As a student back in '97 and '98 I had the rather dubious pleasure of working in two call centres to earn a few more beer tokens.
This story revolves around the first place - The Bolton HQ of The 'Great Universal' Home Shopping Catalogue, (also ran the Kays catalogue and Marshall Ward) which was conveniently located directly opposite the Halls of Residence. The work there was (as you may expect) pretty mundane and repetetive, not to mention somewhat depressing when you got a 'ranter' on the other end of the line. It was also eye opening as I'll go into in a moment. However, there are three 'stories' I immediately remember when I read this week's title.

1.) The Funny Name.
All of the calls are scripted via computers in front of us. All we had to do was read, interpret, connect with the customer and then persuade them part with cash and order something from the catalogue. However, nothing can prepare you for what comes up on your screen when the call connects to a customer, the first thing you saw on the screen was the first part of your script to the customer:
"Hello, is this Mr./Mrs. (insert name here)"

Sadly, I never got to speak to Mrs. W. Ankers for long as I (and the immediate colleagues around me) cracked up when the name popped up on the screen, and I had to hang up on her. Sorry Mrs. W

2.) The Answerphone Message.
During some of the more routine work in calling customers of the catalogue, we were often put onto 'special offer' duty, whereby we would ring, speak to the customer and give them a 'special' code which would offer them a 5%/10% credit on their next order, or something similar. When the customers didn't pick up the phone and it diverted to answerphone, we then had to leave the special code on their machines.
A few of us had fun with this part and regularly selected a 'theme' for the shift, which all codes had to relate to.
I remember particularly the 'Star Wars' shift, where every letter of the special 'code' had to have a Star wars connection. Ben, a rather 'goofy' colleague had no fear, and proudly kept leaving messages such as:
"... And remember, Mrs. Spencer, if you do place an order, remember to use your special order code of XYM2W. That's X for X Wing Fighter, Y for Yavin IV, M for 'May the Force be with you', 2 as in R2D2 and W, as in Wookiee (with added Wookiee noise from Ben)

What the people made of it when they picked up their message we'll never know, but I hope it made some of them smile.

3.) The swearing sweepstakes,
This could only occur a few times a week during shifts, and only in the evening shifts - 5.30pm to 9pm as it could only happen during the time when Coronation Street and Eastenders was on the TV. Only then could you guarantee the best possible chance of getting a punter to swear at you over the phone for daring to ring them up while they were watching their hallowed soap opera with the same fervor as a minor religion.

The idea was simple. Before the shift everyone chips a quid or so in a pot, and the person who collects the most swearwords, or the most original insult in the half hour period wins the pot.
Ben - again - enjoyed this, and on one occassion even stood up in the middle of the packed call centre (around 250+ people) proudly exclaiming to us all 'I've just got a Motherf*cker'!

And finally: The nasty side of the business.
I eventaully got 'promoted' up to the dizzying heights of Debt Recovery. A more soul destroying area of Call Centre work you could not possibly imagine. You couldn't speak with spouses or anyone close, only the customer directly. This often proved difficult because in many cases, the customer (usually the wife/girlfriend) hid the catalogue from the partner, or told them they got rid of it, so when we ring up asking to speak directly to them, we were often met with volleys of abuse and cries of 'she got rid of that f*cking catalogue months ago because I took it off her' or being asked directly to tell them what she had been doing, which of course we couldn't. It was not an easy ride, and some of the partners were so angry you often wondered what was going to happen when the customer got back home.

Probably worse than that was when you did actually get through to the client though, as they nearly ALL knew how to play the system. Back then, if they were in a reasonable amount of debt with the catalogue, we would suggest via the phone call an amount they should pay to clear the debt over weeks/months or even many years in some cases. This would often be countered with 'But I can only offer to pay you £5 per week as that's all I can afford'
At the time, we were legally obliged to accept this, irrespective of the total debt, as £5 was the minimum amount for such an offer which had to be accepted. (Hopefully this has changed now)

And you may wonder what the highest debt by a single punter on Catalogues I personally dealt with was, well wonder no more. It was around £78,000... And what response did I get?

You guessed it, '£5 a week'
( The Great Architect is still waiting for his account to be deleted on, Thu 3 Sep 2009, 16:35, 4 replies)

Wow
I might have to start getting stuff off catalogues now. That £78000 at a fiver a week will take 300 years to pay off surely that can't be right.
(NuffMuff fucks shrubbery, Thu 3 Sep 2009, 16:46, closed)

yup, criminal is the better word for it
but back in '97 and '98 the company were legally obliged to accept it as it was an offer made by the customer. They customers manage over MANY years to get their credit up to that level, increasing every year, and then just went on a splurge with it all, for whatever reason. Hopefully the whole system has been overhauled now, as it desperately needed it. It's little wonder most of country is in debt to some level.
( The Great Architect is still waiting for his account to be deleted on, Thu 3 Sep 2009, 16:48, closed)

If it's still legal
Im going to be doing that as much as i can then just leave my kiddies and grandkids with the debt
(NuffMuff fucks shrubbery, Thu 3 Sep 2009, 16:51, closed)

I have a feeling it still works like that.
At least I've heard of people getting away with paying off debt at some minuscule rate in the not-too-distant past.

Apparently if you end up in court about some sort of overdue amount, you stand up as quickly into proceedings as you can, tell the judge that you want to honour the agreement in place but can only afford 'x' amount and nine times out of ten they'll rule in your favour at whatever rate you suggested (within reason).
(Pope Jamiroquai III, Thu 3 Sep 2009, 20:26, closed)