My family recently relocated AGAIN about a month ago. Over the course of the move, I have on THREE separate occasions been told by customer service people that I am a liar (not in so many words, but, still).

Just today I was speaking with a representative from our local electric company about a deposit waiver program that the military base has established for servicemembers with respect to utility company deposits. I just received my first bill today so I proceeded to call the electric company to see how to go about with the deposit waiver (which we filed on December 20th in the military housing office). I got a customer service rep on the phone and asked her what was involved, stating that we had all of the paperwork for the deposit waiver program filed. She proceeded to tell me that when the account was set up by my husband (error number one...I set up the account over the phone) he was given a list of options for waiving the deposit, one of which being the military waiver program, and he chose to use a previous electric company's letter of credit as a waiver (error number two...they never told me anything about the military waiver program when I spoke to them and set up the account...I only found out about it the following day when we went to the housing office to bring them our lease). When I informed her that what she had just said was incorrect - that I was the one who set up the account and that the only option offered to me at the time was the previous electric company letter of credit - she said "well, I'm not saying that you're wrong, BUT..." and then proceeded to tell me how I was, in fact, wrong.

This happened to me two other times in the past two months, all surrounding my move. The worst was when my previous rental company told me that they were keeping my $900 security deposit because I never gave them written notice that I was leaving. This was completely untrue (they had TWO notices from me, as a matter of fact) and they dragged this on for weeks before finally realizing that they were wrong (after calling me a liar NUMEROUS times). The same company tried to keep my friend's security deposit, also citing a lack of written response (which they later, conveniently, found). It wasn't until I threatened them with lawyers that they magically located the missing fax.

I'm sure there are tons of people who abuse the system and do lie about things to customer service people all the time. I, however, am not one of them. Now I am stuck paying a deposit that I should not have to pay because someone else didn't do his/her job properly. Why am I always the one who is lying? Is it not possible that a lazy/irresponsible employee made a mistake and did not give me information he/she was supposed to or did not properly file a document? Of course not!

So much for so-called customer service!

Are you sure you don't live in the UK? The experiences you describe are more or less typical, especially when dealing with the financial services industry.

Somehow it's easier for companies to be defensive and assume their own infallibility than assume that the customer is right and the company made the mistake. I think this is exacerbated by no-win-no-fee legal proceedings - any admission of error can be seen as leaving an opening to be sued, so it's legally safer to pretend it's all the customer's fault and apologise later than it is to come clean straight away.