MACHINE OR HUMAN VOICE ON PHONES

4. HPI's Yahoo.com Problem Likely Solved; Amazing Internet Resource Shared

gethuman.com

KAUAI, HAWAII, November 2, 2006: We thank the dozen or so people who promptly and expertly answered our plea yesterday about yahoo.com. The HPI reports were getting blocked to nearly a thousand subscribers. Several people were able to direct our complaint to the right departments within yahoo, and we think (will find out after today's HPI) the problem has been solved.

In the course of this, one subscriber alerted us to what is one of the more unusual website we've seen. It is called the gethuman 500 database (URL above). It was begun by disgruntled customers of major companies who could just never reach an actual human being at the company (our problem with yahoo). They've assembled access numbers and instructions on how to reach a live person at hundreds of major companies (including yahoo). In some cases, they simply provide a number, such as 1-800-869-7997 for Allstate Motor Club which takes one "direct to human. " A more typical approach is to call the number, such as for AAA, and then "Press 0 at each prompt, ignoring messages" to reach a human. Our favorite, however, was this one for SUNOCO company. One calls the listed number, then is advised to, "press 00000, then mumble when prompted for an account number." That then gets one a real human being.

The database includes companies dealing in air travel, cars, credit, finance, computer hardware, US insurance, internet, mobile, etc. The website includes feedback reports on success, failures and new methods. A major source of phone numbers is the official listing of each company which is publicly traded. They are required in these listings to give numbers that reach real people, so stockholders can get hold of the company.