Columbia Hopes To Land Downsized State Call Center, With 129 Jobs

A year after tabling a plan for a call center here, the state Department of Human Services now says it wants to put a smaller version of the call center somewhere in Lancaster County.

And even though the proposed call center has been shrunk by more than half, Columbia Borough is in hot pursuit of the venture, which would create 129 jobs.

Its Borough Council voted this week to spend $835,000 to support the effort of developer Bill Roberts to put the call center in a fire station at 137 S. Front St.

“Every now and then, when a municipality embarks on an economic development project, they need to be willing to put some skin in game,” said Mayor Leo Lutz.

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http://lancasteronline.com/columbia/news/columbia-hopes-to-land-downsized-state-call-center-with-jobs/article_cf7669f8-ffdf-11e4-ac60-370a1a706522.html

Profane Name Changes Greet Some Customers Of Cable Companies

The names some cable customers are being called after contacts with the companies that provide them services can be staggeringly profane: scatological and sexual, with allusions to body parts and perverted acts.

They are often mailings of things like bills. Almost all of the names defy mention in a news story, but for some sense of it, here is one of the more temperate ones, received by a female Comcast customer: Super Bitch, which was first reported in the Chicago Tribune earlier this month.

On Wednesday, a Time Warner Cable Inc. customer in Orange County, Calif., received a cancellation letter with her first name changed to a derisive four-letter term for female genitalia.

Esperanza Martinez, 34, said she was shocked at the profanity. She had called Time Warner Cable about an issue with her set-top box and had what she thought was a satisfactory conversation with a representative Feb. 12. Then, bang, the Feb. 16 letter.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20150222_Profane_name_changes_greet_some_customers_of_cable_companies.html#1WSxt0EkF4FuZ0Oh.99

Verizon Wireless To Close Marshall, Cranberry Call Centers, Cut 1,000 Jobs

Map of Butler County, Pennsylvania with Municipal Labels showing Cities and Boroughs (red), Townships (white), and Census-designated places (blue). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Verizon Wireless will slice more than 1,000 jobs in Western Pennsylvania when it closes customer call centers in Cranberry and Marshall in May, the company said on Wednesday.

“This was a very difficult but necessary business decision,” Verizon Wireless spokeswoman Laura Merritt said in a statement.

The Cranberry call center employs about 600 customer service workers in the Cranberry Woods business park. The one in neighboring Marshall will lose about 430 workers, including 200 in telemarketing and 230 in business and government support.

A Verizon regional headquarters for Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia will remain in Marshall, preserving 340 jobs.

Read more: http://triblive.com/business/headlines/5584718-74/verizon-wireless-call#ixzz2tEyTkh5g
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T-Mobile Closing Lehigh Valley Call Center

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Lehigh County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Editor’s note:  This news sucks!

More than 600 people will lose their jobs at the end of June — unless they relocate to other states — when wireless communications company T-Mobile closes its Lehigh Valley call center as part of a company-wide cost-cutting maneuver.

The Bellevue, Wash., company announced Thursday it is closing seven of its 24 call centers in the country, including one on Roble Road in Hanover Township, Lehigh County. T-Mobile also is closing call centers in Florida, Texas, Kansas, Colorado and Oregon.

“Concentrating call centers is an important step to achieve competitive cost structures to successfully compete … in the wireless market,” Philipp Humm, CEO and president of T-Mobile, said in a news release. “These are not easy steps to take, but they are necessary to realize efficiency in order to invest for growth.”

The fate of T-Mobile’s Valley call center came in question last year when the company’s bigger competitor AT&T proposed buying T-Mobile for $39 billion. AT&T dropped its T-Mobile bid in December, citing objections from federal regulators who were concerned the deal would limit competition in the wireless industry and potentially increase prices for consumers.

Read more: http://www.mcall.com/business/mc-t-mobile-call-center-closing-20120322,0,5402783.story