Michael

for US and British government outsourced call centers start charging the caller as soon as the number is connected to the recorded message?

If it does, I can see why the service is so bad. It would be financially more profitable for the company that runs the call center to under staff and have people wait on the phone.

GeoffM

Yes, because as far as the phone company is concerned, there is a connection between caller and callee (um... is that even a word?). Not just government.

mikelincs

Like all phone calls, as soon as the connection is made you start to be charged.

Michael

But they are using the phone companies billing system to collect those charges for them when they probably have little costs associated. They could use their own PBX/computer system (they'd need to also get billing information from the caller but that could be automated since people wait anyway) to charge only when the call is transferred to a call center person but then they wouldn't make as much money.

Anyone can setup a per minute fee to call them at any price per minute (need certain area code in your number) and the vast majority of the charges will be credited by the phone company to you.

To me it is such a rip off the way it is done.

I don't think too many guys would be happy calling a phone sex number paying large per minute charges to wait a half hour before being connected. Now I'm wondering who is really getting screwed.

GeoffM

I can't comment on the costs but as it's the phone company that does the (premium) billing, how does it know whether you are connected to a queuing system or a live person? Once you get the annoying music on the line then you're connected to something in the recipient's phone system. Even more royalties for Greensleeves than Apple!

Michael

That is only because the company chose to bill through the phone company. If I have free phone service to that area, it has nothing to do with the phone company except the phone company already has such a service in place that screws the customer. If the phone companies system screwed the company or kept 50% of the charges, they wouldn't use it and would put their own in place.

It's just that companies say that is the charge for using our line and that is the way the phone company bill it but they decided to use that system and how much to charge for waiting and finally speaking to a representative. I doubt Sony service or any other company could get away with that. I've had calls that were charged to me by private companies but only when I was connected to a representative. Prior to being connected, I was also warned that charges would occur.

For example, Microsoft at one time charged $99 per problem but only if the problem was resolved but I could call as many times as I wanted to inquiring about the issue. If I remember right, Microsoft had unlimited problem resolutions for $700 per year. There was another company that charged by the minute (don't remember which company) but only charged when the representative picked up the phone. In those days, he had to ask for credit card information before we started discussing problem. Both of those were to get at the developers of the product (the representatives had access to the developers). So to me, these made sense since I was being charged for a service and not to listen to a repetitive message that cost me more the longer I listened.

GeoffM

It's the simplest way to handle it. Otherwise the called company would have to find a way of billing you seperately. There may be provision for companies to bill via the phone company but it starts getting complicated in regulation, laws, conflict resolution, etc.

So your gripe is really about being charged for an otherwise "free" call? I'm certain that phone companies get a certain percentage of the premium rate calls. Clearly that's acceptable to all involved so it carries on.

Not sure what you're getting at there. I would say premium rates billed by the phone company is the normal way of charging for the vast majority of those that go the premium route. Though, in the US, I'm not sure I've ever had to dial a premium rate number for anything. In the UK I'm sure I've paid more for certain mundane services.

I would say both of those are services offered over the phone. How they organise the fee structure is inappropriate for a per-minute premium rate phone line - for them. So they handle it differently. That doesn't mean premium rate is wrong; it's whatever suits the business.

Michael

I have never used those lines but I've heard they are very expensive. If they charge $2 per minute and it takes 30 minutes to get connected to get 2 minutes of misinformation, the next time you are disconnected prior to talking to an representative after 45 minutes, and when you call back you wait for another 30 minutes and they decide that they don't know the answer and put you on hold for another half hour, then that to me means you are not paying for a service but paying for wasted time.

After that annoyance, you could be charged several hundred dollars and never got any accurate information. Using that concept is so against the free market system but can only be used by a company that has sole access to information that people believe they have to get and can't get it any other way. Usually this is the government outsourcing services and not a private company outsourcing services since people wouldn't buy their products if that was the case.

If the government contracted to two different companies with the same phone number and the PBX connects to the first available representative for either company and only that company collected the phone charges, both companies would provide enough staff to answer calls quickly. The company could shut down for a day and make a lot of money.

I would just fume if the IRS, DMV, the California Franchise Tax Board, or anybody that I am required to work with when there is a problem and had such a system in place. In this system, the company gets paid the same amount whether they answer the phone or not. In fact if they don't answer the phone, they get paid more since there may be hundreds of people waiting and the slower they are, the more they get paid. If they don't answer the phone, the caller may call back 4 or 5 days in a row and the company makes more money.

If we wanted to take it to extremes, the DMV could charge by the minute and if they are slow, they could charge me $500 instead of $50 to take a test. That is no different than what is being done on the misinformation line.

GeoffM

The thing that surprises me the most is that this seems new to you! Maybe I'm so used to it in the UK that one accepts that's the price of doing business with those companies. Here's a video article http://www.moneywise.co.uk/cut-your-...one-numbers-tv though you can read the transcript instead. Also http://onholdwith.com/ for a bit of fun - occasional mention of premium rate charges while on hold.

Agreed on the IRS/DMV/FTB.

Michael

I suspect that is the difference. Back in the old days when phone calls were expensive and there wasn't an internet, most business in the US had 1-800 numbers which paid for the calls so you weren't even charged the long distance rate.

Now many people have VoIP which makes all calls free and companies are starting to disconnect their 1-800 numbers but there are still plenty of them around.

So what you are referring to is very strange to me except for phone sex lines. I wonder if the US does the same thing for an Infopass appointment or is it unique to only countries that commonly do it. I wonder if the US embassy in Canada does the same thing since those types of lines are not common in Canada.

Michael

It just didn't cross my mind that numbers like that were common in the UK. I couldn't imagine that they were common since many Brits just moan about the US banking system that they can't get transfers for free in one day and if that made them so upset, I would have thought waiting on phone and paying for the wait time wouldn't be tolerated.

mikelincs

Most premium rate calls are to things such as quizzes, the majority of enquiry lines are at less than premium rate, i.e. 0645 numbers that are charged at local rate, but we, along with many people with ADSL get free evening and weekend calls, and most of the places are open till 10pm. wich means we can phone them for free in any case, this does include 0970 numers which are quite expensive.

You did mention Microsoft, well when we had problems with Microsoft security essentials we e mailed Microsoft with the problem, we then had a very nice microsoft engineer call us back to sort it out, it took him about 5 hours in total, and ended up with him installing a new version of Windows 7 as there seemed to be a problem with ours, this cost us precisely nothing, and we couldn't praise them enough. This was just last year.

Noorah101

An Infopass appointment is made online, no phone call involved.

Rene

Michael

I didn't even think Microsoft had support unless you paid for it. Usually if someone emails them, it just seems to go in the circular bucket. As an example, Hotmail.com was changed and everything quit working and people complained and nothing happened. For the next 6 months release after release was put out but every time one problem was fixed, another cropped up. I suspect someone at the top finally realized there was an idiot working on Hotmail and all of a sudden, everything worked.

However the support I was talking about were problems with their APIs (Application Program Interfaces) where they didn't work as documented in their kits and many times they researched it, determined a work around, informed us, and didn't charge us for the inquiry since the problem was theirs.

GeoffM

There was a bit of a fuss about the freephone numbers in the UK which were chargeable if called from a mobile (again, like many things, different from the US). I think the government wanted such calls to be truly free or something, or maybe they just went for the wuss option and forced companies to add another long diatribe to every phone call indicating that you'll be charged in various different ways, all the time actually taking time and money in explaining that it will cost money.

Side note on Microsoft. They're giving away stuff now. A friend of mine has a multi million dollar business but because they restructured they now have a "new" company and Microsoft give away lots of top goodies to such new companies. I wonder if there'll be a day that Windows is given away for free to everybody.