Ruthless Competition:

1581 Views 14 Replies 8 Participants Last post by nintendo9231889, Sep 16, 2009

Pawn3d

Discussion Starter · Sep 25, 2008

New Orleans computer, New Orleans tech support, New Orleans Apple... Right now, you could type just about any tech related word plus new orleans into a search engine and you'll get me. Even for just new orleans repair, I'm #3 on google behind a couple auto repair shops.

My competitors will do anything to have a piece of me. The latest is a female robot voice prank- in which she claims to have bought a computer from me off eBay and wants to return it. (ok, I've never sold a computer on eBay)

WHAT IS THIS SERVICE?
I knew it was one of those robot deals, but I rolled with it to try and find out who it was behind it. She didn't seem to answer to direct questions, but more or less had pre-programmed responses such as "That is unacceptable" or "stop playing around." She had me up until she couldn't tell me the computer model. She also bailed out on my interrogation and hung up. Still, her script was cleverly crafted, I'll give them that much- just not genius level.

WHO ARE THEY?
A few years ago, I could have nailed whoever it was- but now, we're so big that it could be anyone and *69 had nothing on them.

The only clue I have is that it's someone who thinks I sell computers on eBay. Because I have never done so, I'm trying to figure out who might have that idea of me. I also got a similar call from Governor Schwarzenegger a month ago, instructing me to answer so his questions immediately.

Maybe I'm giving myself too much credit. for all I know, they're randomly doing it to every shop in town. But I'd still like to find who's doing this. How do you track this stuff?

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1 - 15 of 15 Posts

BanditFlyer

· #2 · Oct 2, 2008

Good job on the SEO. :up:

What was the question again?

BanditFlyer

· #3 · Oct 5, 2008

Pawn3d said:
New Orleans computer, New Orleans tech support, New Orleans Apple... Right now, you could type just about any tech related word plus new orleans into a search engine and you'll get me. Even for just new orleans repair, I'm #3 on google behind a couple auto repair shops.

My competitors will do anything to have a piece of me. The latest is a female robot voice prank- in which she claims to have bought a computer from me off eBay and wants to return it. (ok, I've never sold a computer on eBay)

WHAT IS THIS SERVICE?
I knew it was one of those robot deals, but I rolled with it to try and find out who it was behind it. She didn't seem to answer to direct questions, but more or less had pre-programmed responses such as "That is unacceptable" or "stop playing around." She had me up until she couldn't tell me the computer model. She also bailed out on my interrogation and hung up. Still, her script was cleverly crafted, I'll give them that much- just not genius level.

WHO ARE THEY?
A few years ago, I could have nailed whoever it was- but now, we're so big that it could be anyone and *69 had nothing on them.

The only clue I have is that it's someone who thinks I sell computers on eBay. Because I have never done so, I'm trying to figure out who might have that idea of me. I also got a similar call from Governor Schwarzenegger a month ago, instructing me to answer so his questions immediately.

Maybe I'm giving myself too much credit. for all I know, they're randomly doing it to every shop in town. But I'd still like to find who's doing this. How do you track this stuff?

I've been thinking about this for a while. It took me a while to interpret the meaning of the post, but when I did, I started to think that the way to go about it would be to feign cooperation. Go as far as you can with agreeing to meet their demands. Treat them like you would your best customer.

You don't sell computers on ebay, but if your best customer called up with a complaint about a computer you sold him on ebay, you'd still do the best you could to help him. You'd ask what the trouble with the computer was, you'd ask for detail about the computer. You might even ask him to install a VNC Client so that you could log onto his computer and try to fix it. Do you see where I'm going with this?

But the best option is probably to just call the police and ask for their advice.

pyritechips

· #4 · Oct 5, 2008

I think ads in your sig are a no-no but I will leave that to the mods.

Category II Offenses
Advertising and Spamming
Spamming/Advertising - You cannot post advertisements of any sort in any forum. This includes products, services, or web sites from which you'd directly or indirectly benefit in any way.

buck52

· #5 · Oct 5, 2008

BanditFlyer said:
Good job on the SEO. :up:

What was the question again?

lost me with SEO

iltos

· #6 · Oct 5, 2008

pyritechips said:
I think ads in your sig are a no-no but I will leave that to the mods.

actually a sig that links to your website is ok....even if it's a biz....i personally took issue with this thread, because it seems more about the biz than the problem -too heavy on the self-promotion....

with 36 posts tho, we (mods) all decided to sit back and see what develops, as the rest of pawn's posts are reasonable.

BanditFlyer

· #7 · Oct 5, 2008

buck52 said:
lost me with SEO

Search Engine Optimization. He claims his shops show up in the third spot on google results even when querrying for semi-related things, like car repair.

So apparently he did an excellent job optimizing his site for search engines.

buck52

· #8 · Oct 5, 2008

thanks...I never would have guessed... can't be bothered Googling acronyms/slang

pyritechips

· #9 · Oct 5, 2008

iltos said:
actually a sig that links to your website is ok....even if it's a biz....i personally took issue with this thread, because it seems more about the biz than the problem -too heavy on the self-promotion....

with 36 posts tho, we (mods) all decided to sit back and see what develops, as the rest of pawn's posts are reasonable.

Ok but why is an ad in a sig ok but not elsewhere? to me an ad is an ad is an ad...

Cookiegal

· #10 · Oct 5, 2008

pyritechips said:
Ok but why is an ad in a sig ok but not elsewhere? to me an ad is an ad is an ad...

TechGuy doesn't want to restrict people from putting links to their sites in their signature as long as they're not just posting for the sake of getting exposure for their business.

Drabdr

· #11 · Oct 6, 2008

OK... group please indulge me on this...

I am totally and completely lost.

Is this a brain teaser, a rhetorical question, or a legitimate pursuit for some type of answer?? I guess if I don't understand I should stay out, huh.

BanditFlyer

· #12 · Oct 6, 2008

Drabdr said:
OK... group please indulge me on this...

I am totally and completely lost.

Is this a brain teaser, a rhetorical question, or a legitimate pursuit for some type of answer?? I guess if I don't understand I should stay out, huh.

Someone, presumably the OP's competition, is calling him and wanting some type of redress, presumably money. He's asking for suggestions on how to trace the phone call and find out who's calling him so that he can get them to stop.

I don't know how to trace, therefore I suggested the police.

On the other hand, I suggested he do some investigating of his own by treating the prank-callers as if they were his best customer. If his best customer called him with a complaint, he would do everything in his power to solve that customer's problem. And of course he'd be very courteous about it. But he'd have to get lots of detailed information from his best customer in order to be able to solve the problem. If he could get the prankers to go along for the ride, he might be able to pry the same kind of information out of them that he would out of his best customer.

And if not, at least he could keep them on the phone long enough for the police to trace the call.

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Drabdr

· #13 · Oct 6, 2008

Thank you Bandit.:up:

A private detective notion popped up in my head, but maybe I watch too much TV.

I would get a lawyer involved, as you may need to press charges. Minimally, I would keep a log of these activities, and try to document everything going on.

Is caller ID out of the question? If they come up, great. If they don't, would you want to answer it anyway?

BanditFlyer

· #14 · Oct 6, 2008

Drabdr said:
Is caller ID out of the question? If they come up, great. If they don't, would you want to answer it anyway?

Don't know about caller id, since he mentioned using *69, which is the cheap version of caller id. But I think caller id can be blocked, can't it? It sounds like that's what the pranksters are doing, from his initial post.

And yeah, I think he'd have to answer the phone anyway, since he's running a business.

nintendo9231889

· #15 · Sep 16, 2009

Pawn3d said:
A few years ago, I could have nailed whoever it was- but now, we're so big that it could be anyone and *69 had nothing on them.

If this is a consistent problem, you might want to get a toll free number. There's no way at all to hide the caller id on a toll-free call. If it doesn't show you their real number, they are either using voip or they're doing something illegal (most robo-dialers are doing something shady through voip)

Be careful with the rates, as most old-school (Eg: non-voip) toll-free providers charge a per-minute rate.

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