Or just hang on without pressing any buttons. Usually an actual human being will answer within a minute or so, much faster than if you dive into the phone tree.
And it's not even unethical. Just weird.
If you do nothing they assume you’re on an old rotary, therefore cannot navigate the tree. It’s a good shortcut. I really never thought of diving into the Spanish version in order to land in a US based call center.
I deal with banks a lot, and the best way to get through the phone tree is simply select the “open a new account” option and wing it from there. The phone is answered by a live human immediately, and they’ll usually send you to a live person instead of the phone tree that warned you of a twenty minute wait due to high call volume.
“Usually an actual human being will answer within a minute or so”
They are catching on to this one. More and more are switching you back to the main menu to force you to make a choice. I think I’ll try the Spanish option next.