Chameleon Magazine

 🧾🫥As the self-assessment deadline gallops toward the British public like a debt-collecting banshee, thousands of taxpayers are discovering a curious feature of HMRC’s customer service system: there is none. Desperate callers are being treated to an epic symphony of hold music, disconnections, and the slow psychological decay of trying to speak to someone who definitely doesn’t exist anymore.

☎️ Your Call Is Important to Us… Said No One at HMRC Ever

 ⏳🎻If you’ve tried calling HMRC lately, you’re probably still on hold—possibly in another life dimension where time stands still and the only sound is a tinny, looping rendition of musical purgatory. One taxpayer reportedly memorised the melody, wrote lyrics to it, and then wept.

Callers describe hour-long queues, mid-call vanishings, and voice menus that go nowhere, like an Escher staircase of bureaucracy. Want to know why your tax return’s stuck? Good luck. The only thing being assessed here is your patience.

The irony? Once you stop paying, those vanished humans at HMRC reappear like ghost hunters on a seance speed-dial. “Sorry we couldn’t take your call earlier—here’s a penalty fee to make up for it.”

It’s a customer service paradox: they need your money, but not your voice. Unless, of course, your voice is saying, “Yes, I accept the fine.”

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Challenges

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Why is it easier to get Taylor Swift tickets than to talk to HMRC? Where did all the staff go—are they trapped in the same voicemail maze as us? Have they ascended into some elite tax-free plane of existence?