Almost a year ago, I called my credit card company to try resolving an issue I was having. After my credit card company hung up on me, the Relay flagged me for fraudulent activity and had me banned from using the relay service.
I filed a discrimination complaint against the relay service. The relay service finally responded eight months later. In their response, they admitted that they shared judgments about me with my credit card company and advised my credit card company to hang up.
I gave the government investigator a lot of information and evidence that show how the relay service was committing acts of discrimination against the Deaf community. Two months later, the investigator tells me the relay service did not commit any acts of discrimination because I was not treated differently than others who use “relay services”.
The issue isn’t whether I was treated differently from other Relay users, the issue is whether I was treated differently from hearing people who do not need to use a relay service. I clearly was treated differently than a hearing person would have been treated.
Hearing people do not need a Relay between them and their credit card company, who can advice the credit card company to hang up. Deaf people need a Relay between them and their credit card company, and if the Relay advices the credit card company to hang up, how is that not discrimination?
Those of us in the Deaf community believe that relay services are there to accommodate us, that relay operators do not make judgments about us, that their sole purpose is to make it possible for us to communicate over the phone.
The government’s Department of Civil Rights just demonstrated to me how the system continues to fail the Deaf community.
I’m feeling a lot of anger toward hearing people right now.
