Accelerated Language learning

[TelephoneAngel]

We had an order from head office that if a customer could not speak English we were to just accept that there was a problem, regardless of any notes on the computer system and make them a small payment anyway, since it would take too much time to get it exactly right with a language barrier and telephone interpreters are more costly than this.

Customers cottoned onto this and suddenly lots were unable to speak much English.

This happened -

me - Hello Telephoneangel speaking how can I help you?
customer - (in very foreign accent) no spik engrish
me - it's ok, I recognise your accent, I can take the call in your own language.
*starts to speak in customer's language*
customer *loud sigh* switches to extremely broad London accent "Never mind, I'll call back later"

*click*

So i noted this was a scammer for when he called back

[jjllbb]

I can't believe that people have the balls to try and pull something like that.

[PepperElf]

i've seen similar things in some of the walmart threads here.

customers will act like they can't speak english just to wear the workers down into giving them what they want

or they really don't speak much english... and want to wear the customers down.

it usually becomes clear when a worker starts speaking to them fluently in the other language and they get a case of cat-butt-face over it

[Captain Trips]

My wife is a pale skinned blond, and sometimes some sucky employees will talk about her in Spanish. Imagine their surprise when she responds in perfectly fluent Spanish herself!

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

One of my conversations with a customer and his wife (who were once speaking in German in front of me and being very unkind about me) once ended with me saying to them...

"Here you go. For the record, my parents were legally married at the time of my conception as well as my birth, they were not brother and sister, I only have 10 toes and I assure you they are normal and not webbed or otherwise malformed, and I am aware of the huge honking mole on the tip of my nose, I have an appointment to have that removed a week from next Tuesday. Thank you for entrusting your computer to [our computer store], have a wonderful day."

[Kristev]

That happened on one of the judge shows once.

The judge was a pretty white woman who ruled against a Hispanic man who did something bad, and the man's father complained, in Spanish, about how stupid women were and that they shouldn't be judges and whatnot.

Much to his surprise, the judge spoke Spanish fluently. She really let him have it.

[bhskittykatt]

When my brother-in-law was a trucker, he had trouble with workers who couldn't speak English...until it came time to pay them and he tried to shortchange them, then all of a sudden they could speak PERFECT English!

[Magpie]

Classic one I got from my husband. RCMP stop a couple who are going a little too quickly on the highway. As the office walks up the to car, he hears the wife tell her husband "pretend you don't speak English" in the local German dialect. He then responds with "well we'll just speak low German then".