Foreign Call centres

[milly143]

I didn't know wher to put this really but I need to rant as I have had 3 phone calls this morning from sales people likely to be somewhere in India and it drives me crazy. I wouldn't mind so much if I could actually understand what they were saying! One of them said "I understand this phone line is under your name" how could he possibly know that when I hadn't even told him my name. then I tell them Im not interested in changing anything and they say "you don't have to change anything", well obviously you do. How do these stupid huge corperate firms get away with these highly annoying calls??? rant over.

[Sequin]

The link does work - enter your phone No here and follow the rest of the prompts

https://secure.dma.org.uk/cgi-bin/session.pl?reg_option=tps

[Dom Tuk]

2 points i wish to make on this issue. The first one is how can i make my phone number a premium rate number so that those companies that call me will actually be paying me. So the longer i speak to them the more money i make. Just have to ensure that family members are not affected.

secondly while most call centres have relocated to India and cold calling does originate from there, the obvious benefit has been that customer care for technology based companies are also based there and the quality of advice that is received is much better than if the customer care was based here in the Uk. probably to do with better education standards. 

[MissCommando]

You know what. . . I was going to ask a question about how to stop these calls.  They infuriate me, I get at least 3 - 4 a day. . .they always get my mum's name wrong.  Then they ask if they can speak to anyone over the age of 18 and I say there is no one over the age of 18 (yep, you guessed it - I'm 18  lol)  I never, ever understand what they are saying and they always ask when they can call back.  I am soooo mad now just thinking about it :(

[londondave]

my friend received lots of these sales/questionaie type calls and was getting fed up, so told the last one he would be taping the call and be charging �10 a minute to listen, he asked for the persons name, their managers name and the addresss of the call centre, all of which were freely given. He taped the call, timed it and sent them a bill for �85 odd. He is still waiting payment but insisting he will take this as far as possible, and will send them a reminder and take the timed taped evidence to a solicitor or small claim court

[blanx]

Another way to deal with the unsolicited sales calls is to say to the caller that unfortunately they have caught you at an inconvenient time - ask them for their name and their home telephone number and tell them that you will call them back while they are in the middle of their dinner/asleep/in the bath or whatever. Usually works.

[clairus99]

I've got caller display and it's got to the point now where if I don't recognise the number on the phone, I don't pick it up.  I've got quite used to it now.

I spoke to BT who said that there was nothing they could do about it and that they get a lot of complaints aobut it.  I have been extremely cagey about giving my phone number out on the net as well, although my number is out there, so I can't do much about that now - you realise of course that various database owners sell your details and this is how they have your number?

I don't mind speaking to someone Indian or South African, or whatever, but it is a bone of contention with me about foreign call centres.  Apart from the fact that they are taking potential jobs from people in the UK, you are right in that they cannot understand you, you can't hear or understand them properly, and I think the way they are trained to speak to you is condescending.  One company was so bad (Tiscali) I actually ended up, after two hours, in floods of tears.  And the problem in the end turned out to be their DNS server being down.  Thanks a bunch.  If someone could have just told me on the first call or on their phone line.

Now, if I find out a company has a foreign call centre, I steer clear if I can.  I can only advise people to vote with their feet and do the same, letting them know why as well.

PS  I registered to the tel. pref. service a long time ago, but that only works for UK companies.

[clair_witch]

The only reason these companies have moved out to India etc, is so they can make yet more money. I find I cannot understand them and they cannot understand me properly. Customer service is definitely not on the big bosses minds or they would not have relocated to these places. Surely the main qualification for these jobs should be precise and clear English. Sure, they may be highly educated and have passed written English exams, but they are communicating by speech and I don't think I've had 1 that I can understand clearly. Then there is the issue of the loss of UK jobs.           UK call centres need to be UK based!