What’s up with companies of a certain size thinking that it’s totally fine to expect customers to learn about their internal departmental structure?

I just had a brain dead exchange with a sales rep from Stripe. They asked if they could help me finish setting up my account since as of now I’m not generating any revenue for them.

I told them the issue was on their end, that they wouldn’t accept all the paperwork I’d already sent them to prove my LLC exists, that I am the sole owner, that it’s at the address it’s at.

When I mentioned this he sent back a canned template about how financial institutions are heavily regulated (no shit) and need to adhere to Know Your Customer and Anti-Money Laundering regulations.

I replied, so is my bank who opened my account without a problem but you won’t accept the bank statement with my address that matches my government issued ID.

I told him that he has more power and access than I do to suggest a change in policy, which is why I was telling him all of this. Oh and he reached out to me.

He wrote back that he can’t suggest a change in policy, reiterated that he’s on the sales team and that I needed to talk to another department.

Wild. Like I get that you don’t want to bother because it’s not worth your time, but that’s different from saying you can’t “because you’re on the sales team” wtf? The policy is literally stopping you from making sales. In my experience the ONLY people the executives listen to are the sales people.

I think that if companies are this big that people feel like they have such a narrowly defined role they can’t do anything then it’s time for them to be broken up into smaller companies. My legal test for this would be 1 hop. If you can’t get the issue resolved in 1 hop from intake, meaning having the front line person get you to the right place in a single transfer, then your company is too big.