Dell's call center in Bangalore, India, was one of the case studies we examined in my International Business class a few years ago. Here is an excerpt from a December article in the Washington Post. Use this link to read the rest of the story.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/10/AR2008121003574.html

The Bangalore Backlash: Call Centers Return to U.S.
Some Firms See Value in Familiar Voices

By Peter Whoriskey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 11, 2008; Page D01

If you prefer a customer service agent who speaks "American," then computer maker Dell has a deal for you.

Catering to consumers put off by the accents of Bangalore, Manila and other call-center hubs around the globe, Dell will guarantee -- for a price -- that the person who picks up the phone on a support call will be, as company ads mention in bold text, "based in North America."

The Your Tech Team service, with agents in the United States, costs $12.95 a month for customers with a Dell account, or $99 a year for people who buy a new computer. It also promises that wait times will average two minutes or less. Without the upgrade, a customer is likely to get technical help from someone in India, the Philippines or the other places where Dell has operators.

By charging customers extra for a North American voice, Dell's program represents a novel strategy for easing the strains of globalization while maintaining profit, industry officials said.

Occasionally, "we've heard from customers that it's hard to understand a particular accent and that they couldn't understand the instructions they were getting," said Dell spokesman Bob Kaufman. "This illustrates Dell's commitment to customer choice."

Complaints about customer service agents based in other countries are an everyday phenomenon across several industries. For many U.S. consumers, the diverse accents that come across customer service lines constitute one of the most pervasive reminders of globalization and the offshoring of jobs. That can make personnel in the call center targets for American anger.
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Companies can save 50 to 75 percent on their call centers by putting them overseas, according to industry analysts.

Oh yeah--and congratulations to Melissa for staying off the steel wool and bleach!

You know, Dan is on to something! I wondered why Melissa had such an awful time with fingerprinting. Voila`! She has scrubbed them off by her propensity to clean with a vengeance!

Get a Mac!

@MamaTGrammaT - 

The issue was actually over how to order to receive things tax-free for a church--I have a number on file, but they didn't tell me that the only way for it to work was for me to order over the phone. And they had no way (so they say) to change the order that had been wrongfully charged OH state tax.

But in all honesty, I actually WAS thinking about Mac in the night!

LOL

Another helpful thing that I discovered is froogle.com.  I used it to buy ink cartridges.  When I first started looking online, they were about $90 a cartridge.  Daniel (mine) told me about froogle.com and then I tried it.  It compared all the prices on the sites that sold them and I ended up being able to buy two for about $50. 

Yeah for good fingerprints!  Did you all take them digitally?  When I had mine done for the school, there was no ink involved.  I pressed my fingers onto tiny screens that took the prints digitally and put them in the system!

@Fiddle4Him - 

Yeah, the process is entirely computerized, but they wanted the quality of the print to be better. Sometimes you can have lines running through your fingerprints or faint ridge marks. But they told Melissa that the computers are good enough so that no one should ever have to come back--it was an old mindset that was not really still necessary.