Crazy "Mobile Outbound Calls": Pretend to be a customer service and call 110,000 times a day, even coaxing and deceiving packages
"Hello, I am from a mobile company. This call is to thank the star users..." After the call was connected, the opening remarks were almost always these words.
Next, these "customer service" who are wearing POLO shirts and sitting in the grid making calls will sell you a data package.
This paid package, in their words, will make you mistakenly think that it is "free".
This is the real scene of the Beijing News reporter's experience in Shenyang, Liaoning, in late May this year.
These calls are not from mobile companies, but "outbound companies" posing as mobile official customer service.
After the reporter entered three outbound call companies in Shenyang City undercover, the investigation found that these companies privately recruited hundreds of "customer service" illegal calls after registering shell authorized agent stores and obtaining mobile company business processing rights. One day the company dialed 11 Wantong sells phones.
Different from the official customer service, outbound companies will create verbal skills, encourage "customer service" to deceive users by unscrupulous means, and even forge signatures to apply for packages without authorization.
For every business completed, these outbound companies can get a commission from the mobile company.
A number of relevant persons in charge of local mobile companies told the Beijing News reporter that the mobile company is not ignorant of this. "Although outbound calls are explicitly prohibited, the outbound team can bring revenue to the mobile company.
"Counterfeit Customer Service"
A number of companies violated regulations and "calling wildly", pretending to be a mobile customer service office
"You are rated as a two-star user by the mobile company. Starting from next month, 15G domestic Internet traffic will be added to you every month, worth 30 yuan, superimposed on your package use, that is to say, the traffic has increased, and the package tariff will remain unchanged." Call customer service frequently used words.
If the user asks whether the gift is free, he will get an answer like this: "This is for you. The package fee remains the same. If you have 15G more data per month, you can use it with confidence."
After listening to this introduction, many people will mistakenly think that the 15G traffic is free, but the actual situation is that once the customer accepts it, the phone bill will increase.
"We are talking about the same package tariffs, but it does not mean that his total call charges remain the same."
On May 15th, reporters were recruited to enter Shenyang Hengjiameida Communication Service Co., Ltd. The above-mentioned speech skills are the content of the training for reporters.
"This is a language designed by the company to make customers think that it is free and does not cost money." A manager said.
In fact, this traffic service called "Growth Package" is currently the main business of Shenyang Mobile. It is divided into three levels, namely 10 yuan for 5G, 20 yuan for 10G, and 30 yuan for 15G per month in the first year. Spend money to order.
Hengjia Meida is an outbound company specializing in the promotion of mobile services. The services promoted include data packets, voice packets, broadband, and package upgrades.
According to the company’s promotional materials, the company is a special operating unit and an important business agent of the mobile company. Since its establishment in 2008, it has been focusing on telecommunications business agents. It currently has more than 20 business teams and more than 1,000 employees.
The reporter undercover found that the customer service here uses local landline calls instead of mobile official outbound numbers 10086 and 10085.
An industry insider told reporters that such outbound calls using social numbers are called "wild calls" in the industry. According to the regulations of the mobile company, this behavior is strictly prohibited.
In order to obtain the authority to handle mobile services, the outcall company will first register and open mobile authorized agent stores, and then privately recruit a large number of "customers", pretending to be official customer service for "wild call" package.
Two of the outbound call companies that the reporters undercover both have "wild call" services using landline numbers and have contracted 10085 formal services.
However, a manager said bluntly that Yehu is much better than 10085, "10085 is strictly controlled and can’t talk nonsense, so that users are seldom willing to do business, and Yehu just wants to do more business."
On the top floor of a shopping mall in Tiexi District, Shenyang, Hengjia Meida has contracted thousands of square meters of office space.
The threshold for recruiting customer service personnel is very low, and there are no requirements for academic qualifications and work experience.
After the reporter submitted his resume through an Internet recruitment platform, he soon received the invitation.
After a simple training, the company arranged for reporters to work as customer service and started outbound work.
The so-called outbound call is to log in to an outbound software on the computer, and then call the mobile user.
The caller number is a local landline in Shenyang, and each customer service number is different, but none of them is the official mobile customer service number.
Hundreds of customer service staff sat in the grid, dressed in uniform blue polo fir, wearing headsets, and kept making phone calls to the computer screen.
The reporter observed that there are hundreds of "customers" here, and most of them are using "wild calls" to do business.
At the end of May, the reporter entered undercover an outbound company called Liaoning Changrun DBS.
Propaganda materials show that this company was established in 2000, mainly engaged in network communication services, physical store experience, terminal business development and other fields, and has been working closely with mobile companies for many years.
The company has three outbound call bases, one of which is near the Yingbin Road Metro Station in Yuhong District, Shenyang City.
From the outside, this is just an inconspicuous mobile business hall. The first floor is only tens of square meters, but the second floor is nearly 1,000 square meters. Hundreds of "customers" call here every day.
On May 18, at Hengjiameida Company, hundreds of "customers" were sitting in and out of the grid and calling out. This company has many such office spaces in Shenyang.
Beijing News reporter Han Futao
"Free" routines
A set of verification codes forged signatures, "Flicker one is one"
The words of "wild call" customer service are almost the same. When managers train new employees, they will encourage customer service to deceive users.
"Users are not so sensitive to tariffs. The difference is 10 yuan and 20 yuan. Customers will not think so much, and some customers will not even check the phone bill."
In actual operation, the main purpose of customer service calls is to obtain verification codes to do business.
In addition to misleading words, in many cases they even coaxed directly.
In Hengjiameida company, when the performance is poor, the management staff will continue to encourage in the WeChat work group: "Flicker counts as one, as long as you can get the verification code, you can fool you anyway."
The customer service staff understood it, and simply described the "growth package" traffic business as "free".
During the undercover period, the reporter noticed that this situation was not accidental. Almost every day, managers would do everything possible to force the "conservative" customer service to be "bolder", and sometimes simply threaten to fail to complete the task and not leave work.
After starting work, the reporter was assigned a job number for "Liaoning Mobile 4A Management Platform".
An insider of Shenyang Mobile introduced that this platform is a back-end system for mobile business, developed for Liaoning Mobile. "The mobile franchisees in Liaoning province handle business for users through this platform."
After logging in to the platform, as long as you enter any mobile phone number, you can find the detailed information of the owner, including the user's consumption, data usage and package situation in the past three months, and even see the user's mobile phone brand and favorite video software.
Through this platform, as long as the verification code issued by the system can be retrieved from the user, the user can do business.
During the process, the user is required to sign on the electronic screen for confirmation, but the reporter observed that the customer service would directly replace the user's signature without the user's knowledge.
The reporter undercover found that under their routines, most of the users were fooled by the elderly.
For those young users who have a certain degree of discernment, the customer service also has "nirvana".
"Hello, from Shenyang Mobile, you have a previously gifted video member in your package. You will be charged from next month. Are you going to cancel or continue to use it."
"No, cancel it for me."
"Then I will handle the cancellation for you. Later, 10086 will send you a cancellation message with a six-digit number. Please check with me and I will handle it for you."
This is the content of the conversation between a customer service of Hengjia Meida Company and the user on May 15th.
And similar scenarios are often staged in outbound companies.
In fact, there is no charge service mentioned by the customer service under the user name. This is just a reason for defrauding the verification code.
After the user tells the customer service the verification code, the customer service will immediately order some paid services for the user privately, and the user is completely kept in the dark during the whole process.
Shenyang Yuanfang Tongda Trading Co., Ltd. is a smaller outbound company with 30 or 40 customer service staff and more casual management.
A customer service couldn't help but complain to reporters during a small chat, "The customer service here often deceives users and pits some old, weak, sick and disabled people."
After the verification code is received, the "customer service" will sign on behalf of the user without the user's knowledge.
Beijing News reporter Han Futao
"Harassing Calls"
A company called 110,000 times a day, and users complained about "failure"
A customer service of Hengjiameida who has been in the industry for two years told reporters that if you want to improve performance, you must call more, "Betting on the probability, the more you play, the more sure you will get."
The reporter found out by querying the call records in the outbound software that most of Hengjia Meida's customer service totals about 300 outbound calls per day. The company's performance ranking table shows that as of mid-May, this company has 377 outbound customer services. Based on this calculation, the company can make about 110,000 "harassing calls" in a day.
In order to improve the efficiency of outbound calls, Changrun DBS has chosen an outbound software that can automatically dial uninterruptedly, and the number of outbound calls from customer service can reach 600 per day.
The company also recruited a large number of part-time jobs, calculated wages on a daily basis, without training to be able to call out.
According to a manager of Yuanfang Tongda Company, the number of long-term employees and part-time employees together, the total number of customer service of the company is more than 200, which means that the total number of outbound calls of this company is about 120,000 per day.
There are millions of mobile users in Shenyang, and companies are fighting over and over again.
"It's been played several times, and it's broken. With this frequency of outbound calls, Shenyang's mobile users are not enough."
A customer service of Hengjia Meida Company told reporters that a user was begged for mercy by an outgoing call, "He begged us not to call him again, but I can only guarantee that I will not call him again. I can't guarantee others. Or other companies will not call him."
Under the indiscriminate bombardment of outbound companies, users were harassed and harassed.
"Is the mobile company's marketing method not so good? It can receive 800 such calls every day!" On May 18, a woman was angry after receiving an outgoing call, and she hung up after speaking.
In the face of "unfriendly" users, some customer services are not to be outdone, and even scold the users on the phone.
The reporter found that it is not uncommon for the reporter to scold customers back when calling out companies undercover.
Don’t you worry about being complained if you nakedly deceive users?
A manager of Hengjia Meida Company bluntly said that this kind of worry is unnecessary, "Our company still has 10086 wiring service. As soon as the wiring customer service is handled by our company's work number, it will block complaints."
The reporter also discovered during the undercover period that after many users realized that they had been cheated to complain, the customer service would cancel the service for them. If the user insisted on complaining, 10086 would forward the complaint to the outcall company for processing.
An insider of Shenyang Mobile said that the impact of user complaints about the outbound company is very limited.
"As long as the customer complains through 10086 and is still in the mobile system, there is no problem."
Cui Ying (pseudonym) is a regional person in charge of Shenyang Mobile Company. In her opinion, the mobile company actually knows how to call agents.
"Every operation of outbound customer service in the system is recorded. For example, if the frequency of checking customer information is too high, it will be recognized by the system." In addition, outbound calls will inevitably attract a lot of complaints. Combining complaints and monitoring can be Determine whether the agent is calling out.
Sometimes the investigation is strict. When the mobile company catches an outbound call, it will block the work number and block a batch, and then there will be new ones coming out of the same group.
The "customer service" of the outcall company logs into the "Liaoning Mobile 4A Management Platform", and can see the user's phone bill and data usage, as well as the user's favorite video software.
Photo by Han Futao, reporter from Beijing News
Black box operation
Outbound companies rely on opening fake shops to obtain official work numbers, "it is impossible for a mobile company to be unaware"
In fact, outbound companies and mobile companies are inextricably linked.
During the undercover period of three outbound call companies, the reporter discovered that the service number used by the customer service on the "Liaoning Mobile 4A Management Platform" is usually not owned by him, but the service number assigned by the mobile company to each authorized agency.
When Hengjiameida was undercover, the reporter was assigned a job account with the user name "Lv Mouyan".
After logging in to the system, the page shows that the job number belongs to "N Jiujiu Seventeen S Authorized Agent Store of Shenyang Meixin Communication Service Co., Ltd., Tiexi District, Shenyang City".
The job number used by the reporter at Changrun DBS is "Xu Mouling", which belongs to the "authorized agency of Shenyang Fengze Runda Communication Service Co., Ltd., Dadong District, Shenyang".
Like reporters, other outbound customer service will be assigned a job number that belongs to an authorized agency.
In this way, when the business is handled, the back-end system is displayed as an employee of the authorized agency.
According to industry sources, the mobile company will use these seemingly compliant business records to settle the commission to the relevant authorized agents.
One person, one ID, means that the two companies, Hengjia Meida and Changrun DBS, have at least a few hundred mobile authorized agency IDs.
However, after consulting with the mobile company, the reporter learned that according to regulations, each authorized agency can only be approved for a maximum of 5 IDs. If you want to have a few hundred IDs, these outbound companies must operate dozens of authorized agency stores.
However, the reporter found in the internal working software of the two companies that they only operate three and two authorized agencies respectively.
Without a store, how can I get hundreds of job numbers?
Many insiders of Shenyang Mobile told the Beijing News reporter that outcall companies have registered a large number of fake stores and there are no physical stores.
These fake shops are only used to apply for a work number from the mobile company, and play a role in the settlement of remuneration between the mobile company and the outbound company.
In order to verify the existence of the fake store, during the undercover period, a reporter from the Beijing News contacted a "complaint user" Mr. Xu.
After being misled by the outbound customer service to handle the business, 10086 informed him that the business was handled by an authorized agency called "Shenyang Demei Fuda Communication Service Co., Ltd.".
However, the other party refused to disclose the specific store address.
This made Mr. Xu very puzzled, "Since it is an authorized agency of the mobile company, how can the address of the physical store become confidential?"
The reporter found the registered business address of the company’s registered business address: B1, Qiansheng Department Store, No. 99 Changjiang Street, Huanggu District, by scanning the logo of the authorized agency of Yuanfang Tongda Company, which had been undercover. However, the reporter rushed to the above address. Later, the authorized agency was not found, and nearby merchants also stated that they had never seen a mobile company business office nearby.
Zhao Lin, a regional director of Shenyang Mobile, revealed the mystery to reporters.
She said that “the mobile company cannot be completely ignorant of the operation of fake stores by outbound companies.” Her main job is to connect all authorized agencies in the jurisdiction, knowing all the fake stores in the jurisdiction, “I am here. There are a total of 12 franchise outlets, of which only seven or eight have physical stores."
In a mobile business hall in Yuhong District, Shenyang City, there is an outbound company with hundreds of customers hidden on the second floor.
Beijing News reporter Han Futao
"Gray" transactions
Suspected mobile company personnel leaked the user number
Cui Ying, a regional person in charge of Shenyang Mobile, said that most outbound companies are developed from agents. In recent years, physical stores have limited passenger flow, and agents have given up stores and gradually switched to outbound calls.
Although the mobile company prohibits outbound calls from authorized agencies, it will not interfere too much. "We can turn a blind eye to the other, because the mobile company needs revenue, and the outbound team can bring revenue to the company."
Cui Ying told reporters that as far as Shenyang is concerned, outbound calls this year are more rampant than in previous years, and the reason is related to the unsatisfactory income of mobile companies.
"Last year, Shenyang Mobile's revenue was not particularly good. At the end of the year, there was a need to rush for tasks, and outbound calls started."
How much benefit can the outbound company bring to Shenyang Mobile?
Take Hengjiameida as an example. In the department of the reporter, each customer service handles approximately 15 transactions per day, and the company's 377 customer service staff can promote more than 5,000 mobile services a day.
Based on 300 working days a year (the outbound company takes one day off each week), the company can handle 1.7 million transactions in a year.
Take the 15G "growth package" service with a monthly fee of 30 yuan as an example. After the user handles it, the phone bill will be increased by 360 yuan a year.
Rough calculations, only Hengjia Meida, a company, can bring 600 million yuan in revenue to mobile companies in one year.
The income obtained by Hengjia Meida is also very considerable.
The company announced that in 2015, the company's operating income exceeded 10 million yuan, and by 2017, the company's operating income soared to 190 million yuan.
It was in 2017 that this company began to develop outbound business on a large scale.
In late May, a reporter from the Beijing News contacted a number of regional leaders of Shenyang Mobile in the name of applying for an authorized agency store.
They are not surprised by the rampant outbound companies.
When the reporter proposed that they intend to conduct outbound calls in the name of authorized agencies, many regional leaders said that although the company's policy does not allow them, they will not interfere too much. Close one eye."
"To make outbound calls, we must first have sufficient number resources, and secondly, have the ability to respond to complaints." Cui Ying said that agents will accumulate some number resources in the process of operating stores, but these are far from enough. Mobile company acquisition."
Regarding how to obtain number data from a mobile company, Zhang Meng (pseudonym), who works for Shenyang Mobile, suggested to reporters to start with the internal employees of the mobile company who have the number. ."
Sure enough, after several contacts with Zhao Lin, the regional head of Shenyang Mobile, in order to promote cooperation, she directly told reporters that she could provide some number resources.
Zhao Lin revealed that in the area she is in charge of, there is an outbound company developed by an agent, with hundreds of people in customer service. The company is very famous."
In Zhao Lin's words, this outbound company has a vast and profound background, "He can obtain number resources from the mobile company, and he can directly intercept complaints." Even if it is of such a scale, the mobile company will not interact with the outbound company. Sign the cooperation agreement directly, "After all, outbound calls are illegal, and they are all gray areas."
The internal information of Yuanfang Tongda Company shows that the service number used by "customer service" comes from a number of authorized mobile agents in Shenyang.
Beijing News reporter Han Futao
Expert advice
"The nature of the outbound call is bad, and the operator should bear the responsibility"
In late May, when the reporter resigned from Hengjia Meida, he discovered that the company's outbound call business had expanded to Dalian and began to sell broadband services to Dalian mobile users.
An industry insider told reporters that outbound marketing actually exists in various places, which can be regarded as a chronic disease of the industry for many years.
The reporter searched and found that in June 2019, there were media reports that two companies in Nanning, Guangxi recruited employees to pretend to be mobile customer service for telephone marketing, and used the method of falsely reporting consumption data to induce and deceive users to handle business.
After being exposed, Guangxi Mobile responded that the two companies are physical channel partners, and the company has not strictly supervised the partners, and has stopped related cooperation and held accountability for violations.
Regarding the chaos of illegal outbound calls, lawyer Cao Xiabo of Jincheng Tongda (Hefei) Law Firm believes that outbound companies have tens of thousands of user numbers to conduct large-scale telemarketing and are suspected of illegally obtaining citizens' personal information.
In addition, according to Chen Yinjiang, deputy secretary-general of the Consumer Protection Law Research Association of the Chinese Law Society, the use of deceptive methods by outcall companies to handle business for users may constitute fraud.
"Outbound calls are large, frequent, and long-lived. As a service provider, it is impossible for a mobile company to be unaware of the agent's irregularities. If you turn a blind eye to this and do not take measures, you will also have to bear corresponding responsibilities."
As for how to control the chaos of outbound calls, Chen Yinjiang felt that mobile companies should strengthen self-regulation. In addition, “the nature of illegal outbound calls is bad, the victims are wide-ranging, and they are relatively hidden. Effective management of chaos."
Beijing News reporter Han Futao