In another thread I hogged all the attention, and now it’s your turn to bitch. I will start out the festivities:
My wife works in customer service (outsourced, of course) for a major department store chain. Besides the daily parade of tweakers and tea partiers who talk for twenty minutes but on whom she is not allowed to hang up, she recently got a call from a man trying to buy the right pantyhose size “for his wife.” That’s cool; large women and transvestites make up a large part of the online market. Then he asked her what size of pantyhose she wears. As this was over the telephone and picture phones never caught on she realized there was no way to use her size to judge the right size for his wife so she disconnected the call. And got written up for it. She got no definitive answer when she asked if she was supposed to stay on the line until he had masturbated to orgasm, but that appears to be what her bosses consider part of customer service.
I had a caller threaten to be outside the office at the end of my shift and shoot me. Boss said it is a part of the job and I am just expected to deal with it. Thanks, chief.
When I was an undergrad I worked customer service for a bank. I worked an overnight shift to allow for my class schedule plus they let me study between calls. Because no supervisors worked overnight I was given a meaningless title to take escalated calls.
The craziest person I ever spoke with over the phone called one night and demanded a supervisor. Why? Her first name was Dominique. We’d just had a software upgrade that had effed up our info and had cut off longer first names so we’d see things like Jennif instead of Jennifer. The rep, when verifying her info, said and “And you are Dominique _____?” This woman lost her mind and wouldn’t tell the rep why.
Apparently she likes to go by Domini instead of Dominique and she wanted to know HOW ON EARTH the representative knew that was her real name?!?!? HOW HOW HOW? When I explained the software upgrade and the erroneous assumption she got madder because that was BULLSHIT because ho ho ho, it IS her legal name and how did we know that because it isn’t on any of her paperwork she filed with the bank. Each time I tried to explain that the rep probably just guessed because they knew of our software issue and Dominique is a more common name than Domini she would screech things about the CIA being in her house every time she left it or the FBI following her. She swore to me that the FBI liked taking the labels off her canned goods so she never knew what she was eating. I listened to this for over an hour because, above all, we were not allowed to hang up on a customer for any reason except crude sexuality. The canned goods example was one of her saner assumptions.
I kept wondering what it was like to be her neighbor.
I got sworn at more working for a valve manufacturer than when I worked as a skip tracer for a debt collector. Why? We didn’t sell directly to anyone but our authorized distributors. Sometimes folks called urgently needing a part and when I said no, they flipped their nut.
“You have to sell to me, I’m an OEM!”
“Well, I’m an Aries; we still don’t sell direct.”
And then the next caller was pissed because he had to wait an hour for you to take his call? I think both are symptoms of poorly treated mental illness, the obvious schizophrenic and the guy who waited so long.
Yep, I had a call escalated to me and the guy said he was “gonna come down there” and shoot me.
Ooookay. But, just so’s you know, sir? I can see where you live. And if you think I work in Delaware just because that’s where the bank is headquartered… Well, you’re off by 1600 miles.
i answer the phones for my business, i have shared several fun situations in various threads…but i dont recall sharing my favorite phone calls:
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about every 3 months i get a call from someone who wants to know exactly what has been done on their computer and wants me to come tell them who did what and when from a household of 5.
I explain options and costs for monitoring but I say i cannot tell you who was at the keyboard at any given time or what exactly they did
They then proceed to tell me how it takes like 5 minutes on CSI and even if it took me a couple hours it would be fine, as long as it didn’t cost more than like $50.
Politely discontinue call
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about once a year I get the nutter who wants me to make it so the government cant spy on his computer.
The first one I tried to politely explain pgp encryption and better firewalls…which led to more and more nuttery and ranting
Several now I have offered our “Armored information services package” for $999 plus $100/mo in maintenance fees. So for nobody has taken me up on my offer.
One i told to wrap his computer in aluminum foil but to make sure he used the heavy duty kind, shiny side out, and dont forget to wrap all the cables too.
Two after a breif discussion of his situation yelled “you asshole, now they will be watching me too” and hang up. The last time I did that was at a criminal defense lawyers office who are kinda regulars of mine. When I explained it the whole office was very amused.
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about once a month I have to direct someone to comcast or AT&T because they want me to come “hook up the internet” when they have no service provider.
They then whine because it will take like 2 weeks for them to turn it on but hope I can do it that day.
Oh, the nut jobs are certainly more fun if you know how to handle them.
“Someone is hacking my computer through the wifi and they’re in another country” Including an email from herself to herself with the subject line ‘tracer on computer’ that was “proof” that there was a tracer in her laptop and we should do something about it. (How, over the phone, I had no idea. I recommended taking it into a shop. She refused.)
“I’m deleting all the files I didn’t install” (including half the OS - I tried to tell him to stop)
Guy who lived on a ground floor apartment on a busy inner city street claiming that random people walking by were hacking his computer because their phones showed up on his bluetooth list as they walked by.
The ones I loved the most: “The FBI is involved in my case, and Homeland Security, and now (cue dramatic pause) YOUR COMPANY!”
My death threat caller was less than 10 miles away from my office. And I work at a 9-1-1 center… our location is in the phone book. He called, I sent the appropriate help (a detective instead of a patrol cop, in this case) - just wasn’t what he wanted. :rolleyes:
9-1-1 callers can be interesting. And they know so much because they’ve seen it on CSI!
I’m a telefundraiser, and have been for over 20 years now. I have no real horror stories: the people I speak to are for the most part polite, even if they decline to support the charity/ies I call for. I have rarely experienced the frothing vitriol )on the phone) you found in your other thread dropzone, and suspect that it might be a bit of internet bravado…let’s see who can be the most fucking obnoxious under the veil of messageboard anonymity. :rolleyes:
But back to your OP, what has me stumped, even after all these years of charities doing phone-fundraising, is that people still indignantly demand to know where I got their number from as if it’s the first time in their lives they have received such a call.
To those who are on the DNC register: you thought that enrolling onto the register would cut all unsolicited calls? When I patiently explain that, yes, I can take your number off this list, but as a matter of fact, charities, market researchers and political canvassers are exempt under the register guidelines, there’s really no point getting cranky with me. I’ve already offered you an ‘out’, so be a little bit gracious, m’kay?
Same with those of you with a silent number. All that means is that you are paying for the ‘privilege’ of your number not appearing in the telephone directories. Nowadays we have The List…which compiles demographic information (and phone numbers, landline and mobile) and it comes from all sorts of sources (never the telephone directory). So you can blame local councils, major retailers, survey-takers, market researchers, your local gym, banks (the list is endless) for SELLING your private information to List Brokers who onsell the list to charities like mine. If you are REALLY seriously affronted, how about lobbying your local parliamentary member? No point whingeing to me…
Well, the best answer I had when people made physical threats went something like this(with slight pauses between);
So you’re threatening physical violence.
To someone on the phone.
Someone a thousand miles away from you.
To someone who has all of your personal information.
Address, phone number, email address.
On a call very likely to be being recorded.
You’re threatening someone…
Who can provide all of this information to the police at the end of this call.
<faster>Well ok sir, if this is the direction you want to take this. Have a nice day. <click>
Never called the police and only one time did I file an official threat report. Not that this happened a lot, but considering the sheer number of calls I took, even a very small fraction of 1% added up to a handful in 3.5 years.
But really, when you point this stuff out to most people, they get the point that they’re being really stupid, that they can’t harm you, that you’re not feeling particularly threatened and they ought to stop it.
This is generally the approach I coached newer people on too, since the first couple of times it happens, people tend to get rattled. Pointing out that people were hundreds or thousands of miles away, were definitely not in the same room, couldn’t possibly hurt them and they could always hang up; allowed agents to put some mental distance between themselves and the threats. The benefit I had on this was that I’d worked in Security for 4 years before this and had dealt with all manner of threats where the person is right there. I’d already been there and learned how to either difuse them, or laugh at them.
As I mentioned in dropzone’s thread, I recruit participants for paid focus groups and research studies. I pretty much love my job because I get to give money away (unless they don’t qualify, which makes me feel bad for them). Mostly we call from our database, people who have signed up with us to be notified if there’s a study they might qualify for, but I also recruit for professional and medical studies which means a lot of cold calls. It can be tough because I have to convince these professionals that I’m not a telemarketer. It’s not so bad, most of the time. I’ve only been berated once but I took it in stride because hey, I’m the one offering money. They’re the ones refusing it. But that has nothing to do with this thread.
I sometimes get teabaggers who want to tell me all about their sad delusions, but the more bigoted, racist and ignorant they are, the more I rachet up the politeness and professionalism. It would not do to tell them what assholes I think they are. I like my job.
Once every few months, I do get to mildly tweak someone. One of the questions on almost all the qualifying screeners is along the lines of “What is your ethnic background? Caucasian, African American, Hispanic, Native American or Other?” and every now and then someone will say “I’m an AMERICAN!” which always causes me to calmly say “Native American, Ok” and start to go on to the next question. They’ll then say “No, I’m an AMERICAN!” and I don’t push it because as I said, I like my job. I just ask “Do you mean Caucasian?” and they usually say yes. I just roll my eyes and continue, the politeness turned to 11.
He threatened to kill be for not sending the kind of cop he wanted… even though the kind of cop he wanted wasn’t what he needed.
It was a cold burglary report. Guy came to check on a property he manages. Hasn’t been there in a week or so. Sometime in the week the place was burglarized. He already checked and no one is in the premises. He did not see anyone in the area. No suspicious vehicles. In short, no one for the patrol cops to chase right now.
In our local protocol detectives handle such reports and call for crime scene technicians if needed. The detective was available and on his way right away. No delay.
The caller wanted a uniformed patrol cop. He got a plainclothes detective. The caller was unhappy and threatened to kill me over it.
I’ve had more than I care to mention. The worst was a guy who was trying to install our software but a virus kept ruining the floppies. We had sent replacements to him maybe 5 or 6 times. I told him that I was happy to send him more, but he was going to have to deal with the virus first. He was livid, because he was positive that we were intentionally sending him the virus. “I want you to get on a plane, get out here, and come fix this damn thing TODAY, or I’m calling the attorney general!” The guys in the cubicles around me were cracking up.
Half an hour later I was walking by my manager’s office, and he was having to suppress cracking up while saying “Sir, we don’t send out viruses.”
Different call…
Some one crank called me, because when I said “Hello, Microsoft Word support, this is tdn, may I have your first name please?”, and weird falsetto voice answered “Julia Child.” Yeah, funny joke. :rolleyes: