I went, I swam, I fished, I sunburned – I did lots and lots of things up at the lake.
Mostly, I just relaxed and enjoyed being surrounded by people I love.
I returned to find a letter from the IRS letting us know we owe them an additional $880 because one of our dependents’ names didn’t match their social security number. I figured the hub didn’t claim a family pet, therefore this had to be some type of error. With that in mind, I made a phone call to the tax dudes.
After listening to the seven various options I could choose to be on hold for, I sighed when the mechanical voice announced my wait time would be 10-15 minutes. I listened to muzak – which wasn’t too bad – kudos to the feds on this one. While waiting, I mentioned to the hub that I’d be less than happy if the person who eventually took my call had a horrendous accent that I couldn’t understand.
Before you get your knickers in a bunch about me being some kind of racist – calm down! I’m betting every one of you has had to make a phone call that ended up somewhere in India with some dude or dudette that you could barely understand. That drives me bonkers!
Finally, an actual human came on the line. Immediately, the crabby person inside me realized I’d been zapped to the realm of the “damn he has a funky accent”. I told myself to just be pleasant, calm down, don’t fuck with the IRS, be nice, and all that jazz.
His accent puzzled me. I’d heard it before – it wasn’t horrible, just difficult to understand at times. As we spoke, I decided to find out where my tax dude was located. I couldn’t place the country he was in – it was time to come right out and ask.
Duh – he wasn’t in another country – he was in Boston!
Yup, I’ve heard that accent before. Inwardly, I giggled about this while he looked things up, matched names to numbers, and fixed my tax woes.
When all was said and done we didn’t owe a dime. Our tax return had been accurate – someone there entered Babycub’s name into the system incorrectly. The bad thing? Had we been wrong, our “tax” would have been under $300; the rest of the amount was all late fees, penalties, and interest. Wowsers! I’m damn glad this was THEIR mistake!
Peace
Deej
June 27th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
Crazy!
I totally agree with you re: the foreign call center thing. I don’t have an issue with people of any nationality, but it sure can be frustrating when the person on the other end of the phone is almost impossible to understand, and they probably find it almost impossible to understand you too.
June 27th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
When dealing with Citibank and applying for a second mortgage I always got someone from India. Like you, I am not racist at all. But when it is something as important as a mortgage I have a need to totally undertand everything I am being told. Whenever I did get India I always explained that I have a very difficult time understanding them and to please transfer me to an american loan agent. Usually they do with out a problem but one time the person just apologized and spoke louder and slower. hmmmmm, ya that helped. NOT. It was rather insulting really. Foreign call centers are my biggest pet peeve.
Thankfully being as you are dealing with US Taxes it is good to know that the Feds. don’t outsource outside of the US.
I do find it very funny that your person was from the country of Boston tho’
June 28th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Moth – Exactly, it’s frustrating. I think it’s worse on the phone than in person as well.
Nikkie – I have done that a number of times as well. I keep hoping that our businesses here with stop outsourcing those jobs to other countries. There are a whole lot of people looking for jobs ’round here!
June 30th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
We have the same problem here in the UK Deejay, it’s too damn cost effective to let some guy in Mumbai deal with it
July 5th, 2009 at 11:26 am
Entering a name faulty, can those tax dudes and dudettes dont do anything right? Lucky you had a funky tax dude who put everything right.
July 26th, 2009 at 1:26 am
Ugg….. They caught us for a job I worked at for one week, but forgot about when doing my taxes at the end of the year. Three years later, I got a bill from them for almost $1000. Interest ….