Another Scam?

[ian]

Call me old fashioned

[ian]

What really annoys me is Testra don't want to talk to anyone on the phone if they can avoid it and if your call does not fall into their menu system they simply disconnect your call but that is a conversation for another day.

Call me old fashioned but I want to talk to someone when I call a help desk phone number.

look if you really want to "talk" to a real live body located in the Philippines or India or wherever Telstra currently locates their call centers, you can usually fool the call filter (aka the automated menu system) till you get through to a real "live" person.

You'll feel much better having gotten the issue off your chest, and the kid at the other end may not be too frustrated with you wasting their time.


The common metrics in a call center are:
1. the time to answer the call -- you should know the line by now "your call is really important to us, but we're experiencing a higher than normal call volume ..." i.e. we've deliberately staffed the call center with less people than is really required to save us $$$

2. time spent on the call -- again the usual preference is to minimise the time each call takes to resolve. This is the reason calls are filtered automatically in the first place.


The result is that calls to busy call centers are usually answered promptly and then the person calling just "accidentally" disconnects. It's not the call center operator's fault if the caller "gives up waiting" moments after connecting to them.






yes, when it comes to [un]help centers I'm pretty cynical

[AlexS]

While this one shows all the hallmarks of being a scam, which it is, anyone less aware who, like us, was expecting an overdue parcel from overseas could be expected to click on the link. When you check, it's from a gmail address.

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[Chris Parks]

look if you really want to "talk" to a real live body located in the Philippines or India or wherever Telstra currently locates their call centers, you can usually fool the call filter (aka the automated menu system) till you get through to a real "live" person.

You'll feel much better having gotten the issue off your chest, and the kid at the other end may not be too frustrated with you wasting their time.


The common metrics in a call center are:
1. the time to answer the call -- you should know the line by now "your call is really important to us, but we're experiencing a higher than normal call volume ..." i.e. we've deliberately staffed the call center with less people than is really required to save us $$$

2. time spent on the call -- again the usual preference is to minimise the time each call takes to resolve. This is the reason calls are filtered automatically in the first place.


The result is that calls to busy call centers are usually answered promptly and then the person calling just "accidentally" disconnects. It's not the call center operator's fault if the caller "gives up waiting" moments after connecting to them.






yes, when it comes to [un]help centers I'm pretty cynical

Telstra AFAIK have closed all their offshore call centres and now if you call they do their utmost to direct you to using their automatic menu system or online inquiry system. They asked me for a mobile number and when I did not give it to them as I rarely use it for calls and don't routinely carry it around or check for messages I think that giving them the number is a waste of their time and mine. If you don't give them your mobile number they simply disconnect the call but I have no idea what happens if you do give it to them. If they used the number to call me as they have done in the past I will possibly not get any call they make and in the past they have not left a message of a call back number.

It is not about getting it off my chest, it is that they have a call centre and the normal presumption of ringing a call centre is that you speak to someone. Don't have one if the intent is not to speak to anyone who calls the contact number they advise you to ring when you have a problem. I have always maintaned one phone call is better than 20 emails.

[Lappa]

When I want to speak to someone in Australia rather than India etc, I just ask to speak to someone in the resolution team. Optus, AGL etc - I always get an Aussie.
That is if you can actually get to speak with a live person somewhere in the world with those $&@#&* menu items that lead to nowhere. Classic example of menus to nowhere is the NBN - Unless you want to report damage to their equipment ( hint hint)

[forrestmount]

I found that using a swear word starting with f into the phone seems to get past all the menus and onto a person.


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[Chris Parks]

Put me down as a grumpy old man but when you call Telstra it appears to be impossible to get to a real person no matter what language they speak because they simply don't have any options to do so.

[Pac man]

Put me down as a grumpy old man but when you call Telstra it appears to be impossible to get to a real person no matter what language they speak because they simply don't have any options to do so.

Begs the question why are you still with Telstra?

[ian]

Begs the question why are you still with Telstra?

could be that where Chris lives, the other "service providers" only rent lines from Telstra

[Chesand]

I have just received the same email as Chris. It went to my Junk folder and I have reported it as spam and deleted it.

I don't pay them by credit card, so it was immediately suspicious to me.

[Chris Parks]

A thread dredge, we need a forum devoted to scam alerts! I received an email from Netflix which is strange because I handed the account over to Mrs P. a long time ago and she gets all the Netflix emails now. It asked me to complete the new account application that I had in progress with a big red icon to click on and if I did not want to receive any emails from Netflix I could click and unsubscribe. It had good syntax and grammar and really looked like the real thing. I wonder what happens when someone responds to this style of email?

[markharrison]

A thread dredge, we need a forum devoted to scam alerts! I received an email from Netflix which is strange because I handed the account over to Mrs P. a long time ago and she gets all the Netflix emails now. It asked me to complete the new account application that I had in progress with a big red icon to click on and if I did not want to receive any emails from Netflix I could click and unsubscribe. It had good syntax and grammar and really looked like the real thing. I wonder what happens when someone responds to this style of email?

I got one of those yesterday too.

I have my own domain name. Interestingly it was to an email address that was used to sign up to a JB Hi Fi mailing list that is not used for any other purpose.

After your response, I went back and had a closer look at the source of the email. I did not go to too much trouble but as far as I could tell in that five minutes, the links point to vaguely official looking Netflix URLs. I still would not click on them!