I called India!

[orbaya]

Yes, I called the country of India this morning. From the United States. The phone rang before 5AM this morning and hung up so I was pissed. I didn''t really look at the number but just saw it was a long number, so I thought it was a company so I did automatic dial on my phone it to see who it was. I was 3/4 the way a sleep so the actual digits didn''t really register, if that makes sense. The ringing sound was weird and then an Indian sounding woman answered the phone. I just checked the phone number, and it was a number from India! I called someone in India! I was on the phone for less than a minute so hopefully it isn''t a huge charge.

I find it kind of funny, actually.

 

[Linda W]

That is funny!!! Wonder why they were calling you. ha ha ha ha

Linda

 

[Independent Gal]

My guess is that it's not THAT much more expensive to call India than to call France or wherever. Maybe 50 cents at the most.

This kind of thing wears off if you travel a lot, but I remember one time I felt funny about a call like that was once when I was calling a man who lived at the edge of the jungle in Malaysia. For some reason, it just felt really funny that I was talking to this guy in the jungle, while sitting at my desk in the United States.

The world is small! The world is small! The world is oh, so much smaller than we think!

And I think that's wonderful.

 

[orbaya]

Date: 3/11/2008 1:41:03 PM
Author: Linda W
That is funny!!! Wonder why they were calling you. ha ha ha ha

Linda

I don''t know! I told her that someone from her number had JUST called me, and she said that it was a mistake and no one did. Well, someone did whether she knew about it or not. LOL!

 

[orbaya]

Date: 3/11/2008 1:58:51 PM
Author: Independent Gal
My guess is that it''s not THAT much more expensive to call India than to call France or wherever. Maybe 50 cents at the most.

This kind of thing wears off if you travel a lot, but I remember one time I felt funny about a call like that was once when I was calling a man who lived at the edge of the jungle in Malaysia. For some reason, it just felt really funny that I was talking to this guy in the jungle, while sitting at my desk in the United States.

The world is small! The world is small! The world is oh, so much smaller than we think!

And I think that''s wonderful.

Talking to someone in the jungle? That''s pretty cool.

 

[Pandora II]

Lol, I remember when my brother was born and my Dad wanted to call his and my mother''s parents.

We were living on a tiny island called Tarawa in the middle of the Pacific and he had to go on his motorbike to the other side of the island where you could make international calls from the main telephone office.

The call was timed on an alarm clock and cost an arm and a leg!

 

[orbaya]

I just had to Google Earth that island. That is in the middle of nowhere and bet it was beautiful. Can I ask where you live now?

I hope my call doesn''t cost too much! LOL!

 

[Sparkster]

Just be very careful about hitting the automatic dial key when there is a missed call. There was a scam in Australia about a year ago where a company would prank your mobile phone. Most people would call the number back and a message came up advising you that you had won something (along those lines) and to claim the prize, you had to dial another number. What that message failed to do was advise that the cost of the call was $xx amount per second. A lot of people were burnt by this. The way I see it, if the call was important enough in the first place and you didn't answer it, then they will call again.

I am not saying you personally would fall for something like this, but there are plenty who have and plenty more who will.

By the way, I call India all the time - or at least that's where I think I'm calling whenever I call my bank. After all, can it be a co-incidence that it's an Australian with a heavy Indian accent answering the call every time??

 

[orbaya]

Date: 3/11/2008 11:00:15 PM
Author: Sparkster
Just be very careful about hitting the automatic dial key when there is a missed call. There was a scam in Australia about a year ago where a company would prank your mobile phone. Most people would call the number back and a message came up advising you that you had won something (along those lines) and to claim the prize, you had to dial another number. What that message failed to do was advise that the cost of the call was $xx amount per second. A lot of people were burnt by this. The way I see it, if the call was important enough in the first place and you didn''t answer it, then they will call again.

I am not saying you personally would fall for something like this, but there are plenty who have and plenty more who will.

By the way, I call India all the time - or at least that''s where I think I''m calling whenever I call my bank. After all, can it be a co-incidence that it''s an Australian with a heavy Indian accent answering the call every time??

Eeeek! I hope that didn''t happen to me. I didn''t get that message, or call any other number except the one they called from. I would think I''m fine though.

I''m not normally someone who calls numbers back like this, but it was 5AM and I wasn''t happy. Plus I was still pretty much asleep. LOL!

 

[onvacation]

Date: 3/11/2008 11:00:15 PM
Author: Sparkster
Just be very careful about hitting the automatic dial key when there is a missed call. There was a scam in Australia about a year ago where a company would prank your mobile phone. Most people would call the number back and a message came up advising you that you had won something (along those lines) and to claim the prize, you had to dial another number. What that message failed to do was advise that the cost of the call was $xx amount per second. A lot of people were burnt by this. The way I see it, if the call was important enough in the first place and you didn''t answer it, then they will call again.

I am not saying you personally would fall for something like this, but there are plenty who have and plenty more who will.

By the way, I call India all the time - or at least that''s where I think I''m calling whenever I call my bank. After all, can it be a co-incidence that it''s an Australian with a heavy Indian accent answering the call every time??

LOL!!! Can I add... DELL?

 

[orbaya]

Date: 3/12/2008 10:44:20 AM
Author: onvacation

Date: 3/11/2008 11:00:15 PM
Author: Sparkster
Just be very careful about hitting the automatic dial key when there is a missed call. There was a scam in Australia about a year ago where a company would prank your mobile phone. Most people would call the number back and a message came up advising you that you had won something (along those lines) and to claim the prize, you had to dial another number. What that message failed to do was advise that the cost of the call was $xx amount per second. A lot of people were burnt by this. The way I see it, if the call was important enough in the first place and you didn''t answer it, then they will call again.

I am not saying you personally would fall for something like this, but there are plenty who have and plenty more who will.

By the way, I call India all the time - or at least that''s where I think I''m calling whenever I call my bank. After all, can it be a co-incidence that it''s an Australian with a heavy Indian accent answering the call every time??

LOL!!! Can I add... DELL?

I had to call HP when I was having an issue with my laptop. The rep had a very heavy Indian accent and it was hard to understand him. He did say his name was Bob. I suspect that wasn''t his name. LOL!

 

[Delster]

I worked for a big company in the States for a Summer once and I had a list of clients I had to work my way through and complete certain procedures with them (yes, the list was long enough to occupy me for a whole Summer). One of the clients was a big Irish company and they wouldn't deal with me! They kept telling me to get lost because they thought it was a prank. Can you picture it? Here I was, big Oirish brogue on me, claiming I worked for Company X and was ringing from the States. It took endless phone calls to eventually get them to stay on the line long enough to persuade them to check the caller ID and see I was for real!

Orbaya, I saw a documentary recently about the social effects these call centres are having on life in India (it was really interesting actually!). They said on that programme that when these call centre workers are talking to the States they give them 'American' names because it's just too hard to explain their Indian names.

I can't say the Indian call centre thing is something I've come across from here (even with Dell) but I know it's a commonplace in the UK. A lot of the adverts for insurance companies and banks that I see on UK television explicitly say now that they have UK-based call centres so it must be something customers ask for.

 

[tberube]

HEY!!!! Weird!

That happened to me this morning! I got five calls from this long phone number, and I was too afraid to call them back because if they picked up I didn''t want to pay all kinds of crazy long distance. I actually called my phone company to make sure that it wasn''t some kind of cell phone hacking or something like that. Because they seriously called so many times, and then hung up after one or two rings.

 

[Sparkster]

Here is a link on an article on the mobile phone prank scam.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/technology/monkeys-wage-war-on-call-scam/2006/06/16/1149964711955.html

Just remember this saying about missed calls: If it was important enough for them to call you in the first place, then they will call you back.

I receievd a few missed calls from this mob a while back and never called back. I googled the missed telephone number and came up with so many sites advising of this scam.