How to find work in Jamaica at Call Centers - Why Paper Free Environment prevent Scamming and Attract more BPO's

“Stapling the pockets is just one of them to ensure that nobody can put an item in their pocket and walk in (to the call centres)…..We have to take all necessary precaution to ensure that our data and our clients' data is not compromised in any way”

CEO of Global Outsourcing Limited Davon Crump, at the Conference on Cyber Security and Digital Forensics at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus

That above statement must have shocked the attendants at that Cyber Security Conference at the University of the West Indies as reported in “Pockets Stapled! ... Call Centres Workers Face New Measure To Secure Client Data”, Published Tuesday October 1, 2013 12:11 pm, The Jamaica Gleaner.

But its regular news to me based on my experience from working at Fullgram Solutions Limited as a CSA (Customer Service Agent) from February 24^th 2012 to April 1^st 2012. Fullgram Solutions is now renamed as Fullgram International Call Center Limited, Telecom Provider Digicel’s current Call Center for Prepaid and Postpaid Customers as stated my blog article entitled “Digicel cuts 120 Call Center Jobs - Fullgram Solutions to benefit as Antonio Graham speaks of an AEPP future by the Ocean”. 

Already the BPIAJ (Business Process Industry Association of Jamaica) President Yoni Epstein has distanced themselves from the comments of the CEO of Global Outsourcing Limited Davon Crump as stated in the article “Pocket Stapling Practice 'Draconian', Says Call Centre Operators Group”, Published Wednesday October 2, 2013 11:19 am, by Livern Barrett, Gleaner Writer, The Jamaica Gleaner.

In BPIAJ President Yoni Epstein own words, quote: “The BPIAJ and its members do not condone such draconian measures being used to prevent security breaches and protect client's data”.

Hello, I’m Lindsworth Deer – Call Center Veteran for Three Years

I’d also worked previously at ACS-Xerox as a CSA (Customer Service Agent) from November 1^st 2011to January 27^th 2012 on the Amazon Account during which time I’d penned several articles on Call Centers and Amazon latest product, the Amazon Kindle Fire as noted in my Geezam Blog article entitled “Amazon Kindle Fire vs the Apple iPad – The Stats Wars worth Reading About”. If you wish to see them all, go to my Geezam Account and search for “Amazon Kindle Fire”.

ACCENT Marketing was the last place I’d worked from June 23^rd 2012 to April 17^st 2013 as a TES (Technical Engagement Specialist), which I’d left to work at AREL Jamaica Limited as a Biomedical Field Engineer. At which point I’d penned my blog article entitled “How to find work in Jamaica at Call Centers - Job Agencies, Applications with Proposals and Reading the Sunday Gleaner for Fast and the Furious 6 Tips and Tricks” on how I’d managed to escape the Milk Chocolate and free Pizza Factory that was ACCENT Marketing after nearly nine (9) months of hard work in this Call Center located at 63-65 Knutsford Boulevard.

After spending so long in that field over a span of almost 3 years on-and-off, I’ve begun a series of article on their World that are titled “How to find work in Jamaica at Call Centers” for easy Google Searching. From my sojourn, I’ve found their World is not different from Telecoms with the exception it’s more touchy-feely in terms of how workers interact with each other, you get lots of free food and they’re non-discriminatory in terms of who they employ.

Also, Millennials Rule (ages18 to 28) rule and are very tech-centric, owing to the fact that they deal with a lot of Customers and assist them if their heads aren’t tough, with their Technology related queries for the various accounts, mainly Panasonic, Sharp, SC Direct and Asus (am I forgetting anyone?). 

You can get dehydrated easily after four (4) hours of non-stop talking in the phone, requiring that you rehydrate frequently as noted in my blog article entitled “How to find work in Jamaica at Call Centers - Drink Bottled Water as Dehydration and Salty Foods makes you lose concentration”.

And yes, in the future, changes to the Labour laws that are yet to be made by Minister of Labour David Kellier will mean more Flex-Working and BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) companies coming to Jamaica as stated in my blog article entitled “How to find work in Jamaica at Call Centers - Church opposed to Modernizing Jamaica via Flexi-Work and 4G LTE to introduce Tele-commuting is really Much Ado About Nothing”.

My work resume logs all of the places I’ve worked while searching for Work in Call Centers in Jamaica and hunting legitimate work on my Days Off

How Call Center Workers are connected to Scam – Easy Access to Create Lead Lists

So the unfeeling comments of CEO of Global Outsourcing Limited Davon Crump at this mostly intellectual crowd that has never worked in a Call Center that are damaging to morale as well as your good-good Gucci pants are nothing new. Call Center managers like CEO of Global Outsourcing Limited Davon Crump are evil embodied!

Call Center work, in the eyes of  the TES and CSA’s, is basically a form of Modern day slavery with Pizza and Candy as the sweeteners, being carried home from work via bus as a perk and a measly JA$300 per hour (if ya lucky) salary! Really the last bit of freedom that’s left to take away is personal privacy in terms of having cameras everywhere, as your calls are all monitored. His comments really indicate that Global Outsourcing Limited may have trust issues with their staff and they don’t have the money to install Cameras.

Worse, the Millennials Rule (ages18 to 28) and the few Generation X’ers (ages 29 to 45) who work in the field still continue to break the rules in terms of carrying Cellphones and External Storage devices such a Thumb Drives and MP4 Players onto the Production Floor and in some cases stealing equiptment e.g. Tablets and using it as a means to transport Customer information, mainly Credit Card Numbers and the associated information.

So it’s real easy to create a Lead list, one copied piece of Customer information at a time every time the Customer has to make a Sale or upgrade a service. The temptation becomes very high as the work conditions help to ferment a dislike for the nature of the Job which many are not psychologically ready to accept: subservience to someone else to make money instead of using your other job skills!

How to Scam Customers – Got Lead List, will spend Money on your Credit Card

Once they’ve had enough of not having money and watching all that money dance before their eyes, scamming Americans or even stealing stuff from the company becomes an easy choice and a temptation that’s hard to ignore.

The technically savvy CSA can in their spare time, usually days off when they go home to either log onto the Internet and use either a Proxy or a VPN (Virtual Private Network) Connection to use the Customer’s Credit Card Number and personal information online to buy whatever you want as explained in my blog article entitled “How to find Free TV online and how to Stream from Hulu or Netflix in Jamaica - Jamaican Pirate of the Caribbean on Stranger Tides Streaming Restricted US Content”.

Because you can login as if you’re in another country by using a rotating list of Proxies or VPN’s, you’re basically undetected. You then create a fake email address and then proceed to get yourself a Payment Gateway such as Paypal as explained in my blog article entitled “How Jamaicans can set up a Payment Gateway in order to process Credit Card purchases - E-Commerce the main Catalyst for Increasing Jamaica's Internet Penetration” and purchase items online securely and anonymously.

You then purchase your items and then ship the items to Jamaica via a Shipping Courier as described in my blog article entitled “How to purchase items and subscribe to Magazines online and ship them to Jamaica”. After this, you gotta lie low for a bit and wait and see if the Customer notices that their Credit Card Balance is diminishing or being used to make purchases.

This is basically Identity Theft, plain and simple! Some may even go the extra mile and scam fellow Jamaicans abroad when they go on vacation or even locally at Cyber Cafes as explained in my blog article entitled “Professor Marco Gercke warns of Scammers using Keyloggers for Spear Phishing - How to use Keyloggers and how to Protect yourself from Scammer's American Hustle for Fast Cash”.

In this case you can also clone the Credit Card and withdrawal all of the persons money, though that’ll involve you buying a Credit Card Copier to copy the info on the Magnetic Strip from one Credit Card to another as explained in my blog article entitled “Debit Card Cloning and the Cashless Society” and “Who is responsible if your Credit Card or Debit Card Account is hackeD?”.

The more common scamming method is to create Lead List patiently from all that personal information you handle on a daily basis. Then call the Customer later on during you off-work hours using a Master Jack or a paid Skype or Google Voice account, telling them that they’d won the State Lotto that they’d never entered and tell them they have to send you money to collect the prize for processing….all with a nice voice and the use of the word “Sweetie”.

This is the essence of Lotto Scamming, which is now on the decline thanks to the recently amended Cybercrime Act of 2010 which now sees punishments as severe as twenty five (25) years in prison as explain in my blog article entitled “GOJ amends the Cybercrime Act of 2010, enlists Ethical Hackers in a Cyber Emergency Response Team - White Hat Hackers are the Q.U.E.E.N Project Janelle Monae and Erica Badu Style”.

So the Deterrent is more than strong enough to stop any Millennial (ages 18 to 28) from stealing and ending up unable to work anywhere in Jamaica or possibly in the United States of American, depending on the contract you signed at your Call Center.

Attracting BPO’s to Jamaican - Increased Security Measures a sign of Trust Issues

Stapling CSA’s pockets is unnecessary and “draconian” and is bound to be met with the same opposition as the installation of Cameras in the Bathroom and other private places; draconian defined. Plus it’s an indication of a serious lack of trust in your own employees if you have to resort to doing this.

The best way to deal with Data Security  issues as suggested in the article “Pocket Stapling Practice 'Draconian', Says Call Centre Operators Group”, Published Wednesday October 2, 2013 11:19 am, by Livern Barrett, Gleaner Writer, The Jamaica Gleaner  is to make sure the CSA’s and TES have a completely Paper-free work environment:

1.      CSA’s searched regularly for and ban Mobile phones, Thumb Drives and other Removable Storage Media

2.      Make it mandatory at the time of employment for all staff to undergo Polygraph and have them carry in a Police Record to give an idea of their level of Trustworthiness

3.      Block all access to the Internet except for the websites need to do work and Google

4.      Removing all writing implements and paper from the Floor and make all work documents virtual and available only via a Shared Network Drive

5.      Regular monitoring Sessions, both Random and structured

To quote  BPIAJ President Yoni Epstein once more in their Press Release: “With the recent increase in illegal schemes such as lottery scamming and other fraudulent activities primarily in western Jamaica – the epicentre of the BPO industry – entities have had to implement greater security measures to protect the flow and use of information”.

Once those measure are in place, Security is more than guaranteed again any such scamming activity potentially taking place. Best of all you can conserve on your usage of Staplers!