Offshore Outsourcing & Scammer

Blog about offshore outsourcing and scammer in the outsourcing industry

Is the use of the Avatar technology in the U.S. illegal (Robocalls)?

FTC RobocallsIf the main and only purpose of the software an illegal action then this software is illegal. In the case of the Avatar system is service legal because at the site from the Federal Trade Commission are listed a few cases where Robocalls are allowed:

Some prerecorded messages are permitted — for example, messages that are purely informational. That means you may receive calls to let you know your flight’s been cancelled, reminders about an appointment, or messages about a delayed school opening. But the business doing the calling isn’t allowed to promote the sale of any goods or services. Prerecorded messages from a business that is contacting you to collect a debt also are permitted, but messages offering to sell you services to reduce your debt are barred.

Other exceptions include political calls and calls from certain health care providers. For example, pharmacies are permitted to use prerecorded messages to provide prescription refill reminders. Prerecorded messages from banks, telephone carriers and charities also are exempt from these rules if the banks, carriers or charities make the calls themselves.

As you see in the above statement are legal and illegal purposes for Robocalls available. Illegal is this technology for making business (promoting any goods or services) in the United States of America. That the Avatar technology is a Robocall technology gets found out by reading the judgement from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas Houston Division, Civil Action No. H-13-2777, Case 4:13-cv-02777 from January 28, 2014 (.pdf). In this case Flowroute got sued to conspire with Avatar because: "Flowroute’s VoIP services, and employing Flowroute’s Calling Name Management Service ('CNAM-MS') to alter the caller’s identification as it appeared on Plaintiff’s cellular phone." Like expected had this case a positive end for Flowroute. The same way like Flowroute is Avatar only a service provider and is not responsible for the misusage of their products from their customers.

At Federal Trade Commission - Consumer Information - What to do if you get a Robocall explains the FTC attorney Kati Daffan in here video and in the first paragraph of the transcription what is a Robocall:

If you have a telephone, robocalls may be ruining your day. I'm Kati Daffan, an attorney at the Federal Trade Commission. If you answer the phone and hear a recorded message instead of a live person, it's a robocall. If the recording is a sales message and you haven't given your written permission to get calls from the company on the other end, the call is illegal period.

Playing pre-recorded messages or compile manually pre-recorded messages live will remain to be a prerecorded material and is never the same like speaking to a live person. There is no way to foresee all possibilities during a call. For this reason a live speaking agent cannot get replaced.

A short description of the Avatar system is that a call center agent is playing prerecorded messages to the called ones. The messages are getting selected depending on the answers from the called ones. With other words the called one does not speak with a real agent and for some questions are even no prerecorded answers available. Only if the called one is interested in the offer he gets transferred to a real person. One agents handles normally two calls at the same time. I think everybody knows the result of mulittasking.

Avatar is promoting their services as "Lead Generation without the accent". From my own experience and from the experience of my customers is it in the German speaking area of Europe (Austria, Germany and a part of Switzerland) not important to speak without an accent to make a sale. Much more important is it to adjust your own communication within splits of a second to the same level as your presumptive customer is using. A joke during the communication at the right time can be an ice breaker. This cannot get done by using prerecorded messages. Already the first impression a sales person is making can lead to a good business or to a total loss.

Avatar Technologies Phl, Inc. is providing their services only B2B and for this reason they need not warn about the misusage of their product. From business owners is it expected that they know the law in their country and in the country they are serving. For a consumer are the offered services not from any interest. For this reason they need not warn them about the illegal use of their products.

The FTC is challenging the DEF CON community to create a tool that people can use to block and forward unwanted robocalls automatically. Forwarded calls will go to a honeypot — a data collection system that researchers and investigators can use to study the calls. See the contest descriptions and the winners of the 2015 Robocalls: Humanity Strikes Back Contest.

Look at the videos where an attorney from the FTC explains the illegal Robocalls.

Clark-et-al.-v-Avatar-Technologies-Phl-Inc.-et-al.-Decision.pdf (128.96 kb)

 

E-Mail Scammer: Balasubramaniam calcsoft - balasubramaniam.calcsoft - CALC SOFT PVT LTD - calcsoft.net - AMAZE SOFTWARE

hand with money coming out of the monitorYesterday I got a spam email from the scammer Balasubramaniam calcsoft. Until now this scammer does not know that high sensitive personal data cannot get outsourced into a country where the protection of the data is not guaranteed. The client would make himself punishable if the personal data are coming into the public. There are already enough judgements from US courts available where clients have broken the data protection act. Similar is it in Europe.

The scammer does even not know that there is software available, which makes the copy & paste form filling process obsolete. So why shall pay a client for months or years more then US$ 1000 per agent, when he can get a better work without failures faster done by buying a software for less then US$ 500.

All the offered processes have something in common. The upfront fee is INR 100000 for each process. This already qualifies the scam because it shows that the scammer has no contract with the client. For this he cannot guarantee you something for your payment.

All offered campaigns are containing sensitive data, which are protected by the data protection act. You can take a look at a short overview about the data protection law in the different countries at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_privacy_law. Even some of the rules there are already outdated, because with the time the rules are coming more restrictive. For this you should follow the links there to get the actual information about the data protection law.

On the other side, there are everywhere at the point of sales computer placed. Customer data for all purposes are getting collected at the point of sales places. The get entered immediately. Afterwards the salesperson prints out the contract and the customer has to sign it. In the USA the customers are even signing on a touch pad for confirming the document. If you think that you have to fill forms for insurances, health care, loans, telecoms, etc. then you are wrong. A customer will not come a second time to the office for signing the form. He will go there, where his wish will get fulfilled immediately. Today nobody will wait until his form will get prepared after weeks!

For all this reasons all the form filling processes are nothing else than SCAM.

 

Von: Balasubramaniam calcsoft <balasubramaniam.calcsoft@gmail.com>
an:  
bcc: an Sie
Datum: 1. Mai 2015 um 21:31
Betreff: NON VOICE CAMPAIGN AVAILABLE SIGN UP WITH MULTINATIONAL COMPANIES
Gesendet von: gmail.com
Signiert durch: gmail.com

Hello Sir/Mam
 
Please find the attachements 
 
As per your requirement on the projects pls go through the below details :
 
Step 1 : Need to select the process you want to start from the  provided details
 
Step 2 : If required to verify the SLA,  need to sign the NDA and we will provide the draft SLA for your reference.
 
Step 3 : After all the verification if you are interested to go ahead for the signup forward your Company profile
representative (in case of offline process).
 
Step 4 : Consultancy charge should be paid 
 
Step 4 : Based upon the above we will take a prior appointment with the client for the signup purpose and also  the agreement documents will be prepared.
 
Step 5 : On the fixed appointment we will make you meet the client,  you can discuss anything and everything with the client regarding the process.
 
Step 6 : Do the Signup 
                                                                                                                                                    
Once the signup is done your online training and demo work will start.
 
Captions of the Projects given below 
 
CONSUMER UTILITY BILL INDEXATION
 
E LOAN INSURANCE FORM FILLING
 
CIVIC ENUMERATION FORM FILLING
 
E-COMMERCE FORM FILLING PROCESS
 
FINANCIAL FORM FILLING
 
HEALTH INSURANCE FORM FILLING PROCESS
 
TELECOM FOR FILLING DETAILS
 
US HEALTH CARD PROCESS DETAILS
 
TELECOM_VERIFICATION_PROCESS_FORM_FILLING
 
MEDICAL_BILLING_FORM_FILLING
 
 
*DURATION OF CONTRACT: 11 MONTHS INITIALLY CAN BE EXTENDED UP TO 3 YEARS*
 
Interested centers please revert back asap with their company Profiles.
New centers will be also excepted, no need of experience.
 
 
 
Thanks & Regards
 
Balasubramaniam
CALC SOFT PVT LTD 
Skype id :balasubramaniam.calcsoft
Contact no:+917358203023

 

<pstyle="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;"="">Domain Name: CALCSOFT.NET
Registry Domain ID: 1724289207_DOMAIN_NET-VRSN
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Registrant Name: AMAZE SOFTWARE
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Registrant Street: 67/25
Registrant City: CHENNAI
Registrant State/Province: Tamil Nadu
Registrant Postal Code: 600080
Registrant Country: India
Registrant Phone: +91.9791240550
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Tech Organization: 
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Tech City: CHENNAI
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Tech Postal Code: 600080
Tech Country: India
Tech Phone: +91.9791240550
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Different kinds of dialer for call centers

Preview Dialer: In Preview mode, the agent starts by himself the next call (semi-automatic preview dialing) on a software-based selection process. The preview dialing ensures that the call center staff can preview the record from the customer database. If the agent triggers the call attempt by himself, he has also opportunity to prepare for the interview and detailed view (for example the contact history). The employee initiates the call either by using software or by manually dialing the telephone number.

Power Dialer: The dialer software automatically dials the next phone connection as soon as the processing of the previous record was completed by the agent. This can be done by the software on the client or on the central server. It can be set with an "overdial factor" that not only one but several telephone lines per agent get to be established. The dialing attempts are doing mostly displayed in the selection preview on the workplace of the agents. The first successful selection is presented. Other successful dialing attempts are distributed by chance on the next available agent. In the calculations involved, that usually not all numbers dialed indicate a dial tone, but might be busy or unavailable for other reasons. 

Predictive Dialer: Even with predictive dialing the telephone numbers of the contact list or database of the company or service provider get selected automatically. In addition, the dialer software monitored by mathematical methods continually in several ways, such as the current availability or the average call duration of each employee, and includes this in the calculation for the selections. The Predictive dialing is thus a forward-looking, self-adjusting dial. The predictive dialer controls the number of dial attempts per agent, taking into account the current and historical accessibility of customers and on the basis of the derived prediction. This not only minimizes the waiting time between two contacts of the agent, but also provides the ideal case that as many calls as possible are made without call attempts must be canceled. Lost connections causing the called phone rings, after picking up is no caller on the other end available or it rings only for a very short time (dropped call). Consumers perceive this as harassing or threatening.

Regulations:

In the UK, Ofcom requires that predictive dialers abandon less than 3% of answered calls on a daily basis. Ofcom also requires that if an agent is not available within 2 seconds the call is considered "abandoned" and an automated message is played. The automated message must identify the company making the call, the purpose of the call, a free phone or basic rate phone number to call back on and must not contain any form of marketing. A phone call to the return number must not be treated by the company as an opportunity to market, but to be removed from the calling list. In the UK "abandoned" calls must not be called back within 72 hours unless there is a dedicated agent available.

In the USA, if someone answers but no agent is available within 2 seconds of the person's greeting, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations consider the call "abandoned" and require the dialer to play a recorded message. The FCC requires that predictive dialers abandon less than 3% of answered calls.

In Canada, the maximum abandon rate is 5%, and calls cannot be made to numbers registered with the National Do Not Call Registry, emergency or health care providers.