Is anyone else trying to reach CRA today and having them drop the call? It has happened 4 times today on two different phones (one cell phone, another an IP phone (Google Voice)). We don’t have landlines and I’ve never had this issues before today. It has happened 3x while on hold and once in mid-sentence with the agent.
I had that problem about 1 1/2 weeks ago. Calls dropped twice while the 2nd agent (from the “Center of Expertise” department) put me on hold to do research. On my 3rd call to CRA, I explained to that 2nd agent doing the research that this was my 3rd time calling due to dropped calls and asked if he could call me back if the call drops again. He was understanding and agreed. Luckily, the call didn’t drop a 3rd time and he was able to provide me the required information.
You’re lucky. Most don’t have outgoing call ability.
Also, when I worked at CRA a long time ago, when on PubInfo phones we deliberately used to cut people off to increase our call counts. That, of course, no longer happens…right?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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When I worked at CRA in the call centre there were several reasons for a possible call drop:
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Uber sensitive connect button. To accept a call we needed to lightly touch one button. If we lingered too long on the button it assumed that we tapped twice, once to connect and once to disconnect.
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The hold and the disconnect buttons are side by side. It was easy to hit the disconnect instead of the hold button.
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Sometimes when a supervisor wanted to speak to us and did not want to wait, they asked us to to put the caller on hold. If the supervisor wanted more time then they asked to either wind up the call quickly or disconnect the call.
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In each call center their was a call manager who supervised all the stats such as wait times, # of callers in queue, number of calls taken, length of calls min and max, average length of call, and stats per agent. If wait time or average call times were too long then they would simply dump all the calls.
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Each call center has it’s own start and stop time starting the east and ending in the west. At bridge times such as when the second call center was coming on stream the the first call centre might dump all callers in queue or on hold to fill the second call center’s queue. At the end of the day each call center might either dump all the callers, or, even worse, leave those waiting in queue to languish in the queue until they finally gave up and hung up. So, if you are in the Pacific region but waiting to be answered or in the conversation with the Maritimes, then your call may be dropped when the Maritimes call center closed.
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During Covid-19 there were many remote agents. I don’t know how that works with the call centers, transfers, and today’s situation.
Of course none of the above may apply right now. Perhaps there are other reasons today.
Yes - it’s called “ineptitude”.
The Call Centre was the subject of a number of questions in the EFile Association of Canada’s survey this year. It’s gotten worse over time, not better, and RAC somewhat as well, along with it.
I suppose it doesn’t help that this relates to a trust return for the estate of a deceased individual. I find CRA agents hear “trust” and they clam up.
I’m just trying to check on the status of two trust returns we filed back in May for two unrelated deceased taxpayers (just a coincidence we were engaged to do them at the same time). Both executors are anxious to get things wrapped up and need to know if the estate owes any tax over and above what we calculated on the returns before they distribute everything to the beneficiaries. Everything has been liquidated and it’s just cash sitting in chequing accounts.
Tried three more time today. The first two times I got disconnected when being transferred to a higher-up with Trust account experience. The third time was the charm today. I was again transferred to a higher-up and finally had my conversation. Everything was resolved.
I asked every agent about the calls dropping and they couldn’t explain it. It was 100% on their end because today I’m trying from a third line that is a landline and still had two out of three calls drop. This is one of the few times I’ve had to call about trusts so I feel it has to do with that but I could be wrong.
Could you just imagine a world where compensation for a government employee was based on level of performance or quality of service they provide … like it is for the rest of us? 
I’m not sure what is more aggravating… intentionally dropped calls or wading through the ever increasing number of “500 - Internal Server Errors” when trying to navigate the new and improved Represent a Client website. 
It sounds like they ARE getting paid (or at least watched) for performance. It’s just that the metric being measured, the # of calls handled, is only a small part of the job. The important part of the job is to handle the reason for the calls. I’m not sure how you measure that part but it certainly is the most important metric from the CALLER’S end.
I have also sent faxes, which my system says were received successfully at CRA’s end, that have been ignored and cases closed because CRA says they never received the information. I’ve had to go back to CRA and prove that we sent the information to get the cases re-opened. I know CRA says their employees are just as productive working remotely, but I really doubt it.
It appears that communication is one of the big stumbling blocks with CRA … unless you owe them money.