WTH?? Telemarketers outsourcing to India?

[amnesiac]

Just got a call - at work - from CapitalOne from a guy with a really really thick Indian accent.

First, are they allowed to call me at work to give me a credit card, and second, can anyone confirm that I get to deal with telemarketers from another country now?

 

[Lint21]

It's not just telemarketers. Many major companies are farming out their tech support service to India, most notably Dell.

 

[ShotgunSi]

Originally posted by: Lint21
It's not just telemarketers. Many major companies are farming out their tech support service to India, most notably Dell.

SonicBlue has done this as well. I have heard many of horror stories with dealing with tech support for ReplayTV's.

 

[taft]

huh, where the hell is the hot deal here?:|

 

[AJPatel]

Wow! First of all, this is in the wrong category. Take this to the "For Ignorant Remarks" category. It's totally irrelevant to the subject at hand, "Hot Deals." I'd think you'd know that by now, being a "Diamond Member" with 9000+ posts.

Second of all, I don't think you want to offend Indian people for numerous reasons:

1. A majority of the people in the IT field are Indians. Hence, a majority of this forums and AnandTech users are Indians. Some stats that might prompt you to reconsider:
   • 38% of doctors in USA are Indians.
   • 12% scientists in USA are Indians.
   • 36% of NASA scientists are Indians.
   • 34% of Microsoft employees are Indians.
   • 28% of IBM employees are Indians.
   • 17% of INTEL scientists are Indians.
   • 13% of XEROX employees are Indians.
2. AnandTech; The name Anand is derived from an Indian word, suggesting the Indian roots attached to this company. "Anand" means "joy" and is also a common name.

Third, it would be a rather large leap of assumption on your part to think that just because the telemarketer has an Indian accent,

1. Therefore he/she must be Indian. Many South Asian accents sound very similar. It is politically incorrect and ignorant to attach a certain stereotype to an accent.
2. Telemarketing companies are outsourcing to another country. Indians are in countries around the world. They are called immigrants.

You make it seem like there's something wrong in being contacted by a person of a foriegn nationality. I suggest you take your prejudice and lame jokes to another forum. Thank you.

 

[badluck]

AJPatel:

dood, you are way too sensitive......try to re-read his comments. just because he says he doesn't want to be solicited from someone in a foreign country doesn't make him prejudiced.....that's called watching your back!

oh, you've edited your comments to a degree....but I still think you are over-sensitive.

 

[AJPatel]

Originally posted by: badluck
AJPatel:

dood, you are way too sensitive......try to re-read his comments. just because he says he doesn't want to be solicited from someone in a foreign country doesn't make him prejudiced.....that's called watching your back!

oh, you've edited your comments to a degree....but I still think you are over-sensitive.

My point is - what makes you think it's someone in a foreign country? Your next door neighbor could be an immigrant telemarketer for all you know.

What's the difference between being solicited by someone from a foreign country and someone of the same country? It's annoying nonetheless. What if you were from the Orient? Would you hate it every time a Caucasian telemarketer called you and think it was a "damn American?"

Try thinking of the minorities before thinking of the masses.

// I edited my comments to add more not take away

Edit: Besides, the other point still stands: this is in the wrong category. I don't even know if there *is* a category for this kind of nonsense.

 

[dannybek]

lock

 

[zoiks]

Who cares if its an indian or anyone else. I think the original poster didnt really care about the ethnicity just the location of where the telemarketer is.
Somethings really crawled up your butt or that you are real finicky.

 

[UlricT]

hey AJ...

I'm from India, and I know for a fact that a LOT of "call centers" are coming up back home, with a lot of people getting work. I do not think Amnesiac meant it in any way to be an affront to our nation in general. Maybe he is just making a comment on how the world is coming closer in general? Expecting prejudice is as bad as being prejudiced.....

And amnesiac, I'm sure these people do not know whether the telephone number that pops up on their computer is your work, home or whatever. They are just doing their job.... give em a break too eh?

/EDIT: oh yeah... wrong forum though...

 

[BustaBust]

 

[allen074]

I have posted a lot of threads about this on the credit card msg boards. My issue is not with the Indian people at all... in fact my best friend is Indian... it is with this:

• when our personally indentifiable information leaves this country more people have access to it. PERIOD.

• the law systems in other parts of the world are not like ours.

• today i called intuit to find out where my refund check is for my turbotax refund... i asked the person who answered where this call center was and he said because of security he cant answer. bullshit. it is in india.

• sad thing is that i bet these people are getting paid close to nothing...

anywhoo i wish that companies would do the right thing and keep the jobs here.

 

[ScrapSilicon]

Originally posted by: dannybek
lock

heh

 

[AJPatel]

Originally posted by: ScrapSilicon

Originally posted by: dannybek
lock

heh

[edit]woops...[/edit]

 

[macosx]

Originally posted by: AJPatel
Wow! First of all, this is in the wrong category. Take this to the "For Ignorant Remarks" category. It's totally irrelevant to the subject at hand, "Hot Deals." I'd think you'd know that by now, being a "Diamond Member" with 9000+ posts.

Second of all, I don't think you want to offend Indian people for numerous reasons:

1. A majority of the people in the IT field are Indians. Hence, a majority of this forums and AnandTech users are Indians. Some stats that might prompt you to reconsider:
   • 38% of doctors in USA are Indians.
   • 12% scientists in USA are Indians.
   • 36% of NASA scientists are Indians.
   • 34% of Microsoft employees are Indians.
   • 28% of IBM employees are Indians.
   • 17% of INTEL scientists are Indians.
   • 13% of XEROX employees are Indians.
2. AnandTech; The name Anand is derived from an Indian word, suggesting the Indian roots attached to this company. "Anand" means "joy" and is also a common name.

Third, it would be a rather large leap of assumption on your part to think that just because the telemarketer has an Indian accent,

1. Therefore he/she must be Indian. Many South Asian accents sound very similar. It is politically incorrect and ignorant to attach a certain stereotype to an accent.
2. Telemarketing companies are outsourcing to another country. Indians are in countries around the world. They are called immigrants.

You make it seem like there's something wrong in being contacted by a person of a foriegn nationality. I suggest you take your prejudice and lame jokes to another forum. Thank you.

Just a few comments and a question:

[*]1) Telemarketers are scum (right there next to the lawyers, so you know my bias is against the professions not any nationalities).
[*]2) Previously, there were scum from 50 states calling you, now we face scum from 200+ countries disturbing us from our peaceful dinner.
[*]3) If this takes off like spam (let's hope not), you'll have 20+ times the number of calls (6+ billion/~300 million). So, if you received a call a week before, now expect to be getting up from dinner to answer these fools 3 times a day, EVERYDAY!!!
[*]4) Imagine the number of scams that will not be covered by US laws. And prosecuting, not to mention finding these perpetrators will be next to impossible.
[*]5) Low internation rates are great, but this is what begins to happen when they become ridiculously cheap.

Your statistics are interesting. Some are quite surprising, a few are somewhat dubious, though possible, except one (38% of doctors in USA are Indians) is really hard to believe. Can you reference your source?

 

[andrey]

Originally posted by: ScrapSilicon

Originally posted by: dannybek
lock

heh

nice commercial! Not exactly related to this thread, but I loved it!

 

[leonowski]

My $.02 (which is actually worth 1 cent in most countries):

I don't think Amnesiac meant to be offensive, but I can see how his comments offended AJ.

The anger could get displaced and pointed towards those of Indian nationality. I think this is what AJ has a problem with. A person could be living in this country and have a thick accent. An accent does not give away your current geographic location, but it may give away your background. To assume that the call is coming from India is somewhat ignorant, and could develop into "hate" for Indians.

Recently, my company opted to use pure outsourcing for our customer contacts - resulting in many layoffs. Some of these outsourcing centers are in India and the Philippines. I am Filipino. As I was leaving the office the other day, a person who was to be layed off made a comment (not directly towards me):"I don't appreciate losing my job to foriegners". I took this as being offensive because I felt like he was blaming me for losing his job. He didn't complain about capitalism or the company's decisions. I was offended because his anger was displaced towards foreigners. I think AJ just wants to point out that this should not happen. AJ wants to point out that there are many Indians who live in American (and are Americans) that live in this country. Just like if you would receive a call from a person with an English accent - it doesn't mean the call is necessarily from England. It just reveals the background of the person.

We all hate telemarketers and we all hate spam. But it is the business of the world. The world revolves around money. In fact, this Hot Deals forum is a testament to capitalism. We look for the best deals for ourselves, but we sometimes end up screwing with companies' bottom lines. But it is the way of capitalism. We look for the best deals anywhere in the world.

So in closing, I'm just another random idiot with $.02 who wants cheap shiz, SO STOP POSTING THIS GARBAGE AND LETS GET BACK TO FINDING 1 dollar subwoofers and 2 dollar CPUs!!!!!

 

[El Norm]

err racial statistics aren't a HOT DEAL either AJPatel.

 

[ScrapSilicon]

Originally posted by: andrey

Originally posted by: ScrapSilicon

Originally posted by: dannybek
lock

heh

nice commercial! Not exactly related to this thread, but I loved it!

just trying to lighten up a soon to be paddied thread..it is Not a HotDeal

 

[phreakyzen]

I saw this on 20/20 some months ago. Many companies are sending CSR calls to India, and more than likely you would never know. The companies that are doing this is India train the CSRs to speak perfect english and some even develop American accents (texan, souther, new england). They are taught to come up with an American background based on their accents so they can fool the caller if they happen to do some small talk.

Other than that you may be talking to a prison inmate as they are used for telemarketing and CSRs big time. Either way who cares!

 

[azoomee]

I've heard GE has alot of internal work outsourced to India

 

[Wildcats]

Assuming AJPatel's numbers are correct, he/she should be screaming "racism", because obviously those of Indian background are getting better jobs that the majority of other "Americans"!

Racism, pure and simply he/she should say, and he/she WOULD say it, if the numbers were not in his/her favor!

Of course, those that benefit from the racism will never admit that it is, in fact, racism!

 

[bigpow]

Yep, wrong forum!
Why not locked yet?

one of the main reason of out-sourcing to 3rd world countries: cost reduction
- a fraction of the cost and still comparable quality.
one way to prevent this from happening: work harder and smarter.
- STOP SLACKING!

Offended because I said you are slackers?

Here's an example;
If the MODERATORS of this forum dilligent, this thread would have been locked before my post.

 

[Doomer]

Anyone who would defend telemarketers are lower scum.

 

[Aharami]

Originally posted by: Wildcats
Assuming AJPatel's numbers are correct, he/she should be screaming "racism", because obviously those of Indian background are getting better jobs that the majority of other "Americans"!

Racism, pure and simply he/she should say, and he/she WOULD say it, if the numbers were not in his/her favor!

Of course, those that benefit from the racism will never admit that it is, in fact, racism!

Im Indian and im confused. Sorry to all those smart Indians for I have brought shame to you with my dumbness