Hate Phone Trees? Cheat Sheet To Find A Human
I stumbled upon this excellent resource at Paul English that gives an extensive cheat sheet on how to bypass the annoying phone tree you get when you call a company and instead talk with a live person. Nothing is more frustrating when you have a question or need specific information to remedy an issue than to be bounced around in circles in a phone tree.
I’ve borrowed the “financial section” for this post, but his list is much more extensive and includes sections devoted to governement, insurance, pharmacy, products, retail, shipping, technology, phone, travel and TV/satelite in addition to finance.
| Company | Phone # | Steps to Find Human |
|---|---|---|
| American Express | 800-528-4800 | 0 |
| ATT Universal | 800-950-5114 | ## |
| Bank of America | 800-900-9000 | 1 loan; 2 account; 3 investing; 4 info; or 00 to human |
| Bank One | 877-226-5663 | 0 thru the options |
| Capital One Visa | 800-867-0904 | ignore prompts and invalid entry warnings; press #0 five times |
| Charles Schwab | 800-435-9050 | 3 then 0 |
| Chase | 800-CHASE24 | 5 pause 14*0 |
| CitiBank | 800-374-9700 | 1 online support; 2 billpay; 3 non-online; 4 credit card; or 0 to human |
| Discover | 800-347-2683 | ***** |
| E-Trade | 800-387-2331 | #### |
| Fidelity | 800-544-6666 | ignore prompt for social security number, just enter ### |
| MasterCard | 800-MC-ASSIST | 000 on each menu |
| MBNA | 800-421-2110 | 00 when menu starts |
| Paypal | 650 864-8000 | cf or here |
| Sovereign Bank | 800-SOV-BANK | 1 english; 1 personal; 3 then social#; passcode, #; then 0 (1-3x) |
| Sun Trust Banks | 404-588-7815 | Yes |
| US Bank | 800-US BANKS | 000(0) |
| Visa | 800-847-2911 | 000 (ignore prompts saying that it’s an invalid entry) |
| Wachovia | 800-922-1800 | accounts personal banking |
| Washington Mutual | 800-756-8000 | At any time after the announcement(s) start ‘O’ |
| Wells Fargo | 800-869-3557 | 0,0,0 |
| Western Union | 800-325-6000 | 0 |
hey wow. that’s awesome.
I’m going to bookmark that.