Friday, February 17, 2012

Useless Google Support

At apple you have to be a Genius, At Google you only have to have a pulse, and that is optional.

I've been having a problem with Google Adwords these last 3 weeks in that they forced me to do some sort of data migration and now I can't access my Adwords account. The ads are still running,  I am still being billed, but I can't get in to edit my ads or look at my billing. I just got off the phone with them for the 8th time in 2 weeks and I'm pretty sure it ended with mutual fuck yous. The first 7 calls I was nice. #8, not so much.

Look, we all know I have a short temper to begin with and an extremely low tolerance for stupid people, so when you combine that with multiple calls that go nowhere things are bound to end badly. Here's how it went for 45 minutes:

Me: Hi I'm hoping you can help me. I can't access my ad words account and the number of the department that you told me to call last time requires a pin number for me to get past the first menu, but because I can't access my account I can't get a pin number.

Google: You'll need the pin number to get through.

Me: Riiiight. But I don't have access to my account so I can't get the pin number.

Google: Well you'll have to get it. Go to blah blah blah and retrieve it from there

I enter all this stuff and guess what, NO ACCESS TO THIS ACCOUNT!

Google: Well there's nothing else I can do for you.

Me: Could you put through to a manager please?

Google: We don't have managers.

Me: Google doesn't have managers?

Google: That's right.

Me: Well you and I both know that's a lie. I watch CNBC and in their Google documentaries they talk to managers of various departments so....

Silence from Google.

Me: Ok, can you send me a copy of my bill for the last 2 months then.

Google: That information is in your account

Me: And I thought we had determined that I don't have access to my account

Google: You'll have to call that phone # you were given.

Me: The one that requires the pin that I don't have because I can't access my account? You do understand that if I had the pin I would have access to my account and I wouldn't be calling you, right? So what can you help me with if you can't help me get access to my account which I've had problem with for 3 years and you can't help me with my billing?

Google: There's nothing I can do for you.

Me: So you just answer the phone but can't actually do anything  to help anyone? That doesn't make sense, that would mean you're literally getting paid to do nothing.  Ok, so you're still billing me, so can you suspend my account until we get this worked out?

Google: You can do that within your account.

Me: You're kidding, right? Have you not heard me say that I don't have access to my account?

Google: I can't help you.

Me: So in a multi-billion dollar company like Google who employs the greatest technology people in the world, present company excluded, you're telling me that a tiny 2 person company has stumped the fuck out of you and we're just supposed to keep paying for something that we have no access and no control over? Well I guess I know how you've made your billions, I should set up my business like that. Isn't it illegal for you to be billing me and not provide an invoice?

Google: I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do.

Me: So you work at Google, but you can't call any other department at Google, is that what you're telling me?

Google: That's right. I would call the same number that you would.

Me: So if you mom worked in another Google department and you needed to get in touch with her, you couldn't just call her?

Google: Well, um, I...

Me: So you can call other departments, you just don't want to.

Google: I can't help you.

Now by this time I'm wondering wouldn't it just be a whole fuck of a lot easier to just connect me to the fucking department I need to fix my problem? At this point I'm just being an asshole and wasting her time and mine to try and get her to use her brain and break from the script and try to actually help me. This goes on for 40 mins until I decide that I'm hungry enough to tell her to eat a shit sandwich and hang up.

Now I have to wait 2-5 business days from a senior support person (who is not a manager. By God do NOT call them a manager!) too see if they can use their brain and figure this out. In the meantime, I just hope to hell I don't rack up too much of an invoice because as I mentioned, I don't have access to my account to change it. Oh, and fuck you Google you useless pieces of shit, I hope I ruined your weekend!