Wait, we’re “customers”?
The IRS’s Customer Service Is As Terrible As You’d Expect
This reminds me of a conversation I had with IRS “customer service” once. They had made a mistake and I, of course, was on the hook for their fuck up so I had to call them. Resolved the issue. Then this conversation happened:
Agent: Sir, there’s another problem with your account.
Me: My account?
Agent: Yes, there’s something we need to . . .
Me: *interrupts* I can promise you I have never opened “an account” with you.
Agent: Well, I, err, uhm . . . Sir, I just need . . .
Me: *interrupts* I mean, if I don’t pay you, you’ll send me to prison. That doesn’t seem like much of “an account” to me.
Then I let it go.
June 28th, 2018 at 7:30 pm
We’re IRS “customers” in the same sense that a mugging victim is a “customer” of the mugger and a rape victim is the “customer” of the rapist.
“Customer Service” is a rather ghoulish term in this case. “Victim Service” would be more honest, or “Victimization Facilitation” but the latter is an honest mouthful.
Welfare recipients would more properly be termed “customers” as would politicians and other Consumers of the Plunder.
June 29th, 2018 at 1:15 am
I would submit that Welfare Recipients were “clients” rather than “customers” but hey.
June 29th, 2018 at 10:20 am
It’s not to fool you, it’s to sugarcoat the pill for them. Americans are, by and large, decent people, even those who work for the IRS, and they don’t want to think of themselves as blood-sucking tax collectors who’ll steal the coins from a dead man’s eyes.
July 2nd, 2018 at 7:16 am
How about taxpayer service?