F#@&!!!

Continental Airlines falsely claims on their own website to fly me from San Jose, California to Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina for the impressive fare price of $155. After spending 20 minutes trying to buy the ticket online and continually getting a error “We’re sorry, but continental.com was unable to complete your purchase. Please try your purchase later or call 1-800-xxx-xxxx * for assistance” I finally phone them up to find the published fare price isn’t available but I’m welcome to purchase it for a whopping $537. Excuse me?
Here’s how that convo went:
Continentail Airlines: “The next available price is 537.”
Me: “….dollars? Or do you mean rupies?”
CA: “Dollars.”
Me: “Are you insane or do they pay you to treat me like an idiot?”
And then I apologize for lashing out at him and how it’s the company not the employee, blahblahblah, and then say no thanks to the 350% markup and hang up. But then I wonder, when did it become acceptable to do business with companies that you have to employ the “it’s the company, not the employee” mantra? I did everything I could not to call up that 800 number because dealing with the soulless Muppets on the other end was the last thing I wanted to do this AM before my morning sugar-free Rockstar.
In the modern day of infinite choices why do we still have such an abysmal array of competing products that it continues to be no surprise when we’re regularly disappointed through these kinds of encounters Big Business? It shouldn’t be a surprise when the rare occurrence does come around that I’m actually glad I called anyone in the Fortune 500 directory. WTF kind of way is that to run a business???
* I’ve X’d their number because I don’t want to give them ANY help in getting business at all