I don't recognize an Amazon Prime charge - Round and round we go.

[Mainia]

CSR had a very thick accent and was difficult to understand - I THINK they were treating it as if I lost my card and not fraud. I'm on the phone with Amex now and I made it clear it's fraud. Thankfully, this person seems more with it - reviewing my account right now. The whole experience yesterday was very frustrating.

My wife works for a dental office and is their insurance expert, she routinely asked for USA based english speaking people as the over seas people are too hard to get the issue across and receive the correct information to get it right on this first call. She just doesn't have time to babysit and teach the inexperienced insurance call centers dental insurance. Some speak good english and have the knowledge, so it goes good. The minute there is a barrier, she pushes to defers to USA based insurance call center.

When she first started there, the office workers were flabbergasted she pushed that because of language as they thought it was "racist" and non woke. She also is the front desk person too and a good chunk of the 4 Dr's the Dr's patients gravitated to her, so she has no time to dilly dally on the phone fighting a language/skills barrier. It is funny to a point, as a good # of the patients will only talk to her. When I go there to get my teeth cleaned we will go out for dinner with some of the workers and they commented on they always get calls to put on hold and comment to my wife "john XXXX is on the phone and he said he will only talk to you". We try to help them but they insist they want to talk to you. A heavy load she carries at work. But she gets paid very well.

 

[JHZR2]

That makes absolutely no sense. The whole point of cancelling the card is to stop exactly that from happening.

Somehow automatic/recurring charges get transferred. Or I think it’s really more like the cc company allows small dollar charges that are of a recurring nature, and are charged to the old “closed” card to be authorized and applied to the new one. I’ve had this happen on my credit cards before.

It’s a courtesy service when the charges are legit. Helps keep continuity. But it works until the old card expiration date is reached.

Lousy for OP because of the fraud.

 

[4wd]

My wife works for a dental office and is their insurance expert, she routinely asked for USA based english speaking people as the over seas people are too hard to get the issue across and receive the correct information to get it right on this first call. She just doesn't have time to babysit and teach the inexperienced insurance call centers dental insurance. Some speak good english and have the knowledge, so it goes good. The minute there is a barrier, she pushes to defers to USA based insurance call center.

When she first started there, the office workers were flabbergasted she pushed that because of language as they thought it was "racist" and non woke. She also is the front desk person too and a good chunk of the 4 Dr's the Dr's patients gravitated to her, so she has no time to dilly dally on the phone fighting a language/skills barrier. It is funny to a point, as a good # of the patients will only talk to her. When I go there to get my teeth cleaned we will go out for dinner with some of the workers and they commented on they always get calls to put on hold and comment to my wife "john XXXX is on the phone and he said he will only talk to you". We try to help them but they insist they want to talk to you. A heavy load she carries at work. But she gets paid very well.

English is yet another reason that India gets so much remote work. I have talked to them so much that the accent does not throw me any longer …

 

[PWMDMD]

English is yet another reason that India gets so much remote work. I have talked to them so much that the accent does not throw me any longer …

I have a friend who was born in Costa Rica who speaks absolutely perfect English with no accent. Now she's an engineer with an MBA and has received all of her higher education in the US so she's been her along time but she has no accent and her English is grammatically perfect. When I asked her about it she said growing the best paying job by far was working in a call center and only the best English speakers got those jobs. So she and her friends from an early age worked really hard on learning English and extinguishing their accents.

Anyway, I thought it was an interesting story. She can even imitate US speakers from different places perfectly.

 

[4wd]

I have a friend who was born in Costa Rica who speaks absolutely perfect English with no accent. Now she's an engineer with an MBA and has received all of her higher education in the US so she's been her along time but she has no accent and her English is grammatically perfect. When I asked her about it she said growing the best paying job by far was working in a call center and only the best English speakers got those jobs. So she and her friends from an early age worked really hard on learning English and extinguishing their accents.

Anyway, I thought it was an interesting story. She can even imitate US speakers from different places perfectly.

Indeed - the best from the technical center get transferred to Houston - many of them PhD’s - little or no accent …
Now financial services is very mixed …

 

[D60]

Some speak good english and have the knowledge, so it goes good. The minute there is a barrier, she pushes to defers to USA based insurance call center.

When she first started there, the office workers were flabbergasted she pushed that because of language as they thought it was "racist" and non woke. She also is the front desk person too and a good chunk of the 4 Dr's the Dr's patients gravitated to her, so she has no time to dilly dally on the phone fighting a language/skills barrier. It is funny to a point, as a good # of the patients will only talk to her. When I go there to get my teeth cleaned we will go out for dinner with some of the workers and they commented on they always get calls to put on hold and comment to my wife "john XXXX is on the phone and he said he will only talk to you". We try to help them but they insist they want to talk to you. A heavy load she carries at work. But she gets paid very well.

This mentality infuriates me. Nothing racist about it -- it's called a BFOQ no different than saying a warehouse worker must be able to lift 70 lbs.

I speak a TINY bit of Spanish but NEVER would I accept a job answering calls for Spanish speakers -- even if the job were offered to me. Part of answering calls for a given region is that the average person who grew up in that area should be able to understand you with EASE. I grew up in the US and am an average Amuhreecan -- if I can't understand you, your accent is not acceptable for phone work, period.

Again, if the roles were reversed I wouldn't cry racism. I'd say, "I get it, I'm not qualified."

 

[Hall]

When she first started there, the office workers were flabbergasted she pushed that because of language as they thought it was "racist"

They clearly had no concept - or at least a misunderstanding - of what that word means.

I have a friend who was born in Costa Rica who speaks absolutely perfect English with no accent.

Who taught her English ? Reason I ask is that in most cases, the person teaching a language isn't a 100% native speaker, their students inherit his or her accent. Company I work at is headquartered in Belgium and most of the "office" staff speak English, but with a noticeable accent, then I have customers in Mexico who speak perfect English (some with a Texan accent ) and I've asked many of them or mentioned their perfect "American accent" and every time, they lived in the US for years and were immersed in the accent and taught by native speakers.

Funny story about learning a language is when my wife and I were in Paris and stopped at a small take-out operated by some folks from the Mideast (I want to say Lebanon). One of the workers was teaching himself English .... by watching Friends on TV !! He wanted to chat with us, give our opinion on his English, and so on ! I was impressed ! He wanted to move to the US eventually too and that was why he was learning.