Well, it seems as if the telephone is getting a bit busier these days. Hey, maybe it’s a sign that the economy is picking up and these obnoxious telemarketers are a barometer! They’ve got to pay these rude morons something, after all.

It was my business line that rang this time, and as a result, I answered with my “business greeting.”

Now I’m not sure if that was a turn-off for the ignoramus on the other end of the line, or if it was just one of those typical telemarketing hang-up calls, but all I heard was “click” after I answered.

As I normally do under these circumstances, I researched the number that showed up in my Caller ID. Other consumers have reported receiving calls from this outfit, called “FBK Products” who were reported to be trying to sell some kind of septic tank treatment or something.

I could think of a number of suggestions for someone making telemarketing calls regarding septic tanks, as well as a few suggested new company names for “FBK",” but I’ve got other things to do.

Watch for the above number and/or company name on your Caller ID so you can take whatever action you deem appropriate.

This may be only one of the number that these dirt bags are using, since I got a very similar call a few weeks ago from a different number.

These idiots are some kind of debt consolidations outfit or something. It’s a robo-dialer with a recorded message that’s worded to make people think that their credit card interest rate is about to go up.

They try to make it sound like it is one of your credit card companies calling, but the tip-off is that they never mention a company name. Obviously, if you had a Chase MasterCard, you’d expect to say something like, “Hi, this is Ashley calling from Chase MasterCard” or something.

A little searching around the net revealed a good number of people who have also received these calls and that the people on the other end are pretty rude and arrogant if you manage to get through to them.

Could be a “legitimate” debt consolidations company that uses slimy telemarketing tactics or could be criminals fishing for credit card info. My caller ID said “Wireless Caller” which I find a bit unusual coming from a company making calls like that, so I’m leaning towards criminals myself.

Don’t be taken in by crap like this. Pay attention to how they word things. They may avoid using any names like Visa or MasterCard for legal reasons, since that might bring big guns to bear on them. Scum like this likes to stay hidden in the shadows for obvious reasons.

If you get any call from someone about credit card interest and how you can stop if from going up, just hang up on them. Make sure you know who you are talking to before giving out any personal information. If you are not sure, you can tell them you will call them back and then you can verify that the number actually belongs to your credit card company or bank.

For quite a while now, it’s been very quiet on the telemarketing front at our home. It looks like that period may be coming to an end.

I realize that someone calling to do a survey is exempt from the ‘Do Not Call’ regulations, but that does not mean I want to talk to those people any more than I want to talk to a telemarketer. They both interrupt whatever it is I happen to be doing, and are asking for my time to benefit their organization while offering me nothing in return.

Last evening when the phone rang at 6:45 the called ID displayed the tell-tale ‘Out of Area.’ Since I was actually expecting a call from a company, I thought that it might have been the call I was waiting for and I picked up.

The fellow on the other end sounded rather odd. Robotic. In fact, for a moment, I actually wondered if it was one of those automated calls, since the guy was so monotone. He first wanted to assure me that he was not calling to sell me something.

He then went on to tell me he was from ‘Opinion Dynamics’ and they were doing a survey for a major television network. At that point he asked if I was ‘one of the heads of the household.’

I told him that I was, and without giving him a chance to respond, I asked him if I was going to be paid for taking part in the survey.

Click.

Yep, the ignorant idiot hung up on me. Which is actually the outcome I had hoped for since it results in less of my time being wasted.

I’ve complained about this in the past, but would like to bring it up again. How is it that these survey companies expect people to waste their time on the phone answering questions which will help some huge corporation increase their profits, and not offer participants a dime?

Was the moron who called my home last night doing it for free? That’s highly doubtful. It’s likely that he collects a paycheck from ‘Opinion Dynamics.’ Sure there might be calls that go out from volunteers who may be working for organizations like Greenpeace or whatever, but last’s evening’s call was certainly not one of those.

I wish more people would start telling these survey companies that they would like some form of compensation for their time. Why should we be expected to work for free? I wouldn’t apply for a job that advertised the fact that they were not willing to pay me, and I bet you wouldn’t either.

I’m not talking about charity work here. The guy that called me last evening said he was gathering information for a major television network. Now why would I want to work for one of those corporations for free?

I’ve used this space to talk about the advantages of shopping around in the past. Some people shop around diligently and always make sure they are getting the best deal possible.

Me? I was never like that. It always seemed like too much of a hassle to be calling different retail outlets or businesses to see who was able to give me the best deal. The internet has taken a lot of the hassle out of shopping around, but the trusty old telephone still has its place.

For retail items you can do pretty well on the internet when you want to find the best deal on a given item. With auto insurance, I found the experience to be a little different.

When I became dissatisfied with my previous auto insurance company a few years ago, I actually made out pretty well by looking around the internet and filling out one of those quote forms that you see advertisements for all over the place. The problem I had was that the choices I was offered were pretty limited and I was able to get quotes for just three or four companies.

You can tell how fiercely competitive the automobile insurance business is just by watching a little bit of television. It does not seem that I can watch too long before seeing an advertisement for Geico, Progressive, State Farm, Amica or a host of other well-recognized names.

I also receive advertisements in the mail from the above companies on a fairly regular basis. I got one from Amica just a few days ago despite the fact that I signed up with them about two or three weeks ago! I guess it takes them a while to compare their customer and non-customer databases or something!

Anyway, to get more back to the point of this post, I would recommend that consumers call around or at least spend a little time on the internet comparing auto insurance rates every year or two. This recent switch to Amica was the second time I have been surprised by the amount of money I was able to save by switching companies.

The deal I got from Metropolitan a few years ago was a lot better than the one I had previous to that and it took a while to find a company that could match or beat them but I did.

And what’s really interesting is that the companies that constantly claim that they can save you money rarely can. At least that’s how it has worked out for me.

I consider myself a pretty hard sell. I’m skeptical and cynical to boot! I absolutely hate it when I feel like someone is trying to sell me something. Well, to Amica’s credit, it was their advertising that prompted me to call them when Metropolitan ticked me off enough to start me shopping around again.

I had remembered that the focus of their TV advertising was customer service and how they had received various awards for customer service.  Geico and Progressive beat the drum endlessly about how much money they can save for customers, but I have not personally found their rates competitive. However, it’s probably well worth checking with them if you are shopping around since insurance rates vary depending on a whole host of factors.

So, I gave Amica a call and had such a pleasant experience with the person I talked to that I started to believe their claims about superior customer service were genuine. To tell you the truth, it was such a pleasant experience talking to the Amica rep that I was really hoping the quote I was going to hear at the end of the call would be a good one because I wanted to sign up with them!

In the end it all worked out for the best since I was able to tell Metropolitan to take a hike and I got a nice quote from Amica, which I took advantage of.

Although I really appreciate my pleasant experience with Amica, my main concern is always price where auto insurance is concerned. However, when I decide to do some shopping around again in a year or two, it will probably take a pretty impressive savings to lure me away from a company that connects me to someone in my own state when I call their toll-free telephone number as opposed to a company that has shipped a bunch of jobs out of this country to some overseas call center.

Yeah, I know, ‘global economy’ and all that crap, but as long as I have a choice to do business with companies that keep jobs here, it will remain an important factor in my decision-making process when I am shopping around.

I know I’ve talked a bit about overseas call centers in the past, and voiced my displeasure about dealing with them, but I wanted to cover the issue more in-depth this time.

I’d also like to lay to rest any notion that I am a racist or bigot and don’t like people from other countries. That’s simply not true.

In my two previous posts, I explained in some detail my experience with MetLife insurance. They, like so many big ‘ and no doubt very rich ‘ corporations employ overseas call centers to handle incoming customer service calls.

This is a practice I dislike and here is the truth behind why I do.

Firstly, call center jobs are most certainly jobs that Americans want. Yes, you might be able to argue that a company is not able to find and ample supply of Americans to hire for certain jobs like picking produce in the hot Sun for hours and hours.

Make no mistake, those that are willing to do those jobs work their asses off and it is hard work. There is no arguing with the tremendous work ethic those people have. They work hard and probably do not get paid much to do it. If they are willing to do the job and they are in this country legally, they have every right to be hired to do whatever job it is they want.

On the other hand, there is no way I could be convinced that Americans don’t want call center jobs. There are, in fact, still U.S. call centers taking calls for customers every day, which proves that point.

That wraps up my first point, which is: Big, wealthy U.S, companies are taking jobs away from Americans by ‘outsourcing’ to overseas call centers. They say they do it to cut costs or remain competitive, but I don’t buy that. See my last post that proves hiring Americans to answer phones does not bankrupt companies. If Amica can do it, why can’t others?

Another problem I have is the language and culture barrier. When I call a U.S. company for customer service I want the CSR (customer service representative) to understand me and any cultural references, slang or vernacular that is common in my country.

On the other side of the coin, I also want to be able to clearly understand what the CSR is saying to me. I readily admit that some CSRs in overseas call centers spoke English extraordinarily well and I had no problem whatsoever understanding them.

There have also been occasions where the overseas CSR had a very thick accent, which made it extremely difficult for me to understand them. It is likely that I already have a problem. That’s why I an calling for customer service! The last thing I need is for the problem to be compounded by talking with someone I cannot understand or who cannot understand me.

My old ‘friends’ at TracFone were absolutely notorious for this kind of thing. Their call center was the absolute worst I have ever had to deal with it. That’s why I don’t carry a TracFone cell phone and never will again. Oh yeah, the text spamming was a big reason as well!

As a result of this language/culture barrier, my calls to overseas call centers are invariably very dry, impersonal and purely business-oriented. No laughs. No jokes. No small talk. No fun. That sucks. (Gee, I wonder if someone in an overseas call center would even know what that means!)

Adding to the potential language problems are the nearly universal poor connection problems I have when I am talking with someone in an overseas call center. Their voices are often distorted and I can hear what sounds like hundreds of other conversations on the line at the same time in the background. Really gives a company a great image, don’t you think?

It’s reached the point where I am surprised and delighted when I call for customer service and get someone from the U.S. on the line. For example, my conversations with the Amica CSR yesterday was actually fun! I was able to joke around with her, jokes that she understood and even laughed at! We even talked briefly about politics and the local weather. It was great!

She was raised in the same country I was. The same culture. We could relate to each other on many levels. That makes for a superior customer service experience and elevates the consumer’s opinion of the company as a whole. Like I indicated in my last post, so far, I love Amica and have already told my oldest son he should call them for his new auto insurance policy.

Big, rich, American companies listen up: A lot of us don’t want to talk to someone overseas when we call you! If you are a U.S. company I want to talk to a U.S. citizen when I call. If you are a German company, I will not complain if I get a call center in Germany on the phone when I call. Same goes for India or Costa Rica or wherever!

For my fellow consumers who may think badly of me for complaining about talking to people in other countries when I call for customer service I have this to say.

I do not blame the people on the telephone, and I am never rude or mean to them. If I were in their shoes I would probably jump at the chance for a good job as well. They cannot be blamed. I place the blame on the U.S. companies that choose to give jobs to people overseas rather than in the country where their customers are and where they are making their money.

People need jobs more than ever in this lousy economy and giving jobs to Americans should be the first priority for American companies that depend mostly on American consumers to stay in business.

That’s my opinion. Race, ethnic origin or geographic location has nothing to do with it. OK, I’ll concede that geographic location may be a factor due to those terrible telephone connections I so often endure when I am connected to an overseas call center.

This whole ‘outsourcing’ started a number of years ago. I didn’t like it then and I don’t like it now. From the very beginning I’ve said that if they start giving American jobs away to people overseas and we end up with a lot of unemployment in this country (sound familiar?) there eventually be no Americans left with enough money to buy the goods and services that these companies with the overseas call centers are offering.

Perhaps China and India will be wealthy enough to start buying a lot of stuff from American companies and their problems will be solved! Then they can move the call centers back here and we can all start learning to speak the different languages of the world so we can sit in a call center and answer calls from overseas customers all day for $3 an hour. Sounds great, doesn’t it?

Bring the call centers back to the U.S. Sure, maybe a few CEOs would have to give up an extra vacation home, private jet or luxury yacht to do it, but wouldn’t that be a worthy sacrifice in order to provide some struggling families right here in the U.S. a chance to keep their home or feed their kids?

In my quest to escape the unreasonable policies of MetLife insurance (see previous post) I decided to give Amica a call. I had seen their advertisements on television which featured their customer service awards and happy, satisfied customers.

I’m not the type to be taken in by a lot of promises and am usually doubtful regarding advertising in general. There’s just so much incompetence and deception out there that it’s hard to trust anyone these days.

So I dialed up the contact number from the Amica website and was connected to a friendly woman who was eager to help me. I could tell she was here in the U.S. and not in an overseas call center. The quality of the call was good and her accent and use of English left no doubt that she was here in the U.S. and even closer than I expected.

She began to gather my information and when I reached the part where she asked me what town I am in, I asked her if I should spell it for her. I’d have to say that 99% of the time, the answer is ‘Yes,’ but this time, she said, that I did not have to, and that she was familiar with it. That aroused my curiosity because we live in a small town that is not well-known beyond the local area.

When I asked her where she was located, she told me she was in Concord. Not only was she in the United States, she was right here in New Hampshire. Extra points to Amica for that one!

I must have spent at least 30 or 45 minutes on the phone and the Amica rep was a pleasure to deal with. She could not have been more helpful, friendly or patient.

The best part was when she quoted me an annual auto insurance premium of around $950. A substantial savings compared to MetLife. I was shocked due to my previous experience when I tried to get a quote that would beat or at least match MetLife previously. It had seemed impossible.

I was beginning to think that the claims made during those Amica TV commercials might actually be the truth!

I then asked her about my homeowners insurance, since I knew it was possible that I may get a discount by insuring both auto and home with them. That was indeed the case and she worked up a quote for me that was close to $100 above my homeowners policy from MetLife. However, combined with the auto policy, it was still a nice savings compared to MetLife.

I told the Amica rep to go ahead and start the process. I had found my new insurance company and was relishing the thought of my next task. Calling MetLife and telling them not to bother renewing my policies.

Once again I dialed up MetLife and waded trough the automated menu system that is so standard these days. After punching a number of buttons on my phone, I was finally connected to a person.

Once again I noticed the poor quality of the telephone connection and again, I was connected to a fellow with a Hispanic accent, but not the same one as before. I was beginning to think that I was not talking to someone here in the United States. You know, that country where MetLife is headquartered and probably does most, if not all of their business. Just where was the MetLife call center?

I told the gentleman of my intentions to cancel my policy. As expected, he asked if I would tell him why I was cancelling and I explained my displeasure with my attempt earlier that day to simply remove my oldest son from our policy since he no longer lives with us. He came back with the usual scripted response about how ‘sorry’ they were to see me go, etc. He then asked if he could put be on hold so he could start processing the cancellation.

A short while later he came back on the line and informed me that I was all set and my current policy would not be renewed. He then said "Is there anything I can do to convince you to stay with MetLife’? or something to that effect.

My answer was a simple and direct ‘No.’

He did not push any further. I thanked him for his help and mentioned that I thought our phone connection seemed a little weird and asked if he was in the United States.

‘No, Costa Rica,’ was his response. I told him I had heard that it was very beautiful there. He responded by saying the weather was nice and we ended our conversation.

So, in this case I end up with a win-win-win situation. Not only did I get to tell MetLife what to do with their policy, I got a better rate on a new policy and did it through someone who was sitting about an hour’s drive from my home as opposed to another country.

This early in the game it may be premature for me to make a glowing recommendation on behalf of Amica, but thus far, my experience with them has been outstanding.

Note to MetLife: Don’t make it hard for customers to do simple things like remove vehicles or people from a policy. Sure, I know with insurance you have all kinds of risks you are worried about and a legion of lawyers that are tasked with crafting your anal-retentive policies. But here’s the deal:

Let’s play devil’s advocate and say I was lying when I said my son moved out (for the record: he really did move out) and was just trying a sneaky way to save some money. Then, my son gets in an auto accident. Well, guess what? Deny coverage and don’t pay for it! Pretty simple if you ask me. I would clearly be a liar and clearly be at fault under those circumstances, and would (or should) be subject to some kind of legal penalty.

If I don’t pay to insure it, you don’t cover it. What is so damn hard to understand about that?

Anyway, back to the today’s lesson for the likes of MetLife. We, as customers of the insurance industry have a lot of choices, and an industry that is extremely competitive to boot. I think I could build a substantial bonfire with all the ads I have received in the mail or in magazine and sales flyer inserts from Geico alone!

It might be a good idea to make things as easy as you can for your customers and not make them jump through hoops for reasons that don’t make sense to us. Some of us don’t like jumping through hoops and are more than happy to ditch you in favor of another company.

Sure, for a huge company like MetLife, losing one customer may not be a big deal, but in this economy, I think one customer is more important than it used to be and you just lost one yesterday. That’s $1400 or so that MetLife won’t be collecting next year.

Note to readers: Please wait for my next post on overseas call centers before anyone decides that I am a racist or that I don’t like Costa Ricans or Hispanics or people from India or the Philippines or whatever.

Well, it’s been about three years since I dropped OneBeacon auto insurance and signed on with MetLife for a substantial savings. It was a great deal at the time and saved us a nice chunk of change.

A year or so ago, when my youngest son got his license and his own car, I finally let all those Progressive and Geico commercials get to me and I decided to call around to see if I could get an even better deal on insurance than I was getting from MetLife.

Although I cannot remember exactly which companies I called for a quote at the time, I called at least four different companies that offer auto insurance here in New Hampshire and none of them could even come close to the MetLife price. I was a bit disappointed, but at the same time, felt as though I was probably getting the best deal available.

As renewal time rolled around again this year, I got the usual packet of policy information and first bill from MetLife and noticed a substantial increase in my auto premium for the coming year.

The increase was likely due, for the most part, to the addition of my youngest son to the policy. I expected it to go up, but not quite as dramatically as it did. In fact, it shot up to around $2100, which was close to the amount I had been paying OneBeacon three years ago, and was the factor that prompted me to drop them in favor of MetLife.

I did not recall the exact figure I got for the yearly premium I was quoted when I added my youngest son to the policy, but the number I was staring at for the coming year was a bit of a shocker.

Well, the good news on the auto insurance front is that my oldest son has just moved out and is living on his own now. That meant I could remove him from my MetLife policy and save about $760 a year, which should have dropped the premium down to around $1340. A lot better than $2100!

So I got on the phone with MetLife and told him I wanted to remove my oldest son and his car from the policy, since he had moved out on his own. I thought this would be a simple matter, but not so.

Just to set the scene a bit here, the gentleman I talked to at MetLife was polite and professional and had a Hispanic accent. I also noticed that the telephone connection had that quality (or lack of!) that I so often notice when I end up connected to an overseas call center. But, figuring we have plenty of folks right here in the U.S. that have come from Latin American countries, I figured that perhaps it was just a bad connection and he was located in some MetLife call center here in the U.S.

He began the process of removing my son from our policy and then he spoke the words that ground the process to an abrupt halt. He told me that I would have to send them ‘proof’ that my son has moved out. Something like a utility bill with his name and new address shown on it.

As it stands now, my son is simply renting a room in a nearby city and does not get any kind of utility bills or otherwise with his name on them. But I was in no mood to explain that to the fellow on the phone.

What irked me was that this policy is something we are paying for, it’s not like MetLife is doing us a big favor by insuring us. I should also note that we had our homeowners insurance through MetLife as well, since that usually results in further savings.

As I was saying, this is something we are paying for. This is a service we have purchased from MetLife. and if I tell them I want to cancel a portion of that service (in this case, my oldest son’s coverage) they should simply do it. Instead they want us to jump through hoops and send them ‘proof’ that he has moved out ‘ which, under the circumstances, is not a simple matter.

At that point I indicated to the fellow on the phone that perhaps it was time for me to start calling other companies for a quote because I did not think it was reasonable for me to have to provide ‘proof’ to cancel a service we were paying them for.

His response, as expected, was to stick with the corporate script and reiterate that proof was required before my son could be taken off the policy. I told him I would be checking with other companies for a quote and would get back to them and then hung up.

At that point I started to think about which companies I would call. I remembered I had called Geico before and discovered that all their bragging about saving money on car insurance sure didn’t result in a saving for my family when compared to MetLife. I believe I had also talked to Progressive and Travelers and perhaps a couple more and none of them could beat or even match MetLife at the time.

I did not recall talking to Amica, however, and decided to give them a call to see what they could do. If you have any interest in how that turned out, check out my next post.

Here’s a bit of news that’s bound to bring a tear to the eye of any current or former customers of Pipeline Data, Inc. whose experience may have been similar to mine.

In it’s latest quarterly ’10-Q’ report, which the company must publicly release by law, they reveal that things didn’t go so well during the first three months of this year. The company’s revenue decreased by $1.9 million, which is almost 17%. Those figures are in comparison with the first three months of last year.

The company states that their poor performance is due to a reductions in transaction volume which was due in large part to ‘the attrition of customers’ and the current state of the economy.

I’m sure that the state of the economy has had a negative impact on their business, just like it has had for many others, however that’s not what stood out when I read the report.

I was more interested in the ‘attrition of customers’ revelation.

Dictionary.com defines ‘attrition’ thusly: ‘a reduction or decrease in numbers, size, or strength: Our club has had a high rate of attrition because so many members have moved away.’

There are other meanings, but I believe this is the one that the statement from Pipeline is eluding to.

To put it simply, they have lost customers ‘ a significant number I’m guessing, and something that I do not find the least bit surprising.

Here’s something else that was extremely interesting to me. The company reports that ”seven members of the Board of Directors resigned and a new five member Board was formed. Daniel Nenadovic serves as the new Chairman of the Board.’

This may actually be good news for current and future customers of Pipeline Data, Inc. Perhaps the new board will bring positive changes to the company that are sorely needed. Time will tell.

I was a little disappointed to see that the fictional $99 that the company claimed I owed them and hired a collection agency to collect from me was not mentioned in the ’10-Q’ report. I presume it would have been a ‘loss,’ since it must have appeared somewhere on their books as an uncollected debt until they realized it was a fantasy. A fact I made aware to them after I heard from the collection agency.

Anyway, I really did not expect to see that $99 on the ’10-Q.’ That was a joke, and probably not a very good one.

Here’s are some more fun facts from the ’10-Q’ report.

Pipeline owns a number of other companies, which they refer to as ‘wholly owned subsidiaries.’ I think they are worth mentioning:

• SecurePay.com, Inc.
• Northern Merchant Services, Inc.
• Pipeline Data Portfolio Acquisitions, Inc.
• Aircharge, Inc.
• PayPipe, Inc.
• Paynet Systems, Inc.
• Valadata, Inc.
• CardAccept.com, Inc.
• PayPassage, Inc.

Speaking solely for myself, of course, I know that this will be a list I will check through if I ever find myself in need of a merchant account again in the future.

A careful consumer should always do their research.

If you would like to read the ’10-Q’ yourself, you can find it at Yahoo! 

It’s also kind of interesting to see that this company’s stock is currently trading at around 14 cents, making it a true ‘penny stock.’

Wow, 14 cents is not a lot of money, is it?

Since my nightmarish experience with merchant account services from Pipeline Data/Secure Pay/Whatever-other-names-they-use, I have decided to keep an eye on any news regarding the company (companies?) and also watch for any other tidbits that show up from other customers.

I do not easily forget experiences like the one I endured during my association with that outfit ‘ and even well after I thought it was over!

As some readers may recall, these idiots caused me more than my share of grief. Most recently siccing a collection agency on me over a a debt that I did not owe.

In fact, the reality of it is that, technically, they owe me $30 for trying to withdraw money from my business bank account over a year ago, which due to ‘insufficient funds’ in the account, resulted in a $30 penalty from the bank.

The money they were trying to withdraw was money that was not owed to them, and was attempted after I had already been told that I did not owe them any money, and that no other attempts to withdraw money from my account would be made.

An absolutely incredible demonstration of incompetence.

Anyway, the whole story has been covered in-depth here already, so I’ll get straight to the new business.

I came across a post in a forum from another unfortunate customer of ‘Secure Pay,’ who is apparently having problems integrating their payment system into her website. No big surprise.

You can read about her wonderful experience here.

I’m sure you can imagine what kind of advice I might offer to her. I’ve said it before and will gladly say it again.

My advice is to stay as far away from Pipeline Data/Secure Pay as possible. I cannot imagine a worse choice for someone who is shopping for a merchant account.

If I ever hear a single word from Pipeline Data, Secure Pay or collection agency weasels working for them again regarding any more fictitious debts, the next contact they will have with me will be in a court of law, because I will hire a lawyer and vigorously explore all of my legal options. That’s a promise.

Pipeline. I suppose when most people hear that word they tend to think of things like the oil and gas pipelines that carry so much of the fuel that currently keeps human existence ‘ as we know it ‘ running from day to day.

One might also think of things like the pipelines that carry water to homes and businesses or runoff from rain storms. And how could we forget the big sewer pipelines that take waste away from homes and businesses and deliver it to large wastewater treatment facilities that turn that nasty stuff into water that can be discharged into rivers and streams in an environmentally sensible fashion.

The Pipeline I want to talk about today is quite different from those I have mentioned above. In fact, it’s not a ‘pipeline’ in the true sense of the word, even though it bears a striking resemblance to the final variety of pipeline that I just finished talking about. In my personal opinion, of course.

The pipeline I want to talk about today is a company called ‘Pipeline Data Processing.’ They are a company that offers merchant accounts to retailers who want to offer their customers the option of paying by credit or debit card. Pipeline collects the payments, deducts their fees and then sends the payment to the merchant.

For the background on this whole ugly situation, you might want to check out two older entries here and here, since I do not plan to relate the entire story from the beginning.

I was having a pretty good day yesterday. Sitting in my home office getting some work done and was just about to go outside to take care of some chores and get a little fresh air. It was a very nice day here in New Hampshire.

Just as I was about to go out, my phone rang. The Called ID display was showing ‘Glacial Star Gr’ which was obviously the name of some company whose entire name would not fit on the display. Since it was the business line ringing, I thought it was a potential customer calling from work to place and order (happens more than you might think!), or a wrong number.

When I picked up the phone, the gentleman on the other end identified himself and said he worked for ‘Glacial Star Group.’ I was expecting some kind of pitch for web-related services since our business is web-based and we sometimes get ‘phone spam’ from people who want to re-design our site for us or want to help us get more traffic to it.

Then the guy starts talking about some kind of debt that I owe and wants to know what ‘my intentions were.’

At this point I am wondering what the hell this guy is talking about and why he is calling me. He addressed me by name, so clearly he had reached the person he had intended to reach.

At this point I am not even sure what I said to the guy. I was so dumbfounded, I cannot remember my reaction.

He than made it clear that his company was a collection agency and had been hired by ‘ yes, you guessed it ‘ Pipeline Data Processing to recover a $99 debt that I owed them.

At that point I suppose you could have knocked me over with a feather. It was total and complete disbelief, which I conveyed to the guy from the collection agency. As someone who collects debts for a living, I suppose he gets that kind of reaction all the time and probably did not believe me.

But let’s pause here for a little bit of history that I did not bother to enter here way back when I was dealing with all the problems I initially had with Pipeline Data Processing.

My last dealings with them were when they attempted to extract money from my business checking account during December of 2007. Keep in mind that this was well after I thought this nightmare was over and was given assurances that my account had been closed and I would have not further dealings with Pipeline Data Processing in any capacity.

Well, since I don’t often allow too much money to accumulate in my business checking account precisely because of companies like Pipeline Data Processing, there were not sufficient funds in the account to allow the withdrawal. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the bank charged me $25 for an ‘insufficient funds’ fee. So I was out $25 because Pipeline Data Processing attempted to snatch money from my account that they should not have been trying to take.

I fired off an e-mail to the person I had been dealing with at Pipeline and inquired as to why they were trying to take money from me again. I never got a response back (she was impossible to reach on the phone) but I kept a close eye on my account to make sure it did not happen again.

Reluctantly, I decided to just let the whole matter go and see what might develop next. I was so tired of dealing with the incompetent idiots at Pipeline Data Processing that I did not have the will to get into it again with them for the sake of $25.

There are other reasons for that decision as well that I don’t care to talk about, but I will just say that a lot of things have changed in my life since that time, and I am not quite the same person I was then. I’m far more tenacious these days and not one that can be easily walked on. To say the least!

I never heard another word from Pipeline Data Processing and they never tried to withdraw money from my account again. I figured that they had realized their mistake after I sent my e-mail and actually closed the account and put a stop to any further efforts to take my money.

Fast forward to yesterday. Sixteen months after their final attempt at extracting money from my account, and I’ve got this character on the phone from a collection agency telling me that I owe him $99 on behalf of Pipeline.

Another thing the guy on the phone indicated was that they had tried to reach me earlier to inform me with regard to this matter. I confirmed he had my correct address and obviously my correct phone number, so I can only presume he was lying to me. Why, I do not know, but I feel quite confident that no attempt had been made to contact me about this alleged debt prior to the phone call I received yesterday.

I explained to him that this was all a mistake on the part of Pipeline and asked him why they simply did not contact me and let me know that they thought I owed them money. He had no answer and claimed that he did not even know if Pipeline had a collection department, which was later proven to my satisfaction to be a lie. After all, we are talking about a collection agency.

I will give the guy who called credit for being very business-like and polite for the vast majority of our conversation. At one point he asked me for some additional phone numbers I could be reached at, like a home or cell phone.

Now I wasn’t born yesterday, and I’m certainly not about to provide information that will help a collection agency get in touch with me. Especially, when the debt is not valid in the first place. That was the only part of the conversation that got a little touchy.

No doubt using some of his tried-and-true collection agency tricks, he said something along the lines of ‘I’m going to have to insist that you give me some other phone numbers I can reach you at.’ Those were not his exact words, but it was something like that, and with an stern an authoritative tone, of course.

At that point he started to get me a bit agitated and I rather forcefully told him that I was not giving him any other numbers. Sensing that he was up against a brick wall (he was quite correct), he backed off and switched back to his softer and gentler collection agency guy persona.

At this point I informed him that I would be contacting Pipeline Data Processing to resolve this matter. He then wanted to know when a good time would be to call me back, so I gave him a time and we both agreed to talk again at that time.

I immediately called Pipeline Data and managed to find my way through their phone maze to the collections department. The woman who  answered was actually quite nice and very helpful and looked up my records in their database.

There was a long pause on the line and I could picture her reading all the past entries in their database that indicated that this matter had been resolved over a year ago and my account had been cancelled and I owed them nothing. I pretty much asked her if that’s what was going on and she rather sheepishly confirmed it for me.

She then told me she would be contacting my new friends at Glacial Star Group and telling them to stop all collection activities and that I owned Pipeline Data Processing nothing. I thanked her and ended the conversation.

I then got the guy from Glacial Star Group back on the phone and told him that he should be hearing from Pipeline soon to let him know that I really did not owe them any money at all.

I happened to mention the first name of the woman I talked to at Pipeline and he said something like ‘Oh, Judy Smith’? (not her real name), which is what tipped me off that he had lied earlier about having no knowledge of Pipeline’s collections department. The woman I talked to worked in the collections department ‘ a fact that the guy from Glacial Star Group obviously knew. I’m quite sure he knew she did not work in the janitorial department!

Still, he was very polite and business like throughout the whole process, but I have no doubts about how that situation might have turned if Pipeline had not called off the dogs, so to speak.

The bottom line is this: I cannot imagine a worse choice than Pipeline Data Processing for anyone who is considering opening a merchant account. My advice is to stay far, far away from that company.

Any company that comes back after sixteen months of silence and hires a collection agency in an attempt to collect $99 from me that I never owed to them in the first place has some serious problems.

At this point I am left wondering if my contact with Pipeline Data Processing is finally reached its end. Will they try to extract more money from my bank account or hire another collection agency to come after me for a fictitious debt? I wish I knew.

Let me close by saying this: If you happen to be an attorney reading this and think that I have any recourse in this matter, I’d be happy to hear from you. I don’t like being harassed, having my name dragged though the mud and essentially being branded as a ‘deadbeat,’ by having them hire a collection agency to come after me for a debt that never existed.

Plus, I might like to get that $25 back that they caused my bank to charge me when they reached in and tried to take money from my account back in December of 2007.

Like I said earlier, I’m not the kind of guy that takes this kind of crap laying down any more.

Any attorneys looking for work who think there might be something here, feel free to reply to this entry or use my contact page to drop me a line. Seriously.