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I just got off a 27-minute call trying to understand and fix a credit card decline problem with my Flexible Spending Account (FSA), not to be confused with my Health Savings Account (HSA). Thank you, government, for creating two accounts that sound very similar. It was a wonderful adventure.

If I were playing a game of Zork, it might have been fun pressing 1, 2, 3, or 4, or entering random words to get to the next level, but I wasn't playing Zork. I was just trying to fix a declined credit card transaction. Every time I get a phone number and no other option, no email, no chat, I know I'm doomed. I expect to be jerked around for a minimum of 30 to 60 minutes and eventually end up in a purgatory loop where I'm expected to know the magic incantation I must cast to reach the secret department.

## Five Transfers, Zero Answers

In this case, it was the WEX department. Whatever the fuck WEX stands for, I had no idea what it meant. Nobody told me, and the first four people held the truth like their precious.

I went through five different people, none of whom sent me to the right place. They sent me in invalid response loops. I must have entered my last four digits of my credit card, my last Social Security number, and my date of birth at least three times, each minimum, probably more for the birthday.

The system behaves like this:

```python
while caller.invalid:
    play("Invalid response. Please try again.")
    caller.reenter(card_last_four, ssn, date_of_birth)
    transfer(random_department)
```

For other wayward IVR travelers, [WEX][wex] is a payments company that administers benefits debit cards for FSA plans.

One sentence from any of the five agents would have saved me 20 minutes. Instead, they're the magic keepers of the information, the only ones, the chosen ones that can help you on your quest to use your debit card associated with your FSA, not to be confused with your HSA.

## Why the Loop Exists

Why the fuck is this so complicated? This isn't even close to the first time something like this has happened, and it won't be the last, because people who have set up these automated phone systems have no idea what they're fucking doing. None of them has a clue about the full workflow. None of them understands how people can get lost pressing numbers and speaking to robots, and they apparently don't give a flying fuck.

I spent all this time on this phone call, and I was told I would get to take a survey, but I was never given the opportunity to complete one. Thank you very much, Fidelity. You're so amazing. I really can tell you care deeply about your customers. I can tell that you love them with all your heart and all your dollars.

I can't imagine any of this will ever be fixed, given that corporations don't care about you and you are a cost center. As soon as you end up on their support lines, you are a burden. You are no longer a human; you are a number that must be reduced at all costs, but mostly deferred, a cost of doing business.

All this bullshit that you deal with in this maze of complex systems is not designed to make your life better. It's to mitigate edge-case problems that are obscured by unknown errors requiring you to find WEX departments to explain to you why the fuck you're getting a credit card declined error. It's designed to put the baby human in a corner and hope you'll just go away and live with your problem, forever.

## Thanks Again, Government

You are so kind to induce so much confusion in the world by having two systems that are off by one measly letter in the alphabet. These giant, nameless, faceless corporations that hold these numbers in holy matrimony so that they can make money off of you, with no regard for your soul, while you are sent on pointless quests to use the money that has been extracted from you to save a few pennies can die in a fire.

How about you give us a simple tax break rather than sending us into purgatorial invalid response loops? I am invalid. You are invalid. Everyone's invalid because they say so. They have 5,000 complex navigation points embedded in automated systems that respond in robotic voices with playful keyboards clicking in the background, as if there's anything really going on other than a software program that says you are invalid. The invalid response loop will continue, and you will remain invalid forevermore.

## How to Break the Loop

If you build support systems, phone or otherwise, you can prevent this:

* Show the decline reason at the point of failure. A card error that says "contact WEX benefits support at this number" ends the insanity quest before it starts.
* Publish the department map. If a special department exists, name it on the website, in the app, and in the phone menu.
* Carry identity through transfers. Verifying once per call is plenty; three times is hostile.
* Count transfers as failures. Every handoff is a routing bug, so measure it and fix the menu that caused it.
* Offer at least one written channel. Email or chat gives callers a record and gives you a searchable log of what confuses people.
* Deliver the survey you promised. A feedback loop you advertise and then skip tells customers their time was the product.

Walk the path your customers walk, and the invalid response loop shows up immediately. If you care, fix it; if you don't, kindly go out of business.

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## References

* [WEX][wex], the benefits payments company that administers FSA debit cards.

[wex]: https://www.wexinc.com/