After signing up, simply call 321-CALL-LOG, login, and dial the company you're trying to reach. The site patches you through and makes an audio recoding of your phone call that you can later retrieve.
The site also lets create "cases" so you can document your customer service issues.
We weren't able to give the service a try for ourselves as it's in Beta and by invitation only. But according to one of our readers, the invite codes are pretty accessible if you ask for them.
Combine this and the "press 4 to record" function with Grand Central and you're an unstoppable customer service recording machine. Then all you gotta to do is send the juicy recordings to us!
Side note: we wondered how they deal with the different state laws on recording calls. In this paragraph they say they've got it covered. — BEN POPKEN
321-CALL-LOG [Official Site] (Thanks to Vinny!)
UPDATE: We got our invite code less than 12 hours after we asked for it. We'll have to give the thing a shot later.
]]>Not necessarily. In some states, it's perfectly legal to record any call to which you are a party. Check the front pages of your local phone book for information about whether this is legal in YOUR state or not. You'd be surprised what you can learn by reading the first several pages of a phone book.
]]>Given that the service recommends that you use it every time you call a call-center, this may not end up being that useful.
By the way, it seems that they only allow you to call call-centers that have a toll-free number. While most large companies would have toll-free customer service numbers, local shops probably wouldn't.
Local shops are just as likely to try to screw you as the big guys, if not more so. Additionally, you might have a better chance of successful legal action against a local shop than a huge corporation, so this service would have been even more useful then.
]]>Ga. Code Ann. § 16-11-62: Secretly recording or overhearing a conversation held in a private place, whether carried out orally or by wire or electronic means, is criminally punishable as a felony under statutory provisions regarding invasions of privacy. However, the law expressly provides that it does not prohibit a person who is a party to a conversation from recording and does not prohibit recording if one party to the conversation has given prior consent. Ga. Code Ann. § 16-11-66.
]]>At least, more fair than their, "either we record you or your problem will never be resolved (oh, but you can't do the same to us)" offer.
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1) You call 321-CALL-LOG
2) Call is routed to Virgina datacenter (single party consent)
3) You initiate an outbound call to the customer service rep
Now, you are "calling" from a state with single-party consent. It's a gray line, and I'm interested in seeing how the court deals with it. But nonetheless, I suspect this is how it works.
]]>That's why you, the customer, are notified at the beginning of a CS call that the call could be monitored and recorded... because you, as the customer, then have the right to hang up and not be recorded. If the customer doesn't give the same opportunity to the CS agent at the beginning of the call, I'm pretty sure everything recorded will be worthless (in court).
Sure, it's good for the public to hear, but it's not going to change corporate policy... it'll only get the CS agent fired (when they were only upholding corporate policy, in most cases).
Corporations are militarized in functionality... probably, in analogy, more-so than the US is. You can win small battles, but the big ones are futile. Unless you allow yourself a detachment from the Corpocracy itself. And I understand that, in part, that's what you are trying to do with this site... which is good, but don't think for a second they aren't reading this everyday as well.
I hope that you remain doing it... but in a way it's really free troubleshooting for them.
An analogy would be warez... if Adobe and Microsoft *really* wanted their products secure, they could do so. I believe they purposely leave holes, and such, because it provides both free-advertising of their product-features while also getting the public to troubleshoot their products for them. For free. Pirates end up, whether they want to believe it or not, unpaid employees of said companies.
I'm sure I'm not saying anything you don't already know though. I'm just saying, maybe you should start asking for employee benefits. :D That was sarcasm, but it would make for a damn good post entitled:
An Open Letter to Cingular/SBC/New AT&T: Where's My Damn Check?
]]>Is this a service people would be willing to pay for? If not, is the business plan here to aggregate and sell information and/or services to companies, call center operators, etc.?
You need money for servers, phone lines, data storage, etc. Where's the cash flow going to come from?
As it stands, you can go to RadioShack and pick up the equipment you need to tape calls for under $30.
I routinely taped calls when I was a journalist (always getting permission from the person on the other end of the call) using an in-line recorder hooked up to a digital recorder. I then dumped the digital files onto my computer and logged them. Came in handy once when someone threatened to sue me.
I like the idea here and building a database could certainly have some interesting implications. I'm just a bit skeptical about this until I learn more about the actual business behind it.
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//krunk (^_^x)
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