Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Dodgy phone call
Dodgy phone call yesterday, from yet another sub-continental call centre. The first operator, who speaks English OK, but with a very thick accent, wants to give me free telephone calls of all varieties over my BT Broadband connection. While he does not actually claim to be calling from BT, he manages to give the impression that he is. He knows my name, telephone number, address and postcode. And that I am indeed a BT Broadband customer. He spends a lot of time, repeating himself a fair bit, explaining the wonders of this new entirely free service which will be supported by a gadget which will be dispatched within three working days to be plugged into my phone socket and my router (the model number of which he claims to know but which I do not recognise). I give him my email address so that he can send me instructions on how to do this. I start to get a bit fed up with all this, but a free service is a free service and it is not the first operator's fault that he has been badly trained.
At his point, he finds it necessary to transfer me to his supervisor, the second operator, whom he assures he is a very honest gentleman. This rather odd stroke I put down to odd sub-continental idiom. Their use of heritage slang and so forth. The second operator, who speaks with very little accent, in contrast to the first operator, starts to go through the whole business again. I start to manifest irritation. He moves onto what might be the nub of the matter, which is that while the new service is entirely free, part of my direct debit to BT is to be replaced by some other, smaller, payment. And what about sir's credit card. What sort will he be using? At this point I terminate the call.
He rings back and BH sees him off. Does 1471 to capture the number - which has not been withheld. Tries to ring him back and gets told that the number does not work, in four languages.
I manage to find an elderly bill from BT (all these things online now, along with their operators) and phone the number. After clicking through 4 'key x if you want y' options, I actually get through to Sharon from Birmingham (or someone of the sort. Not from the sub continent at all). Without having to key in the 24 digit reference number from the bottom left hand corner of my last but one bill. Or, even, my telephone number. She explains that the number captured is certainly nothing whatsoever to do with BT (wrong area code) but is everything to do with the subcontinent. But she is not terribly interested. Maybe this sort of thing goes on all the time. I suppose it might have been a genuine offer of service - but given that I do not have an email from these people, now withdrawn due to customer rudeness.
Let's hope that Googlemail is reasonably secure from these peoples' attentions - should they be that way inclined, which I doubt. That was not their game.
At his point, he finds it necessary to transfer me to his supervisor, the second operator, whom he assures he is a very honest gentleman. This rather odd stroke I put down to odd sub-continental idiom. Their use of heritage slang and so forth. The second operator, who speaks with very little accent, in contrast to the first operator, starts to go through the whole business again. I start to manifest irritation. He moves onto what might be the nub of the matter, which is that while the new service is entirely free, part of my direct debit to BT is to be replaced by some other, smaller, payment. And what about sir's credit card. What sort will he be using? At this point I terminate the call.
He rings back and BH sees him off. Does 1471 to capture the number - which has not been withheld. Tries to ring him back and gets told that the number does not work, in four languages.
I manage to find an elderly bill from BT (all these things online now, along with their operators) and phone the number. After clicking through 4 'key x if you want y' options, I actually get through to Sharon from Birmingham (or someone of the sort. Not from the sub continent at all). Without having to key in the 24 digit reference number from the bottom left hand corner of my last but one bill. Or, even, my telephone number. She explains that the number captured is certainly nothing whatsoever to do with BT (wrong area code) but is everything to do with the subcontinent. But she is not terribly interested. Maybe this sort of thing goes on all the time. I suppose it might have been a genuine offer of service - but given that I do not have an email from these people, now withdrawn due to customer rudeness.
Let's hope that Googlemail is reasonably secure from these peoples' attentions - should they be that way inclined, which I doubt. That was not their game.
# posted by Jim @ 11:55 PM 
