Discussion: USA, land of administrative incompetence

You get used to it. Keep a paper trail and write a complaint letter to his boss, including it.

Any idea how I'd find out who his boss is?

For the gym, no. I tried to find that person when I wanted to complain about the thug at the pool who took pleasure in shutting people out during opening hours (and perving on the female swimmers).

He must be exceptionally difficult to track down, because otherwise there's no way useless membership guy would still have a job. He has failed to pick up his phone three times today, and not replied to my message from yesterday. Grrr grrr grrr GRRR!

Can you cancel future payments with your bank? Getting a refund from someone as incompetent as that sounds like it'll be challenging though...

Unfortunately they don't do direct debits so it's more of a scheduled debit card payment. I'm sure I can somehow, but you would think the easiest way was for him to do his job.

Looks like he is doing his job quite well - he has your money. Pretty sure that is actually their business model. Once he has access to your money all bets are off.

Realizing it is more fun to bitch, going up the food chain is likely to be much more productive. I'd start with Edward Mockus, he's in charge of facilities operation, 203-432-2494. My first question would be to say I've been have problems dealing with the membership person at the gym, and is he (Mockus) the guy to talk to? And if not, could he steer me in the right direction. Usually doesn't take long, if you ask in a non-confrontational way, to find the right person, and to get that person aware of the problem and offer to check into it. And then keep calling back until you get a satisfactory reply.

But you have to be civil.

So, other countries don't have this type of administrative incompetence? Lucky.

I had a problem with auto payments that resulted in the company telling me that it was my fault I kept paying them; while they had cancelled my account it was apparently my responsibility to tell my card/bank to stop payments... Of course they didn't make that remotely clear at all when I signed up or cancelled the account. Super obnoxious... Good luck getting it sorted out!

Thanks PG - I now have a name of someone who answers his phone!