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January 23, 2007
The company released it's latest news
release today early in the morning. We've been keeping a list
of what they call 'novel' client and novel client uses of our
answering services and virtual office functions. This 18 year
old from New Jersey tops this past year. The press release is
here -
Answering
Service Press Release
I heard stories about that kid. He
just made up the name of his company, had business cards
printed up with all of the info, numbers and addresses that we
provided him, then hit on girls in clubs, playing like a Don
Juan or Casanova. Women gravitate towards money and this
kid's little scheme sounded like a good idea. Too bad he had
to brag to everyone about it, and now he is putting up a
YouTube video on how to pick up women.
What the news release is missing is
how he paid for having a package with us. Our lowest package
cost is $195 a month. That includes two office addresses, a
toll free number, fax line and 5 reps all who will learn your
company and become your instant staff.
He read on our site how we handle the
HR (human Resource) calls, by answering the line in the
company name, like ABC Company, how can I help you. If t he
caller asks to verify employment history or salary of an
employee, we then tell the caller to hold on while we transfer
them to Human Resources. Then a team member familiar with the
account, usually sitting next to or within a 8 feet or so of
the first rep to pick up the call, will pick up the line
saying "HR how can I help you".
So to callers it would look like that
they called a large company. From that point the HR rep will
say whatever we were told to say by the owner. This includes
pay and how long employee worked there.
Smart guy I think and I probably would
never have thought of this. I like how the women who would go
for it are all gold-diggers anyway, so more power to the guy.
What is
Missing in Press release
The missing element in all of this is
how he did it all. Anyone can call us up, tell us anything,
name their company, whether real or imaginary, and in 24 hours
they have a full staff and real office addresses and toll free
numbers and fax etc.
That's the easy part, the hard part is
paying for it. I asked around and found out that he said he
was going to quit because his company wasn't doing well. When
clients have no call volume at all, we allow them to break
their account down to our old starter package which costs $95
a month. We let anyone do that if they are leaving from
non-use. That happens a lot with start-ups and new companies,
which is the specialty of our answering service and call
center programs.
So even at $95 a month, how was he
paying for it? It was one thing to go into a club, brag about
how wealthy he is and hand his card to hot women. I hear he
liked telling girls he was some child genius when he was
younger too. Still - he has to pay the $95 a month. How did he
do it? He is just in High School after all? He was
actually selling references to his brother's college buddies
and network of friends on MySpace. How funny is that one? He
would tell people that they can buy a reference from him
permanently that can be called by any third party to verify,
and he will give them a great salary and work history. Enough
background to erase a past, or remove unwanted references from
your resume. Or do what we feared, which was to really hurt or
scam people. This is a big problem for a combination
answering service, call center and virtual office.
I have personally seen people do
strange things, just like the press release says. I
don't condone what he did, but I sneakily thought how in
intelligent the idea was. The company has no way to
prevent people from doing this either, as long as they don't
brag to people in our company or others, they can get away
with using our call center services for almost anything that
requires a reference or work history.
Now when I see a company with a dozen
employees that I do HR calls for I think, are they doing this?
We handle a lot of large companies too and it is way too easy
to just call us up and set this up overnight. I guess
when there is a will there is a way to get anything done. I
can see the guy still doing this now with another made up name
and still with us. I just know it from the way he told
another customer service rep here.
If he just keeps to scamming for women
who are gold diggers, I think he has a cool idea. Just that he
still has to pay for the services after that first month runs
out and he no longer has the $195 for the following month. He
has to call to say he is leaving and ask for us to keep him
on, as we do like i said above. That way he keeps
everything, phone numbers, account, addresses etc and only
pays the $95 a month from our old starter package.
You can afford that with a part time
job, even at 18. But one thing you learn about human
nature. We always look for the easy way out. I guess he made
thousands from selling references with his company with us. So
greed got to him too. We look for the easy way to do things,
are greedy and also we all like to brag. That was his
downfall.
They had a saying in World War II that
goes 'Loose lips sink ships". I can't wait to see his
YouTube Video on picking up women. Our company warned him to
not give our company any 'credit' as he said he was
going to, since this was all unethical.
I have a feeling he will shut his
mouth from this point on. To all employers out there, don't
feel so confident that what people have on their resumes is
real.
To credit card companies, stop
checking on people's salary by just calling the company up
like you people do now. How stupid I think, and they are just
asking for fraud.
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