Press 1 for English

A lot of people have ranted about the whole "Press 1 for English" thing, so I'm actually going to skip that. Suffice it to say that it doesn't really bother me that much, although I wish it would be just the default setting, and you didn't have to press anything.

Today I think I found the most stupid customer service do loop ever. I was attempting to update my address and phone number with American Express. I went to their website to do all that online. Sadly, the password I had made there wasn't the one that I thought it was. At first I thought I had just fat fingered it, so I retried immediately. When it was wrong the second time, I went with the other one that I thought it was (all strong passwords, with Upper Case, lower case, numbers, AND special characters). At this point the site told me that I had locked myself out. Oops! Oh well, I'll call. So I call the Toll Free numer, enter my card number, and it then proceeds to tell me that I am not calling from a number on my profile... Hello!? That's what I am calling to change! I hit 0 repeatedly trying to get to a human being, and the fucking machine hangs up on me!

Grr... Okay, I go back to the website. I start looking for a phone number to call that will get me to a human being. Ah, found one! So I call that. I manage to get a human being after a few minutes of button mashing and saying "representative" to the computer a few times. Ugh, why can't you just punch 0 or * just once and get direct to the hold line for a human being? Hell, I'd even accept a three or four digit secret code to get direct to a human. But I digress.

The representative is kind and helpful and gets my contact information updated. I am still locked out though, and I would like to administer my account online, so I ask him to reset the password. He says that he can't do that, but I can use the online tool for getting my password. This is where it gets BRILLIANT! So I put in my online ID, click the "Forgot Password" link. I enter the card number again, and click "Forgot Password" again. At this point it is going to try to verify my identity. Here is where you'd get one of those security questions, right? No, it is asking me for (get this) MY FUCKING PASSWORD! Why would it ask for my password if I clicked a link for "Forgot Password"? That has got to be right up there with "Please email us if you are unable to connect to the internet" type of moronic stupidity!

After about a dozen bouts of "Please hold sir" and the poor customer service representative checking with his IT or supervisor, I finally get it reset so I can go in and change it. Now get this... American Express doesn't allow passwords to be anything outside 6 to 8 characters, and doesn't allow for special characters! Only Upper Case, Lower Case, and numbers. All my 12+ character STRONG asswords that I have at my disposal were no good on this site! I guess they are just begging to be hacked if they have such simple passwords.

Sorry, just had to rant! How about you, any stories to tell about such rampant fucktardery?