auDHD & cancelling contracts
It's hard on purpose.
I’m sharing a different type of post today, this is a bit of journaling I did to work through my overwhelmed feelings after trying to cancel a broadband contract. It’s more lighthearted and personal than usual, a relatable story for people who struggle with bashing their heads against the wall talking to people whose job it is to take advantage of you.
My hell of a broadband contract ended so I gave Vodafone 30 days notice in January - the service was meant to terminate 18 days ago but they charged me for a new month yesterday.
Last night I chatted with Cancellations on their web app, he’s actually nice. He’s clear about what he’s trying to do but ultimately after about an hour we realise there is nothing he can do to cancel my account, he says I need to speak to the customer services team who work office hours. Fair, I guess.
I think about it all night.
I message Customer Services in the morning. I answer security questions. I explain the situation.
They want to transfer me to Cancellations.
I insist Cancellations told me they couldn’t help me.
Customer Services insist only Cancellations can help me.
They transfer me.
I wait.
I answer security questions.
I explain the situation again from the beginning.
Cancellations say the same thing as they did last night and transfer me back to Customer Services.
I wait.
I answer security questions.
I explain the situation again from the beginning.
I pressure the third agent I speak to.
I wait.
They say “due to a system error” my cancellation wasn’t requested until 6 Feb so I have to wait 30 days from then. I tell them I have an email from them that says I’ll disconnect on February 10 and they have no right to charge me after that date.
They then try to make the cancellation for me immediately, system won’t let them because the 6 Feb cancellation is pending.
They try to cancel the 6 Feb cancellation, they can’t.
They transfer me to the Cancellation team again.
I wait.
I answer security questions.
I explain the situation again from the beginning.
They try to disconnect me immediately, can’t.
They try to cancel the 6 Feb cancellation, can’t.
I ask to escalate to someone who can help me
I’m asked to wait.
I wait
and wait
and wait.
The agent starts typing and I pick up my phone, as I scroll down my thumb brushes against the huge button Vodafone put at the bottom of the screen. The chat closes and takes me back to the bot.
I start the process again in the chat bot, asking my agent to read the previous messages, I ask to be put through to an escalation.
He implores me to give him a chance to make things right and asks me a dozen security questions.
I copy and paste everything.
He asks me to wait while he logs in. While I’m waiting, how are you this morning?
I say I just want to get this done.
I don’t want to make a phone call but I feel I have to make a phonecall. I practice my slow clear voice for the robot that takes my account number and asks security questions.
A human answers, she asks for my account number again and asks security questions. She tells me my PIN number is wrong.
I have given my PIN number what feels like hundreds of times over now. I did not get it wrong. I say so.
She insists.
I ask if she’s sure she got my account number right.
She says it matches my name.
She asks for the PIN again.
I give it to her again.
It works.
She asks me to hold.
I wait.
She tells me she sees I requested cancellation of my account on 10th Jan and it was processed on 6th Feb so my account will terminate on 6th March and I will receive a final bill then. She asks if there’s anything else she can help with or will that be all?
I take a moment.
I say everything again, as slowly as I can bear. I say they have already taken an extra week of fees from me and have no right to continue to charge me beyond my notice period.
Oh! She says. She’s surprised my broadband connection is still live.
I tell her I’m feeling frustrated. I ask for my final bill to be calculated with the correct end date.
She puts me on hold again.
I wait.
At the beginning of each chat and this call I was asked “To ensure our team can provide the best care, do you have any additional support needs?” YES/NO. I gather this is code for access requests but how do you make an access request for “I need you to listen to me and explain things in a way that makes sense”.
I wait.
She comes back and asks for more time, she’s on hold with Cancellations. She seems less abrasive than before. I’m exhausted. I’m thinking through fog. I wonder how many calls she’s taken today, repeating the same useless information over like a machine. I think about the first guy, the helpful guy I chatted to at 9pm last night. What is the point in having agents 24/7 if they can’t actually do anything? Are they all as annoyed as me? I lost count of how many people I’ve spoken to. They all made me angry and I empathise with all of them. I’m so tired.
She transfers me to someone who I gather she's negotiated with on my behalf.
After another hold “Harry” greets me. He has a comfortingly camp voice and this time when he asks security questions he's super apologetic about it. He goes through all the spiel about the risks of immediate disconnection, do you agree, yes yes yes.
I hold.
He announces gleefully; that’s you done!.
I get an email from Vodafone saying my service will be disconnected on April 1st.
Harry tells me that’s just a quirk of the system.
I ask about the extra days I’ve been charged for.
Harry is very sorry, billing isn’t his area of expertise. If I wait 48 hours and call again someone in the billing team will be able to talk me through my final bill. He “reassures” me I won’t be charged for anything after today.
Communication issues aren’t news to neurodivergent folk, we’re constantly being misunderstood and misunderstanding especially when it comes to communicating with neurotypical people. Experiences like this frustrate us because the way that companies behave seems illogical - they don’t follow their own rules but threaten you with consequences for not rule following. It’s a reasonable instinct to want to fight illogic with logic.
Consider it’s not that these companies are acting illogically. Rather they are not acting in the way that they tell you they are acting. That is to say, they are acting manipulatively.
The combination of social anxiety and concrete thinking makes it particularly difficult for many neurodivergent people, including me, to control emotions and behaviour when faced with what we perceive as unethical or manipulative practice. This is what I think people mean when they say autistic people have a “strong sense of justice”
Vodafone overcharging me doesn’t seem like some great injustice but I can’t let it lie. I had shit service from them whilst stuck in a two year contract, they made me jump through all sorts of conversational hoops to cancel at the end of my contract - are you really sure you want to leave? Tell me about the deal you’re getting at your new provider so we can beat it - and after all that just didn’t cancel my contract and kept charging me until I dedicated hours of my time and all the emotional energy I have to badgering them into taking some sort of (not super satisfying) action. We are expected to accept this as normal.
Many people don’t have the capacity to do all this - heck I don’t a lot of the time - and end up overpaying for all sorts of things.
Companies routinely make it difficult to end contracts as a “retention technique”. This impacts neurodivergent people more than neurotypicals - it’s predatory.
Refusing to let companies swindle me out of small things they commonly swindle from everyone is a regular theme in my life. That said, I think I’m pretty incompetent at taking the actions needed to fight companies in this way. I’m often misunderstood, I feel sick with anxiety, drained and tired to the point that I can’t move on and do something else with my day after and I brim with pent up frustration. I keep doing it because I feel compelled to, especially when it comes to money I feel can’t afford to give it away, especially not to a large corporation.
Closing up this post I’m feeling lighter in my body, reflecting back on the chats and calls I can see that I managed the conversations more competently than I might have in the past and even at my most frustrated I didn’t reach the point ot meltdown that I know I would have done in the past. My chest aches and I’m looking forward to a rest but I feel accomplished. Sharing my experience doing things that are hard for me helps me work through my feelings and I hope this is an encouraging little story for others who relate.