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There's an idea for a dystopian comedy skit somewhere in this: > Will’s so busy leaving messages all over town that he never answers the phone when you call hi

by danso 8y ago

There's an idea for a dystopian comedy skit somewhere in this: > Will’s so busy leaving messages all over town that he never answers the phone when you call him back...Sometimes calls were forwarded to a host of people who went by “Pat.” They said they worked for PATLive, an answering service firm that takes calls for businesses when they’re busy or closed. Pats were taking messages for “Steven’s Office” in Alexandria, Virginia. > Asked why there were several Pats, a Pat said: “We’re all Pat.” > “We all go by Pat to keep it easy,” said Pat. “But we do have some Pats in the office.”

tyingq 8y ago
I read their "how it works" and other pages, and the sales pitch isn't bad. They should be more selective about clients though. https://www.patlive.com https://www.patlive.com
- FussyZeus 8y ago
  Am I the only one who thinks this is bullshit? How is PATLive not also complicit in the crimes they're looking for "Will" to prosecute in? I get so tired of these B2B service providers who get caught up doing borderline illegal shit and then just shrug their shoulders and say "not our responsibility." Everybody has these clauses doing the ass covering so they can sell services to anyone who knocks and they're never held responsible because of some bullshit contract. WHY is that allowed? You're doing business with an individual/organization that is breaking the law, and you know it, or you would know it if you cared to look. That's gotta be at least worth a charge of negligence? I'm just saying the "Will"s of the modern era would have a much harder time if the call centers, teleco providers, internet hosters, etc. were held responsible when they were found to be operating in cahoots with a scammer and I don't understand why they aren't. Vet your fucking clients. And if you don't wanna do that, then shut your doors.
  - kbenson 8y ago
    That's like a PO Box location being liable for someone's fraud, or even a software or hardware provider, like Microsoft or Dell, being liable for providing assistance in the crime. It's an answering service for a phone line. Are they supposed to magically know that the people are calling from some robocall and not because it's a semi-large real estate office somewhere? Perhaps the best way to to let them know is to inform them. Then they have a choice to make, investigate whether the accusations are true and decide whether to continue providing service. At that point, they may actually be responsible for something.
    - tyingq 8y ago
      Certainly they get a lot of "quit calling me you aholes" type calls. They know what's up.
      - kbenson 8y ago
        So do legitimate services. That doesn't select for illegality, it select for how pissed people are. I bet a bank line gets a lot of irate people being called about their late mortgage payments too. How many of the people that call in do you think calmly explain that this is a telemarkerer, and they are breaking the law, instead of being aggressive or saying "take me off your list" or "I'm on the do-not-call list" and then try to end the conversation? The assumption that both ends of the service are connected actually allows the criminal portion to continue operating for longer, as anger is likely directed at the wrong party, and possibly in an non-constructive manner. And this all assumes people actually take time out to call the number back. How often do you go out of your way to interact with a telemarketer that doesn't have an actual person on the line for the call? My bet is the vast majority of calls are either interested parties or so enraged that understanding what they are actually upset about (and getting them to calm down enough to explain it) is actually rather rare.
        tyingq 8y ago
        Inbound call centers breathe detailed call flow scripts, metadata, abandon rates, recordings, statistics, etc. I'm quite sure they know which of their clients are legit or not.
        kbenson 8y ago
        That depends on the type of call center. I imagine an answering service for a business (which is what we're told this is) will likely be a much less defined. For a medical or legal office (which is a common use case, I imagine), the "script" will be to try to suss out if the call is actually an emergency based on client criteria (if the caller presents it as such), and either take a message or use the emergency contact info on the account and relay the info to the client. At least, that's what it's been when I've encountered them. With more free form types of calls, identifying problem accounts might take a little longer. That said, even if it lasts a week or two before a problem account is identified and removed, who is to say that's not plenty of time for the scammers? It's not like there's only a few call answering services around. Just cycle to a new one every week or so. Do I think services exist that cater to illegal and semi-legal activity and try to skirt the line? Yes. I just don't think we should assume that's the case here without evidence, given how trivial it would be to do this with perfectly legitimate services.
  - turc1656 8y ago
    On a related note - I've had the opposite experience but it wasn't with telecom related services - it was cloud services. A friend of mine started a business that focuses on the highly anticipated luxury clothing and sneaker releases. He basically does a proxy business that routes traffic through his network so that people can use multiple IPs that aren't banned on those retailers websites so that they can purchase multiple units of these products which are usually restricted to one per customer. We had a lot of trouble finding a reliable cloud services provider. Even though none of this is illegal at all, a bunch of them have clauses against it in the service agreement. So we avoided those. We figured the ones that didn't have it shouldn't have any problems because nothing was illegal and it's not like we are abusing the cloud services - we're talking about a significant amount of time with nothing on the network (that we pay them for) and then a short burst of traffic that is still low on bandwidth while all the clients are trying to hit the sites up at the same time. But one after another kept cancelling our accounts, citing a violation of the terms of service. We pressed a number of them for an explanation. Many just ignored us. A few outright lied and said they received complaints from ISPs about our IPs sending spam emails. I challenged them on that because nothing of what we did or any of our client did was sending emails. And we tightly controlled the network traffic, ports, etc. So it's simply not possible, they were lying to get rid of us because their terms didn't account for it. To this day, I still can't figure out why all these providers were so against what we were doing. Eventually my friend explained his use case to the CEO of one of the companies and they signed and agreement and were totally fine with everything so I'm really perplexed.
    - Larrikin 8y ago
      I applaud them. Reseller middlemen buying up the releases so they can profit are awful and inhibiting that activity is a greater good for society. In the ideal world sneakers could only be sold at retail, let the people who actually want to wear them buy them.
      - number_six 8y ago
        yeah internet scalpers suck!
    - 8y ago
  - CWuestefeld 8y ago
    I'm just puzzled about how law enforcment is apparently at a dead end. Why can't PATLive be subpoenaed to provide information about one of their clients who's breaking the law?
  - captncraig 8y ago
    Would taking down patlive really change anything other than shifting the physical call center to India?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
pault 8y ago
"What, your name's not Pat?" "No, it's Michael." "That's going to cause a little confusion."
- BrandonMarc 8y ago
  I just re-read this skit yesterday! Ha ha. "Rule number six: there is NO rule number six..."
Zak 8y ago
I have some friends who answered calls for PATLive a few years ago. I got the impression they didn't spend a lot of effort on vetting clients and responded to abuse in a reactive, rather than proactive manner. Phone operators follow relatively simple scripts for most clients, taking down information so someone else can call back, but occasionally perform more complex tasks like scheduling appointments. My impression is that most of the clients were small businesses at the time; a few were government agencies. It's easy for a scammer or robocaller to pass as a legitimate business with a service like that: just don't include any red flags in the script.
CodeMage 8y ago
> Asked why there were several Pats, a Pat said: "We're all Pat." "His name is Robert Paulson."

by danso 8y ago

tyingq 8y ago

I read their "how it works" and other pages, and the sales pitch isn't bad. They should be more selective about clients though. https://www.patlive.com https://www.patlive.com

FussyZeus 8y ago
Am I the only one who thinks this is bullshit? How is PATLive not also complicit in the crimes they're looking for "Will" to prosecute in? I get so tired of these B2B service providers who get caught up doing borderline illegal shit and then just shrug their shoulders and say "not our responsibility." Everybody has these clauses doing the ass covering so they can sell services to anyone who knocks and they're never held responsible because of some bullshit contract. WHY is that allowed? You're doing business with an individual/organization that is breaking the law, and you know it, or you would know it if you cared to look. That's gotta be at least worth a charge of negligence? I'm just saying the "Will"s of the modern era would have a much harder time if the call centers, teleco providers, internet hosters, etc. were held responsible when they were found to be operating in cahoots with a scammer and I don't understand why they aren't. Vet your fucking clients. And if you don't wanna do that, then shut your doors.
- kbenson 8y ago
  That's like a PO Box location being liable for someone's fraud, or even a software or hardware provider, like Microsoft or Dell, being liable for providing assistance in the crime. It's an answering service for a phone line. Are they supposed to magically know that the people are calling from some robocall and not because it's a semi-large real estate office somewhere? Perhaps the best way to to let them know is to inform them. Then they have a choice to make, investigate whether the accusations are true and decide whether to continue providing service. At that point, they may actually be responsible for something.
  - tyingq 8y ago
    Certainly they get a lot of "quit calling me you aholes" type calls. They know what's up.
    - kbenson 8y ago
      So do legitimate services. That doesn't select for illegality, it select for how pissed people are. I bet a bank line gets a lot of irate people being called about their late mortgage payments too. How many of the people that call in do you think calmly explain that this is a telemarkerer, and they are breaking the law, instead of being aggressive or saying "take me off your list" or "I'm on the do-not-call list" and then try to end the conversation? The assumption that both ends of the service are connected actually allows the criminal portion to continue operating for longer, as anger is likely directed at the wrong party, and possibly in an non-constructive manner. And this all assumes people actually take time out to call the number back. How often do you go out of your way to interact with a telemarketer that doesn't have an actual person on the line for the call? My bet is the vast majority of calls are either interested parties or so enraged that understanding what they are actually upset about (and getting them to calm down enough to explain it) is actually rather rare.
      - tyingq 8y ago
        Inbound call centers breathe detailed call flow scripts, metadata, abandon rates, recordings, statistics, etc. I'm quite sure they know which of their clients are legit or not.
        kbenson 8y ago
        That depends on the type of call center. I imagine an answering service for a business (which is what we're told this is) will likely be a much less defined. For a medical or legal office (which is a common use case, I imagine), the "script" will be to try to suss out if the call is actually an emergency based on client criteria (if the caller presents it as such), and either take a message or use the emergency contact info on the account and relay the info to the client. At least, that's what it's been when I've encountered them. With more free form types of calls, identifying problem accounts might take a little longer. That said, even if it lasts a week or two before a problem account is identified and removed, who is to say that's not plenty of time for the scammers? It's not like there's only a few call answering services around. Just cycle to a new one every week or so. Do I think services exist that cater to illegal and semi-legal activity and try to skirt the line? Yes. I just don't think we should assume that's the case here without evidence, given how trivial it would be to do this with perfectly legitimate services.
- turc1656 8y ago
  On a related note - I've had the opposite experience but it wasn't with telecom related services - it was cloud services. A friend of mine started a business that focuses on the highly anticipated luxury clothing and sneaker releases. He basically does a proxy business that routes traffic through his network so that people can use multiple IPs that aren't banned on those retailers websites so that they can purchase multiple units of these products which are usually restricted to one per customer. We had a lot of trouble finding a reliable cloud services provider. Even though none of this is illegal at all, a bunch of them have clauses against it in the service agreement. So we avoided those. We figured the ones that didn't have it shouldn't have any problems because nothing was illegal and it's not like we are abusing the cloud services - we're talking about a significant amount of time with nothing on the network (that we pay them for) and then a short burst of traffic that is still low on bandwidth while all the clients are trying to hit the sites up at the same time. But one after another kept cancelling our accounts, citing a violation of the terms of service. We pressed a number of them for an explanation. Many just ignored us. A few outright lied and said they received complaints from ISPs about our IPs sending spam emails. I challenged them on that because nothing of what we did or any of our client did was sending emails. And we tightly controlled the network traffic, ports, etc. So it's simply not possible, they were lying to get rid of us because their terms didn't account for it. To this day, I still can't figure out why all these providers were so against what we were doing. Eventually my friend explained his use case to the CEO of one of the companies and they signed and agreement and were totally fine with everything so I'm really perplexed.
  - Larrikin 8y ago
    I applaud them. Reseller middlemen buying up the releases so they can profit are awful and inhibiting that activity is a greater good for society. In the ideal world sneakers could only be sold at retail, let the people who actually want to wear them buy them.
    - number_six 8y ago
      yeah internet scalpers suck!
  - 8y ago
- CWuestefeld 8y ago
  I'm just puzzled about how law enforcment is apparently at a dead end. Why can't PATLive be subpoenaed to provide information about one of their clients who's breaking the law?
- captncraig 8y ago
  Would taking down patlive really change anything other than shifting the physical call center to India?
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

pault 8y ago

"What, your name's not Pat?" "No, it's Michael." "That's going to cause a little confusion."

BrandonMarc 8y ago
I just re-read this skit yesterday! Ha ha. "Rule number six: there is NO rule number six..."

Zak 8y ago

I have some friends who answered calls for PATLive a few years ago. I got the impression they didn't spend a lot of effort on vetting clients and responded to abuse in a reactive, rather than proactive manner. Phone operators follow relatively simple scripts for most clients, taking down information so someone else can call back, but occasionally perform more complex tasks like scheduling appointments. My impression is that most of the clients were small businesses at the time; a few were government agencies. It's easy for a scammer or robocaller to pass as a legitimate business with a service like that: just don't include any red flags in the script.

CodeMage 8y ago

> Asked why there were several Pats, a Pat said: "We're all Pat." "His name is Robert Paulson."