Consumerist

Posts Tagged “

Phone Calls

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telemarketing

FTC Listens To Your Complaints, (Mostly) Bans Telemarketer Robocalls

After reviewing the more than 14,000 comments left by living human beings, the FTC yesterday amended its Telemarketing Sales Rule to ban most types of robotic telemarketing calls. By this December, any recorded calls will have to lead off with an automated opt-out option; by September 2009, telemarketers will need prior written permission to contact someone—simply being a recent customer won't cut it.

Of course, there are still exceptions.

More »

6:10 PM on Wed Aug 20 2008
By Chris Walters
9,138 views, 37 comments

Latest by n/a: I'm a little late to the discussion but... who wants to bet that all these telemarketing companies will take anything more »

You Can And You Will

Preemptively Praise Customer Service Reps And They Will Do Your Bidding

Before asking customer service representatives to tackle thorny issues, win them over by first offering to praise them at the end of the call. According to Psychology Today, the offer establishes a reciprocal relationship that CSRs will try to honor, even if solving your problem takes, ugh, work. More »

3:45 PM on Mon Aug 18 2008
By Carey
10,532 views, 50 comments

Latest by n/a: @linus- You occasionally get coupons because those companies aren't reading your letters and they assume you are complaining about something. more »

att

AT&T Calls 9 Times In 12 Days Trying To Sell DSL

Would you buy DSL service from a company that either doesn't care about Do Not Call lists or doesn't know how they work? A man in Missouri was harassed to the point where he considered calling the police, because no matter what he did, AT&T wouldn't stop calling. Every time he tried contacting AT&T to get it to stop, he ended up in automated phone systems with recorded messages, busy signals, and disconnections—but never a live person. Only after he wrote to a local consumer advocacy columnist did AT&T pay attention and turn off the telemarketing fire hose. AT&T didn't, however, explain why they were targeting this person, or whether anyone else is facing the same barrage of calls. More »

3:15 PM on Tue Aug 5 2008
By Chris Walters
6,885 views, 56 comments

Latest by n/a: Quite honestly? I'm not at all surprised. AT&T is really the only service of choice in my area. For about more »

bad customer service

Target Employee Says Whatever She Feels Like At The Time

Abbey is annoyed with a woman who works at the new Target store in Washington, D.C., because the woman lied to her and wasted her time:

One of my roommates just got a Wii, so I decided to go to Target and get "Wario Ware: Smooth Moves."  Before hitting the store, though, I gave their electronics department a call to see if they had the game in stock.  A woman in electronics picked up the phone and when I asked her if she had the game, she quickly said, "Yeah, we've got that in stock."  So I got up off my couch and walked over to the Target to buy my game.

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6:18 PM on Wed May 14 2008
By Chris Walters
26,597 views, 124 comments

recordings

T Mobile: Listen To The Most Pointless Customer Service Call Ever

Kapil's brand new Blackberry arrived with a battery that won't charge. He wants T-Mobile to exchange it, but he says T-Mobile wants to replace it with a refurbished Blackberry instead of a new model. Kapil is fighting back, but even at the executive support level all he's found are rude, uncooperative T-Mobile employees who keep saying there's a process, and that someone will call him back—which never happens. Kapil refused to hang up on the fourth day and demanded to know what happens next after nobody calls back, which seemed to confuse and anger the T-Mobile rep he was speaking with. And for those of you who can't listen in, we've transcribed some of the juiciest parts. More »

11:32 AM on Mon May 12 2008
By Chris Walters
16,159 views, 89 comments

Latest by n/a: Kapil states he got a new phone that would not charge and was told a refurb phone would be sent more »

bizarre

Holiday Stress Drives Tim To Shout "Fuck Off!" At Customer

Here's the strange, sad tale of Short-Tempered Tim at New World Video Direct in Brooklyn, NY. When Nicholas called NWVDirect a week or so ago with questions about an extended warranty for his new plasma TV, he got terse answers from a generally unhelpful man on the other end. The call was abruptly disconnected. Undaunted, Nicholas called back and got the same man, so he asked to speak to a supervisor, which is when things started to spiral out of control at the NWVDirect call center. More »

6:12 PM on Thu Jan 10 2008
By Chris Walters
11,757 views, 83 comments

Latest by CyberSkull: The digg badge hovered over the colorful language on the main page. Is digg censor the consumerist? ;) more »

audio

Pranking US Airways Exec In Charge Of In-Flight Credit Card Pushing

Annoyed by getting pitched credit cards in the middle of his US Airways flight, John Hargave of Zug.com calls up the VP of marketing at 5 in the morning to try to sell him a credit card. Site contains audio recording of the call. Harvgave also called up the US Airways executive office number and tried to sell a credit card to the gal there:

UA: You know what? I really need to go, because I have work to wrap up before the end of my workweek.
JH: And this is annoying, isn't it?
UA: Yeah, it is annoying. But you know what? I'm able to tune stuff out that I don't really want to hear.
JH: You know why? Because you're not captive on a plane.
The obvious next evolution is that customers can opt to sit in a part of plane that doesn't have hear the credit card offers, provided they pay a small additional fee.

The Airline Rewards Credit Card Prank [Zug]

12:34 PM on Fri Nov 23 2007
By Ben Popken
5,904 views, 42 comments

Latest by n/a: @zouxou It is in the transcript. It's subtle. more »

roundups

Recorded Customer Service Call Roundup

Recording customer service calls is fun! And if you submit them to our contest, we can provide value-added services (like mocking them) and you can win fabulous prizes! Let's look back at some of the customer service calls we posted in the past to help us get in the spirit. More »

7:22 PM on Thu Apr 26 2007
By Ben Popken
1,232 views, 5 comments

Latest by CaliforniaCajun: @lastfm: The first one? Looks like they're adding more as the night goes by. It's not first anymore! more »

how to

How To Record Customer Service Calls

It's good to get into the habit of recording customer service calls. It gives you proof if they mess up and maybe you'll get a really bad one that you'll want to submit to The Consumerist. Here's some tools to help you. More »

4:14 PM on Thu Mar 15 2007
By Ben Popken
20,703 views

coned

What ConEd Thinks Of IDT Energy Slamming Its Customers

What does ConEd think of IDT Energy salesmen impersonating ConEd workers at customer's doors? After hassling their media relations department for days, ConEd finally called us back (recording above) and released a statement. More »

8:17 PM on Mon Feb 12 2007
By Ben Popken
533 views, 5 comments

complaints

Recording Of Wretched Dell Call

Listen to these calls and you'll understand why Dell has a long way to go with their customer service: because people are stupid and don't work a voice tree like they're supposed to. It doesn't help that once this customer finally gets a person, in hardware, he transfers her to a tech support line with a busy signal. More »

10:43 PM on Tue Jan 23 2007
By Ben Popken
2,080 views, 38 comments

Latest by faust1200: One little trick I use sometimes - if the hold time seems like it's forever opt for the spanish speaking more »

consumerist kit

HOWTO: Record Customer Service Calls

Recently we've gotten a flurry of emails asking how to record customer service calls (Vincent Ferrari says he's receiving a slew, too). More »

11:33 AM on Fri Dec 8 2006
By Ben Popken
3,350 views, 18 comments