Guess who just called me? Bell South, that's who.

[DemoTex]

They called to sell me additional service. I said not no, but hell no. I asked her if she was aware of the latest NSA domestic telephone and data surveillance activities that putatively involve Bell South. She said that she was not .. that she did not follow the news. I asked her what country she was calling from. She said that she was working from a calling center in Texas. In fact, she sounded like a very bright young woman with a slight hint - like me - of a southern accent.

I gave her some of the highlights that have been Top-'O-the-News the past couple of days (and I cited sources). She seemed interested. I asked her if her supervisors had not mentioned this story and how to handle customers, like me, who are absolutely catatonic over such an egregious violation of law. She said they had not.

I then asked is she could see how this might affect her job, in the face of staggering suits at law (I cited the $20-billion law suit filed against Verizon yesterday in New York). She said yes .. YES! She then said that she was going to seek her supervisor as soon as our conversation was finished, and asked about the points I had made.

She then OFFERED to submit this as a customer complaint, in my name, to Bell South. Yes, I said, that would be great. Please do, and thank you for listening to me.

Note: Edited for maximum effect at NSA HDQ. Hi Mike!


A mendacious little man without hope of mend. He can never be mended, only bailed out by daddy's money and turd-polished by sychophants like Rove. What warms my heart, however, is the fact that George Bu$h will have to live with himself and his blood-tainted history long after we are quit him.

[kenny blankenship]

1. This call may be monitored-

To protect your soul against heresy, to defend American Freedom against civil liberty, and to ensure customer service quality!

[Brigid]

2. This is great!

I'll bet you never had so much fun dealing with a telemarketer in your life! :rofl:

I can't believe that Bell South hasn't done anything to help their reps deal with customers like you. This issue has only been all over the news for three days now. I don't get it. :shrug:

[0007]

3. Do these callers work on a commission? The reason I ask

is that AT&T has been trying like hell for the last three months to get me on their internet program.

[Robbien]

17. Usually telemarketers get paid peanuts and get bonus pay

for anyone they sign.

How many telemarketers a company hires is the indication of how aggressive a campaign they are waging. So in your case, AT&T appears to have bumped up its contract with a telemarketing firm.

[Nikki Stone 1]

4. KICK AND RECOMMEND!

A little telemarketing activism. I love it!

[drthais]

5. I went to the BellSouth website

in order to file a written complaint
guess what?
It is almost impossible to do so there

but I worked until I found a venue

then I let them have it

I really have to sit down today and figure out moving my service....
and BellSouth owns Cingular, is this correct>?

[ashling]

13. Please post directions for the rest of us

to follow in filing a written complaint ... why should you have all the fun? :)

[chat_noir]

6. AT&T is buying BellSouth

[ldf]

29. interesting.

a couple of decades ago they were forced to split up, due to monopoly.

now, with the current business climate, it is obviously aok to reconsolidate.

i believe originally AT&T = Bell

[Bozita]

7. Would this have occurred with a call center in Pakistan?

Good work, DemoTex!

[Jeffersons Ghost]

8. you gotta love this op!

LOL

[Mojorabbit]

9. This is Bell South's response to my email

Dear xxxxxx,

In response to your email about the NSA article, BellSouth does not
provide any confidential customer information to the NSA or any
government agency without proper legal authority.

Should you need further assistance or have other questions, please reply
back to this e-mail and the BellSouth Online Customer Care team will be
happy to help you.

Thank you for doing business with BellSouth online.

Sincerely,

xxxxxxx

[Horse with no Name]

16. "proper legal authority"

is not because they said so. They need to try another excuse.

[Mythsaje]

23. "Proper legal authority" is meaningless jibber jabber...

"Without a court order" is how Comcast put it.

[tlsmith1963]

10. This is What Has to Be Done

Leave these spy-loving phone companies, & tell them why. And then go to Qwest, which said it wouldn't take part in this because it could be illegal.:applause: :applause: :applause:

Tammy

[tavalon]

25. And be prepared to get the worst service ever

They are not so ethically challenged but are hugely customer service challenged or at least they were when I suffered them.

How about Working Assets?

http://www.workingassets.com/

[Iowa]

26. tavalon is right...

Qwest appears to have done the right thing here, but it was probably an accident. I'm guessing they mistook NSA for a customer requesting assistance - and ignored them. NSA is probably still trying to get through to someone at Qwest with enough brains to connect them with the right department. Six months from now NSA will finally cut through their hidebound bureaucracy, and we'll be reading about Qwest being the only phone company in the country that's spying on its customers.

[ArbustoBuster]

11. Brilliant!

:yourock:

[originalpckelly]

12. This one suits the best:

[DemoTex]

15. Funny you should mention Big Brother (see this post)

On Goldstein and Big Brother .. I posted it about 10 minutes ago. Keith Olberman even alluded to Goldstein Thursday night!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1177867&mesg_id=1178461

[Jack Rabbit]

14. Sue them into bankruptcy

All of them.

[pberq]

18. Here's the response I got from Bell South

"Thank you for contacting BellSouth regarding account . . .

In response to your email about the phone records, BellSouth does not
provide any confidential customer information to the NSA or any
government agency without proper legal authority.

Should you need further assistance or have other questions, please reply
back to this e-mail and the BellSouth Online Customer Care team will be
happy to help you."

Not very reassuring is it?

[Catrina]

20. What do they mean by 'without proper legal authority.'? The Decider

claims that any decision he makes is proper, legally. They need to be pinned down. Does this mean they will not, or have not, sold any customer's personal phone records to a data mining company without that customer's knowledge or agreement?

Gen. Clark's information was for sale on an Internet website. I don't know who his phone company was. Has he said anything since this scandal surfaced? As I recall, no one had informed him that his information was sold and was available for a fee online.

[robbedvoter]

27. Gen Clark asked for a full investigation of all this

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1180479

[Catrina]

28. Thank you! n/t

[Vidar]

19. Nicely done,

[fooj]

21. Petulant little rat bastard,...

Never EARNED a thing in his life but CONTEMPT. That phrase should follow him around until his final day. Grrrrrrrrrr...

[DarkTirade]

22. I refuse to deal with BellSouth after what they did to me...

long story short, but right after my last job had gone under with no warning, and I was looking for a new one, they made a 200 dollar mistake on my bill and refused to even ADMIT that they made a mistake for about a month. And my first sign of their mistake was them cutting off my phone. Right in the middle of my job hunt. So I had to take the only job I'd already interviewed for, which was only a part-time job.
To this day, they still haven't completely fixed their mistake. I get random weird and contradictory letters from them now and then. I'm sure it hasn't helped my credit rating, especially since I was unable to pay off my credit card at the time, which subsequently went over the limit because of late fees, and I've been out of school long enough for my student loans to be due as well. Come to think of it, just about every debt I've incurred lately and everything that's gone wrong that COULD have affected my credit rating all goes back to that one incident.
So now I use cable internet and a vonage phone. The cable costs a little more than DSL, but it's faster, and my vonage phone has just about EVERY feature a phone can have even including free long distance, for the same price as my BellSouth phone was that had NO features. Hell, I didn't even have the ability to call long distance unless I had a phone card on my old phone. Now I can call merry olde England for free. :)
Not that I have anybody to talk to over there, but hey, I could. :)

So yeah... long story shorter... BellSouth sucks.

[TahitiNut]

24. "Hi Mike!"

Hi, Mac! :hi:


:silly: (c'est moi.)