Australians Fed Up with Indian Spammers
Call center workers in India are having nervous breakdowns after being abused by fed-up Australians — but they aren’t getting much sympathy.
Half a million people are employed in India’s fast-growing call-center industry, famous for maddening calls at dinner time in Australia.
For some of the workers, abuse and overnight working hours are contributing to stress, sleeping disorders, fatigue and migraines.
This next comment deserves the Well Duh award of the day!
“Australians are tired of having their privacy interrupted by people trying to sell them things they didn’t want in the first place,” she said.
Sounds like another nail in the coffin of outsourcing to India.
“Some companies are regretting outsourcing this business to India because of the damage it does to their products’ reputation,” he said.
I got a new number when I went with VoIP, but I still use my old number when a form asks for a telephone number. So far, so good. No telemarketers at all. I’m wondering: are VoIP numbers handled differently? Do the telcos even know them? Will they appear in a phone directory?
“Australians are tired of having their privacy interrupted by people trying to sell them things they didn’t want in the first place,” she said.” “Sounds like another nail in the coffin of outsourcing to India.” – – How is this any different than the telemarketers we have here in the US?
Collection agency calls are outsourced to India as well. Being out of the country they can call you as often as they like anytime of the day or night. Chase Bank and Bank of America are a couple of the banks using India for their collection calls. I get calls at 5 minute intervals some days from India. Nothing can be done about it. It is really crappy that US companies circumvent US law by outsourcing harrassment calls to India.
Suggestions for not getting telemarketing and collection agency calls:
– Put down your home phone number on apps, but only have that go to an answering machine that you never answer. Have friends call your cell phone.
– Get rid of your phone at home and only use a cell phone. Don’t give out the number.
– Find out the number of the collection agency. Contact the credit card or other company you owe money to and change your home phone to that number.
John Umbrax, maybe you should pay more attention to WHY you are getting collection calls from banks and not the frequency of the collections call.
Pretty funny. Glad to hear those Aussies aren’t putting up with any guff. I keep getting calls from telemarketers offering to sublet my timeshare week in Florida for $. Problem is, I don’t own a timeshare in Florida and no matter how many times I tell these bozos to stop calling me, someone else calls next week from a different company with a different name offering the same deal… I haven’t gotten to the point yet where I’m keeping a log of the various companies, when I tell them to stop calling, etc., cuz the FCC requirements for filing a complaint have a ton of info you have to -stay on the line- and collect from the caller (caller’s name, company name, address, phone #, dates, times, etc.)
The complaint about collection agencies always puzzles me. If they’re calling you because you’re not paying your bills -> PAY YOUR BILLS. Duh! Not rocket science.
Zuke, if you’re getting calls about property you never purchased, someone may have stolen your identity. You should check your credit report.
I guess you guys have never heard of the CheX systems…the one that you get placed on if you bounce “too many checks” (although no one ever says how many is too many). Bank of America is FAMOUS for placing customers on this system….and they do little things to aid it, like bounce the same check 3 times in a row (they also deduct debits BEFORE they put in credits). I know of one person who had subscribed to Earthlink, had the bank debits, cancelled Earthlink (four times, all to an outsourced call center) but kept getting the deductions. In fact, the phone like was disconnected!!! They complained to the bank, but the bank maintained that they “couldn’t do anything”, nor would they close out the account until after 30 days had passed. After a certified letter was unresponded to, and multiple calls and visits to the bank resulted in no advice, no help, and no ability to close out the account. Meanwhile, Earthlink put through their charge on the “cancelled” account, the bank bounced it first, then paid it — even though there wasn’t enough money in the account to do so — then and started to rack up “bounce” AND “special handling”– multiple charges on this same transaction. This went on for a month, until the NEXT Earthlink charge was put through….so the final tally was up over $300.00 by the time they notified CheX, and sent the whole matter to collections.
Now, no bank will open a checking account, as they all seem to subscribe to it, AND there is a collection agency hounding at all hours (outsourced), and there appears no relief in sight.
Of course, Bank of America will accept customers who they placed on CheX, which assures them a steady flow of repeat customers.
The point it…..not all “collections activities” are valid, and our laws do not require that the credit agency get a court judgement to initiate harassment. All of our consumer protection laws have been side-stepped or dismantled. Even the government watchdog agency for banks appears to have been wiped off the face of the earth.
The anger the outsourced workers are fielding should be directed at the corporate dingos and the government.
Meetsy,
“I guess you guys have never heard of the CheX systems…the one that you get placed on if you bounce “too many checks” (although no one ever says how many is too many).”
Um…don’t bounce checks and you don’t have this problem.
It’s good to know we’re (in the USA) not alone. Give ’em hell Aussies!
Telemarketers are one of the correct and proper uses of nuclear weapons.
#11 Just remember India has them and they are probably handling support for theirs and ours.
rwilliam…
Sure, “don’t bounce a check”…okay….and with merchants POP machines double deducting, banking errors, and debit before credit, not to mention “new fees” and unannounced changes in banking policy (they can do that, read the fine print), and errors in automatic deposit, and the occasional automatic debits gone awry….. don’t hold your breath, even the ABA figures it’s one in a thousand that won’t get some “special handling fee”, at least once this year. Hopefully, you won’t experience ID THEFT and gives you a view of the wide world of credit collections….because then you see what the “other side of the fence is like”. Sure would hurt to get knocked off your high-and-mighty horsie.
The reality is…banking isn’t what is used to be, nor is credit protection, nor are the safeguards in place to help you “sort out” the corporate error. Expect to spend weeks sorting it out, at your expense.
Telemarketing can be either inbound or outbound in scope.