We share your pain.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FFRoYhTJQQ

I have parrots who tend to "talk" when I do and their voices get muddled in with mine. I have to go outside to conduct the call.

All Med insurance companies use the damn things... I have found that if you talk gibberish or just keep repeating the same thing over and over it gets all upset and passes you onto a human.

I tell you what, slightly OT for helping you, but I phoned Standard Life in the UK the other day to sort out a pension transfer and the voice recognition software they had was out of this world. I actually "tried" to fool it with different accents, speaking quickly, using colloquial words etc. and it was 100%. If I didn't know better (Hmmm...) I would have said it was a real human listening and pressing the appropriate "response" buttons.

More on topic though I have found for example on the American Airlines system, that it is set up for the international phonetic alphabet - IE spelling words with "Alpha, Sierra, Tango"...etc...

Lol Bless them!

The thing with those menus is you feel such a moron speaking like that to it, it's worse if you are calling from work saying stupid things like 'Existing customer.' The oh-so-happy operators annoy me by being so damned chirpy 'Here are some things I can help you with.' Bluh!

Has anyone tried calling the Tax Office in the UK? You have to go through about 10 different menus to get to a person, THEN wait half an hour!

I did finally get through to them and a man eventually came out to mend the garage door. One of the springs had snapped so the door wouldn't open. My new annoyance is that he was only allowed to repair the broken bit, so I have one shiney new spring and one old, rusted I'm going to drop on your head at any moment spring. On the plus side, the $60 I had to pay as a call out gets refunded back by the landlord as the lease missed the section for home warranty payments out.

If it's any consolation, even my ruddy car's voice recognition system can't recognise a British accent. Programmed in hubby's mobile, set up voice programme - since when does 'Mobile' become "Arts and Theater District' or 'Appletone Elementary School' (wherever that is)????

I tried that..'find nearest post office' I said and she turned the radio on...

Don't know how to double quote, but both those made me laugh!

I only just found out! Click on the 'pages' icon next to the quote button.

Better yet, go to the MBTTUK forum, Rovers Return and it tells you exactly how to do it, that's how I finally learned how to do it (two days ago!).

the depths of human misery is the vru ar Aetna helath insurance. Usually requires endless shouting and repeating to get absolutely nowhere and give up til im desparate.