I’m watching Telemarketers and it’s reminding me of shady jobs I’ve had in the past.
I worked for Rent-a-Center doing collections. It’s a place that preys on the poorest people in America, getting them to pay extortionate interest on rent to own furniture, appliances and electronics. We had customers who would end up paying thousands of dollars on a couch that wasn’t even new when they got it. Even worse was people who would hit hard times and get their stuff repoed and end up with nothing to show for thousands of dollars in payments.
My job was to learn when these customers got paid, or when they got their disability or welfare check and hound them over the phone or in person. If they didn’t pay, I’d be sent out to knock on their doors. If that failed I’d be sent to repo it.
It was a soul crushing job. I’ve had shit jobs, but I’d never had a job that made me feel like I was doing harm to people before. Some of my coworkers would deal with this by demonizing the customers, acting like they were all deadbeats who deserved to get fleeced. Others would blame the customers, saying shit like, ‘Anyone stupid enough to buy here was going to get ripped off by someone, and it might as well be us’.
I couldn’t do that, so I started getting fucked up at work like Pat Pespis. I started pretending to do my job, dialing the number and then hitting the flash button and faking the calls. I’d get sent on a repo and my coworker and I would go out to eat or to the mall and pretend they wouldn’t answer the door. I expected my collection stats would fall low enough that I’d eventually be fired, but they barely moved at all. It turned out that hounding people to pay a bill wasn’t actually doing much.
I briefly worked for a cold call company that did nothing but harass retired people and try to trick them into “Medicare Advantage” (a
era grift that fucked people out of their Medicare benefits by draining them into private corporations).
A big part of the job was implying that I was from Medicare without actually saying I was from Medicare, just to avoid liability.
The most haunting call I made was to a lady that replied, “well, my husband’s been dead for about 10 years now, but since you assholes keep calling me, will you stop if I find a shovel and dig him up?”
I quit shortly after that.
That grift is still going on.
Medicare Advantage is still syphoning billions every year in overpayments. That’s on top of the main profits they’re making by this privitisation scheme. They kick the most sick people off their rolls by denying their coverage until they leave. That leaves them only the most profitable people to insure.
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/its-time-to-end-the-medicare-advantage-scam/