Senator wants disclosure on outsourced calls (Schumer)

[OhioChick]

Sun May 30, 2010 1:17pm EDT

(Reuters) - In a bid to reduce outsourcing of U.S. jobs, a Democratic senator said on Sunday he will push legislation to make companies inform customers when their calls were being transferred outside the United States and charge companies for those transferred calls.

"This bill will not only serve to maintain call center jobs currently in the United States, but also provide a reason for companies that have already outsourced jobs to bring them back," Senator Charles Schumer said in statement.

Customers calling 800 numbers are often transferred overseas, and in such cases the bill would mandate that callers be told where their calls were rerouted.

Companies would also be required to certify to the Federal Trade Commission annually that they were complying with the requirement, and face penalties if they did not certify.

Schumer's bill would also impose a $0.25 excise tax on any customer service call placed inside the United States which is transferred to an agent in a foreign location. The fee would be assessed on the company that transferred the call.

Customer service call centers have become increasingly popular with businesses in recent years to deal with questions ranging from billing to technical support.

But the practice brings frequent complaints from customers who say their issues are not resolved or that representatives are merely providing scripted responses.

More: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64T1QJ20100530?type=politicsNews

[PSPS]

1. Too much wiggle room -- a "joke" law

This made me laugh:

Companies would also be required to certify to the Federal Trade Commission annually that they were complying with the requirement, and face penalties if they did not certify.

Yeah, take calls domestically for one day to meet the certification and, if they forget, they might get one of those dreaded "strongly worded letters!!11!1"

The Indian call centers will simply set up banks of RCF lines billed to their dummy NYC PO box. Voila! You have your "stateside call center" the same way large corporations have their "corporate office" in the Caymans.

They lie all the time anyway. The horrible "customer service" people for Intuit are all in India and are told to lie and say they are in some US city when they are asked where they are. When the third one told me they were "located in Rochester, New York," I laughed at her and said I never knew Rochester had such a large Indian community who all, apparently, work for the same call center.

What they should do is take out the tax incentives congress built into the tax code to encourage this outsourcing in the first place.

Twenty five cents per call "punishment!" Wow, I'm shitting myself here!!11!1