Foreign Call Centers Phone Home

Pixland/Thinkstock(FORT WORTH, Texas) -- Have you had a complaint about a product? A problem with your brand-new computer? A question about a perplexing corporate policy?

It’s likely that your search for answers has spanned continents and traveled thousands of miles, sometimes without your even knowing it. Foreign call centers are not just a part of our everyday lives; they have also occupied a prominent place in the cultural lexicon.

From the USA Prime Credit commercials with “Peggy,” the not-so-helpful customer service representative, to the Oscar-winning movie Slumdog Millionaire, Americans have come to believe that even when they’re told they’re speaking with “Sherry in St. Louis,” it’s more likely “Baruni in Bangalore.”

In the '80s and '90s, a stunning number of American companies began outsourcing their call centers. As many as 600,000 American jobs evaporated -- moved to the Philippines, India and elsewhere, where operators learned English as a second language, and chose their “American names.”

American companies were saving a lot of money, but now, many of those same companies are bringing their call centers home.

Eight thousand miles away from the call centers in India, there’s now a call center in Fort Worth, Texas. It is one of five NOVO1 -- a company that runs call centers -- has in the U.S.

The Fort Worth center employs 800 American workers and is growing.

What changed NOVO1′s business is the answers Americans are looking for when they seek help from live operators.  Americans used to need to call a representative for a password reset or an account balance. Now all that can be done online.

The answers that are not available online are much more complicated, especially for those overseas operators to answer.

“Is it really cheaper if it takes two calls to handle that customer?” Mary Murcott, CEO of NOVO1, told ABC News. “I can do the math very quickly and tell you it’s more expensive -- that job offshore.”

A call center job in America starts off paying anywhere from between $20,000 and $40,000 a year, while in India the same job would pay just $2,400 a year.

It is a price many say is worth paying for the higher productivity achieved with American workers -- and the ability to never have a customer ask to be connected to someone in the United States.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

How Wall Street Is Raising the Price of Gas

Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- Every time you fill up your car with gas, your dollar ends up in the hands of a wide range of interests from around the world. Some of your money goes to oil companies, some of what you pay goes to refineries, and more still gets divided up by the gas stations you stop at.

What may surprise you, however, is what one of Wall Street’s top regulators has to say about who else you’re paying: speculators on Wall Street.

Bart Chilton, a commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal agency that regulates commodity futures and option trading in the United States, said it’s time to look at home -- in addition to overseas -- when searching for the reasons why gas prices are on the rise.

“I’m fired up,” Chilton said. “I’m concerned and we have to look after consumers.”

According to Chilton, much of the problem is actually “made in the USA,” created by Wall Street traders who gamble on oil prices.

“There aren’t markets without speculation,” Chilton told ABC News. “It’s the excessive speculation we are concerned about.”

Chilton, who has served as commissioner since 2007, said far too few players control far too much of the market, allowing them to push the price of gas higher and higher.  Chilton and the CFTC are attempting to implement caps on the total positions speculators can take when trading in the oil futures markets.

Chilton obtained an energy research report from Goldman Sachs spelling out how much the Wall Street firm estimated speculators had pushed up the real price of oil sold to make gas, due to large bets in the markets.

Using the numbers in the Goldman Sachs report, combined with current information from the CFTC, Chilton calculated how much speculation is driving up the price at the pump for the average consumer.

He shared calculations with ABC News for the first time.

By Chilton’s calculation, if you drive a car like a Honda Civic, you’re paying $7.30 more than you should every time you fill up -- to Wall Street speculators.  If your car is a Ford Explorer, you’re paying an extra $10.41.

For a Ford F150, he says, owners pay an additional $14.56 per fill-up -- or more than $750 a year.

For their part, industry groups representing Wall Street say there is no evidence their trading activities actually push up the price of oil.

Chilton doesn’t buy that argument, though.  He and the CFTC are currently attempting to implement new rules that would put limits on speculation. In response, Wall Street is suing the CFTC, attempting to get an injunction, which would allow everything to remain status quo.

“They don’t want these limits,” he said. “They want unbridled ability to speculate in these markets and that’s not good for consumers. It’s not good for markets. It’s not good for the economy.”

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

How Gas Prices Are Affecting Consumers

Joe Raedle/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- As the national weekly average for regular gas continues to climb -- now $3.59 a gallon, up 7 cents from last week, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration -- here’s how soaring prices are affecting American consumers:

• A 10-cent rise in prices means that the average household spends $93.25 more on gas and diesel per year.
• Every 10-cent rise in gas prices removes $11 billion from consumers wallets over the course of an year.
• Lower-income households are most sensitive to fluctuations in energy prices.  Households in the lowest income quintile spend about 11 percent of their income on energy (which includes gasoline, natural gas and electricity), whereas households in the highest quintile spend 6.8 percent of their income on energy, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Enterprise Rent-A-Car Blinks in Battle with California Mom

Joe Raedle/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- Under pressure from a mother who lost her daughters in the crash of a recalled rental car, the nation's biggest car rental company said Thursday it had changed its stance and would back a new federal law banning the rental of cars recalled because of safety risks.

"In the past we believed that this step was unnecessary," said Laura Bryant, a spokeswoman for Enterprise Holdings, "but a growing number of people, including our customers and business partners, clearly want more assurance on this critical issue. We hear them -- and what we've heard has caused us to rethink our stance."

The announcement came after Cally Houck, whose daughters died in a recalled car rented from Enterprise, launched a petition drive earlier this week calling on Enterprise to drop its opposition to the law. By Thursday, according to Change.org, the organization hosting the petition online, more than 100,000 people had signed the petition.

Houck said she had started the signature drive "to keep this from happening to another family and to be sure that my daughters' memory is preserved." She alleged that Enterprise both opposed the bill and had lobbied against it. Bryant confirmed that Enterprise had opposed the bill, but did not address whether the company had worked against it.

Hertz, the nation's second-largest rental car company, announced earlier this week that it had reached a deal with a consumer safety group to support federal oversight of rental car recalls. A spokesman for Avis, the third-largest company, told ABC News it was "currently reviewing and discussing the Hertz proposal."

While Enterprise had said as recently as Wednesday afternoon that it opposed the new law, proposed by Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., Bryant said Thursday afternoon that Enterprise was "announcing its formal support for federal legislation to oversee the way car rental companies manage the safety recall process for vehicles in their fleets."

The nation's rental car companies together own more than 1.5 million vehicles, with hundreds of thousands subject to recall in any given year. The law proposed by Sen. Boxer and Sen. Schumer would stop care rental firms from renting out cars that are subject to federal safety recalls until after they are fixed. The senators attached the law as an amendment to a transportation bill that is up for vote in Congress later this month.

As featured in a 2010 ABC News report, Houck's two daughters, 24-year-old Raechel and 20-year-old Jacquie, were killed in 2004 when the Chrysler PT Cruiser they rented from Enterprise apparently began leaking steering fluid and suddenly caught fire before crashing into an oncoming semi-tractor trailer. The car had been under a safety recall for the potential fire hazard, but was still rented to the sisters. The Houck family sued Enterprise, and after a lengthy legal fight, the company admitted negligence and was required to pay $15 million in damages to the family. After the ABC News report, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launched an investigation to see how quickly rental car companies repair vehicles that have been recalled.

Before announcing that Enterprise had decided to support the law, spokeswoman Laura Bryant had said the Houck accident was a "terrible tragedy," and that customer safety was Enterprise's "top priority," but that the company didn't believe legislation was necessary.

"[A] number of respected individuals, including elected officials and regulators, [believe] additional oversight of the recall process may be needed," said Bryant Wednesday. "While we believe this well-meaning legislation is unnecessary and based on inaccurate, obsolete data, our company continues to work with these individuals and organizations -- including NHTSA and the auto manufacturers -- to find common ground and produce a solution that addresses everyone's concerns."

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Jobless Claims Unchanged; Stocks Rebound

ABC News(NEW YORK) -- An encouraging weekly jobs report helped to keep the markets in positive territory Thursday.
 
After Wednesday's drop, the Dow recovered, closing up 46 points Thursday. The Nasdaq added 24 and the S&P gained 6.
 
Jobless claims remained unchanged last week, according to the latest data. The four-week average -- which analysts say is a more realistic picture of the job market -- hit a four-year low.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

J.K. Rowling to Write New Book for Adults

Jon Furniss/WireImage(LONDON) -- J.K. Rowling, the author of the much-celebrated and best-selling Harry Potter book series, announced Thursday that she will return to writing, this time for adults.

Rowling, who’s massively popular Potter series has sold roughly 450 million copies worldwide, announced that she has reached an agreement with publisher Little, Brown and Company. The details of the agreement, including the name, release date and plot of the novel, were not announced.

The deal marks a change in publisher for Rowling, who had previously found success working with Bloomsbury in the U.K. and Scholastic in the United States.

“Although I’ve enjoyed writing it every bit as much, my next book will be very different to the Harry Potter series, which has been published so brilliantly by Bloomsbury and my other publishers around the world,” Rowling said in a statement released by Little, Brown. “The freedom to explore new territory is a gift that Harry’s success has brought me, and with that new territory it seemed a logical progression to have a new publisher. I am delighted to have a second publishing home in Little, Brown, and a publishing team that will be a great partner in this new phase of my writing life.”

Both Scholastic and Bloomsbury noted their relationships with Rowling remained strong and that they would continue to publish her children’s books, including the Potter series.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Who Pays for Obama's Campaign Trips?

TOBY MELVILLE/AFP/Getty Images(MIAMI) -- President Obama jets to Florida on Thursday for a mix of official and political business that will steal some headlines in the Sunshine State and line his campaign coffers with at least $4 million.

The act of presidential piggybacking -- coupling official duties, in this case a speech on the economy, with political fundraising -- was not pioneered by Obama but is prominently on display this year.

Obama has taken four trips outside Washington, D.C., since Jan. 1, including 18 re-election fundraisers interspersed with various activities related to his duties as president. Most recently, Obama concluded a three-day, three-state swing when he attended eight fundraisers and two official events.

The president's jet-setting has drawn the usual criticisms from his political opponents but also raised the curiosity and questions from taxpayers about who bears the sky-high costs.

Official presidential travel has traditionally been paid for by taxpayers as part of executive branch operations, while political trips and events are to be covered by a candidate's campaign committee. On the occasions that they mix, the costs are to be split.

As a rule of thumb, an incumbent president's campaign is expected to reimburse the government the cost of a first-class commercial airline ticket for each person riding Air Force One to or from a political event, campaign finance experts say.

But that amount doesn't come close to covering the proportional operating cost of Air Force One, or the army of Secret Service agents, White House advance teams, the fleet of Air Force cargo planes transporting the presidential motorcade or the helicopters that often ferry the president from an airport to a remote site.

Air Force One – known in the military as VC-25 – costs $179,750 per flight hour alone in fiscal year 2012, Maj. Michelle Lai of the 89th Airlift Wing told ABC News.

That figure includes fuel, flight consumables, depot level repairs, aircraft overhaul and engine overhaul. Pilot and airmen salaries are not included because they are paid regardless of the plane's use, Lai said.

Obama's trip to Florida and back Thursday will cost at least $674,000 in Air Force One flight time alone.

His three-day, three-state swing that included two official events and eight fundraisers, netting more than $8 million last week, incurred flight costs of $2.1 million, based on the Air Force figure and flight times gathered from press pool reports.

As for how the proportion of that bill is broken down for Obama campaign to pay, experts say the law is murky and the practice of reimbursement is somewhat "on your honor."

"At the end of the day the Federal Election Commission has not been abundantly clear about how the costs of mixed purpose travel should be paid for," said Paul Ryan, an expert in FEC law with the Campaign Finance Institute. Ryan said a recent advisory case involving Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., who wanted to attend fundraisers while traveling on a publisher-paid book tour, illustrates the lack of clarity in this area of election law.

The FEC deadlocked on the question of whether Brown's campaign committee had to foot any of the travel costs, with the panel's Republican members insisting that Brown shouldn't have to pay any at all.

"The rationale was that he was going to the cities principally for the book tour, and he would be there regardless of whether or not he was holding a fundraising event," Ryan said. "They believed that fact he tacked on a fundraising event didn't trigger a recharacterization of the travel.

"I think the same analysis would apply to Barack Obama's travel," he said.

The Obama campaign has reimbursed more than $1.5 million for travel so far this election cycle, according to FEC records.

White House press secretary Jay Carney explained last week that the administration follows all guidelines and precedent for mixed purpose presidential travel, often "consolidating" events on long-range trips to maximize the value.

"We do it absolutely by the book -- in the same manner that President Bush did, President Clinton did," Carney told reporters on Feb. 16.

After a speech on his 2013 budget proposal at the University of Miami, Obama will attend three fundraisers for his re-election campaign.

All proceeds benefit the Obama Victory Fund, a joint account of the Democratic National Committee and president's campaign.

Obama's Florida fundraisers raise his total for the year to 28, including events in Democratic-strongholds of Illinois, New York and California. Combined, Obama has logged more than 10,000 flight miles this year on trips that have included fundraisers.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Florida Police on Alert for Gas Thefts

Hillsborough County Sheriff”s Office(TAMPA, Fla.) -- Florida police are on high alert after they intervened this week to disrupt an attempted theft of gasoline at a Tampa, Fla., BP station, evidence of soaring prices and the safety risks thieves are willing to endure for a fast buck, authorities say.

A deputy with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office first spotted the alleged thieves in action Tuesday at the station. A minivan was parked over the in-ground fuel tanks and, police later discovered, was siphoning gas into the make-shift storage vehicle, WFTS ABC Action News in Tampa reported.

The suspects escaped in a second getaway car as the deputy drove closer to the gas station, leaving several hundred gallons of gas still inside the van with 25 gallons spilled in the parking lot.

The national average for regular gas is $3.59 a gallon, up 40 cents from a year ago and 7 cents from last week, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said Tuesday. The average is higher for the lower Atlantic region, at $3.63, which is why police say there is a growing profit margin in the black market for gas.

Patrick DeHaan, GasBuddy’s senior petroleum analyst, said at least one gas station near the Orlando airport was charging $5.79 a gallon.

Larry McKinnon, spokesman for the sheriff’s office at Hillsborough County who has worked with Florida law enforcement for 35 years, said he has seen about a dozen gas thefts a year, concentrated when gas prices increase.

“It kind of ebbs and flows,” he said. “It will taper off for a while, and, you can bet your dollar, as the prices go up, we’ve told our patrol deputies to be on alert.”

Thieves rig their vehicles to make a fast escape. In the minivan that was left behind this week, there was a hole drilled in the bottom of the vehicle so a hose could pump gas from the station. The suspects appeared to have stuffed large tanks into a car. In other cases, McKinnon said, thieves have towed a tank behind a car, similar to a pest control vehicle.

“Of course, we know none of them were designed to carry fuel and they’re a deadly hazard. Fortunately, we haven’t had a crash yet,” he said. “But it’s not a matter of ‘if,’ but ‘when.’”

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Obama Defends Energy Policy Against Attacks on Gas Prices

SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images(MIAMI) -- President Obama on Thursday defended his “all-of-the-above” energy strategy amid surging gas prices and criticism he turned down development of the Keystone oil pipeline by blaming his Republican rivals for trying to score political points by talking about the pain at the pump.

“It’s the easiest thing in the world to make phony election-year promises about lower gas prices. What’s harder is to make a serious, sustained commitment to tackle a problem that may not be solved in one year or one term or even one decade,” the president told students at the University of Miami.

Admitting that rising gas prices are hurting Americans’ wallets, the president argued that his administration is not to blame for the high cost of oil.

“In 2010, our dependence on foreign oil was under 50% for the first time in thirty years.  In 2011, the United States relied less on foreign oil than in any of the last sixteen years.  Because of the investments we’ve made, the use of clean, renewable energy in this country has nearly doubled -- and thousands of Americans have jobs because of it,” he said.

While Republican lawmakers and the GOP presidential candidates have blasted Obama’s energy policy in recent days, the president said they are trying to exploit the spike in gas prices for political purposes.  

“Only in politics do people greet bad news so enthusiastically.  You pay more, and they’re licking their chops?  And you can bet that since it’s an election year, they’re already dusting off their three-point plans for $2 gas,” Obama said.  

In 2008, it should be noted, then-candidate Obama railed against the specter of $3 a gallon gas under President Bush, citing examples from people who reportedly had to quit their jobs because they couldn't afford to fill their tanks.

The president on Thursday urged the nation not to be fooled by the Republican call for increased drilling, saying it’s simply “a bumper sticker.”  

“It’s not a strategy to solve our energy challenge. It’s a strategy to get politicians through an election,” he said.

Instead, the president touted his wide-ranging strategy, which includes oil, gas, wind, solar and nuclear power, as the “only real solution” to solve the nation’s energy challenges.

While the president called for an end to oil and gas subsidies and vowed not to walk away from the promise of clean energy, he did not unveil any new initiatives Thursday.

In the short-term, Obama argued there are “no quick fixes” to bring down the price of gas. “There is no silver bullet.  There never has been.  But while we don’t have a silver bullet, what we do have in this country are limitless sources of energy, and a boundless supply of ingenuity and imagination that we can put to work developing that energy.”

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Greek Bailout Depends on Monster To-Do List

Hemera/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Nine days is all the time that Greece's creditors have given it to enact reforms, which, say nationalists, amount to nothing less than a forfeiture of sovereignty.

Yet if Greece does not comply, it will fail to qualify for its next infusion of bailout money ($172 billion) and will almost certainly default on its loans.

Here's a small sampling of what Greece has on its to-do list between now and March 1:

-- Rewrite its constitution to give priority to debt service.
-- Establish an escrow account that can be tapped only by holders of Greek debt.
-- Accept financial oversight from foreign "inspectors."
-- Fire a legion of under-performing tax collectors.
-- Enact legislation liberalizing the country's closed professions.
-- Tighten rules against bribery.
-- Prepare at least two large state-controlled companies for sale.

Add to this that some lenders reportedly feel it may be necessary to postpone Greece's national elections, now set for April, if the nation slips any further into violence and social chaos.

"That's a lot," says Mark Weisbrot of what Greece has on its plate. Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C., on Thursday is releasing a report titled "What Are They Doing to Greece?" that says a Greek default and Greece's exit from the European Union are outcomes that should be taken seriously.

"The European authorities are really pushing Greece to the limit, not just in an economic sense but politically," he says. "It will invite a nationalist backlash.  It could help push Greece out of the Euro Zone as well."

While Weisbrot thinks Greece will somehow find a way to mollify its creditors by the March 1 deadline, his confidence has less to do with Greece's ability to accomplish reforms than with other EU nations' willingness to overlook its failure.

"They have more to lose than Greece does," he says. "Nobody knows what the consequences would be for Europe of a Greek default.  You hear all this bluster from the Netherlands and from Germany, but that's just bluff.  I'm not saying there wouldn't be a meltdown.  I'm saying there's enough uncertainty that the rest of Europe doesn't want to find out what would happen."

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio