Monday, July 30th, 2007 (
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Refusing to cancel someone's account is a very bad thing (and probably illegal). However,
cancelling your account can be a fight that you're not prepared to handle.
In case you didn't know this already,
companies are structured to put enormous pressure their representatives to keep you from cancelling at all costs.

If you are a typical call center worker - unskilled, uneducated, living paycheck to paycheck off a generally low-pay and no-benefit job, being constantly driven by management to retain customers - what do you do when your numbers are low for the month: cancel Suzy Q.'s account and risk being fired, or sweep it under the table and be able to pay for your kids' school clothes? After all, if you call back tomorrow to see if the account's really cancelled, chances are this customer will reach a different CSR. Chances are, this call isn't one of the three or four calls a month that is actually monitored by someone. Chances are indeed very good that there will be absolutely no consequence to not canceling this customer's account, but there will definitely be a consequence if the account is actually cancelled.
You canceling your ISP's internet service or your magazine subscription is a very small matter to you. But it is a critical matter of employment to the CSR. Under such pressures, created by greedy companies, who can be surprised that "mistakes" are made.

The real villains here are the companies who aren't gusty enough to tell their call center people to do things illegally and immorally, but structure their centers in such a way to make it as likely as possible.
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