Woman Fakes House Fire to Get Through to Customer Service Line After Being Ignored for a Month
“The next day I got a call.”
There are few things more frustrating than being dismissed or ignored when trying to get through to customer service—so one woman found a novel way of getting their attention. Sani Shah, 27, from Milton Keynes, United Kingdom, was trying to track down two parcels lost in the mail and tried contacting the company for a month, but to no avail. According to reports, the business owner finally decided to up the stakes and pretended one of the mail couriers had set her house on fire. It worked—here's what the mail company had to say about the stunt.
According to Metro UK, Shah had shipped two clothing parcels to customers, which had gone missing—leaving her almost $250 out of pocket. When she tried to contact the shipping company Evri, she dealt with recorded responses and no real help. After a month, she decided enough was enough.
Shah attempted to contact customer service through their live chat option, but when that didn't help either, she decided to take things further. "They gave me a reference number and said someone will be in touch, so I replied saying, "Help, your courier has set my house on fire!".
The company chat asked for pictures of the fire, which she happily provided. "They asked for two photos to start an investigation so I went on Google and found a house on fire," Shah said. "People have messaged me saying it's someone's actual house but I just needed someone to ring me, I didn't want to message."
Shah's stunt worked—she soon received a phone call from an actual human being. "The next day I got a call," Shah says. "It was a lady who sounded like she was from head office. They obviously saw the fire and thought, 'Oh, this is serious.'"
Shah says the head office lady was sympathetic and helped process her refunds. "I'm not trying to encourage lying and giving Evri stress but this is the extent people have to go to to get in touch," she says. Evri apologized for the incident: "We deliver 700 million parcels a year and are proud that 99 percent are delivered on time."
