Photo by Liudmila Chernetska, iStockphoto
Photo by Liudmila Chernetska, iStockphoto
The way things are going we will have an easier time calling Facebook for tech support than getting answers to questions about Medicare, VA benefits or Social Security. Hint: there is NO way to call Facebook for tech support.
Have you ever tried to call tech support or customer service at a large company these days? Good luck. There are a couple of different experiences, but mostly they are dominated by having to converse with a computer that lies when it says, “You can ask me any question you like.”
Internet service providers and phone companies subject you to the AI obstacle course of voice prompts of redundant questioning before either hanging up or transferring you to “someone who can help.” Credit card and banking institutions run the same patter and all of them start with the line, “Our menu has recently changed so please waste your time and not ours by listening to all the choices.”
But the most frustrating support calls to make are those that never get answered. Some companies, Facebook in particular, are quite happy to have no numbers available at all. There is one phone number published for Meta. But it is buried in their domain registration record. It is not hard to find using the Whois tool. But calling it is a defining experience. A friendly voice answers, recorded of course, that says “welcome to Meta,” and proceeds to give you the web address for support. Then it spells it out, slowly. Then the voice says, “Thank you for calling,” and hangs up.
Now there are other phone numbers that can be found with a Google search for Facebook support. These numbers are actually paid links which are constructed to look like they belong to a Facebook page, giving the appearance of legitimacy. They are 100 percent fake. The phones are answered by criminals who will commiserate with your troubles and tell you they will help—by directing you to download a remote access program that will give them access to your computer so they can completely rob you.
With Trump and Musk decimating the personnel count of agencies that have large staffs with duties that require direct contact with everyday Americans, this sort of AI-driven—or AI suppressed—support is probably where we are headed. Pretty soon, the only phone numbers available for questions about your Medicare, Medicaid, VA benefits, Social Security or an IRS bill will be provided by scammers.
The whole idea with big companies and tech companies in particular is to avoid talking to people. Period. And since these companies rake in literal piles of money despite abominable service, it “works.” So why not apply this “sound” and profitable business approach to government?
The fact is that government is not a business and running it “like one” is a scam designed to rob us—yet Republicans having been pushing this for years. The magic word to these guys is “privatization.” This translates to selling off the functions and infrastructure that we as taxpayers have paid for over many decades to private businesses so they can make profits from our Social Security and Medicare funds. Note the word “our.” We paid those funds in, not Congressional budget allocations. Those moneys belong to each of us.
“Business” people claim that they can do a better, more efficient job. Sure. The biggest companies around are a shining example of that—yes, that was sarcasm in case that wasn’t glaringly plain.
By “efficient,” Elon and his ilk mean “profitable.” This means cutting all expenses possible which means cutting as many people as possible. None of these tech bros view people as assets, rather they are the liability side of the ledger and cutting the liability/expense side makes the asset side that much fatter, for them.
I heard a joke yesterday that Congress had put forth a new proposal for managing Social Security—live faster and die younger. Like all of this, the humor is dark because there is really nothing funny about it.
The fact is—on this April Fools Day—that our government is lead by an anti-social criminal and an equally anti-social drug addict—both of whom see people as liabilities instead of the assets they truly are.
Marty Kassowitz is co-founder of Factkeepers. As founder of Interest Factory and View360, he brings more than 30 years experience in effective online communications, social media management, and platform development to the site. He is a writer, designer, editor and long time observer of the ill-logic demonstrated by too many members of the species known as Mankind. After a long history of somewhat private commentary on a subject he totally hates: politics, Marty was encouraged to build this site and put up his own analyses as well as curate relevant content from other sources.
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