Offshore Outsourcing & Scammer

Blog about offshore outsourcing and scammer in the outsourcing industry

Fraud or Fact: Infinite Business Connection, LLC - IBC LLC - infinitebusinessconnection.com - Ron Guzman

Infinite Business Connection, LLCI got forwarded an email from Infinite Business Connection LLC, Mr. Ron Guzman, that they company got cheated from their business partners. That is a pity for Infinite Business Connection LLC, but that the risk of the company, Infinite Business Connection LLC is responsible for all the centers, which have a contract with them and not with the client directly. That means if Infinite Business Connection LLC has no possible to prove the data reported by the centers, then they have to accept and pay what the centers are reporting.

Other would it be if Infinite Business Connection LLC is only a broker and is working for the client. In such a case the centers have a direct contract with the client and need to try to get their outstanding payment from the client directly.

In any case is the situation difficult. Infinite Business Connection LLC owes a lot of money to the centers. From one site I know that more than $4900 are outstanding. It will be now on the centers to go into conference with maybe some other available creditors and decide about the next steps. If there is no compromise with the shareholder of Infinite Business Connection LLC possible (acceptable payment plan), then Infinite Business Connection LLC goes into bankruptcy. Read more about bankruptcy at Nolo.com. Maybe you can make the shareholder liable for the bankruptcy. In such case you can get a higher percentage in the case of a bankruptcy.

A promised payment of $150, which the recipient did not receive until now is in any case a bad joke as there are in sum $4910 open.

I recommend all involved call centers to use the service of Steve Mertensmeyer (email: SPMERTENSMEYER@MYRSCREDIT.COM, phone: +1-816-421-1919) for retrieving their outstanding money.

The forwarded email:

Infinite Business Connection, LLC (“IBC LLC”) 
located at 79422 Highway 41, Bush, LA 70431
Mr. Ron Guzman
Phone - + 19857464766 (mobile) and +19857464766 (office)
skype - ron.guzman
 
You can read the below messages that he committed to me over the skype and
only this proves that he has not given me the complete reports and payout is still
pending. Please let me know if u need further details.
 
To all partner centers:
 
I have always been 100% open and transparent with my partners.  I don’t lie, or hide anything.  I want to take the time to explain to you what has happened with my partnership and what we are doing to move forward with Home Security Lead Generation.
 
As you know, I went in to a partnership with a large Master Dealer in the Home Security industry.  He was in charge of the closers, and technical side of the business while I was in charge of bringing on and training the fronters.  Since he held the contract with the Home Security companies, all pay would go through him, and then be sent to me.  In return, I would pay the call centers.  We quickly grew from 20 fronters to well over 200 fronters.  We had many technical issues as well as issues with the closers and training.  Then, to make the situation worse, my “partner” bounced a large check to me and stopped paying me.  Now, he is not answering my phone calls or messages.
 
I have been working over the last several days on invoicing.  This has been very difficult, because I have to look at each individual phone number and compare it to different spreadsheets.  In addition, I have several days of reporting that are missing, and no record of any installations.  I plan on having this completed in the next day or two with the exception of the missing information.  I am very sorry for the delay.  I am doing everything I can to complete this as quickly as possible.  
 
Moving forward:  I have contacted an old friend in the home security industry who has been looking for call centers to generate leads for him.  If I have not already moved your center over to my new client, please get a hold of me right away.  You can start within 2 to 3 days with the new campaign.  My new client is an investment banker, and is very well funded.  He has access to an almost unlimited number of closers and has purchased an entire 250-seat call center to house the closers.  The computer CRM (dialer/crm/avatar) is being built custom by his own in-house programmers.  It is not an “off the shelf” product.  I have seen demo screen shots, and it will be the best in the industry.  Unfortunately, as with anything new, it is taking longer to build the entire system then was expected.  The dialer is working now with only a few minor glitches (which is improving daily), and the Avatar will be complete within a few days.  Again, if you have not already done so, please contact me right away and we can get you set up dialing live voice, and then move to avatar as soon as it is ready.
 
I appreciate your patience during this transition, and your understanding while I am working to not only finalize everything with the old campaign, but also start with the new campaign.
 
Thanks again! 
Ron
 
Your invoice is just about complete.  The $150 wire is still pending, and I just received the Western Union return today.  I promise to have everything to you tomorrow.

The registration data of infinitebusinessconnection.com:

Domain Name: INFINITEBUSINESSCONNECTION.COM
Registry Domain ID: 1841041632_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.godaddy.com
Registrar URL: http://www.godaddy.com
Update Date: 2015-01-19T19:04:35Z
Creation Date: 2014-01-01T17:02:30Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2016-01-01T17:02:30Z
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: Ron Guzman
Registrant Organization: Main Grain
Registrant Street: Post Office Box 1185
Registrant City: Abita Springs
Registrant State/Province: Louisiana
Registrant Postal Code: 70420
Registrant Country: United States
Registrant Phone: (985) 875-1253
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax: 
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: ron@maingrain.com
Registry Admin ID: 
Admin Name: Ron Guzman
Admin Organization: Main Grain
Admin Street: Post Office Box 1185
Admin City: Abita Springs
Admin State/Province: Louisiana
Admin Postal Code: 70420
Admin Country: United States
Admin Phone: (985) 875-1253
Admin Phone Ext:
Admin Fax: 
Admin Fax Ext:
Admin Email: ron@maingrain.com
Registry Tech ID: 
Tech Name: Ron Guzman
Tech Organization: Main Grain
Tech Street: Post Office Box 1185
Tech City: Abita Springs
Tech State/Province: Louisiana
Tech Postal Code: 70420
Tech Country: United States
Tech Phone: (985) 875-1253
Tech Phone Ext:
Tech Fax: 
Tech Fax Ext:
Tech Email: ron@maingrain.com
Name Server: NS09.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
Name Server: NS10.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
DNSSEC: unsigned
URL of the ICANN WHOIS Data Problem Reporting System: http://wdprs.internic.net/
Last update of WHOIS database: 2015-5-18T3:00:00Z

Please observe that the address provided at the domain registration is different to this provided at the website:

Infinite Business Connection

Covington, LA

Telephone:  985.746.4766

FAX:  985.746.4766

E-mail: ron@infinitebusinessconnection.com

 

Do you like to know why the offshore call center industry is going down?

law hammerIf we take a look at the European Data Protection Directive from 1995, followed by the Data Protection Act 1998 and the General Data Protection Regulation from 2012 then you’ll find out that personal data are not allowed to get stored as absolutely necessary. The company, which stores personal data, is full responsible for the usage a misusage of the data. A similar law is in the United States available too. There are even the fines for a misusage of personal data higher. 

In any case is the company, which has stored the data, in front of the law court responsible for the correct usage of the stored data and this one will get prosecuted first. If the company cannot guarantee that their data are protected then they cannot give it offshore for processing them in any way.

As we see in the following example taken from Facebook how this data are getting traded, nobody will take the risk and outsource some of his data processing where personal data are involved. This is an actual offer from Facebook. I have copied the content and marked the important sentence red. A screenshot gets found at the end of this article:

Aakash Gupta and 3 others commented on this.

 
 

How to Start a BPO (Own Business) ?

 
Like · Comment · 

 

The source of a data set, which is offered like above, can easily found by comparing the credit card data. You need only to compare the data with the data of the credit card companies. In such a case you’ll find out at which shop or company all this credit cards got used in common.

So for what reason a company shall outsource offshore if this industry is not trustful? They have to pay the fine for something what they are not feeling themselves guilty. The fine is higher than processing the data inside their own company.

Such black sheep in the offshore outsourcing industry have destroyed the whole industry. Nobody has done something against them, because everybody has been looking only at his earning. Now you get presented the bill for your greed and laziness.

Only offshore partner, which can prove that they are trustful, will have a chance to survive - all others will perish.

DO YOU REALLY THINK THAT SOMEONE WILL PAY YOU FOR BRINGING HIM INTO TROUBLES?

 

Facebook campaign offers from Amit Girje

 

Dubious "award winning free cloud based software for contact centers"

Some dubious offers of an "award winning free cloud based software for contact centers" are not really free of charge. There you have even to pay for incoming calls. Why do you need to pay for something what you can get FOR FREE?

Call CenterIf you take a look at all the "Award winning" contact center solutions at news.tmcnet.com and you read about the connection between TMC and the magazine Customer, then you'll know that this "awards" are only for making advertisements in their magazines. There is no reason listed why this software should be better than the other ones. So they have even not seen the software for giving their awards, or does anybody really think that they could make a test of 27 call/contact center software within one year? They are producing a newspaper for consumer and not a call/contact center magazine.

if we take a look at the promoted "FREE" Fenero offer and scroll a down nearly to the end of the site, then we see that the software is only in their cloud system available. There is written:

There are no software costs for Fenero - ever. You simply pay for the following, which helps us keep the lights on and continue to provide you with great service:
  • $1.75 per month for a local DID
  • $2.00 per month for a toll-free DID
  • $0.02 cents per minute for inbound (local & toll-free) and outbound calls
  • $0.02 cents per session for live customer chats
  • $0.10 cents per GB of screen recording storage (call recordings are FREE)
  • $250 per month for support (optional paid support plan)

If we are comparing the costs then the price for the VoIP minutes are 3-4 times higher than the offer from the listed VoIP providers in my blog and you will get even charged for the incoming calls. For this are the "NO HIDDEN COSTS" written nearly at the end of page. The price for the VoIP minutes written on the page are only for US calls. Prices for calls to other countries are not available or the same 3-4 times more expensive then other offers. In the case if they are 3-4 times higher than other offers, then it will be very expensive for contact centers calling mobile phones in other countries. Don't forget the Fenero software is only an addon to the base Asterisk system. This information is found at http://www.fenero.com/reliable-scalable/.

 

Sperian Engergy - How call center marketing can go into the wrong direction

From a posting in the social network Sperian Engergy has been coming into my focus. I decided to ask for more info and got the following response:

Thank you for reaching out, sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner. We are looking for centers that can commit more than 10 existing seats to selling electricity in our Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, New Jersey, Maryland and/or New York markets. We pay a Cost per Acquisition commission and each center purchases their own leads. We consistently maintain competitive rate plans in all markets. If this is something you feel your center can assist in, let me know and I will send over commissions, agreements, etc. for your review. This year we are focusing on less partners and building up the production seats with the partners we choose to bring on. We want the best relationships with the best partners.

Sperian EnergySean Wise
Channel Manager
Sperian Energy
O: 702-757-2691
C: 408-355-3480
www.sperianenergy.com

On the first view the offer does not look so bad and does not differ to the standard offers at LinkedIn. As they are searching for a few call centers, which need to buy their own leads, are the following questions open:

 

  • How are the centers coordinate their leads?
  • How the centers can exclude already existing customers from Sperian Energy from calling them?

 

I also have taken a look at the website of Sperian Engergy for getting some price information. There you'll find that you have enter the zip code for a price information. Ok, take it easy and revoke a few zip codes from the US. The site mapsofworld.com let you select the country, state and town/city. 

I have taken tried three cities from Illionois:

County/BoroughTown/CityZipcode
Montgomery Hillsboro 62049
Rock Island Hampton 61256
Washington Nashville 62263

The result has been negative: We do not currently offer service in the area for the zip code entered. Please check back soon or call us for immediate assistance at 888.682.8082.

How a call center can offer in such a case a change of the energy provider, if the prices cannot get announced? To say only that we are the best and cheapest is not enough to convince people.

My summary: The same way like Sperian Engergy is searching for the best call center, the call centers are searching for the best partners. The problem is only that Sperian Engergy is at the moment even not a good partner for a call center as long as they are not doing their homework. Maybe they even don't have enough income to update their own database or they like to find customers, which like to change their energy provider first. In both cases is this not a good campaign for a call center. Call Centers can expect that they not getting paid for their work, because their referred customers are not living in the supported area from Sperian Energy. The referred customers are kept by them for a future expansion. As they don't expect to pay something, they even did not offer any amount per referred customer in their offer.

I think that the way Sperian Energy is making their offer, that they are only time waster or they are even not sure what they like. The information given in the email could be written in their posting at LinkedIn too. In such a case they would make some better impressions to their future partners. I expected to get more information then only marketing blah blah on my request.

The first impression a company makes is important for a business relationship. Sperian Energy made the impression of a time waster for me. Call centers have something better to do than to beg for more information.

I think too, that the same way they handle the call centers they are handling their customers, which does not lead them to a good reputation. Sperian Energy need to get more than a very good call center. They need to replace at least their marketing manager and the responsible staff, which has sent me such an email.

Gmail - LinkedIn - Sperian Energy is looking to add Call Centers.pdf (220.8KB)

 

Open Source Call Center Software: GOautodial - easy and FREE OF CHARGE

GOautodial is an open source web based call center system based on CentOS. It automatically installs the GOautodial applications (GOadmin, GOreports and GOagent), Vicidial, Mysql, PHP, Asterisk, Limesurvey and other open source software to have a fully functional call center system. An open source predictive dialer and inbound IVR + ACD system that rocks.

GOautodial is based on the Asterisk framework, which is sponsored by Digium. The Asterisk project started in 1999 when Mark Spencer released the initial code under the GPL open source license. Since that time, it has been enhanced and tested by a global community of thousands. Today, Asterisk is maintained by the combined efforts of Digium and the Asterisk community.

Today, there are more than one million Asterisk-based communications systems in use, in more than 170 countries. Asterisk is used by almost the entire Fortune 1000 list of customers. Most often deployed by system integrators and developers, Asterisk can become the basis for a complete business phone system, or used to enhance or extend an existing system, or to bridge a gap between systems.

GOautodial Major Features:

  • Inbound, Outbound and Blended call handling
  • Broadcast and survey dialing
  • Web-based applications
  • Wizard based configurations
  • Full call recording
  • Scalable to hundreds of seats
  • USA, UK and Canada call compliance
  • VoIP trunks and standard Telco lines
  • Support for Sangoma and Digium cards
  • Open-Source GPLv2 licensed, with no software licensing cost

 

Full Features List (based from the Vicidial engine):

  • Ability for an agent to call clients in succession from a database through a web-client
  • Ability to display a script for the agent to read with fields like name, address, etc. filled-in
  • Ability to set a campaign to auto-dial and send live calls to available agents
  • Ability to dial predictively in a campaign with an adaptive dialing algorithm
  • Ability to dial on a single campaign across multiple Asterisk servers, or multiple campaigns on a single server
  • Ability to transfer calls with customer data to a closer/verifier on the local system or a remote Asterisk server
  • Ability to open a custom web page with user data from the call, per campaign
  • Ability to autodial campaigns to start with a simple IVR then direct to agent
  • Ability to broadcast dial to customers with a pre-recorded message
  • Ability to park the customer with custom music per campaign
  • Ability to send a dropped call to a voicemail box, queue or extension per campaign if no agent is available
  • Ability to set outbound CallerID per campaign or per list
  • Ability to take inbound calls gathering CallerID
  • Ability to function as an ACD for inbound and fronter/closer verification calls
  • Ability to have an agent take both inbound and outbound calls in one session(blended)
  • Ability to start and stop recording an agent's calls at any time
  • Ability to automatically record all calls
  • Ability to manually or automatically call upto two other customer numbers for the same lead
  • Automatically dial unlimited alternate numbers per customer until you get an answer
  • Ability to schedule a callback with a customer as either any-agent or agent-specific
  • Ability in Manual dial mode to preview leads before dialing
  • Ability for agents to be logged in remotely anywhere with just a phone and a web browser
  • Faster hangup and dispositioning of calls with one key press (HotKeys)
  • Definable Agent Wrapup-time per campaign
  • Ability to add custom call dispositions per campaign
  • Ability to use custom database queries in campaign dialing
  • Recycling of specified status calls at a specified interval without resetting a list
  • Dialing with custom TimeZone restrictions including per state and per day-of-the-week
  • Dialing with Answering Machine Detection, also playing a message for AM calls
  • Multiple campaigns and lead-lists are possible
  • Option of a drop timer with safe-harbor message for FTC compliance
  • Variable drop call percentage when dialing predictively for FTC compliance
  • System-wide and per-campaign DNC lists that can optionally be activated per campaign
  • All calls are logged and statuses of calls are logged as well as agent time breakdowns
  • Load Balancing of call across multiple inbound or outbound Asterisk servers is possible
  • Agent phone login balancing and failover across multiple ViciDial servers
  • Several real-time and summary reports available
  • Real-time campaign display screens
  • 3rd party conferencing(with DTMF macros and number presets)
  • 3rd party blind call transfer
  • 3rd party conferencing with agent drop-off
  • Custom Music-On-Hold and agent alert sound for inbound calls
  • Estimated hold time, place in line, overflow queues and several other inbound-only features
  • Skills-based ranking and call routing per inbound group(queues) and campaign
  • Queue Prioritization per campaign and inbound group
  • Single agent call queueing
  • Ability to set user levels and permissions for certain features and campaigns
  • Ability for managers to listen-in on agent conversations
  • Ability for managers to enter conversations with agents and customers
  • Ability for managers to change the selected queues for an agent
  • Ability for agents to select a Pause Code when they are not active
  • Ability for agents to view the statuses of other agents on the system
  • Ability for agents to view details for calls in queue that the agent is selected to take calls from
  • Ability for agents to select and click to take calls in queue from their agent screen
  • Several Vtiger integration features: user-sync, account-sync, data interconnection (deprecated)
  • Full integration with Sangoma Call Progress Detection(CDP) for better Answering Machine Detection(AMD)
  • Web-based data export utilities
  • Web-based administration
  • DID, phone and carrier trunk provisioning through the web interface

 

GOautodial can be downloaded for free from http://goautodial.org/
CentOS can get downloaded for free from http://www.centos.org/ 

In combination with the outbound provider Voicetrading and Voicebuy you'll get a very cheap solution for your call/contact center.