In the case of things like warranty registration or rebate submission; I wouldn’t necessarily be so sure that utter suckitude is unplanned: just as call centers are deliberately operated to be as miserable as possible(for the callers as well as the employees) because they are designed to keep customers at bay at minimal cost, if there is something you are entitled to but the company would rather not have you register for, wouldn’t it be perfectly sensible to do the absolute bare minimum to be able to claim that it can be done; and then count each failure as a win?
Failures are probably honest if, say, they interfere with a company successfully closing a sale; but if it’s an extra PITA to register for a warranty? Fewer warranty claims!
