[grecy]

> Hang up. Call them. Don’t let them call you.

This is the golden advice. Never, ever speak to anyone about anything important if they contacted you. Call, text, email, whatever. End it and you contact them.

It doesn’t matter if it’s the bank, power company or telco. Even if HR called me or the CEO. Hang up, call them back. It adds 5 seconds to ensure all is good

[lxgr]

> It adds 5 seconds

Depends on the bank.

Some make it almost impossible to get past their IVR, which always claims to be able to help you with any issues you might have (as long as the issue is wanting to know your balance and last three transactions).

[patrick451]

Why are you banking there? Switch banks. Don't be a victim.

[lxgr]

I did. Ironically, it was almost impossible to get to a human representative to close the account: At one point, the IVR would literally end the call after authenticating me due to "problems with your account" (presumably my pending/stuck account closure request).

[timnetworks]

> This is the golden advice.

This bears repeating. It's so simple to check in using another known-good contact method, and btw phone calls are still cool.

[lxgr]

> btw phone calls are still cool.

Not to large corporations. Have you called one lately?

It's a minimum of five minutes of bartering, begging and pleading with the IVR to let you speak to a human, and even then a successful outcome is anything but guaranteed.

[teeray]

Usually doing what the IVR asks is the slowest path. Confusing it by mumbling nonsense so it thinks it can’t understand or ramming never-ending DTMF tones up its input buffer until it chokes works well. For certain companies and certain departments (usually where my ongoing satisfaction is a concern for the company), I’ve sometimes found yelling repeated expletives at the hold music gets me connected faster. I have nothing to substantiate it, but my conspiracy theory is that there’s a customer rage meter that can be gamed (remember “calls may be recorded for quality assurance“). By contrast, when my call is a pure cost center (e.g. product warranty claims), I’ve found there’s a mandatory hold time to encourage you to hang up.

[c0pium]

> yelling repeated expletives at the hold music gets me connected faster

The confirmation bias is real!

[nerdponx]

As everyone else is rightly saying, phone calls are only still cool if your bank or other institution agrees, which some do not.

[gpvos]

It may add up to 20 minutes if the waiting line is long.