Offshore Outsourcing & Scammer

An Australian company, with the name Syntel Pvt. Ltd. got registered on June 17, 2013. The "Founding Partner and Director at Syntel Pty Ltd" Amanjit Sahota writes by himself in his LinkedIn profile that he is since August 2014 Director of his own company, makes the company already very suspect. For me it shows that the company did not earn enough in the time from June 2013 until July 2014 for paying his salary and/or he got fired on his other job.

If I read additional in the year 2015 at http://syntel.com.au/why-syntel (2016-02-25: Link removed - Domain not exists): "We have spent the last 6 years perfecting VOIP (Voice Over IP) phone systems which means you can take advantage of the internet to make cheaper, often free calls." than I know that they are notorious liars or they are not able to calculate by using their brain and have not enough money for a pocket calculator. Both is in business worse.

If such a person even does not understand the difference between a LinkedIn company page and a LinkedIn personal profile, then it shows that the person seems have a real problem understanding any rules in business. If I read additional in his profile that his language is Punjabi then I think already about a post forwarding service and not about a local company in Australia.

Anyway the business amateur Amajit Sohota has sent me from his "personal company" profile at LinkedIn the following offer:

G`day Rudolf,

How are ya?

Many thanks for accepting my invite.

The reason I am getting in touch is that we have large presence in Manila and we are growing fast. We have a couple of ex-pats, from Australia, who are recommending our Hosted VPBX Services to customers in Manila. This is going great and I was wondering if this would be something we could partner up with?

The Dealer Agreement is a pretty straight forward arrangement whereby you locate possible opportunities, scope them out and then recommend us to them. We then take care of the rest. If they sign up we are happy to pay the following, which to date is the largest number of seats we have had come on board through a referral in one go:

5,000 Seat Opportunity.
5000 x $10 = $50,000 Up Front Fee

This particular customer went for the $49.95 All inclusive plan.
Therefore the trail is as follows: 5000 x $49.95 = $249,750.00 10% Trail = $24,975.00 Per Month for the 36 Months of the contract.

Most customers opt for either the $15 plan or the $49.95, depending on their needs. There are plans in between, they do not get much take up. We can be bespoke, if the opportunity requires, just let us know and we can amend accordingly. We pride ourselves on being proactive and dynamic.

As you can see the figures are inviting, for the right opportunity. This is, to date, the largest opportunity we have had in Manila.

Please do get back to me on: amanjit@syntel.com.au if this of interest.

My Director of Support will be in Manila in early December and would be happy to meet up, to discuss further. I will be up in early February, so happy to meet then, if that suits.

Enjoy your day and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Thanks!

Ammo
0427 550 566
1300 739 885
amanjit@syntel.com.au

I really cannot believe that one owner of a 5,000 seat call center can be so stupid to sign-up with such a suspicious company. Does such a call center owner not think about the risk what he has with only one business partner? Such a center needs to get divided into a few sections to reduce the risk of a fail. A serious consultant will warn such people and reject the job if the call center owner does not understand the risk. One example of the risk: If the Internet connection from the place of the center drops for an hour the damage would be 5,000 working hours of his agents! The same can happen with the power connection of the center - only the Internet connection drops normally more often than the power connection.

As the email address provided in the offer is from an Australian domain I think that the prices are in Australian Dollars. Based on the exchange rate from today the up-front fee of AU$ 50,000 has the value of US$ 35,499.51 and the offer the monthly payment from AU$ 24,975 has the value of US$ 17,732.

Nowhere is written what is all included in the "all inclusive" offer. It seems to be only important for Amanjit Sahota to make money instead of explaining his offer. I would kick out such a salesman from my company. VoIP minutes cannot be included because they are different from country to country, from provider to provider and if fixed or mobile phones are get called. The local computers from the centers and the Internet connection of the center cannot be included too because the price is depending on the region of the world. In this case in the "all inclusive" offer can be only be included can the basic hosting and the rental of a phone system. For this is the offered price nothing else than profiteering.

To my reply "Maybe you need to rethink your offer and compare your prices with others on the international market", I got the answer:

G`day Rudolf,

How are ya?

Thanks for the message. We have Call Centres which are primarily for Overseas Clients, so our rates are good for them. Happy to discuss what would work with you.

Thanks!

Ammo

It seems to be his sales strategy. I don't think that he would be really successful with this strategy.

Let us make a simple calculation example: I would take for security reasons at 4 SQL server, which are storing the data, the configuration of the phone systems and the call detail records. The price for one sql server hardware is around US$ 1,000. In sum we spend US$ 4,000 for our datastorage system. Additonal I would use for 500 seats one phone system based on Linux and Asterisk (Asterisk itself, GoAutoDial or a similar product). The price for one of these phone systems is around US$ 500. As I need 10 from them I spend in sum US$ 5,000. As Linux, Asterisk, GoAutoDial is open source I don't need to pay something for the software and I have enough capacity for a failover in the case that one system dies. Each of the phone systems will get connected to different Internet providers. This will enhance the failover possibilities and reduces the risk of an Internet drop. As more different VoIP providers I'll use as higher would get my security in the case of an error. I even can make a least cost routing between the chosen VoIP providers.

If we take now the above calculation in sum then I have spent until now only US$ 9,000 for the hardware. If I like to use the MS SQL server instead of a Linux open source SQL server than I need to spend additional US$ 650 for the Windows Server Software and US$ 4000 for the MS SQL Server. As I'm using 4 SQL-Server I have to spend in this case US$ 18,600 for the software. Even if we are now counting everything together we spend in sum US$ 27,600. That is even less than the up-front fee from the offer from Syntel Pvt. Ltd. (US$ 35,499.51). I would even make personally the complete server setup for the center for less than the half of the remaining US$ 7,899.517, which this solution is cheaper then the up-front costs from Syntel Pvt. Ltd.

The savings of my suggestion are in this case the "very small" amount of US$ 24.975 each month for 36 months of the contract. That makes the "little" sum of US$ 899,100 during 3 years of operation.

Update November 23, 2015: Syntel sent a message that in the "all inclusive" Plan is VoIP included:

G`day Rudolf,

How are ya? Hope you had a great weekend.

The All Inclusive Plans included All Local/National Calls All 1300/1800 Numbers and All Mobile calls.

Hope that assist. Enjoy the rest of your day.

Thanks!

A call center is working 17 hours a day (call time between 8 am and 9 pm additional 4 time zones on the continent) and 6 days a week calling the U.S. If we take now the minutes generated from a single agent then we need to multiply 60 minutes per hour * 17 hours a day * 26 days per month to see the result of 26,520 minutes an agent is generating during one month. If we divide now the difference between the standard plan and the all inclusive plan (AU$ 34.95 = US$ 25.26) then we see that this sum got offered as flat rate from some VoIP providers for private users. These VoIP providers, which have offered such a flat rate, are getting found now at the VoIP cemetery. The reason is very simple found. We need only divide the US$ 25.26 by the generated minutes from one agent during one month - 26,520. The result is rounded US$ 0.00095249. This minute price is far under the value which are the telecom companies billing under each other for the minutes. Each minute will generate a loss in this case. Not one company will pay you for using their lines.

The all inclusive offer is even worse and the loss for the phone companies higher for the case that this offer is restricted to the Australian phone numbers. The Australian free phone numbers 1300/1800 are not getting called from call centers because call centers need to sell something and not speak with customer services. The interconnect exchange rate is for Australia even at least 10 times higher than from U.S. phone companies. The agent is only 1 hour less generating per day because Australia has only 3 time zones on the continent.

In each of the articles about the Caribbean Cruise Line (CCL) – Virtual Voice Technology (VVT) is getting found that the center is guilty by themselves if they are accepting the conditions from The Marketing Source. Business is a risk and not a sandpit where nothing can happen. Even in the email from Robbie Middleton is stated gets found that this campaign “is a VERY tough campaign with tight margins”.

The campaign gets offered as none voice campaign where the agent does not need to speak. That is nothing else than a misleading promotion, because if we take a look at the article “FTC Statement Virtual Voice Technology - CallAssistant, L.C. - submitted by The Marketing Source - Vance Vogel” then we can read that the agent is free in his choice to speak or playing prerecorded messages. The background of the FTC-rule is that it has to be a life agent to be available that the live agent has to speak with the called one if a recording is not available for answering a specific question. It will be seldom happen, but it can happen.

The statement that only Lars is offering the CCL campaign is not correct. Robbie Middleton has simple forgotten that he is offering the campaign at BPO Friends by himself too. Everybody can be sure that other companies have voice systems too, which are conform to the FTC rules.  TMS is not the only company, which has access to such a system. It is only used as an argument for their rip-off. US$ 200/week system costs + VoIP (up to $ 275) for 12 seats (24 connections) are nothing else than profiteering.

We have built for an Austrian satellite TV broadcaster a similar system with click to dial, manual selection of prerecordings and a few more features like play and win, live quiz, dating, shopping, etc. in a multi-language system (German, English, French, Spanish, Polnish), for € 1,450 (~US$ 1,615) including server hardware. This system has assigned 2,200 phone numbers, on this system are working 250 agents and a few full automated services like every 50th caller goes live into the studio, each 100th caller is winning a price, etc. at the same time.

It is not forbidden to make a bad deal. Everybody, who accepting a bad deal, is guilty by himself if he lose money in such a case. It is only from a company expected to recognize a good and a bad deal. If a company defends such a bad deal then such a company is in my opinion very suspect and there seems to be a reason why they are defending such a bad deal. Mostly is the reason that they are earning by themselves.

The construction of the included proof from the email shows more that it is a fake instead of a proof.  I think that CCL and TMS have enough experience in front of the law court collected to know how a proof has to look like. In this case the proof consists of pictures (one company header, and one picture for each “invoice” line), which seems to be from different sources. Such a construction is nowhere accepted as a proof for anything. All necessary parts for an official invoice are missing. It seems even to be a secret to whom the invoice got sent.

In a fair and transparent business is it usage that as soon as a customer likes to use his own or rented systems has the customer to pay the bill for it. How the customer makes his calculation in this case is the problem of the customer and not the problem of the service provider. Already the promotion of the campaign is misleading because there is written “The base rate is $ 2.25 per transfer with additional performance incentives based on quality” (BPO Friends - Robbie Middleton, .pdf (187.38 kb)). In such a case the rate cannot be lower than $ 2.25 for the >60 seconds transfer, but if we take a look at the document VVT CPD Explanation.docx (17.84 kb) we see that the base rate can be lower too.

The email from Robbie Middleton in reaction to my article "Slavery offer: CCL VVT none Voice or Semi-Voice campaign - The Marketing Source - Vance Vogel":

On Fri, Sep 4, 2015 at 6:05 PM, Robbie Middleton <rmiddleton@themarketingsource.com> wrote:

Rudolph,

What your source neglected to tell you is that there is a list of requirements VVT sends centers at the time of campaign implementation and VVT makes NO claims that this is an easy campaign at any time.  VVT does not even recruit centers at all.  Every center VVt have has either approached VVT via word of mouth or through Lars.  Lars is the ONLY approved broker for the VVT campaign.  VVT actually tell the centers that this is a VERY tough campaign with tight margins and very clearly state all charges.  99% of all center that fail, do so because they do not follow our guidelines.  It is absolutely, positively cheaper and easier to dial using the centers own VOIP and dialer, unfortunately this is ILLEGAL per the TCPA laws as well as infractions of the Telemarketing Sales Rule that would undoubtedly occur if the call centers were not regulated.    TMS and/or VVT receives no profit Login and VOIP charges.  I have copied the most recent invoice for logins associated with 4 centers Lars has referred and feel free to confirm the same with the company that invoices us as well as Lars.  This is the actual amount deducted from the centers commissions and not a penny more.  You can see that VVT IS CHARGED $10/login.  VVT pre-pays this expense on behalf of the centers so they do not have any up-front expense of their own.  VVT provides Leads, VOIP and Logins so they can LAUNCH without investing ANY of their own money.    VVT then deducts this Login and VOIP expense from the centers earned commissions.  There is no charge for leads.  We disperse the amount VVT loads each for VOIP each week evenly amongst all centers based on their percentage of total logins.  We do not profit from this expense either.  Regarding “CPD” and what your source failed to tell you is that VVT is paid by the cruise line on a CPD (Cost Per Deal) basis.  Each centers quality is tracked separately and a quantitative measure of quality is attached to their transfers in terms of “CPD”.  We cannot let centers send calls “at will” with no concern for quality as many of them (even with the CPD +/- structure in place) send calls with no customer on the line, transfer answering machines, transfer customers that requested DNC, etc….. I will send you the complete VVT launch e-mail just as I would a prospective center so you can see the truth.  The fact that VVT must implement so many rules and guidelines is indeed most unfortunate, but don’t let your source fool you into thinking we are “screwing” them.  Rules and guidelines are in place to adhere to all applicable laws and to protect VVT from unethical centers.  We have centers that have been doing the campaign for more than 3 years now and while it isn’t easy, it CAN be profitable when guidelines are adhered to. 

The above email had the following five pictures included as shown belown: 

The invoice header seems to be a fake because I did not find until now one IT company frome the U.S.

• where the office phone number is hidden for privacy reasons from the public phone directory
  
  
• where the office phone number is assigned to Google voice
  
  
• where tel2name.com gives the result: 727-753-9323 - Deane Arteaga Wisteria Cir New Port Richey, Florida instead of Sun Bridge Systems LLC.
  
  
• which writes their own domain name in the heaer of the invoice wrong
  (subbridgesystems.com instead of sunbridgesystems.com)
  
  
• which needs to hide the ownership of their domain behind a privacy service
  
  
• which makes since 2 years and 5 months promotions at her homepage for their registrar Godaddy
  
  
• which has since 2 years and 5 months a homepage with the amazing content
  
  
  
• Buzzfile.com says about SUN BRIDGE SYSTEMS LLC:
  Sun Bridge Systems is located in Oldsmar, Florida. This organization primarily operates in the Business Services, nec business / industry within the Business Services sector. This organization has been operating for approximately 2 years. Sun Bridge Systems is estimated to generate $ 49,000 in annual revenues, and employs approximately 1 people at this single location.

SUN BRIDGE SYSTEMS, LLC is really a company and is listed at Floridas Department of State Division of Corporations (.pdf (119.20 kb)). The company got founded on March 11, 2013 at 5520 Rio Vista Dr., Clearwater, FL. 33760 (Link, .pdf (43.19 kb)) and relocated on April 1, 2014 to 518 Lakewood Dr., Oldsmar, FL 34677 (Link, .pdf (3.30 kb)).

Interesting is that LookUpBear (.pdf (118.69 kb)) tell us that the company SUN BRIDGE SYSTEMS, LLC is listed "under the heading Construction/Contractors which includes businesses that may offer home improvement construction, home construction, roofers, manufacturing of building materials". I know that we all would search for a telcommunications company in exactly this category!

Update Jan. 18, 2017: Link to http://bpofriends.com/profiles/blogs/vvt-free-cruise-non-voice-process removed as it already returns error 404 - not found.

This campaign offer is not a scam, but in summary is it even worse than a SCAM because the client likes even to earn from the call center. But the centers are guilty by themselves, if they are accepting the conditions in the contract. Each business owner need to know what he is doing and he is responsible for his own decision.

The client is Caribbean Cruise Line, Inc. located at 2419 E Commercial Blvd Ste 100, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33308-4042, website http://www.bahamascruiseregistration.com. By taking a look at the website of the U.S. Better Business Bureau (BBB) then we’ll find about the Caribbean Cruise Line, Inc. that there have been during the last 3 years 1,253 complaints closed with the BBB from which have been 335 during the last 12 months. Already this shows which kind of business this company is running and how they are handling their customers. You’ll find at the site a government action too, which you can find in my article “FTC and ten state attorneys general take action against political survey robocallers pitching cruise line vacations to the Bahamas”.

Responsible for this campaign is The Marketing Source, Inc. located in 12551 Indian Rocks Rd. Suite 2, Largo., FL 33774 with owner Vance Vogel. A Robbie Middleton is promoting this campaign and makes the billing for this campaign. I don’t know if the conditions for this campaign got invented from the Caribbean Cruise Line, Inc. or from The Marketing Source, Inc. It does not really matter, but these conditions are a simple rip-off for the call centers which are working for them:

• The center is requited to use their CallAssistant System. The center has to pay $10 per week and per connection. The center is required to have at least 10 agents where each agent needs to handle 2 connections at the same time.
  That does not sound very much, but it is at least $200 per week and the center does not really get something for it. My opinion is that profiteering because the phone system itself has a value of around $500 - $600 and the CallAssistant system can only get used for the CCL campaign. This one which likes that this system has to get used has to pay for it. The call center has no benefit from it.
  
  
• CPD (Cost Per Deal) factor (see the Word document VVT CPD Explanation.docx (17.84 kb))
  The CPD reduces or increases the payout for the successful transfer. Already the name proves the cheat. The client does not have any costs per deal as the center gets billed for usage of their systems and for the VoIP minutes. Whether Caribbean Cruise Lines neither The Marketing Source is able to give an explanation for these costs per deal. With other words they like to make money from the call center.
  
  The costs per deal are even getting increased (lower payout for the center) for the following conditions:
  
  • Transferring a call where no customer was on the line
    Each cold called customer will hang up if he needs to wait too long for a transfer. In this case is not the call center which is transferring the call guilty
    
    
  • Transferring a call where the customer was not interested
    That depends on the mood of the agent which is picking up the line during the life transfer too and cannot get controlled from the sending center.
    
    
  • Transferring a call where the customer did not have a credit or debit card
    If the agent which picks up the line is not friendly or says the wrong words, I'll say that I have no credit cards too even if I have said before that I have one. Such a case can get proved by listening the recordings of the sending center only.
    
    
  • Transferring a call where mandatory recordings were not played
    If the CallAssistant system is good instead of quick and dirty programmed, then the transfer would not be possible if the mandatory recordings were not played.

  I have seen by myself that additional to the above rules is the transfer counter working wrong. It are getting 40% more transfers counted as really happened and it are getting calls transferred without any action of the agent. All this failures seems to have the only purpose to minimize the payout of the call center.

• The center is to required to buy VoIP from them
  Together with the other facts is this behaviour strange, because this one, which pays for it has to be able to chose the provider to buy from. As The Marketing Source Inc. and/or the Caribbean Cruise Lines Inc. are showing at the points above that they even try to earn by profiteering from the call centers are even here only end user prices billed and not reseller prices.

By taking a look at the website of Caribbean Cruise Line Inc. (http://www.bahamascruiseregistration.com/) we see that their business model is not a trusted one and in not conform with any fair trading standards. At Google are getting a lot more complaints about the Caribbean Cruise Line Inc. found. I list here only a few. At Cruise Critic we can find that the passengers have to participate at a five hours timeshare presentation. At CBS news you can read how their customer get handled and your lead destroyed at the call center you’ll transfer the customer. Some of their methods are getting described at the Rip-Off Report, Complaints Board and Jim Walker’s Cruise Law News. Even at the customer reviews of the U.S. Better Business Bureau are 75% reporting a negative experience, 66.67% will not recommend and 33.33% are undecided in recommending this company.

You see how the Caribbean Cruise Lines Inc. is handling their customers. Think about it how you will get handled from them as their supplier! A result can be looking like the following weekly billings sent out from The Marketing Source – Robbie Middleton:

Everybody which is working with such a company like Caribbean Cruise Lines Inc. need not wondering himself if the shit from them is coloring themselves too! A business which has during the last 3 years in average 1.15 complaints to get handled per day from the U.S. Better Business Bureau is fighting for the last cent until a government institution will force them to pay. A serious business will avoid to get listed in such a way at the U.S. Better Business Bureau.

Brokers are getting paid from their client to find call centers doing their campaigns and for this the broker are not asking if the center can make profit or not. Scammers like Omer Ali - Oceanspace Innovative service pvt Ltd are offering this campaign against an up-front fee of 2 Lakhs (INR 200,000 ~ US$ 3,014). You can now calculate yourself that in the case you get the campaign from the scammer and you make some little earnings with this campaign that you'll need years for getting your up-front fees back.

Domain registration data from themarketingsource.com:

Domain Name: THEMARKETINGSOURCE.COM
Registry Domain ID: 1502506868_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.godaddy.com
Registrar URL: http://www.godaddy.com
Update Date: 2014-06-13T14:33:04Z
Creation Date: 2008-06-26T18:43:43Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2017-06-26T18:43:43Z
Registrar: GoDaddy.com, LLC
Registrar IANA ID: 146
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: abuse@godaddy.com
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.4806242505
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
Domain Status: clientUpdateProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientUpdateProhibited
Domain Status: clientRenewProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientRenewProhibited
Domain Status: clientDeleteProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientDeleteProhibited
Registry Registrant ID:
Registrant Name: Vance Vogel
Registrant Organization: The Marketing Source, Inc
Registrant Street: 12551 Indian Rocks
Registrant City: Largo
Registrant State/Province: Florida
Registrant Postal Code: 33774
Registrant Country: United States
Registrant Phone: +1.7272167773
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax:
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: admin@themarketingsource.com
Registry Admin ID:
Admin Name: Vance Vogel
Admin Organization: The Marketing Source, Inc
Admin Street: 12551 Indian Rocks
Admin City: Largo
Admin State/Province: Florida
Admin Postal Code: 33774
Admin Country: United States
Admin Phone: +1.7272167773
Admin Phone Ext:
Admin Fax:
Admin Fax Ext:
Admin Email: sales@themarketingsource.com
Registry Tech ID:
Tech Name: Vance Vogel
Tech Organization: The Marketing Source, Inc
Tech Street: 12551 Indian Rocks
Tech City: Largo
Tech State/Province: Florida
Tech Postal Code: 33774
Tech Country: United States
Tech Phone: +1.7272167773
Tech Phone Ext:
Tech Fax:
Tech Fax Ext:
Tech Email: sales@themarketingsource.com
Name Server: NS8047.HOSTGATOR.COM
Name Server: NS8048.HOSTGATOR.COM
DNSSEC: unsigned
URL of the ICANN WHOIS Data Problem Reporting System: http://wdprs.internic.net/
>>> Last update of WHOIS database: 2015-09-01T7:00:00Z <<<

Update September 5, 2015: Vance Vogel from The Marketing Source sent a statement from the FTC under which conditions prerecorded messages are allowed to getting played. This statement can get found in the article "FTC Statement Virtual Voice Technology - CallAssistant, L.C. - submitted by The Marketing Source - Vance Vogel"

Update September 7, 2015: Robbie Middleton from The Marketing Source sent a statement. This statement can get found in the article "The Marketing Source - Robbie Middleton - sent a bad joke instead of a proof"