By the way while I may be incorrect in saying the robo calls I get are US based. They are from addresses peddling crap targeted to seniors like hearing aids, life alert devices, Bahama cruises, even military benefits, cancer treatments or senior housing. Seems to me that those peddlers have to represent a US based business that could easily be prosecuted by local officials.
Dish Telemarketing Violations May Cost Them Billions in Fines
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If I am on the DO NOT CALL LIST what makes these telemarketer's think I will talk to them or let alone do business with ANY telemarketer phone call? How ever I may mess with you and waste your time out of spite!
Luckily for me I only use a cell phone. The iPhone makes it easy to block any number that calls you. Once you do that you never know they called again... No ringing, no voicemail, no missed call notification. I'm sure other smartphones have similar features.
It is all US based, as Dish and Directv prohibit retailers from using off shore call centers from places like India or Pakistan.
One thing to consider in telemarketing in general, there is no "Cell Phone" registry, or list to place calls to people who have cell phones. Unless the customer opted in on something, all the calls are generally placed to land line phones.
Since most of the younger generation has dropped their land line and opted to use cell phones only, you really can't get ahold of anyone under 40 years old.
The only people who still have their land lines are seniors, and unfortunately those are the people getting a majority of the calls these days.
When I was selling Dish, we where getting about 85% premium 5 star customers off of telemarketing due to the demographics. If you went back 5-7 years prior, we used to never get that type of quality customers.
The only issues we ran into was that that some of the customers would die, and we would get charged back, and we would run into the occasional concerned child who believes their parents can no longer make their own decisions, and wants to play super hero and reverse the entire transaction
You and bobAs a retailer, dish told us to violate the do not call list to get more sales and then instructed us how to cover our tracks if we got caught.
They are guilty. I should testify
My business has been a Dish retailer since the beginning and I will say that being a Dish retailer is not as bad as Claude always makes it sound. My business is not as large as Claude's so things may be handled differently.
If you have a phone service that has a simulring(I have Vonage) feature, there is a free service called nomorobo.com. You set your phone to ring their number at the same time. If the calling number is in their database of spam, telemarketers, etc, it will disconnect the call after 1 ring.
I always plug the number into google to make sure it isn't a legit call.
I always plug the number into google to make sure it isn't a legit call.
Wait till you do some decent numbers. The sit there on a ledge watching over you like hawks waiting for you to screw up so they can come down on you.
Then they want to generally know everything about your business, right down to how the customer found out about you and what advertising you did to generate a specific sale.
Wow, that is ridiculous I would think you would have no problem getting a lawyer to take on a breach of contract case with that payout. I hope you get what you are owed.
I even get spam calls and texts on my damn Verizon cell phone and that number's not used on any online or business sites. Cell phones aren't exempt either and mine can't be connected to the internet or be used for texting I have it restricted to voice only.
That's probably because you got someone war dialing, which is calling every number in an exchange or area code in sequential order.
I got 1200 inbound numbers at my store and some of these auto dialers will light up my board like a christmas tree calling every one of my numbers in sequence
I got 1200 inbound numbers at my store and some of these auto dialers will light up my board like a christmas tree calling every one of my numbers in sequence
This is actually common practice and a smart move on their part. Any time we would ask Dish for extra funds to do a marketing campaign they would collect all of that data. It's for them to improve their marketing by collecting data from certain demographics. Don't think this is just a scheme to come down on big retailers.
I actually had someone sitting in my office 3 days per week to do quality assurance on our calls
Considering they due QA on their own calls every day of the week, to make sure sales are legit, do you not think that should or would be appropriate? What is the penalty if a customer cancels because the retailer offered something they could not follow through with(honestly Infinity Dish and DishOne come to mind).
Usually what happens in a situation like that you call 800-333-dish and escalate the complaint.
Then Dish will forward that to the retailer and the retailer has 48 hours to prepare a response and resolve the issue.
Sometimes a simple few paragraph followup is required, other times they want a copy of the call.
Biggest complaints I used to get where concerning gift cards. We would sell it without promising a gift card, customer would see an advertisement after they got installed and would try to claim they where offered a gift card.
For those customers if they called me first I would review the call and if the customer was wrong I might be nice and offer them a club dish referral or mail them a form to redeem a dish store rebate.
For the ones to complain to Dish, I would use the recording to my advantage, prove them wrong and offer nothing.
The other ones we used to get try to dispute the fact they signed a contract, or would get 2 rooms installed and claim they ordered 3 to get out of paying an upgrade fee.
But really, I was one of 30 retailers required to have call recording and submit to having our calls scored for quality. Not because we did anything bad or wrong, but because we had no choice.
I never had an issue with call recording, because I had it on my phone system before it was a requirement. I have an issue because they used it to bully us around.
The few times we where wrong and may have given wrong information, it was easier to just side with the customer and say we couldn't find the call, then provide evidence we did something wrong.
But that's my company. I have over $250,000 invested in equipment, computers and a phone system. Your typical retailer doesn't have nearly this much invested, and is not required to record calls.
But quality assurance and call recording was good, but Dish used it to harass their larger dealers.
One example is that we had a call we sent in on a random request for a quality check. Everything is fine, perfect call, but after we qualified the customer and has the order 75% completed the customer mentioned they had Dish a few years ago.
So whoever scored my call, does a little research and finds the customers old account and then charges us back because they where not a first time customer.
The system qualified the customer as new, but it didn't matter they where already a customer.
Once that happened we spent an entire afternoon getting grilled by dish, I stopped caring and made sure I reviewed everything before turning it in.
Btw of the customer cancels within 180 days you just get charged back all your commission.
Which is another thing. Why should a national sales partner be subject to chargeback for 6 months when a typical retailer is responsible for 1 year??
Which is another thing. Why should a national sales partner be subject to chargeback for 6 months when a typical retailer is responsible for 1 year??
The FTC (and Attorneys Generals) always settle for what amounts to chump change to the big companies who are alleged to have committed the transgression. Look for a settlement with the FTC nowhere near the "billions" number. But most often, the FTC gets meaningful new limitations agreed to by the companies as part of the settlement.
Now, I do remember DirecTV was slapped by the FTC for something, but I can't remember. Look, all these companies break the law everyday of their existence. It is unfortunate that I never consider cable and satellite and those even WORSE wireless (ALL the big cell phone cos.) companies to be exceptions.
Now, I do remember DirecTV was slapped by the FTC for something, but I can't remember. Look, all these companies break the law everyday of their existence. It is unfortunate that I never consider cable and satellite and those even WORSE wireless (ALL the big cell phone cos.) companies to be exceptions.
