Consumerist
recordings
A man in Virginia who apparently likes to record suspicious phone calls captured a very funny 10-minute talk with the world's clumsiest phisher who called his house trying to get his bank account number. His local news station reports, "Howard says he recorded it because he wanted to help people by putting it on the news."
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customer service
Companies Don't Hate You... They Just Love Phone Trees More
Companies are slowly learning that those infuriating automated phone trees aren't the answer to their customer service problems. Some experts even claim that automated systems anger customers. The New York Times decided to trace the history of the hated trees, while wondering if things will ever change.
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customer service
Chrysler Execs To Call New Owners To See How Things Are Going
Chrysler has extracted the DNA of our executive email carpet bomb and used it to create a weird new outreach program: starting next week, 300 Chryslers execs will each call a different recent purchaser of a Chrysler, Dodge, or Jeep vehicle and ask if there are any problems. According to Cars.com's blog Kicking Tires, they'll keep doing this "until Chrysler chairman and chief executive officer Bob Nardelli is satisfied that if his customers have troubles, their problems will be fixed. Nardelli, by the way, is going to make the calls, too." That last sentence—well, really the whole idea—becomes funnier when you know where Nardelli once worked. More » -
bills
AT&T Sends Bills To Collections Ten Days After They're Mailed Out
Reader Tom wrote in to let us know that during a conversation with AT&T customer service, a representative told him that it is typical to send out collection notices ten days after the original bill is mailed. Factoring in two or three days for the bill to arrive, two or three days for the check to get back to AT&T, and a Sunday or two, that leaves three to five days for customers to pay their bills before the angry letters and phone calls begin. More » -
harassment
Dell Has Called Every Day For The Past Eight Months... And I'm Not A Customer!
Every day for the past eight months, Dell has called Kat to demand payment for a bill she doesn't owe. Kat unfortunately inherited the phone number of a Dell debtor when she started a new job, something Dell would rather overlook—along with the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Kat has tried calling, escalating, and having the debtor tell Dell to leave her alone. Dell continually assures her that the problem has been fixed. And then they call again.
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funny
Ridiculous Tech Support Calls
In his Circuits column this week, David Pogue shares some of the most absurd calls he listened to when he toured a tech support center.I learned that when they say, "Your call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes," that's only partly true. They also record your calls so they can pass around recordings of the funniest ones.
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tips
50 Ways To Get Through Phone Systems
VOIP-News has a list of 50 ways to get through to a real, live, not necessarily well-trained CSR on phone systems. We're posting this not just because their first tip is "Read the Consumerist," but because there are some really good ideas here, like hitting up EDGAR to search for contact info on public companies. More » -
videos
Animals Bring Phishing Call To Life
Chris went ahead and added some animal pictures to make a video of that phone call between a scammer and a Southern gentleman. A weasel plays the Indian phisher, a houndog plays the gentleman, and a goose plays his wife. Go back to the post and watch it, it's even funnier than the original. -
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voip
Security Firm Says Hackers Can Access Vonage Calls
It's not a good week for Vonage. VoIP Security firm Sipera has announced that they've discovered a vulnerability in Vonage's equipment that can allow hackers to take control of user accounts to intercept calls, make calls via the accounts, eavesdrop, or launch DoS attacks. Although most VoIP systems are about as secure as sending IM messages over a public wifi network (that is, not secure at all), Vonage has a couple of special problems with its Motorola adapters not authorizing requests, which leaves a special door open for bad people doing bad things. The problem also affects adapters from Grandstream and Globe7. More » -
mobile phones
New $40 SIM Lets You Call From Anywhere For Cheap
[UPDATE: The numbers quoted in this post are B.S. Skip it and go directly to the follow-up a week later, where we find out that the company's CEO grossly misrepresented the savings on this card.] More » -
telephony
Steer Clear Of The Call Forwarding Scam - Don't Dial *72
Cook County prison inmates posing as Sheriffs are scamming St. Louis households with calls that start with a request to aid someone who has just been in an accident by calling a number that starts with *72. The prefix activates call forwarding, allowing all incoming calls to ring at an alternate number; the calls are then billed to the victim. More » -
you cannot count on anyone except yourself
Hotels Resist The Urge To Snooze Though Wake Up Calls
A special circle of hell is reserved for hotels that fail to rouse their guests with a promised wake-up call. Technophobic travelers rely on the traditional front desk ping; programming the ubiquitous hotel room alarm clock is a weighty task many find more complicated than filling out taxes or setting a VCR, according to a 2005 survey. Hotels are noticing that missed wake-up calls are their Achilles Heel, and some are taking corrective action. More » -
rumors
Is Circuit City Eliminating The "Unbeatable Price Guarantee?"
A Circuit City manager told reader Ryan that the "unbeatable price guarantee" will soon be eliminated. Ryan was asking the Circuit City in Hicksville, NY to match Best Buy's price for an Arrested Development DVD; though the cashier refused to honor the policy - which beats the advertised price of any local competitor by 10% - the manager explained that it was just a huge tiny mistake, and that so long as signs advertising the policy are up, the policy will be honored. After the jump, we ask Circuit City when the signs are coming down. More » -
iowa
AT&T Stuck With 2 Million Dollar Bill for "Free" Iowa Phone Calls
AT&T has been stuck with the bill for those "free" international phone calls you made by calling Iowa. From GigaOm: More » -
directv
DirecTV Is A Bird Turd
Susan L. wrote us about her extremely unpleasant experience with DirecTV... an experience so unpleasant she's willing to give them money just to never have to speak to them again. Reminds me of the last time my father talked to me. More » -
skype
Free Calls With Skypeout
Skype is now free to use to make calls to any phone, be it mobile or landline, within the US and Canada. More »
