Searching for a way to get a human being at Google on the phone If there's one issue that consistently cheeses off consumers, it's being unable to get a human being on the phone when you have a problem with a company. And few companies make this tougher than Google. Steve Gillette, 61, in southern Orange County, recently found himself receiving strange text messages and calls from the Silicon Valley search giant. They seemed to be prompting him to disclose personal information. Troubled, he tried to contact Google to see if the company was really reaching out to him or whether a scam was being perpetrated. And he wanted to speak with a real person, not just send an email and hope for a response. Google, however, doesn't want to speak with Gillette - or with any of its millions of other users. The company makes it virtually impossible to get an actual employee or service rep on the phone. It's an issue that's become increasingly common in today's business world, especially among technology companies that seem to assume their customers are as comfortable with digital communications as they are. Google, Facebook, Twitter - good luck getting through to anyone at each company, let alone finding a number you can call that a real person will answer. They go out of their way to keep their millions of customers at an electronic distance. "It's very frustrating that a multibillion-dollar company like Google will go to such lengths to keep you from talking to a human being," Gillette said. Google offers no apologies for its catch-us-if-you-can approach to customer service. "We think it's a faster and better experience," said Andrea Freund, a company spokeswoman. Because we have so many users, we can scan the issues users are having and determine how to fix them and make them better. But what if someone really, really wants to speak with a human being? Doesn't Google, which boasts more than 1 billion unique visitors monthly and which pocketed nearly $10 billion in profit last year, have a responsibility to make itself available to customers in need? Apparently not. "We have 350 million Gmail users alone," Freund said. It's just not feasible to offer phone support. Gillette, who works as a retoucher of digital photos and thus knows a thing or two about technology, received a pair of text messages recently providing a six-digit "Google verification code." He ignored them. A few hours later, Gillette received several robo-calls instructing him to press 1 on his cellphone to confirm his Google information. "It seemed like the smart thing to do at this point was contact Google," Gillette said. If it was a scam, I wanted them to know about it. But he didn't want to simply send an email. He wanted to speak with someone, to discuss the situation and learn if he was in a scammer's cross hairs. Fat chance. If you go to the "contact us" page on Google's website, you'll find a snail-mail address for the company's Mountain View, Calif., headquarters. You'll find links for searching online "help" queries or to participate in online forums.