After years of warning taxpayers that the IRS will never cold call you to collect a tax debt, things are about to change as the IRS begins handing over some of its debt-collection work to private firms who probably will call you. [More]
phone calls
The IRS Is Now Using Private Debt Collectors; Here’s What You Need To Know
By 4.3.17 — Updated: 5.10.17
Comcast Customers Report Nationwide Phone Outage
By 7.12.16
If you happen to be a Comcast voice subscriber and were planning to make a barrage of calls today, you’re probably have a difficult time going about your business. That’s because Comcast appears to have been hit with a wide-ranging outage of its phone service. [More]
Verizon Wireless Hangs Up On You When You Record Them Back
By 5.25.16
One might think that if a company wants to have a conversation with their customers, once they’ve got them on the phone they’d stay on the line long enough to actually talk to them. But that wasn’t the case for one Consumerist reader, who said a Verizon rep hung up on him when informed that the customer would be recording their call. [More]
Ohio Residents Most Likely To Drop F-Bombs During Customer Service Phone Calls
By 12.4.13
If Santa Claus wanted an easy way to separate the nice from the naughty for his list, all he’d have to do is look at the numbers culled from recorded phone calls. And no, not the sneaky tracking you’re thinking of — when you call a customer service line or your credit card company and hear that “this call may be recorded” notification, there’s data to show if you drop an f-bomb (or two or three or four) during that call. And Ohio has the sassiest mouths in the nation. [More]
Creepy GameStop Stalks Me, Wants To Talk About My Gift Card Late At Night
By 12.19.12
Michael doesn’t remember registering his gift card with GameStop, and he didn’t associate his cell phone number directly with it. He might have used his PowerUp card to make a purchase using that gift card, but didn’t realize that he was linking them up. Or that GameStop would call him up to pester him about his unspent gift card balance. [More]
Skype Starts Running Ads, Says You Won't Notice
By 3.8.11
Looking to dial up another income stream, Skype plans to start running ads on its home tab, and promises they’ll be unobtrusive solicitations from the likes of Groupon, Visa and Universal Pictures. [More]
Keep Your Small Dog Info To Yourself; The Person Calling You Doesn't Need To Know
By 9.13.10
Here’s a weird possible scam going around. Our reader Chris writes, “Every day for the past week, I’ve been getting an automated call that asks me, ‘This is Survey 2010. Do you have a small dog?'” [More]
Video Store Guy Calls Me 8 Times About Overdue Movies
By 8.9.10
Jon neglected to return a couple DVDs to the rental store on time and had to suffer the telephonic wrath of someone who bombarded him with 8 consecutive calls from both the store phone and his personal cell. [More]
Obsessive Debt Collectors Mixed My Roommate Up With Some Other Guy
By 8.5.10
Curt says his roommate can’t shake a pushy debt collector who won’t get it through his head that he mixed up his identity with some guy who owes AT&T for DSL service. He contacted AT&T but the company seems unwilling/unable to call off the dogs. [More]
Guess What? Your Roommate Called Us About A Potentially Embarrassing Product!
By 8.5.10
Dawn tells Consumerist that she had a potentially embarrassing experience recently involving a phone call, a celebrity-endorsed beauty product, and a shared phone line. She called to ask some questions about Joan Rivers’ Great Hair Day, a special hair powder marketed to women with thinning hair. Much to her horror, even though she didn’t provide the company with her phone number, they called back within minutes to talk about the product, without even checking to see whether it was Dawn who answered the phone. Nice. [More]
Debt Collection Company Sued Over Racist Voicemails, Must Pay $1.5 Million
By 6.1.10
Advanced Call Center Technologies tried to collect $200 on a disputed debt from Allen Jones a few years ago. Part of the company’s advanced technology is its innovative voicemail strategy, where its employees leave wildly offensive, racist messages for people. Jones sued the company, and last week the jury awarded him $50k for mental anguish and $1.5 million in punitive damages. [More]
Verizon Bill Collector Threatens To Blow Up Man's House
By 5.25.10
A man in New Mexico is suing Verizon Wireless over a series of harassing phone calls made by Verizon bill collectors last year. The man, Al Burrows, says the calls were concerning a relative’s unpaid cellphone bill. When he hung up on one of them, the disconnected Verizon rep called back, said she knew where Burrows lived, and added, “I am gonna blow your mother fucking house up.” [More]
You Can Now Make VOIP Calls On Your iPhone Using 3G
By 1.29.10
I’ll keep this short because it’s Apple-related and we all need a break from that company: Apple has removed its ban on using your iPhone’s 3G “connection” to place VOIP calls, so now you can use an app like Fring to place overseas calls even when you’re not around a Wi-Fi hotspot. Call quality in those moments will naturally depend on AT&T’s ability to provide a good 3G connection, so keep your expectations low, but still it’s good news for any iPhone/AT&T customers looking to save money on calls. [More]
Don't Let An Unknown Caller Talk You Into Downloading Software
By 1.26.10
In the wide world of scams, this combination of a phone call and computer malware is sort of a novel twist. Jay likes to string phone scammers along to waste their time, so he managed to get quite a few details about how this particular scam works. If you’ve got naive family members with access to computers, either take away their computers or tell them never to download software from a stranger on the phone. [More]
Google Voice Does End Run Around Apple, Launches New Web App
By 1.26.10
Apple made it clear last year that Google Voice is not welcome on the App Store or your iPhone. “Fine,” said Google. “We’ll go through the browser!” Today the search engine revealed a new mobile web interface that uses some fancy HTML5 magic to provide voicemail, calling, and text message functionality. If you don’t already know, you can turn any page in Mobile Safari into an App icon on your home screen (click the “+” icon in Safari), meaning now you can have a legitimate Google Voice “app.” Below is a video tour. Update: There’s a down side to this: Cy writes in to let us know that this fancy new version actually breaks functionality for iPod Touch owners–the old web-based version let Touch owners make calls, but this one doesn’t. [More]
Google Voice Offering Free Calls To Haiti For Two Weeks
By 1.19.10
If you need an affordable way to reach someone in Haiti for the next two weeks, use Google Voice. The company is making all calls to Haiti temporarily free:
To help those families, we’re offering free calling to Haiti through Google Voice for the next two weeks. To place a call using Google Voice, use the Click2Call button on the website, the Google Voice mobile app, or dial your own Google Voice number and press 2 to place an outbound call.
Robocalls Banned!
By 8.28.09
Today the FTC banned pretty much all telemarketing-based robocalls starting Tuesday, September 1st, 2009. At that point, “violators will face penalties up to $16,000 per call,” notes the Los Angeles Times.
AT&T: Sorry Your Finger Slipped, We're Still Charging You $1.99
By 8.20.09
Hey, AT&T customers: be very, very careful when dialing three-digit numbers. If you’re trying to dial, say, 211 or 311 (local government information), 611 (AT&T Wireless customer service) or 711 (TTY relay), and you dial 411 for directory assistance by mistake, you’ll be charged for it even if you realize the mistake and hang up immediately. And you’ll need to live with the consequences of your error, since, according to reader Stephen, AT&T will not refund these charges.
