We've receive these calls every few months. The caller (it 's a Zurich or a Bern number) says that this is about optimizing our health insurance and won't cost us any more. Caller is not employed by the insurance company, but no clear answer when asked about employer. Only wants to speak German. So the last call, i said i can read German, send me the info. No info ever arrived. Tonight i just answered the phone and the guy wanted to speak to someone who speaks German. My husband speaks German, but he didn't want to be bothered. So then i said, "well, i make the insurance decisions because I've worked in health care" (true to some extent). And the guy said "ahhhh, well you aren't likely to do any of this anyway, so we're not going to send you any info." So i asked him to take my number off the calling list. We'll see.
But what is the purpose of these calls? Are they legit? Has anyone received them? It's just odd. I might call my insurance to see if they have any info on this.
I thinks every time your insurer puts the premiums up, you are allowed to change providers. These companies are essentially farming, they get a kickback for anyone the sign up to a new provider. No matter that the quite likely work for all providers and are swapping people around in circles, the kickback is there.
I actually wonder how much money my insurance company spends 'mining' for new customers, and whether it's money well-spent.
The caller suggested "optimizing" our current policy. I wonder if they're related to the pharmacy by mail stuff. They're arrogant at the same time they're trying to market something. Oh well.
I have these guys calling my mobile at least twice a week now. No idea how they got my number. The speech they give me is that "people in the Swiss pay too much for their healthcare" so they will come to my home and show me what I am paying for that I don't need and can get me cheaper with someone else.
They're super pushy too! They always have someone in my area "in the next few days" and rarely want to take no for an answer. We recently switched our health insurers for beginning of 2014 and the guy yelled at me for signing a multi year deal and wanted to know when I signed it, where, with whom etc.
Nothing "weird" about them. They're the worst type of telemarketers ever. I've received countless calls from them, and I told them a million times that we have a star in the book (meaning "do not call"), to take me off any list, and to never call me again. I also mentioned many times that I filed a complaint with SECO ( Staatssekretariat für Wirtschaft ). They don't seem to care, and continue to call. I've answered calmly, I've tried moderately upset, I yelled a few times, but nothing seems to work.
I thought they were weird because they will only speak German. And the guy asked for a German speaker because he didn't want to waste his time. But ok, now i know who they are.
We must get 6-10 calls per day.. We've stopped answering the landline now because really, no real people call us on it anyways..
At first it was fun, i'd begin the call speaking back in (quite bad) french then after their big speech I'd say "sorry i didn't understand any of that, could you say it again in english".. A couple of them actually got somebody to call back in english so the fun wore off.
A part of me wants to just yell Foxtrot Oscar.. But another part says hey, it's their job, calling me is paying their rent, they probably hate what they do as much as I hate answering. So if i do answer I'm usually a little bit nice.
I suspect it's nothing to do with health insurance, what they want is a meeting so they can sell you a life insurance savings plan with very high commission. The health insurance story is just to get you interested.
They pretend they can ignore the "do not call" asterisk in the phone book on the grounds that they are advisors and not salesmen!
They are peddlers of snake-oil and whilst they may tweak your basic health insurance, what they are after is to get you to sign up for loads of supplementary health insurance, because that is where they make their money. If they can flog you some life insurance, retirement plan or whatnot they'll probably do that too.
Avoid, hang-up, or speak to them in some incomprehensible foreign language.
Best advice I can give (not to the OP, just in general) is this: if someone calls you from a company you don't know, simply refuse to have anything to do with the, even if, and this is important, even if they seem to be offering a service you may be interested in. Even if they don't seem to be selling anything at all. Even of they're promising to reduce your payments. Etc.
If you did want to change your health insurance, for instance, the go out there and look for it. It should be clear that any intermediary is trying to make money for themselves, and if cold calling is also paying for the telemarketing, so in some way or another they're out to get money. From you
Really annoying and pushy people. I tell them now I'm leaving Switzerland soon and it stops them talking. They are not that interested in finding you cheaper basic insurance as they can make no commission on that. It's the additional insurance where they make their comission and their goal is to sell you that.
I've never figured out how to get the incoming calls off my landline (the non missed ones, that is). The first few calls a few months ago were from Bern (031). Last night was a 044/43, don't know the number.
I did look up the Bern number - it's been a source of aggressive telemarketing. So that's what it is.
Got 4 similar calls from the same number last week, the guy spoke to me in French claiming he was from "the biggest insurance company in Suisse Romande" ! The accent was Swiss-German, though.
Yesterday I got a call from 0912280425, another Call Center, same story.
A lot of them use a spoof caller ID. They are actually calling from Eastern European call centres.
I had one earlier this year that started as advice on Health Insurance, and over 20 calls in one night degenerated into threats to come to my house and rape my wife (they had obviously used a reverse directory to find out her name).
I registered a complaint with BAKOM, and they got back to me saying that there was nothing they could do, as the calls were originating from outside Switzerland.
Now I just have a contact in my iphone which is only for blocked calls. Any of these calls get added to the list.
I'd love to find out which service they are actually trying sell, so I could be sure I avoid it.
I just got one from +41912087100 - on my mobile. First one on my mobile. Thanks to the info above, I declined the call - it's 4:45 AM in the US, where I am right now. Wankers.