Ask HN: How to fix the headache of telephone haggling?
I wish corporations had their shit together, make it easy on the consumer, but often they don't. Calling institutions to resolve disputes or handle general maintenance issues is a big waste of time and pain in the ass. Familiar with the long wait times when you call corporation x? It's especially bad when your question/problem is a thirty second (or less) fix/solution for the corp. support personnel to provide, because it's hugely frustrating to have to deal with waiting thirty minutes for something so simple.
Could a startup solve this? At least fix the easy stuff?
Could it save me the hassle of calling corp x when I need to: change home address, set up payment plans, resolve a charge dispute, request credit increase, change service, file a complaint, etc. etc. etc. making a simple credit card payment to Macy's cost me 2 hours of wasted time. They frequently apply payments to the wrong accounts. I feel your pain about sitting on the phone Why do you keep an account with them if it's so difficult to work with them? If you paid with an account held by a bank instead of by them, it might be much easier to make your payments and regain you those 2 hours a month.