Pablo Averbuj

Vonage Voicemail Transcription Hilarity

I had in my queue a post celebrating Vonage for their voicemail transcription service. This is actually a pretty clever idea and very useful. The idea is to save me a call and some button pushes or a few mouse clicks (I already get voicemail as an email with .wav attachment), but when I already know who called and when (from the email) the extra step of actually listening seems tedious and redunant. That’s what I had *planned* to do. The service worked great for a few weeks, but clearly the original trained foreign labor has been replaced either with machines or untrained foreign labor. I’m considering posting these transcriptions weekly because they make me angry and laugh at the same time. I’ve already communicated this to Vonage, but they replied with a nigerian-spam looking email asking me they’d love to help me if I just provide the following details …

(I’m not making that up).

So first, let’s seem some of these hilarious feats of English:

“Hey. It’s ethnic i think you know. if she’s also going to come over tomorrow between wanting to. And she’s going to be. Bringing you to call. Bottom baked beans. And i’m going to bring it. Either tennis out led by process out. So i think so much for everybody has crashed your house. And You know crash a pool party. What i. Hope you have a wonderful day. In the c my. Bye spice.”

That’s probably the best one so far.

“(Elias?), it’s (Erin?). It’s about 7:15. Was trying to phone call. Where do we get this? Give me a call. I’m on my way to my mom’s, but I self service majority of the way. So, just (??) to you. All right. Bye.”

My hobby is coming up with elaborate scenarios under which someone might leave a message like the following:

“Hey staff i was just calling. I’m i was on the other line area and i can get over. talking enterprise so.”

Finally, I’ll include the Nigerian spam I mentioned. Now, for bonus amusement I add the following: I sent this email from my account control panel after having logged in.

I received your email requesting assistance but I am unable to assist you until I can first validate you are the account holder.

For your protection and to ensure that your account is not compromised, please reply to this email and include the account information listed below. I look forward to your reply so that I can assist you.

[snip]

Account Information Needed:

1. Vonage Account number.
2. Email address registered on the account.
3. Billing address on the account.
4. First and last name on the account.

Who wants to be the one to tell Vonage the if my account was comprimised, asking for this information doesn’t really prove anything? Makes me proud to be a Vonage stockholder! *flush*