The TIME reporter agreed to do just that. “If you are going to publish this in the magazine, I’d like to get something out of it,” he said. He asked that TIME publish the name of his company, the website and phone number in the article. He described the company as selling life insurance, health insurance and dental insurance. “First of all, we use TV, we use radio, we use Internet,” said Martin. He said he was not sure if Samantha West’s phone number, mentioned above, was one of the company’s numbers. When the number was called a second time, a real live employee of Premier Health Plans Inc., who gave his name as Bruce Martin, answered the phone. “We don’t use robot calls, sir,” said the person who answered the phone, before promptly hanging up the phone. A TIME reporter called the company directly, identified himself and said TIME was doing a story about the robot who calls people on the company’s behalf. because we care,” is the company motto on its homepage. Asked for the company’s website, the real human on the other end of the line said it was, the website of a Ft. “She doggedly refused to deviate from her script.”Īfter answering her questions, one TIME reporter was transferred to an actual human who did not promptly end the call, as others had when asked about Samantha.
“A friendly sounded woman on the other end claimed I requested health insurance information,” writes one mark.
This number, if you Google it, is the subject of much discussion online as other recipients of Samantha West calls complain on chat boards about the mysteriously persistent lady who keeps calling them. You can listen for yourself to some of the reporting here: Her goal was to ask a series of questions about health coverage-”Are you on Medicare?” etc.-and then transfer the potential customer to a real person, who could close the sale. Her name, she said, was Samantha West, and she was definitely a robot, given the pitch perfect repetition of her answers. Over the course of the next hour, several TIME reporters called her back, working to uncover the mystery of her bona fides. When asked multiple times what day of the week it was yesterday, she complained repeatedly of a bad connection. When asked “What vegetable is found in tomato soup?” she said she did not understand the question. When Scherer asked point blank if she was a real person, or a computer-operated robot voice, she replied enthusiastically that she was real, with a charming laugh.
She wanted to offer a deal on health insurance, but something was fishy. Follow phone call came from a charming woman with a bright, engaging voice to the cell phone of a TIME Washington Bureau Chief Michael Scherer.
0 kommentar(er)
