As usual, things have been fun at the Red Checkmark lately. I eagerly await the wonderful nonsense the holidays are sure to bring.
I ain't got no badge or gun....
Ok, your friend or loved one is missing. I'm very sorry to hear that and I hope they are found safe and unharmed but why are you calling me BEFORE you call the COPS?! I get that we live in a connected world and it stands to reason that maybe your wireless provider might be able to track a phone for you and find out where someone is but there's a few problems with that:
1) Telling you the precise location of a phone opens us up to a TON of legal liability that we'd rather not touch with a ten foot pole.
2) While we do, in some instances, have the capability to do this, that capability is NOT given to headset jockeys like myself. You see, we have a specific group that handles requests from law enforcement. The cops will contact them on behalf of you and they can help find your missing friend or loved one.
3) Screaming at me for a manager will not help find your loved one either.
Please folks, call the Police first and let them handle it. It's kind of what they're paid to do.
Math, how the F&!% does it work?
So you got a phone three months ago on our SHARP installment plan and then you lost it. So you filed an insurance claim and got a replacement. Now you're calling me because the insurance replacement isn't working. No problem, it's under warranty, we can send another one.
Oh you want a different model of phone? Sorry, no can do. The warranty is like-for-like. You do have upgrade options if you want a different kind of phone, but yes, they would cost you some money.
Not satisfied with this, you launch into a tirade about how frustrated you are at having to pay nearly $900 for one phone.
Except you're wrong on multiple counts.
First of all there's two phones, the one YOU lost and the insurance replacement. You've paid a total of five installments for a total of around $100 plus the $200 deductible.
So at this point you've paid only $300 for TWO phones and yet, amazingly, you still feel you've paid almost $1000 for a single mobile device and my company is mercilessly gouging you for no other reason than to be evil bastards out for nothing but money.
And now you want a manager? No problem but I must warn you. He knows math too.
If you're having PIN problems, I feel bad for you son...
Well, actually no, no I don't. Because the PIN has nothing to do with the network my company operates nor the central services we provide.
I also don't feel bad for you because YOU set the PIN and if you forgot it that's not MY fault.
99 times out of 100 when this happens, unless the customer was smart enough to put a remote lock app on the phone beforehand (which most aren't), the only way to restore access to the phone is a master reset, which yes, will erase everything on it. Then starts the whining:
- No, there's no Default or Master PIN. (If there was, that would defeat the whole purpose of a PIN in the first place!)
- No, there's nothing I can "reset in the system" to get you back into your phone. The PIN code is self contained within the phone itself. In other words, you're SOL.
- No, you can't get a credit for inconvenience. (Seriously, you really expect us to give you a credit because you inconvenienced YOURSELF? It'd be funny if I didn't hear it ALL the time).
- No I can't backup your contacts or any other information before the reset. I'm just as locked out of the device as you are.
Almost inevitably, after the grumbling, the customer will go along with the reset. It doesn't stop them from blaming us though. My coworkers and I have gotten bad surveys from customers because we were unable to get them access to their phones.
Greed is Good...
...Or not, as this poor sap found out. Basically he'd been paying for three years for a service he hadn't used and apparently had asked to be removed not long after he first got it. The total charges were around $350. Company policy is we only credit back up to 6 months for situations like this.
That may seem unfair, but the reality is at some point the customer has to take responsibility for what's on their bill. If they choose to ignore it and keep paying, that's on them, NOT us.
So he was offered the six month credit (around $65) but that wasn't good enough, so he escalated to a manager who amazingly offered him $200 or about 18 months worth of credit. You'd think that would be enough for most people but not this guy.
Now he's on the line with me because he wants credit for EVERY single charge. Every penny. Holy crap dude, you should be happy enough we offered you three times our standard credit in the first place! But no, he's still raging mad, so he asked for a manager again.
Here's where it gets awesome. After the guy realized he was NOT going to get the full credit back he tried to get the $200 he'd been offered before. But that $200 offer was an out of policy decision made by another manager, one that my manager was under no obligation to fulfill now (the account notes specifically stated the SC declined this offer). So my manager offered him $90. Cue more pouting and raging. Manager said that's as high as he would go. Guy hung up.
That's not how it works. That's not how ANY of this works!
One week later and I am STILL trying to wrap my head around this one.
This guy calls me swearing up and down he's paid $200 to my company for some sort of insurance program that:
A) Has no monthly premium
B) Allows for him to get a replacement phone at one of our company stores at NO COST should anything happen to his phone
C) Lasts a total of two years
While we DO offer an insurance plan for mobile phones (which he has NEVER had on any of the lines on his account), it doesn't work anything like the mysterious program outlined above.
The plan we offer DOES have monthly payments and does NOT allow you to get a replacement at a store, you have to get one in the mail. Also the plan we offer has no time limit. As long as you keep paying the premium and don't remove the service from your account, you have coverage.
I've been in the business for awhile and I know mobile insurance has worked this way for at LEAST eight years now.
At one point, I start to wonder if this person had maybe signed up for some kind of third party product insurance through Best Buy or Radio Shack or wherever so I asked him and he swears up and down that he signed for it at a company store.
This leads me to two possible conclusions:
1) He might have gotten it at a company branded but NOT company owned authorized retailer. I know these places can sometimes have policies and procedures separate from the corporate stores, but I've never heard of that happening with an insurance program and I've worked at such a store before.
2) This guy is off his rocker.
Obviously, I'm leaning towards the latter. There's nothing I could do except tell him to go back to the store where bought this mysterious insurance plan and take it up with them.
I ain't got no badge or gun....
Ok, your friend or loved one is missing. I'm very sorry to hear that and I hope they are found safe and unharmed but why are you calling me BEFORE you call the COPS?! I get that we live in a connected world and it stands to reason that maybe your wireless provider might be able to track a phone for you and find out where someone is but there's a few problems with that:
1) Telling you the precise location of a phone opens us up to a TON of legal liability that we'd rather not touch with a ten foot pole.
2) While we do, in some instances, have the capability to do this, that capability is NOT given to headset jockeys like myself. You see, we have a specific group that handles requests from law enforcement. The cops will contact them on behalf of you and they can help find your missing friend or loved one.
3) Screaming at me for a manager will not help find your loved one either.
Please folks, call the Police first and let them handle it. It's kind of what they're paid to do.
Math, how the F&!% does it work?
So you got a phone three months ago on our SHARP installment plan and then you lost it. So you filed an insurance claim and got a replacement. Now you're calling me because the insurance replacement isn't working. No problem, it's under warranty, we can send another one.
Oh you want a different model of phone? Sorry, no can do. The warranty is like-for-like. You do have upgrade options if you want a different kind of phone, but yes, they would cost you some money.
Not satisfied with this, you launch into a tirade about how frustrated you are at having to pay nearly $900 for one phone.
Except you're wrong on multiple counts.
First of all there's two phones, the one YOU lost and the insurance replacement. You've paid a total of five installments for a total of around $100 plus the $200 deductible.
So at this point you've paid only $300 for TWO phones and yet, amazingly, you still feel you've paid almost $1000 for a single mobile device and my company is mercilessly gouging you for no other reason than to be evil bastards out for nothing but money.
And now you want a manager? No problem but I must warn you. He knows math too.
If you're having PIN problems, I feel bad for you son...
Well, actually no, no I don't. Because the PIN has nothing to do with the network my company operates nor the central services we provide.
I also don't feel bad for you because YOU set the PIN and if you forgot it that's not MY fault.
99 times out of 100 when this happens, unless the customer was smart enough to put a remote lock app on the phone beforehand (which most aren't), the only way to restore access to the phone is a master reset, which yes, will erase everything on it. Then starts the whining:
- No, there's no Default or Master PIN. (If there was, that would defeat the whole purpose of a PIN in the first place!)
- No, there's nothing I can "reset in the system" to get you back into your phone. The PIN code is self contained within the phone itself. In other words, you're SOL.
- No, you can't get a credit for inconvenience. (Seriously, you really expect us to give you a credit because you inconvenienced YOURSELF? It'd be funny if I didn't hear it ALL the time).
- No I can't backup your contacts or any other information before the reset. I'm just as locked out of the device as you are.
Almost inevitably, after the grumbling, the customer will go along with the reset. It doesn't stop them from blaming us though. My coworkers and I have gotten bad surveys from customers because we were unable to get them access to their phones.
Greed is Good...
...Or not, as this poor sap found out. Basically he'd been paying for three years for a service he hadn't used and apparently had asked to be removed not long after he first got it. The total charges were around $350. Company policy is we only credit back up to 6 months for situations like this.
That may seem unfair, but the reality is at some point the customer has to take responsibility for what's on their bill. If they choose to ignore it and keep paying, that's on them, NOT us.
So he was offered the six month credit (around $65) but that wasn't good enough, so he escalated to a manager who amazingly offered him $200 or about 18 months worth of credit. You'd think that would be enough for most people but not this guy.
Now he's on the line with me because he wants credit for EVERY single charge. Every penny. Holy crap dude, you should be happy enough we offered you three times our standard credit in the first place! But no, he's still raging mad, so he asked for a manager again.
Here's where it gets awesome. After the guy realized he was NOT going to get the full credit back he tried to get the $200 he'd been offered before. But that $200 offer was an out of policy decision made by another manager, one that my manager was under no obligation to fulfill now (the account notes specifically stated the SC declined this offer). So my manager offered him $90. Cue more pouting and raging. Manager said that's as high as he would go. Guy hung up.
That's not how it works. That's not how ANY of this works!
One week later and I am STILL trying to wrap my head around this one.
This guy calls me swearing up and down he's paid $200 to my company for some sort of insurance program that:
A) Has no monthly premium
B) Allows for him to get a replacement phone at one of our company stores at NO COST should anything happen to his phone
C) Lasts a total of two years
While we DO offer an insurance plan for mobile phones (which he has NEVER had on any of the lines on his account), it doesn't work anything like the mysterious program outlined above.
The plan we offer DOES have monthly payments and does NOT allow you to get a replacement at a store, you have to get one in the mail. Also the plan we offer has no time limit. As long as you keep paying the premium and don't remove the service from your account, you have coverage.
I've been in the business for awhile and I know mobile insurance has worked this way for at LEAST eight years now.
At one point, I start to wonder if this person had maybe signed up for some kind of third party product insurance through Best Buy or Radio Shack or wherever so I asked him and he swears up and down that he signed for it at a company store.
This leads me to two possible conclusions:
1) He might have gotten it at a company branded but NOT company owned authorized retailer. I know these places can sometimes have policies and procedures separate from the corporate stores, but I've never heard of that happening with an insurance program and I've worked at such a store before.
2) This guy is off his rocker.
Obviously, I'm leaning towards the latter. There's nothing I could do except tell him to go back to the store where bought this mysterious insurance plan and take it up with them.
Comment