An idea for dealing with paypal calling suppliers
Here's an idea and this should work with merchant account invoices, too.
Basically, get some phone number that goes to an automated phone system. It'll say "thank you for calling [company name]" and then it'll have maybe 7 choices of press this number for this department. No matter what number they press, they get sent on hold. No one actually answers it and they just get stuck on hold forever.
The best hold nose for this is not just classical music, but music that also has recordings of people loudly talking (e.g. "Thank you for waiting, we will answer as soon as possible. We will give you the same quality service we are giving other customers. Do to excessive call volume, there may be extended delays. We will answer as soon as possible."). This is the most annoying because it's hard to listen and wait for someone to come back on. Additionally, make sure that if it's after hours, the automated system will say the office is closed so it sounds legit.
For extra fun, you could make it so if they wait 2 hours, you actually answer it.
Don't use a toll free number for this as it would charge you money.
I wonder how long paypal and ebay would wait on hold. For an extra annoyance, I've seen automated phone systems throw stuff in where every 5-15 minutes, they make you press a number on the phone or it hangs you up.
I don't think this would work for paypal calling your bank to phish your information because there are ways to look banks up by routing numbers.
Another benefit of this is that people could re-use it. Basically, if paypal sees some number listed for supplier info and they have never seen that number before, it could throw up red flags. It's also important if two people call at once, they get the phone system and not a busy signal.
Last edited by Jonas; 02-18-2009 at 10:22 PM.
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