You know what really frosts my flakes?
Companies that send important emails from a “Do Not Reply” address.
I got a message yesterday from my cell phone provider, Patriot Mobile, announcing a major change to one of its services. Sounds important, right?
Then, at the bottom of the email, it proudly declared, “Do not reply to this email as it is not monitored.”
Well, that’s comforting. There wasn’t a phone number, email address or even a webpage where I could go to get more information.
Apparently, they were perfectly happy talking to me. They just weren’t interested in hearing anything back.
The problem is, the email raised more questions than it answered.
For example, it casually mentioned, “Not all plans are eligible for data top-ups.”
My first thought was, “Great. Is my plan one of them?” I have no clue.
Then it explained that any unused top-up data expires at the end of the billing cycle and doesn’t roll over.
Naturally, it never bothered to mention what these top-ups actually cost.
Instead, it reassured me that if I ever got close to exceeding my data limit, they would send me a text message explaining how to buy more. How convenient.
The rest of the email wasn’t about helping customers at all. It was a lecture on making sure the company could send me text messages when necessary.
So let me get this straight.
I have to give a company permission to bombard me with texts so that, if I happen to go over my data someday, they’ll graciously offer to sell me temporary data that disappears if I don’t use it fast enough.
That’s like a gas station selling me five gallons of gasoline and siphoning whatever is left out of my tank at midnight.
And if I have a question about any of this? Too bad.
Don’t reply because nobody’s listening.
I’m Grandpa Grumpy, and if a company is going to email me, the least it can do is pretend it wants to hear what I have to say.