CTA Customer Service: "Oxymorons on Parade"

A personal thank-you to the CTA corporate for living up to the reputation of being the bumbling, money-grubbing imbeciles the press has made you out to be.

This morning as usual, I swooshed into the Irving Park Brown Line station and briskly swiped my CTA "Plus Card" against the turnstile...it didn't work. Patiently, I pressed it against the bright disk reader again. Nada. Still calm, I stepped over to give the other machine a try. *SNAP* and my "Hey, I'll never be a nickel short again hero" broke into 2 neat halves.

Bewildered, I stared quizzically at the station manager looking on from afar. He nicely explained to me "Oh, this happens all the time...those cards are plastic and once the cold hits they snap like twigs." I was then handed a card to call for a replacement card and let through the gate gratis.

This was to be the nicest part of my encounter.

Upon calling the number, I weaved my way through 55 different recorded steps "If you know the name of the station on fire, please PRESS 10" and then stewed on hold for 20min. As last a "customer service" representative answered my call. They would replace and send me a new card, but at cost to me. I tried to reason with her "Look, your product is defective. Any other company would send me a replacement and apologize profusely for my inconvenience."

She finally offered to provide me an address I could send (again, at cost to me) my card to have it independently tested to determine if the crack was the CTA's fault or mine. If it was their fault, I could then fill out a form to have them reimburse me for the $5 cost of the card.

It's a tossup as to which concept I've having more difficulty grasping:
A. You have to go through 10 steps to report a station on fire.
B. There is an guy out there with nothing better to do than run tests on plastic train cards.