Forum

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.

I'm not too sure about this, it seems PayPal wants to get a hold of a supplier and verify things are legit. And if they can't they're not lifting the limitation.

Give it a shot and let us know how it turns out.

Hmmm well still I think paypal may be suspicious if someone answers the phone right away. If they're calling a company, they would expect to get an automated system and then be on hold for a bit. They might also expect a company to be reluctant to release information.

I disagree with that. Not EVERY company has an automated phone service. In fact, Most dont unless theyre a LARGE company.

And usually if youre providing supplier info, Large companies are not used...

I've tried many ways about this problem and I found the way out for my own.

the key is about the different place,language not the automated answering system.

as you know... try the best, everything can be ⊗⊗⊗⊗ :D

eh i dont think thats a good idea. Because the only thing that would do is not remove your limitation because they were unable to contact your supplier. Although i use a telephone service with the greeting and extensions and all the other bells and whistles its not necessary. Because like Orion mentioned not all companies have that. They only want to talk to someone to verify the products you are selling...its like a 3min call, just best to answer it and deal with it accordingly. However it is best to be as professional and prepared.

While not every company has an automated phone service, they are growing in popularity as companies downsize by laying off the receptionist and other "non-essential staff".

Hell, you could even incorporate something to that effect in your phone message that it might be a day or two for someone to get back to you because we recently had a bunch of lay-offs. Very plausible in this current economy.

That inumbr service that someone else discussed in another thread could be useful to list as a supplier number, its free for you and it has an extension to bring some type of "company feel" to it ...