Put Fraudulent Call Center Employees in Jail

Case study: A true zero tolerance policy terminates employment and seeks imprisonment for fraudulent call center activity. 


What do I think of pastors and priests that abuse children? Scum. What do I think of doctors that abuse their patients? Worst that sewage. What do I consider call center agents that defraud their customers? Deserving nothing less than jail.

So this story is about a Capital One agent, who does activations. The short story is this: my wife calls to activate her card. A Capital One agent activates it but then attempts to do an upsell for payment protection. Payment protection is simply put, if you lose your job, or you suffer an injury that causes you to be disabled, the bank keeps paying your bill. Obviously not needed when you hardly have any balance on the account!

So why does this call center agent keep insisting? For one, in this type of work, Capital One may require him to make rebuttals at least two to three times on a refusal. Secondly, this agent's job performance maybe dependent on these types of metrics along with average handling time (AHT), and customer satisfaction (CSAT). Third and the most likely scenario, he may get monetary incentives in upselling these sales packages.

Whatever the case maybe on why he has pressure to perform, whether it be for financial gain or for performance obligations, when a customer clearly says no, you stop. But instead of stopping and letting the call end, he proceeds to add this package to my wife's account.

Fast forward to May 2010's statement, I see the payment protection added to my wife's account.

So what if you were a victim of fraud like my wife? The first step is to let the bank know through their abuse and fraud department. Thankfully Capital One made this easy. Their email address is abuse@capitalone.com. Second, let them know that you are willing to press for criminal charges.

In my wife's case, when the agent committed the fraudulent act in the Philippines, there are laws in the Philippines that applies, specifically Access Device Regulation Act of 1998 which calls for six to ten years of jail.  The message that I want to send to the outsourced vendor and their agents in Cebu that's handling Capital One transactions?  Before you commit an act of crime because you want to get a little incentive or want to please your supervisor with your scores, just remember, nobody cares about that when you land in prison.

7/15/2010 Update: CEO said they'll take care of it and refunded the money.