Pharaoh
Brigadier General
- Messages
- 20,307
Step 3. Contact the company and explain the problem.
Try to handle EVERYTHING in writing.
Talk to the company BEFORE going off the deep end. It costs you nothing to start off polite. If you've made a mistake or even if an error by the company cost you money, opening the conversation up with insults and accusations won't help, may slow down company responses, and might even cause the company to dump you as a client 1 minute after fixing the problem. Some companies (both legitimate and scam) have policies to block people who use profanity or become abusive towards their employees. Taking out your frustrations on a support agent is counter-productive.
If your company had a customer who misunderstood something or even was accidentally overcharged, would you want to be the one facing a person screaming about how you are a filthy vermin thief who should be slowly disemboweled for your criminal behavior, how you have already been reported to the FBI and CIA as a mafia boss, and a detailed list of degradations you'll soon be facing in prison? Or, would you prefer the person to say "I think there's an error here. Let me show you what went wrong so it can be fixed."?
In some cases, the person on the other end really is a scum-sucking scammer, but in many cases, the issue either is fixable or the person is just a paid tech who may not even realize what the company is up to. Also realize that a genuine date feed error may take a couple days to sort out and that the person on the phone/chat/email may not even be aware that it was an error at first.
Even if you have CLEARLY been scammed, don't go crazy. Even if the person you are talking to directly scammed you, don't go crazy. Remember, your goal is to recover YOUR MONEY, not to berate employees (or even owners). Instead, politely but firmly lay out the facts of what happened and ask what the company plans to do about it. If the company has a dispute resolution feature, follow it, but ask to know what the maximum time it will take is. If they want to investigate, again, ask what the longest it could take is. Many scammers will do the "eternal dispute" or "everlasting investigation" tactic, because they know how easily most people will give up. On the other hand, some scam companies eventually pay off those who complain persistently. This can let them claim that they resolve ALL client issues even though they only paid a small percent of most persistent victims.
If you think you've been subjected to a scam or fraud, you've gathered your evidence, and contacting the company gets you nowhere, then it's time for you to take action:
1. Click Here and open a thread using the Problem prefix. Remember, keep it professional and stick to the facts.
2. Leave a review.
3. Keep reading and learn how to file a pile of complaints with the regulators and police. Every piece of evidence will put the scammers closer to their day of judgement.
Try to handle EVERYTHING in writing.
Talk to the company BEFORE going off the deep end. It costs you nothing to start off polite. If you've made a mistake or even if an error by the company cost you money, opening the conversation up with insults and accusations won't help, may slow down company responses, and might even cause the company to dump you as a client 1 minute after fixing the problem. Some companies (both legitimate and scam) have policies to block people who use profanity or become abusive towards their employees. Taking out your frustrations on a support agent is counter-productive.
If your company had a customer who misunderstood something or even was accidentally overcharged, would you want to be the one facing a person screaming about how you are a filthy vermin thief who should be slowly disemboweled for your criminal behavior, how you have already been reported to the FBI and CIA as a mafia boss, and a detailed list of degradations you'll soon be facing in prison? Or, would you prefer the person to say "I think there's an error here. Let me show you what went wrong so it can be fixed."?
In some cases, the person on the other end really is a scum-sucking scammer, but in many cases, the issue either is fixable or the person is just a paid tech who may not even realize what the company is up to. Also realize that a genuine date feed error may take a couple days to sort out and that the person on the phone/chat/email may not even be aware that it was an error at first.
Even if you have CLEARLY been scammed, don't go crazy. Even if the person you are talking to directly scammed you, don't go crazy. Remember, your goal is to recover YOUR MONEY, not to berate employees (or even owners). Instead, politely but firmly lay out the facts of what happened and ask what the company plans to do about it. If the company has a dispute resolution feature, follow it, but ask to know what the maximum time it will take is. If they want to investigate, again, ask what the longest it could take is. Many scammers will do the "eternal dispute" or "everlasting investigation" tactic, because they know how easily most people will give up. On the other hand, some scam companies eventually pay off those who complain persistently. This can let them claim that they resolve ALL client issues even though they only paid a small percent of most persistent victims.
If you think you've been subjected to a scam or fraud, you've gathered your evidence, and contacting the company gets you nowhere, then it's time for you to take action:
1. Click Here and open a thread using the Problem prefix. Remember, keep it professional and stick to the facts.
2. Leave a review.
3. Keep reading and learn how to file a pile of complaints with the regulators and police. Every piece of evidence will put the scammers closer to their day of judgement.
