We’ve all been there- needing to resolve a matter over the phone with any number of companies or service providers but we’re unable to get past that annoying automated voice thing to get to a real human (who, we can only hope, will be more competent than the automated voice and will be able to help us).
To most of you this is old news, but for many it’s still a new, wonderful thing- It used to be Paul English’s IVR Cheat Sheet but it’s since turned into the GetHuman Database.
The GetHuman database is a list of companies, their customer service phone numbers and the things you need to do to get to speak with a human (i.e. “Press *, ignoring messages”).
I use it all the time and even have the print version set up on my treo (for faster loading) for when i’m in a jam.
On the site there’s also some tips for what to do if the human you’re speaking with is hard to understand (it happens, now that a lot of our customer service things are getting outsourced).
Press *2 if you love GetHuman. :-)