By Lindsay Tice,Staff Writer

Long hold times. Confusing automated systems. Poor customer service. It seems to be everywhere, and getting worse.

But some people are mounting a mutiny.

“I’m paying for something but I have to jump through hoops to talk to somebody? People are sick of that,” said Lorna Rankin, project manager for Gethuman.com, a Web site that offers secret company phone numbers and tips for bypassing automated systems.

Gethuman.com was started by Internet businessman Paul English in January 2005. Frustrated by bewildering phone trees and long waits, English began looking for ways to get to a human. He posted the tricks on his blog and invited others to do the same.

A year later Gethuman.com was getting a million users a month. It now posts tricks, tips and secret phone numbers for nearly 400 American companies, 75 British companies and 25 Canadian companies.

For Verizon, for example, the database offers six customer service numbers. Two are direct-to-human. One comes with precise advice: Say “No,” “Operator,” “Yes,” “Operator,” “Yes.”

The Maine Public Advocate’s Office has promoted the site as part of its annual telephone rate guide.

“People are extremely frustrated by phone trees. They’re repelled by them,” said Public Advocate Stephen Ward.

On Gethuman.com, some companies have become notorious. Phone and cellular companies, including AT&T and Verizon, earn complaints for long wait times. Credit card companies get complaints for poor customer service and for asking and re-asking for information.

Dell, a computer company, is often singled out for its long wait times. Virgin Mobile, a cellular company, annoys people because it hangs up on customers who don’t follow the automated directions, Rankin said.

But it’s not all bad.

L.L. Bean, the Freeport-based retailer, consistently earns praise because callers are connected directly to a real person. There is no recording unless bad weather or extremely high call volumes force the company to use an automated system as a backup for the four full-time call centers it keeps in Maine.

The company has talked about going automated, but “That’s too scary a place for us to go,” said L.L. Bean spokesman Rich Donaldson.

The 94-year-old sporting goods company has spent decades trying to build its reputation on customer service. It could certainly save money in the short-term, Donaldson said, but automation would hurt in the long-term.

At some point, L.L. Bean may test a system that allows customers to use an automated system if they want to.

“But we’ll always maintain that human option as the first option,” Donaldson said.

Rankin agrees that automated systems are necessary sometimes. Customers can find out about account balances, hours of operation and billing dates quickly and easily from a machine. And automated systems save companies money.

But she believes customers deserve a choice: quick answers from a machine or customer service from human.

“If L.L. Bean can do it and survive, other companies can,” she said.