[Chris2048]

The adversarial/cost-centre nature of these relationships makes me wonder if there need to be more services offered to the public to handle these issue: much like a company might use a collections agency to collect debt, maybe citizens can outsource things to services, like cancelling an account, requesting data, restoring an account etc.

To some degree, laws may need to change (or be clarified) to support this: the legal right to have representation, so corps can't try the "we will only talk to the billholder"-BS, support SLAs and/or onbudsmen, right wrt recording support (if they can, we should be able to do to, without loss of support), penalties for giving incorrect information, etc etc etc.

[taylorfinley]

I've occasionally felt so wronged by a company, with so little avenue for recourse, that I would happily pay someone to impose costs on them. I thought of hiring my own call center employee to try to get the highest-paid support person on the line at said business and hold them there as long as possible. I thought of offering this as a service, since I know I'm not alone in feeling powerless against the mega corps with their mile long service agreements and binding arbitration... But that's not a business that does anything but waste resources and impose costs, so not something I'd actually be interested in starting. I've thought for a while now though that there is an opportunity for exactly what you describe, a professional phone support person. Done at scale you'd quickly learn what fees each service provider is willing to waive, what deals can be unlocked with the right magic words, and you could offer real value as a tech support consierge.

[snikeris]

I don’t think any laws need to change. Individual action is sufficient.

I’m unhappy with how BBVA handled this so I’ll be moving my money elsewhere.

[Chris2048]

Individuals don't know their rights, and it is often inefficient to find out, or make legal challenges for a one-off; it changes if this is a reoccurring task.

[COGlory]

You should check it https://donotpay.com

It is exactly what you're describing. You can cancel things, get fees reversed, file lawsuits, contact companies, send data takedown requests, etc. It's not prefect, but it's definitely great..

[CompMan411]

That service is mega broken. Website will take your money, Send verification and then won’t let you login. Had to dispute charge. There is no method to contact any human. This was scammy as fuck

[Chris2048]

Sadly, it appears to be US only. Also, I suspect a lot of it is paywalled cancellation/freebie scripts - I don't want cheap/free stuff, I want rights.