Jail: India's Next Call Center?

The next time you get an Indian talking from a call center on your customer service call, don't get too upset. Instead, have pity as your counterpart may soon be talking from jail!

For a man serving a life sentence for murder, Pradeep Deburma has a slightly unlikely dream: to work in a call centre like hundreds of thousands of other young ambitious Indians. Even more improbably, he has every chance of realising it while still behind bars.
Deburma, 24, is detained in a high-security prison near Hyderabad which is launching an innovative scheme to turn convicts into "outsourcing providers" for local firms and eventually, it is hoped, international clients.
The scheme is in its early stages, with prisoners being trained in basic data entry skills. Jail authorities hope that inmates will soon be just as likely to tap at a keyboard as dig vegetables, make carpets or stitch uniforms.
"We have got so many computer literates and professionals in our prison," said Gopinath Reddy, director general of prisons in the state of Andhra Pradesh.

Talk about being chained to the desk! Jason Burke of The Guardian has more: Link (Photo: Jason Burke)

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@ ted, dude, read what I wrote properly. I mentioned, "the credit card details and stuff are not noted down anymore in MAJOR companies." Big Companies, don't take down credit cards, besides what even made you think that the prisoners would have access to your details? And knowing how a call center really works, I can assure you that the info is actually secure even though it passes through live people. And to change your outlook on how Indian Call Center Employees actually work, you gotta come to India and see for yourself.

FYI, PINs are not given to customer service agents. and this depends on which customer service agents you are talking about. If the CSE is related to the bank , and if there's an issue, once the customer/agent says "PIN" or anything similar.. the call gets recorded automatically which is wired to the Assistant Managers or someone similar. Really if you even know the kinda headache that CSE's go through by sacrificing their sleep and working on client timings for a job, changing their biological cycles to help other people.. Some people never understand CSEs at all

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My job requires me to have contact with medical billing personnel on a daily basis. Many doctors are starting to outsource their medical billing (which is not unusual) to India. Not cool. Try getting information by fax or mail to someone on another continent who can't or won't give you their address or fax number because they're trying to maintain the illusion that they're "Peggy" from "Akron OH."

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@Aj Kan. Credit card info passes through the hands of live people all the time. PINs and personal information are given to customer service agents every day.

Your outlook is naive if you think that info is secure.

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LOL! How dumb are the people who comment..
You think the Indian Police Force or rather the companies haven't thought about the private information stuff? These guys are flex, as in, they would just fill the form with the details of you're problem and transfer your call to the Customer Service Executive who works in a proper office. Besides, for instance lets say that these guys have access to your private information, as you dope heads know, the credit card details and stuff are not noted down anymore in major companies, they are spoken to an IVR kinda thing. Then they are remotely, securely transferred with encryption to the company for further processing. Proved how dumb people with cards can be..