system.
“To continue in English please press 1, Spanish please press 2″ …hmmm okay … #1
“Your call will be answered in the order we receive it” .. ugh… where have I heard that before ?
“We estimate your wait time to be more than 20 minutes” .. what ? I have now been on for 20 minutes !
“Our representatives are helping other customers” … you mean they are playing Solitaire on their PC’s and are just re-routing phone calls in circles !
After 1 hour and 15 minutes on the phone listening to lovely elevator music (I actually wanted to hang up it was so bad) I finally got through to a human ! Were they able to answer my question .. not really but that wasn’t the ladies fault. She was actually very nice to talk to and tried to help as much as she could .. to bad that they have such a pathetic phone system that probably frustrates the bonkers out of people.
Now what is my next step …. let my tax accountants deal with it …. I am going to the lake …
Filed under: General | Tagged: frustration, irs, phone, voice menus
