Overheard at the bookstore

[fma_fanatic]

So the husband and I stopped by the local Borders to soak up some AC. I lounged in the cafe since I'm just so damned tired from dealing with an attention intensive cat.

As I'm sitting in the cafe enjoying a mint javacooler (good btw. like a liquified Thin Mint girl scout cookie), I hear a lady at the next table talking to someone. I'm not really paying attention, it's a cafe, people talk all the time. It was what she was saying that caught my attention.

Lady: I don't care. You offered a price and now you're revoking it. I signed up in good faith.
[silence]
Lady: So you're saying that you don't care if you lose me as a customer, but you're willing to trick others into signing up?
[silence]
Lady: I'm a lawyer! Your offer is clearly a ruse to sign people up and then bait them to a higher tiered price. That's illegal! It's called bait and swtich!

Now, you may be asking what she was complaining about. If you guessed some sort of service, you'd be right. I glanced her way while I was pretending to deal with my iPod and saw she was on a Comcast site, looking at her account. I'm guessing wherever she lived she had their service and got one of those special deals for so many months that has now expired. Through the bits of conversation I was getting, she wanted to get the special pricing again, but whoever she was talking to wasn't going to budge.

Lady: If you cared about your customers, you'd fix it. The person I talked to never said that it was a limited time promotion.
[silence]
Lady: Then get me to your manager since you clearly can't do your job competently.

It was at this point that the husband showed up. If he hadn't, I think I might have gone over and slapped the lady silly. As for the lawyer quip, I have no idea. I saw she had herself surrounded by several LSAT books, so she was probably going to school over at WashU.

[Bright_Star]

Kind of sad when people say "I'm a lawyer!" as if they think that by saying that is going to make retailers bend over backwards to give the SC's anything they want. A REAL lawyer wouldn't employ those tactics.

[AquaGirl]

I get that a lot at my job. People never bother to read the contract and then say its our fault for not putting it in huge letters. Please, even if it was you wouldn't read it. I also have people who get lies to by our sales reps (that is possible) and say that there was something on the contract that was different than what they were told but they signed anyway. Um...why did you do that? Now i dont care if you were lied to or not, you legally agreesd.

[fma_fanatic]

Kind of sad when people say "I'm a lawyer!" as if they think that by saying that is going to make retailers bend over backwards to give the SC's anything they want. A REAL lawyer wouldn't employ those tactics.

Which is why I suspect that she was a pre-law student rather than a lawyer, owing to the number of LSAT books that surrounded her.

[emax4]

I wonder what would happen had the rep asked cheerily, "oh really!?!? What firm do you work for?" And when the caller made up some name the rep would say, "Ok, i'm going to call YOUR supervisors and let them know that you mistreat others and talk down to people... Ok, here's MY supervisor.."

[Geek King]

A REAL lawyer wouldn't employ those tactics.

Actually, in many states, the local BAR can dicipline or even disbar a real lawyer making those claims. It is considered unethical to intimidate someone based on your standing as a member of the court. Get credentials and make a call to the state BAR's ethics line, if possible.

[Sapphire Silk]

Kind of sad when people say "I'm a lawyer!" as if they think that by saying that is going to make retailers bend over backwards to give the SC's anything they want. A REAL lawyer wouldn't employ those tactics.

Sad to say, I disagree. There's a big bruhaha going on in my area over a lawyer whose wife was pulled over for a suspected DWI. http://www.news-record.com/content/2...n_beach_arrest.

If you read the story carefully, it's clear the lawyer was throwing his weight around, unsuccessfully. (Though the other trooper in the story did act sucky and got dinged for it).

I suggest comments on the story go to Fratching. I'll start a thread there.

[Redbeard]

That's one of the reasons why I love to remind customers that all calls are recorded.
Typical convo
SC: I was promised this much for this amount of time, now give it to me! Rahr!
Me: I'm sorry to hear that, since all of our calls are recorded we can pull up that exact conversation and follow up on what you were told.
SC: Oh...um...you can do that? Well, never mind *click*

[wagegoth]

Lady: I'm a lawyer!

As for the lawyer quip, I have no idea. I saw she had herself surrounded by several LSAT books, so she was probably going to school over at WashU.

A law student claiming they are a lawyer is a good way to end a career. You can graduate law school but that doesn't make you a lawyer.



Frankly, it doesn't sound like the lawyer really is throwing his weight around.

Sad to say, I disagree. There's a big bruhaha going on in my area over a lawyer whose wife was pulled over for a suspected DWI. http://www.news-record.com/content/2...n_beach_arrest.

If you read the story carefully, it's clear the lawyer was throwing his weight around, unsuccessfully. (Though the other trooper in the story did act sucky and got dinged for it).

The officer pulled over a well-dressed woman in high heels in an expensive car late at night. It sounds as though he made a few incorrect assumptions (saying a woman in high heels on the shoulder of the road looks unsteady is stupid; anyone would be and it's an understandable reason to refuse a field sobriety test) and then didn't back off when he had the chance; he seemed to determined to get some kind of citation out of the situation, no matter the circumstances. I think the woman was lucky that her husband was sober and available to come down to the station and get her out.

[Moirae]

It never ceases to amaze me how stupid some people are. This woman would be an example of one of the many reasons I've started hating customers.

One thing about Comcast.... they do not exist in Canada, but their call centers do. I worked at one of their call centers. Comcast has some severely questionable practices that cannot be legal, but people don't know about them so they get away with it.

While I was there, I learned that Comcast has or had a practice of cutting cable lines (at least in Chicago and New York which were two of the states we answered calls for) out of the blue to try to make sure people weren't stealing cable. Then the customers would have to call in to get a Comcast tech out to fix it, and often end up having to wait for days until the tech showed up. And I learned this little tid bit from the General Manager accompanied by agreement by at least two team leaders, so I don't think he was lying.

I hated and loathed that job. In fact, it was so bad that I used to have nightmares every night of being physically tortured every time I walked in the door. Its the reason I quit.

[PepperElf]

out of curiosity, is there any law against lying about being a lawyer like that?

[Ironclad Alibi]

out of curiosity, is there any law against lying about being a lawyer like that?

It depends on where you tell the lie. Misrepresenting oneself to the court as a lawyer is very bad.

In searching for a cite on Google, many web sites said that in most US states it is a felony to misrepresent oneself as a lawyer. Lawyers have to pass state bar exams and adhere to a code of ethics and other rules. Naturally, they would not want people to say they are a lawyer without going through all that hassel to join the lawyer club. So they have heavy penalities against it.

One person suggested that when someone claims to be a lawyer to ask for their bar number. If they don't give it, they're most likely lying.