Unprofitable customers

[Boozy]

If a company is losing profits due to these scammers, they will adjust their rates to make up the deficit.

You may indeed be right about that. It occurred to me that I was assuming all companies would do what makes good logical sense...MY solution to losing profits from scammers would be to prevent the scams, not hike up rates in an already tough, competitive market.
But as it has already been said here, if it makes sense, its not allowed.

[Worker-Intellectual]

With companies like this, it makes me wonder how long you would be able to live completely off of scams, spending no money and yelling and bitching to get whatever you want...

[DesignFox]

Paying people certainly do pay an "honesty fee" to make up for all the losers who do not pay their bills. I know there are fees built into your student loans and college bills that cover for those that don't pay their loans back. So in some cases, honest consumers and citizens do get charged a little extra to cover for the deadbeats. It wouldn't surprise me if some service providers take this into account when figuring on their prices.

[TNT]

Let's not forget what credits really cost... in a lot of cases, it costs considerably more to process a credit than the actual amount of the credit itself. Most people are unaware of how hideously expensive it is to maintain a call center. Figure twice the pay of the CSR.... which means a $10 an hour CSR is actually costing the company $20 an hour.

So, if a caller spends a half hour trying to scam a $4 PPV, it's more like $14 to the company.

That adds up fast... and yes, you'll see it reflected when rate increase time comes around.

[nick1091]

Paying people certainly do pay an "honesty fee" to make up for all the losers who do not pay their bills. I know there are fees built into your student loans and college bills that cover for those that don't pay their loans back. So in some cases, honest consumers and citizens do get charged a little extra to cover for the deadbeats. It wouldn't surprise me if some service providers take this into account when figuring on their prices.

That's exactly right. Any business where services/funds are rendered well in advance of payment (utilities, loans, etc) forecasting is done and price is determined after factoring in that a certain percentage of people will never pay, only pay after being sent to collections, etc.

This topic really gets my goat. I pay my DirecTV bill like clockwork every month, and if a channel goes out for an hour, I'll just find something else I'd like to watch. Meanwhile, my wife's friend routinely gets credits for almost-free service for some fuzz on one channel.

We have a client at work who bills over $100K monthly. If they have an outage, they send an e-mail, state their problem, and ask for a credit to be considered. I've never seen them complain or kick up a fuss. Meanwhile, we have a client who bills $250 a month, and every real or imagined issue fetches an immediate response of "GimmeGimmeGimme!"

[CrazedClerk]

I wonder if we can blame this on those Infomercials/annoying guru guys who make money by teaching people how to become SCs and scam companies for free stuff.

I swear every time I see one of those ads, I want to put a bullet through my TV.

[Jester]

I swear every time I see one of those ads, I want to put a bullet through my TV.

Sounds like you've been hanging out with Jimmy Buffett...

"This mornin, I shot six holes in my freezer. I think I got cabin fever. Somebody sound the alarm."*


[*from the Buffett song "Boat Drinks"]

[greensinestro]

I'm willing to bet the phone company is not the only people he is pulling this on!

Exactly where are these folks customers? Will you actually be losing anything - no you will be gaining money by losing asshats like these!

These are not customers at all. If a company is losing money every month and not getting a dime out of them for the service being provided to them, they should go to the competition and let them suffer.

Believe it or not, managers were always interested in retaining these worthless, scummy customers. Not sure why.

[HawaiianShirts]

Reps would tell him there was no promo, and of course, he would get it after he spoke with a supervisor. And again, it was because they were afraid to lose his business.

The other side of that is also true where I work. When I have customers who have legitimate complaints or a reasonable request for a discount of some kind (something I can sympathize with and would allow if I could) and I try to take up the matter with managers who can authorize discounts, I'm usually denied. They don't even consider the situation; they just say no, claiming that we "need the margin" or that we're "losing enough on that sale item as it is." If the same customer asks the manager for the discounts, they get the same explanation I got but with more official-sounding words. Sometimes the customer accepts it; sometimes they just leave.

Is it only my store where managers are willing to turn away the nice customers in favor of the jerks?