Auto-Phone Menu Breakthrough!

Auto-Phone Menu Breakthrough!



Break your way past those annoying automated dial menus that prevent
you from speaking to a human!  Shorten the time span between
listening to all those annoying options ("please listen carefully, as the menu has changed" -- yeah, like since each time you called?) and finally getting to a human being.  How to do this?



Easy!



The Seattle Times [1] Business & Technology Page [2] ran a wonderful piece [3] on October 28th, with an easy to follow chart and how-to guide for doing this.  The article headline (title): Dial-a-human shortcuts. 
The subhead:  How to escape from automated phone-system
hell.  What a wonderful service the Seattle Times provides!  Check it out here [3], you can click here and print it [4], and keep in near your phone!



It explains how to get past the preventive (er, they say helpful) and
time consuming menus and get to a real person so you can actually deal
with a real human to discuss whatever it is that prompted you to make
the call in the first place.  Looking at it another way, this helps keep real live human beings employed, so that we the normal people will not be stuck forever speaking to or interacting with machines and menu-driven bots.



All sorts of companies are listed: banks and financial service firms,
cellphone companies, ISPs, brick'n'mortar and web-based retailers (Yes!  You really can reach a human at Amazon or eBay!). 
Major kudos, huge thanks and appreciation to the Seattle Times for
this, a true public service. Amazing, isn't it, that this appeared on
my reading radar on Thanksgiving weekend.  Truly something to be
thankful for, no doubt.