Senator........ disclosure on outsourced calls

[kwame k]

NEW YORK (Reuters) – In a bid to reduce outsourcing of U.S. jobs, a Democratic senator said on Sunday he will push legislation to make companies inform customers when their calls were being transferred outside the United States and charge companies for those transferred calls.

"This bill will not only serve to maintain call center jobs currently in the United States, but also provide a reason for companies that have already outsourced jobs to bring them back," Senator Charles Schumer said in statement.

Customers calling 800 numbers are often transferred overseas, and in such cases the bill would mandate that callers be told where their calls were rerouted.

Companies would also be required to certify to the Federal Trade Commission annually that they were complying with the requirement, and face penalties if they did not certify.

Schumer's bill would also impose a $0.25 excise tax on any customer service call placed inside the United States which is transferred to an agent in a foreign location. The fee would be assessed on the company that transferred the call.

Customer service call centers have become increasingly popular with businesses in recent years to deal with questions ranging from billing to technical support.

But the practice brings frequent complaints from customers who say their issues are not resolved or that representatives are merely providing scripted responses.

Schumer said the most popular countries for outsourcing of U.S. call centers included India, Indonesia, Ireland, the Philippines and South Africa, places where workers generally receive lower wages and work longer hours than their U.S. counterparts.

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[kwame k]

How many times have you called tech support and find that communicating the problem with "the supposed tech" is harder than the actual problem you called about

This is a great idea but the $0.25 excise tax will just be passed on to the consumer......so will that add up to enough money to make a company pay minimum wage and other things workers demand here in the States or will it still be cheaper to outsource the job and pay the tax.......that's where I'm not sure if the tax is enough.

[Bob_R]

This particular politician, Charles Schumer, is always trying to do things for the people. Most of his ideas totally make sense unlike most politicians who seem to just pick ideas out of a hat.

[kwame k]

A politician that actually works for the people.....sounds like an oxymoron to me

[Bob_R]

HaHa! I hear ya. But, it just seems to me every time I hear one of his ideas it's not far-fetched and seems to make sense. I'm politically stupid so it's probably just me.

[Hardrock69]

Too many times I have called the phone company, or perhaps my bank, or a credit card customer service number, only to wind up talking to someone who claimed to be named "Steve", when I knew damn well their name was something like Rujappoonjabe Punjabewanistank, and knew they were at some fucking call center in Bangalore, India.

I think it is a good idea. Kudos to the Senator, though whether anything will come of it remains to be seen.