This can be about anything you think fits this category but I dealt with something today that while the end result of what I was wanting to happened save me money, the backwards thinking of how to get there drove me nuts. I bought a new computer online Nov 21 that my in-law's side of the family is going to give my MIL for Christmas as her's in in dire need of replacing. I was following Black Friday sales at the time and already missed out on 1 I felt was a pretty good deal so pulled the trigger and bought one that was very similar. I kept watching prices even after I ordered it and over the weekend the price fell significantly on the exact same pre-configured one I had ordered that was now in transit for shipping. So I called the customer service line to see if I could get a price adjustment since I have not received the shipment yet and would still be within the 30 day window to return.
My thinking here is it would be simple to just give me a price adjustment and refund the difference instead of me returning the exact PC and re-ordering it again at the discounted price. Well after 45 minutes of back and forth on the phone with customer service trying to reason with them that the easiest way to do this was just credit me the $128 difference. Nope, we had to go through the hassle of initiating a return by them to PC that is due to arrive today or tomorrow then turn around and have them ship me the exact same PC that is already in transit and send the one I will receive back to them. They even waived the restocking fee as part of this so they essentially wasted my time, their time, and will be footing the bill for the return shipment and restocking it all because they apparently could not process a price adjustment/refund of the difference on my current order.
I could probably write a book on backwards thinking and processes that do not have good logic to them from my work experiences alone that waste time and money where some simple common sense thinking would save everyone involved time and money. Would love to hear what other stories are out there that you just shake your head in disbelief on how complicated they made something that shouldn't be.
Got 1 other quick story that falls into this category. We kept getting hospital bills months after we had our 1st child. We had paid our out of pocket expenses and the insurance claims had been processed. My wife finally got on the phone with someone trying to figure out why we kept getting bills for something that was already paid. After sorting it out with both the hospital and the insurance company we eventually found out the hospital had double billed the visit so even though the insurance claim had been processed they still were showing a balance. That didn't resolved until nearly a year after we had our child. And we wonder why healthcare and insurance is so expensive...
My thinking here is it would be simple to just give me a price adjustment and refund the difference instead of me returning the exact PC and re-ordering it again at the discounted price. Well after 45 minutes of back and forth on the phone with customer service trying to reason with them that the easiest way to do this was just credit me the $128 difference. Nope, we had to go through the hassle of initiating a return by them to PC that is due to arrive today or tomorrow then turn around and have them ship me the exact same PC that is already in transit and send the one I will receive back to them. They even waived the restocking fee as part of this so they essentially wasted my time, their time, and will be footing the bill for the return shipment and restocking it all because they apparently could not process a price adjustment/refund of the difference on my current order.
I could probably write a book on backwards thinking and processes that do not have good logic to them from my work experiences alone that waste time and money where some simple common sense thinking would save everyone involved time and money. Would love to hear what other stories are out there that you just shake your head in disbelief on how complicated they made something that shouldn't be.
Got 1 other quick story that falls into this category. We kept getting hospital bills months after we had our 1st child. We had paid our out of pocket expenses and the insurance claims had been processed. My wife finally got on the phone with someone trying to figure out why we kept getting bills for something that was already paid. After sorting it out with both the hospital and the insurance company we eventually found out the hospital had double billed the visit so even though the insurance claim had been processed they still were showing a balance. That didn't resolved until nearly a year after we had our child. And we wonder why healthcare and insurance is so expensive...
