For the record!!!!

I am sure many of you like me have spent many a long hour on so-called customer care lines. Some are better than others, but you usually hear at some stage "that this call may be recorded for quality or training purposes" After a rather testing time with a phone company where I got 3 or 4 different stories over the space of a few weeks I was sorry that I hadn't recorded all my telephone conversations with them!!!

That got me thinking, in fact I can, just Google and there are several devices which will record telephone conversations. Also came across this service in the United States. This article appears to indicate that legally such conversations are admissible in Ireland, although I plan to check it out a little further, but interesting information here all the same. I am not sure what the reaction of service providers would be, but in the United States they don't like it, it seems some companies reps hang up when told by the consumer that they too are recording the call for "quality" purposes.

Given the misleading and often contradictory information often given out by phone, recorded calls could be a great source of backup for consumers seeking redress when things go wrong. Imagine being able to play back the tape of a conversation in a hearing of the small claims court to back up your claim!!!

Here is an example of a consumer recording of a series of phonecalls with a debt collection agency from the US