Call Center Jobs

[Sunseeker]

No shit. I do debt collection and yeah, I rank slightly lower than Satan on people's Christmas-card list, the things people will say to you, the stuff people will call you, the people who will call you multiple times in a span of minutes just to scream at you some more.

I'm very thankful my boss says we can hang up on those people.

[Logwyn]

Should be able to hang up on cussing and such.

[TirielWoW]

SSNs are extremely sensitive pieces of information. Most places today have systems (which are not "toaster software") that do not show a rep the SSN.

Um. I hate to be the person to tell you this, but we get background checked out the wazoo, and every keystroke monitored because we're able to see so much information about you. I see customers' SSN, their transaction information (which tells me who they owe, what they owe on, etc), credit card info, address, birthday, any alternate versions of their name, and if I was a platform banker, I would also see their credit information.

Edited to Add: I'm sitting here with the ability to order checks and route them to my house, if I so desire, and to take all of your money, if I so desire, but you think that your SSN is something I shouldn't have access to?

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah, I didn't know my SSN when I was 13.

Oh. I had a Military ID cause my dad was in the military, and it had my SSN on it. xD

[Kellhound]

I worked tech support for a major game console manufacturer for a couple years. It was during this time I figured out two things: people are stupid, and just when you think they cant get more stupid, someone will surprise you.

[TirielWoW]

I worked tech support for a major game console manufacturer for a couple years. It was during this time I figured out two things: people are stupid, and just when you think they cant get more stupid, someone will surprise you.

Had someone come in a few weeks back who was under the impression that all banks are linked together and that I could look up information for her account that's with a credit union in another state.

Have another lady who doesn't understand how Overdraft Protection works and thinks it's money she can just use, and we keep trying to explain to her that it's not, and she needs to stop, and she won't listen.

Had a third lady who was forging her mother and boyfriend's signatures on the back of checks to her mom, then depositing them into the boyfriend's account. After we caught on to what she was doing, we started refusing to take the checks and warned her that we would have to close the boyfriend's account if it continued. Sooo...she decided to put them in the ATM that's attached out our bank. Because that's a great way to ensure we won't see them.

[Kellhound]

Had someone come in a few weeks back who was under the impression that all banks are linked together and that I could look up information for her account that's with a credit union in another state.

Have another lady who doesn't understand how Overdraft Protection works and thinks it's money she can just use, and we keep trying to explain to her that it's not, and she needs to stop, and she won't listen.

Had a third lady who was forging her mother and boyfriend's signatures on the back of checks to her mom, then depositing them into the boyfriend's account. After we caught on to what she was doing, we started refusing to take the checks and warned her that we would have to close the boyfriend's account if it continued. Sooo...she decided to put them in the ATM that's attached out our bank. Because that's a great way to ensure we won't see them.

I lost count of how many people called complaining about issues with their pirated neighbor's wi-fi.

[Goatfish]

If only this was only tied to people over the phone. Though if there is one thing I have learned, it is that my place of work is far worse than any other retail store, and it sours my image of customers to an extreme. It took 2 months of working at my store to turn a 25 year retail veteran who loved customer service into someone who will hide from certain customers and bitches daily about how god awful our customers are.

Being yelled at over the phone is nothing. Be happy you don't have people literally screaming in your face because you only have their artisan bread in a round loaf as opposed to a batard style, or are ramming their cart into product displays because you scooped the beans for their burrito "incorrectly". I've explained this to people in the past and it's hard to properly explain the level of pompous, self-entitled insanity I deal with.

[TirielWoW]

I lost count of how many people called complaining about issues with their pirated neighbor's wi-fi.

Every day, I get people in our drive thru who aren't customers and failed to read the signs (there are multiple signs) that tell them non-customers must come inside to cash checks.

I also get people every day who complain that there's a fee to cash checks at my bank if you're not a customer. Nevermind that every large bank has this policy, and most of the smaller banks locally do, too. Seen grown men have actual temper tantrums about it.

[TirielWoW]

If only this was only tied to people over the phone. Though if there is one thing I have learned, it is that my place of work is far worse than any other retail store, and it sours my image of customers to an extreme. It took 2 months of working at my store to turn a 25 year retail veteran who loved customer service into someone who will hide from certain customers and bitches daily about how god awful our customers are.

Being yelled at over the phone is nothing. Be happy you don't have people literally screaming in your face because you only have their artisan bread in a round loaf as opposed to a batard style, or are ramming their cart into product displays because you scooped the beans for their burrito "incorrectly". I've explained this to people in the past and it's hard to properly explain the level of pompous, self-entitled insanity I deal with.

The nice thing about working at a bank is that when people have complete meltdowns in our lobby and scream hysterically at employees, we can (and do) get restraining orders.

[Lochton]

I especially liked the hold music. I need that for my phone.

I was only appearing to say that too.. I want that.. I wish we had that when I sat in Callcenter..

[Stormspark]

Best tech support call I ever had. At the company I work for now (I'll just say a bank and leave it at that). On an INTERNAL help desk (not a customer facing one - meaning we are dealing with issues with company owned PC's that the users have very little access to). The user's description of the problem "my hard drive has white letters on it".

My roommate works for the same company, handling support for food stamp cards given out by certain states (the states that use this bank anyway). Some of the horror stories he's told me...

[Hammerfest]

Um. I hate to be the person to tell you this, but we get background checked out the wazoo, and every keystroke monitored because we're able to see so much information about you.

I hate to be the person to tell you this, but we got background checked out the wazoo, and every keystroke monitored and we still weren't able to see a given account's SSN or tax id number. And we didn't use "toaster software."

[Puupi]

I hate to be the person to tell you this, but we got background checked out the wazoo, and every keystroke monitored and we still weren't able to see a given account's SSN or tax id number. And we didn't use "toaster software."

In Finland you need to dish out your full social security number every time you use banking or government services....

[Rend Blackhand]

Used to work in a full centre for digital tv, phone and broadband. Never again.

[Sunseeker]

My only issue with debt collection is when they call multiple times in the same week even when you've already told someone exactly when you will be paying them. I mean if you are calling people to ask when they will pay you, and they tell you when, shouldn't you call after that date instead of calling every day instead?

*shrug* everyone does it differently. If you told me you're going to pay me on X day, I'd probably try to get you set up with a post-dated payment, then you wouldn't have to bother with me and I won't have to bother with you.

[Hammerfest]

In Finland you need to dish out your full social security number every time you use banking or government services....

Well good for Finland...

[Stormspark]

Used to work in a full centre for digital tv, phone and broadband. Never again.

Internal help desks (ie, where you're helping people that work for the same company you do, and not customers) are much much much better btw.

[Docturphil]

I did technical support for about 2 years supporting wireless networks for hotels. It wasn't all that bad. You got some dumb ass and paranoid people though.

One time this guy called in and screamed "THE INTERNET IS BROKE. FIX IT YOU ASS HOLE!" and immediately hung up. OK... cool. Well I have no idea what hotel you're at soooo I guess have fun with your broken internet. I couldn't help but laugh after that one.

Another time this lady was having some problems and I wanted to take a look at what her status was on the network. So I asked her to go through the process of obtaining her IP address. She refused because she was convinced that I was going to "hack" her. The networks all went through a Linux based server at the property which we had SSH access to. There was a script which I could use to watch network traffic on a specific interface. So to get her IP address without her knowledge I asked her to navigate to a specific web page which I "| grep"ed for. I saw the DNS request and bam, got her IP address. Fuck you stupid paranoid bitch. Enjoy your internet.

When I was bored I would use that same script to watch DNS requests to see how much porn people were watching. It was usually about 10% porn.

[Stormspark]

I did technical support for about 2 years supporting wireless networks for hotels. It wasn't all that bad. You got some dumb ass and paranoid people though.

One time this guy called in and screamed "THE INTERNET IS BROKE. FIX IT YOU ASS HOLE!" and immediately hung up. OK... cool. Well I have no idea what hotel you're at soooo I guess have fun with your broken internet. I couldn't help but laugh after that one.

Another time this lady was having some problems and I wanted to take a look at what her status was on the network. So I asked her to go through the process of obtaining her IP address. She refused because she was convinced that I was going to "hack" her. The networks all went through a Linux based server at the property which we had SSH access to. There was a script which I could use to watch network traffic on a specific interface. So to get her IP address without her knowledge I asked her to navigate to a specific web page which I "| grep"ed for. I saw the DNS request and bam, got her IP address. Fuck you stupid paranoid bitch. Enjoy your internet.

When I was bored I would use that same script to watch DNS requests to see how much porn people were watching. It was usually about 10% porn.

Keep in mind this happened on an *internal* help desk. Meaning, the person calling in is an employee and works for the same company as I do, and is having an issue with their *company owned* computer that they have limited access to. This wasn't a customer or anything.

Person calls in, describes their issue as "my hard drive has white letters on it". Um, ok. After much prodding, what had happened was their computer had restarted and somehow gotten stuck on the BIOS startup screen. All they had to do was turn it off and back on again. But "my hard drive has white letters on it"? Seriously?

[Docturphil]

Keep in mind this happened on an *internal* help desk. Meaning, the person calling in is an employee and works for the same company as I do, and is having an issue with their *company owned* computer that they have limited access to. This wasn't a customer or anything.

Person calls in, describes their issue as "my hard drive has white letters on it". Um, ok.

It's like the citizens with complaints in the show Parks and Recreation. There are actually people like that, but fortunately not nearly as many as you see in that show.