http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/112...an_Walking.html

 

And the next time you call some big corporation's "Help Center" and find yourself talking with a person having a slightly skewed accent, well, maybe that person believes in ghosts to the extent described in that story.

Now, that's spooky. HPH

 

I think I've spoken with him when I called Dell's 800 # for customer service.

 

Which brings up a good point. Since so many call centers have been moved off shore (a lot of them to India), when calling about a credit card inquiry one may want to inquire as to what country they are calling. I forgot where I saw the report but there seems to have been a hugh spike in "identity theft" as the person that answers the phone passes (or sells) the information about you to a friend or family member.

It happened to a co-worker of mine. He is convinced that it occurred after calling about a charge inquiry and speaking with someone named Daisy that had an unusual accent for someone named Daisy.

 

It's true that many of these call centers overseas have their employees adopt pseudonyms for their telephone conversations, just like (I bet, not that I'd have first-hand knowledge, you understand) the 900-numbers "what are you wearing" people do. No doubt the calls are logged and so on, but identity theft would seem to be a real issue, given the distance and relative anonymity.

Which suggests to me a variant on the Nigerian email scam (you know, "I had a brother who died, leaving me tons of money, but I need a way to sequester it in your bank account so please send me an account number..."). Therefore, watch out for email from DrCloud asking for credit card numbers so that you can win a brand new S2000! HPH

 

Everyone must complain to any company servicing them with people that can not speak the proper language. If you, the customer, speaks English, than anyone you deal with should be able to speak and English clearly. This should also be true for other languages in the countries where they are considered the primary language. Secondary languages, such as Spanish in the US, should be supported as well. I have never asked a Spanish speaking person how well call center agents in India can speak Spanish.

The good news is, companies are finding customers will not tolerate this problem. Dell is, (or is supposed to be), pulling back the business customer support to the US. Others will follow if we all complain.

The other bit of good and bad news is these service providers, outsourcers or whatever are having huge employee retention problems. If they can get 15 cents an hour more, they will switch employers and continue to do so, as long as they can make a little more. The good news is the service is lousy and the US companies won't tolerate that for long. The bad news is, it reduces the chances of these foreign companies catching those agents writing your credit card numbers down to sell.

 

Yes, and what language is it that you suppose they speak in India?

 

When we have call centers here in my locale to service the folks from India who have complaints about our products or credit cards then I suppose the employees will need to speak Hindi plus all the other languages of India.

 

Yep. English is their official language.

But it is one thing to speak one language another one to be able to communicate with a person from another country speaking the same language. You need common references too and they only come from living in the same country. Trust me. Although I am French, I have more in common with English people these days and I can struggle in France.

This is why I will change my car insurance this year to a company that does not use Indian call centres as they do not have a clue what you are talking about when you call them.

 

I thought Hindi was the official language of India so I did a search and found this: Indian Languages

Apparently there are about 18 languages spoken throughout India.