DoNotPay App Waits On Hold For You (techcrunch.com) 39
DoNotPay, a free chatbot that offers AI-powered legal counsel, is launching a new feature that will call you when it's your turn in a customer service phone queue. TechCrunch reports: The app today is launching "Skip Waiting On Hold." Just type in the company you need to talk to, and DoNotPay calls for you using tricks to get a human on the line quickly. Then it calls you back and connects you to the agent so you never have to listen to that annoying hold music. And in case the company tries to jerk you around or screw you over, the DoNotPay app lets you instantly share to social media a legal recording of the call to shame them.
Skip Waiting On Hold comes as part of the $3 per month DoNotPay suite of services designed to save people time and money by battling bureaucracy on their behalf. It can handle DMV paperwork for you, write legal letters to scare businesses out of overcharging you and it provides a credit card that automatically cancels subscriptions when your free trial ends. For Skip Waiting On Hold, DoNotPay built out a database of priority and VIP customer service numbers for tons of companies. For legality, if you opt in to recording the exchanges, the app automatically plays a message informing both parties they'll be recorded. A human voice detection system hears when a real agent picks up the phone, and then rings your phone. It's like having customer service call you.
Skip Waiting On Hold comes as part of the $3 per month DoNotPay suite of services designed to save people time and money by battling bureaucracy on their behalf. It can handle DMV paperwork for you, write legal letters to scare businesses out of overcharging you and it provides a credit card that automatically cancels subscriptions when your free trial ends. For Skip Waiting On Hold, DoNotPay built out a database of priority and VIP customer service numbers for tons of companies. For legality, if you opt in to recording the exchanges, the app automatically plays a message informing both parties they'll be recorded. A human voice detection system hears when a real agent picks up the phone, and then rings your phone. It's like having customer service call you.
An excellently written advertisement (Score:4, Insightful)
A very loose grasp of the obvious... (Score:2)
"The $3 do not pay service"
WTF, Beau? Please stick to Mr. Musk's Tweeter.
It's Google's business model ... (Score:2)
... wherein the data is the commodity.
Where are those recordings going?
Probably one of the most useful apps (Score:3)
This app asks for your bank account info (Score:5, Informative)
My curiosity got the better of me with this app, since I've lately been trying to clear off the remaining cruft off my credit report from the great recession. The first thing this app does is ask for your bank account information, which for me is a hard pass. There's been too many companies that have gotten "pwned" lately, making that a bit of an unreasonable risk, especially when dealing with a company that isn't even in the financial business.
Re: (Score:2)
Damn.. Slashvertisement or not I figured if the app works even remotely as advertised it's worth $3/mo without thinking BUT 'ell no am I going to give them financial information when that's not even remotely related to the service they are providing.. Boo!
Re: (Score:3)
Same.
If I could pay with a credit card, I'd be in at twice the price, but there's no way they're getting access to my bank account.
Re: (Score:2)
If I could pay with a credit card, I'd be in at twice the price, but there's no way they're getting access to my bank account.
I had this same concern when joining a gym this year. The only payment method they accept is EFT -- you must provide a checking account and routing number. Huge problem, in my opinion, with a new data breach ("breach") every week. However, it was trivial (and free) to create a new checking account with my bank (Chase) and keep minimum funds in it for the exclusive purpose of paying the gym. I suppose I will use it for other things that require this payment method from time to time. Should have done this soo
Re:This app asks for your bank account info (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason these companies request EFT is twofold. First, lower fees - after all, a credit card charges 2% plus 50 cents every time they ding you. An EFT can be done for about 50 cents each.
Second, and more importantly, it means they can string you along. You want to cancel their service? Well, no. They "forget" to cancel you and just continue to bill you. They can't do that with a credit card because if you chargeback, it costs them time and money. It's why cancelling things like gyms and such are made deliberately hard - like sending written notification 90 days before your cancellation date. It's deliberately hard and obtuse on purpose.
The other thing is - besides draining your account on their mistakes, they will continue to charge you and if you try to not fund the account, they just accumulate charges and then send it off to collections, hitting you both in your credit ratings and in effort getting it resolved.
It's a deliberate way of making your life harder - to basically trap you and the benefit is all theirs
Re: (Score:2)
The reason these companies request EFT is twofold. First, lower fees - after all, a credit card charges 2% plus 50 cents every time they ding you. An EFT can be done for about 50 cents each.
Second, and more importantly, it means they can string you along. You want to cancel their service? Well, no. They "forget" to cancel you and just continue to bill you. They can't do that with a credit card because if you chargeback, it costs them time and money. It's why cancelling things like gyms and such are made deliberately hard - like sending written notification 90 days before your cancellation date. It's deliberately hard and obtuse on purpose.
The other thing is - besides draining your account on their mistakes, they will continue to charge you and if you try to not fund the account, they just accumulate charges and then send it off to collections, hitting you both in your credit ratings and in effort getting it resolved.
It's a deliberate way of making your life harder - to basically trap you and the benefit is all theirs
Sounds like when a company does that, drag them into small claims court or contact your local TV station to rake them over the coals. I'll be they'll stop that crap.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh yeah, they fix it then. I mean, after you spent your filing fees and a whole day off in court, you'll get the default judgement and they'll automagically cancel the collections on you. But by then you've wasted a vacation day, $40, and hours of your time being hounded by debt collectors. That's why they'll be more than happy to cancel your ac
Re: (Score:1)
Even ethical companies can screw you this way: years ago I had a big utility deduct from my bank account. When I was going to move, I tried to turn it off. They said "what is your password?" both online and on the phone. The problem? When I had set up the deductions they did not require a password. That's
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Find a better gym.
All someone needs is your bank account and routing numbers and they can drain your account. They don't even need to know your name to write bad checks against it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: This app asks for your bank account info (Score:2)
Is this because their service helps consumers deal with asshole credit card processing and they can't get a merchant account or PayPal? Is so the below advice may be sage about using a limited account.
Really they should just let you pay with crypto if that's the position they're in. Permissionless money is essential when you're upsetting the extant power structures.
$3 Per Month (Score:3, Funny)
So, Do Not Pay costs $3 per month. What irony!
Re: (Score:3)
So, Do Not Pay costs $3 per month. What irony!
it provides a credit card that automatically cancels subscriptions when your free trial ends
Do they have a free trial?
How does math work? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe you can use the DoNotPay app to get out of paying that bill ?
Turning the telemarketers' ability back on them (Score:2)
This is essentially the same strategy that telemarketers have been using with demon dialers and robo-calling for decades now. It's a treat to see someone turning that technology back against our corporate overlords.
Re: (Score:2)
Regarding having companies call you (back), have you noticed that, of those that offer such a service to those on hold, most don't bother to handle the callbacks in chronological order with calls still on hold? Most companies will abuse the promised callbacks by deferring them to a time when it suits their fancy to commit an employee to the call. There should be a black list for such companies, and a white list with gold stars for the ones who handle every contact in the order received.
Re: (Score:2)
The very worst companies of all, go one step further on call back, TPG in Australia the fucking shit weasels, they call you back and PUT YOU ON FUCKING HOLD to ready to go to the second for the next operator, normally the first words out of my mouth at that point is swearing at the customer service script reading clown, poor bastard.
Re: (Score:3)
I had a company call me back instead of waiting on hold. They called back and I got a recorded message "All of our customer service centers are currently closed, please call back during working hours.. blah blah". They literally schedule the callback for after they were closed. Bastards.
The company was TracPhone. I was trying to get my mother's phone unfucked.
Re: (Score:2)
"most don't bother to handle the callbacks in chronological order with calls still on hold?"
A callback at a known and fixed interval is more valuable to me than a callback at a randomly distributed interval.
Re: (Score:2)
"Have your computers call my computers. We won't be in touch."
Worst time on hold (Score:2)
The worst time I got put on hold is when I got a call from a bank and then they immediately put me on hold. That's pretty low of them. (I know how it happened but it's a funny story that makes the bank look bad.)
Callback Instead of Holding... (Score:1)
...is a premium feature? I've had DMV, Social Security, retirement systems, banks, even health care organizations do it. And they usually give me a timeframe for the callback, and if they miss it they're generally early rather than late. So why should I have to pay somebody like this bunch for it, since they're taking money out of my bank account (a hard stop there) to start with.
Re: Callback Instead of Holding... (Score:2)
You have experience with the 5% of the world that offers an alternative to a hold queue so the hold queue problem doesn't exist?
Even if you want to argue for a higher number, what number do you believe is insufficient to address?
Lol. Will work for about 3 days ... (Score:3)
Then the call center's software will have a detector and automatically disconnect and perma-shadow-ban such calls.
I have been getting this service free for years (Score:2)
Privacy issues (Score:2)
To me, the biggest issue here is that my conversation is going to be recorded and perhaps listened to by a third party. For something like calling for a pizza that might not be too bad, but even that call would have my name address phone number and credit card number. I suppose if I was just calling to get information it wouldn't be too bad; however, most of the places that I call that take a while to get through to are likely places that I will need to provide other personal information. Just seems like
Re: Privacy issues (Score:3)
Most pizza places don't have a real hold queue. Who waits 14 minutes on hold to order a pizza?
Most places with a lengthy hold queue are recording your calls anyway (and so is the NSA). If you trust this company, it's a 1/n problem. If you don't it's an n+1 problem.
I've a better idea... (Score:2)
The people who manage call centers should just staff up with enough personnel to adequately handle their call volume. And while they're at it, they should properly train their people to be able to solve customers' problems as well... and without anything resembling the scripted "Did you check to make sure it's plugged in?" dipshittery.
It's not as if it's impossible. Call volume and the staffing needs to take those calls follow predictable patterns, after all. And I've never had any difficulty getting thr
Re: (Score:1)
lol...
> customer of both customers.
I obviously need more coffee. *sigh*