This Call May Be Monitored ... 443
Iphtashu Fitz writes "We've all heard it. The recorded message when you call technical support or your bank or credit card company: 'This call may be monitored for quality assurance purposes.' But has it ever occurred to you that people actually DO listen in? Approximately 2 percent of these calls are listened to either live or after the fact, and it may come as a surprise that Big Brother even listens to what you may say while you are on hold. The people who monitor these calls routinely hear arguments between spouses or parents and children, people yelling at pets, and all sorts of other domestic disputes."
Turn it to your advantage (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Here We Go Again (Score:3, Interesting)
I assume if I tell their on-hold-music-machine "I'm recording your call too" that would be OK.
Re:This call may be monitored or recorded (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Here We Go Again (Score:1, Interesting)
You got served.
Yours truely,
Anonymous Coward
It's true (Score:4, Interesting)
And yeah, they can hear you on hold, so do be careful.
HA (Score:2, Interesting)
Of course they won't be but all I'm saying if you are gonna eavesdrop, you should take ALL responsibilities that come along with it....
Fact is... (Score:0, Interesting)
Re:Big Brother? Not quite... (Score:4, Interesting)
I used to listen-in on phone calls at the bank... (Score:2, Interesting)
Call monitoring is a quality control function of the customer service department of the company you do business with, not the CIA/FBI/NRO/Freemasons.
listening in. (Score:2, Interesting)
Other than that, mostly it is employee review, etc.
(OT, sig) what do you mean you DIDN'T hate the tr. (Score:0, Interesting)
If this is SUPPORTING the troops, I find it hard to believe that Kerry/Edwards could have done worse, other than randomly selecting some military personnel and personally killing them on primetime television. Or maybe I just missed my govt-sponsored ration of logic-altering substance today.
I have two problems with this. (Score:2, Interesting)
When I'm on hold, and can't hear them, I have an expectation that they can't hear me, because that is how 99% of phones work when you press the hold button. And there's no reason they should be recording stuff when on hold and I'm not talking to their guy.
Two:
"The call may be monitored." is NOT the same thing as "This call may be RECORDED." If I hear that the call may be monitored I have always assumed that meant that someone might be listening in on the call AT THAT MOMENT. And monitoring != recording.
Re:Here We Go Again (Score:2, Interesting)
Recently, Pike stumbled onto a call where a young male customer was flirting with a female service agent at a cell phone company. After some giggles and banter, the woman relented and gave her personal phone number to the customer. Pike quickly alerted the cell phone company to the phone date.
Notice here that the phone monitor dude, Pike, is not calling the cell phone company to go get that evil customer. No. He's calling to tell the cell phone company that they have a representative of their company setting up a date with a customer. This obviously puts the company in a sticky situation since they're most likely NOT in the business of being a match-making service, and this kind of behavior is almost certainly NOT allowed on "company time."
And I have listened to these monitored calls. Being the evil Big Brother that I am, I can tell you that not once have I even cared how the customer acted or behaved. All we're concerned about is how well did our agents handle the customer's question, complaint, or problem. More often than not we see agents not doing the right thing, just like the article mentioned. I truly do not see how this story relates to "My Rights Online" AT ALL!
I hope michael gets sick and tired of our berating his pathetic trolling and leaves
Re:Here We Go Again (Score:2, Interesting)
So yes, you may record the call without telling them since they just give you the consent.
Use it to your advantage (Score:5, Interesting)
I bought a handy device [vidicode.com] to do just that, and it's already paid for itself: I foolishly signed up with what turned out to be a fly-by-night phone company. Our phone lines would cut out every morning for between 5 and 20 minutes - no outgoing calls, and incoming calls would receive a message saying "could not be completed as dialed."
I reported the problem to them many times, and they could never fix it, so I tried to cancel the service. They refused, claiming the contract hadn't been fulfilled. So I switched to the old phone company and all was fine with the service.
A couple months later I get a letter from a lawyer demanding $1200 for the cancelled contract. I played the totally legal recordings (after all, they said "this call may be monitored or recorded") back of me reporting the shitty service to their techs, and voila, the lawyer went away!
Re:This call may be monitored or recorded (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Turn it to your advantage (Score:2, Interesting)
There are currently 12 states that require "All Party Concent" in order to legally record a phone conversation. If I am on the phone with one of these individuals (in one of the states obviously), and they are recording a conversation that I am having with a third party, isn't it the case that "All" parties haven't agreed to the recording. It would be nice to hear from someone who could say, "IAAL" instead of me (IANAL).
Saw this happen second hand once at a job site (Score:3, Interesting)
That action led to this particular guy's firing. He was a typical arrogant MCSE who's shit was ice cream and nobody could tell him anything he didn't already know - unless it was wrong and he would certainly let them know without hesitation.
Re:Use it to your advantage (Score:2, Interesting)
Sure they do... When I was doing phone support part of the training was to tell us that customers may record the calls, and if the customer warned us about it to tell them it was fine. The attitude was that it's the customer's call anyway, so they can record it if they want to.
I'm sure it depends on the company, attitudes may vary, etc. But they're certainly aware that some customers will do it.
I can't help it if they are funny (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Use it to your advantage (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, I've monitored calls from the start of the menu (for technical support, press 1....). Things I've heard have been a few bathrooms (along with normal noise associated with it), sex, arguements, etc... Not very fun stuff because people just don't think. My wife didn't understand why I would sit totally quiet while on hold and not allow her to talk - until I told her a few stories.
Re:You can often opt-out (Score:3, Interesting)
This varies state-by-state. Some states are One-Party Notify, some states are Two-Party Notify.
Generally, the legal limitation is on the party doing the recording, not explicitly either the calling or called party. No, I don't know if this is a limit based on where the company is incorporated, or where the phone support personnel are located. 3rd party and Offshore phone support probably make this all kinds of complicated.
This makes for some fun little interactions. For instance, when Maryland (a 2-party notify state) cops want to record someone they are calling on the phone, they drive over the state line into Virginia (a 1-party notify state), make their phone call, record it without notifying the call recipient, and have a legal recording of a phone call that they could not have made in the state whose laws they are enforcing.
Of course, IANAL, and this is not legal advice. Just be aware.
Lack of priorities (Score:1, Interesting)
Of course I know someone might be listening! (Score:1, Interesting)
My ISP even has a neato feature where they get you through to a person instead of their Answertron 2000 if you swear loudly while on hold. It's just much faster than waiting for the slowpoke machine voice to speak out it's menu.
Re:Advice for calling Tech Support/Customer Servic (Score:4, Interesting)
I have worked in various kinds of tech support for 6 years and it's just simple human nature; if people are nice to you - polite and helpful you are much more likely to be the same with them.
Whenever anyone in the office got a call from a particulary abusive, annoying or arrogant customer they would make sure everyone got the name so regular callers did get very definite widespread reputations.
People who were constantly annoying got a pretty awful service from us since no one saw any reason to help those people whilst people who were polite and helpful would have everyone going out of their way to be helpful to them - they could even have the odd tantrum but we'd understand because usually they would apologise afterwards - unlike the assholes.
Just remember it costs you nothing to be polite to people and you will always be able to find out a lot more about what is happening with your query if you are polite than if you spend your time cursing the person you are talking to, their company and life in general.
I hope thy DO listen while I'm on hold (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Big Brother? Not quite... (Score:2, Interesting)
I requested a credit to my account as I was not able to use the connection for what I ordered the service for: Playing games! [read: surfing porn]
The person on the other end of the phone put me on "hold/mute" while I was running their "tests". He proceeds to start making fun of my request for a credit and blah, blah, blah to his co-workers. I heard every word of what he said and when he came back to the line I asked him if he thought it was funny. He replied with, "No, sir why?" I said, "Next time, you might want to test your mute button to make sure it works before making comments to your co-workers about customers currently on the phone with you."
He sheepishly replied, "I'm sorry, sir. You should have a $20 credit on your next statement."
Re:Use it to your advantage (Score:2, Interesting)
Unless you are making stuff up on the phone and providing people with bogus information, you should have no worries at all. If your company is giving YOU obviously wrong information and you pass it along, you are not the problem, the compnay is and any recordings provided would just prove you were following the company policy. If a If I was dealing with a company that had a "get rid of them" if they record policy, I would be looking elsewhere for service or expect crappy service if I did really need help.
US Fed is 1 party consent (Score:3, Interesting)
Notifying someone is mostly a courtesy, but can be used to imply consent.
Re:Big Brother? Not quite... (Score:2, Interesting)
When I worked in a call center, most of the reps there (myself included) would mute the line, rather than put a customer on hold. I figured it's because they kept call stats, and reps with lots of hold time were spoken to. Regardless, everyone who used mute instead still asked the customer to hold. You'd be surprised the things that you can hear when a customer thinks that no one is listening. As strange as it is, lots of times what you heard would be a tip on what they were actually trying to get, that they wouldn't tell you when you're on the line, so you could actually help them better than if you hadn't heard their 'hold' comments.
Of course, if the comments were them admiting they were wrong to someone nearby, 'better' doesn't necessarily mean in their favor...