Show HN: Upcall – Triggered Human Phone Calls
upcall.com
upcall.com
This just seems like an amoral SaaS service I kind of want to die. Fast.
The security questions could be answered by then more easily instead of having to dig - I get that. But that’s not enough imho.
You have the right to express your opinion, for sure. But when you make a blanket judgement with little you’re going against HN guidelines:
> Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say face-to-face. Don't be snarky. Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
> Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.
This wasn't a blanket judgement without input. This was a judgement based on the available evidence, and particularly pointing at holes where one would expect a white hat to have solid documents.
I wonder if this is one of those startups where YC said "this team is solid, they'll likely pivot into something worthwhile".
The HN guidelines do not expect everyone to be positive. Negative feedback that's justified is important in any community.
I agree.
> and out of place on HN.
I disagree.
Why should we be discouraged from calling out what appears to be (at best) amoral behavior?
Look at the TOS and you can see that they are very strict about how they allow customers to use the platform. Before considering something amoral we should always do some digging:
> CUSTOMERS WHO USE THE SERVICES > Upcall reserves the right to terminate access to the Upcall platform and terminate services for any reason allowed under the Agreement, or if Customer is determined by Upcall in its sole discretion to have violated any law or any provision herein.
> Customer will remain responsible and ensure that all data submitted through Upcall to Freelancer Users are compliant. This includes, without limitation, ensuring that Customer has the proper consent, established business relationship (“EBR”) or other exemption to call the telephone numbers submitted. This also includes ensuring that any scripting submitted, or product offered therein, complies with applicable laws.
> As applicable by Customer’s industry, Customer will maintain standards necessary to comply with all applicable laws, rules, regulations and ordinances, including, without limitation, CI Level , 1, and HIPAA, and Financial Services Modernization Act rules and regulations..
> Customer will ensure that its processes and scripts comply with call recording law, timezone (“curfew”) laws, rules, regulations, ordinances and licensing obligations.
> Customer is solely responsible and liable for compliance with all caller ID and “spoofing” rules at all times.
> Any Upcall Customer who makes use of the Services (“Customers”) of Upcall or its Freelancer Users must ensure that its products and marketing are in full compliance with all applicable laws and regulations, including without limitation, all state, federal and international: (1) product-specific offer regulations; (2) Do-Not-Call (“DNC”) list prohibitions, including by obtaining a SAN and providing that to Upcall upon request; (3) licensing and bonding requirements; (4) consumer cancellation rights; (5) wireless calling restrictions; (6) restrictions on the use of automatic telephone dialing systems and pre-recorded messages; (7) opt-out rules; (8) mandatory disclosures (9) intellectual property rights and restrictions; and (10) document retention regulations. Customer agrees that it has read and understands the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule (“TSR”) and the FCC’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”), and all other applicable laws and regulations. Customer should review these rules with Customer’s own legal counsel to ensure that Customer understands and is fully compliant. Upcall does not assume responsibility for ensuring that Customer’s marketing meets applicable legal requirements. Rather, Upcall is relying on Customer and Freelancer, as the marketing experts, for that expertise and legal compliance. Upcall will not assume any liability if Freelancer or Customer suffers any loss due to an actual or alleged law violation. Notwithstanding anything contained herein to the contrary, Customer shall indemnify and defend Upcall (including for its attorney’s fees) from and against any actual or alleged TCPA or other law violation related to the calls or Services provided hereunder.
Just because it's a valid, high-quality product doesn't make it amoral.
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And I would argue that their TOS doesn't prove your point, but does the opposite. Let's look at one example line:
> Customer will ensure that its processes and scripts comply with call recording law, timezone (“curfew”) laws, rules, regulations, ordinances and licensing obligations.
My reading of that line is, "we will punt any questions of the legality or morality of what we do back to you, the guy giving us the dollars."
> Customer is solely responsible and liable for compliance with all caller ID and “spoofing” rules at all times.
How can the customer be responsible for something that's entirely out of their hands? Do I, as a customer, dictate which number Upcall's calls will appear to be coming from? (I honestly don't know, I haven't read tehir FAQs.)
This whole thing reads like an Uber-style "move fast and break laws" manifesto.
I get where your coming from, as we’ve seen a lot of the moving fast / breaking stuff.
However, do we blame FB for someone misusing it? Do we hold YouTube responsible for what people say? We don’t entirely, as they’re platforms. In this case it is the same - UpCall is positioning themselves as a platform that the customer has to ensure they are compliant in order to use.
That said - I’m not sure how long or well it’ll work; as we can see this is a divisive subject :)
Yes! We do if they make it trivially simple to abuse their platform, either because they didn't bother thinking it through, or because they wanted money more than a clear conscience. (A concrete example is their recent ability to exclude minorities from housing listings.)
> Do we hold YouTube responsible for what people say?
We certainly are starting to get irate with their insistence on promoting neo-nazi and fascist channels. We're wondering why children are being shown videos of Peppa Pig drinking bleach.
> That said - I’m not sure how long or well it’ll work; as we can see this is a divisive subject :)
That's true, and I'm certainly coming at this from the view of loathing the shitbags who call up my stepfather and try to con him out of money, or call me up and imply that they're working with my credit card company. I don't have a business, so I have no need to call people for marketing purposes.
That said - I absolutely totally agree with your sentiment about those abusing the system. 100%. But, UpCall (likely) isn’t them.
I’m all for not liking something, but we shouldn’t do it with a wave of the hand. We’re better than that.
- They mention that the tiers have 1, 5, or 10 users supported. Is this concurrent users? Does "user" even mean phone call recipient in this case, or is it just someone who's _dispatching_ the Upcall calls?
- The enterprise tier seems like it should be subdivided; some of the things you pay for are really, really niche, but likely cost a small fortune to get set up on Upcall's end, justifying a much higher price. Looking at you, HIPAA compliance.
- What is, even, a "Logic Decision Tree" in this context? Is this just the fact that the caller should offer the recipient a few specific paths? Isn't it cheaper to do this using a robocall (and widely done this way by many enterprise phone support systems)?
- "Custom inbound voicemail" is a weird feature for a company marketing itself as outreach towards clients rather than the other way around; my understanding is that this is marketing and reactivation, not support, and incoming calls should be minimal in most use cases.
- All the email stuff is probably cheaper being handled by a specialized standalone service; why try to fracture your business's focus by trying to enter a space dominated by well-established players? (Not trying to say competition is bad, but this company clearly specializes in something other than email, so it makes little sense to me that they should be dividing their effort like this).
I assumed user to mean people who are the clients (the people paying for the service) who can login to see the progress of the "call tasks".
>- The enterprise tier seems like it should be subdivided; some of the things you pay for are really, really niche, but likely cost a small fortune to get set up on Upcall's end, justifying a much higher price. Looking at you, HIPAA compliance.
That's pretty common for this type of service offering. Basically the pricing is there to give you an idea. You see in the basic plan where it says "Ideal for Simple Tasks"? That usually means "you can have it your way, but don't get crazy." Think things like "call and ask Carl if he's coming on Friday" or "let Lakisha know that her order is finished." Everything else is a custom plan!
- What is, even, a "Logic Decision Tree" in this context? Is this just the fact that the caller should offer the recipient a few specific paths? Isn't it cheaper to do this using a robocall (and widely done this way by many enterprise phone support systems)?
My take away from the How it Works page leads me to believe that it's for use with the "scripts". The script changes when the callee answers a certain way.
>- "Custom inbound voicemail" is a weird feature for a company marketing itself as outreach towards clients rather than the other way around; my understanding is that this is marketing and reactivation, not support, and incoming calls should be minimal in most use cases.
They're banking on people setting the custom caller ID to their actual number. It's probably just their so there is no "hole" if someone calls back. Certain types of calls do generate a lot of callbacks.
>- All the email stuff is probably cheaper being handled by a specialized standalone service; why try to fracture your business's focus by trying to enter a space dominated by well-established players? (Not trying to say competition is bad, but this company clearly specializes in something other than email, so it makes little sense to me that they should be dividing their effort like this).
I think it's specific to the use case of contacting new leads. If I were upcall, my intent would be to scan the emails for specific types of customers that the client wants to call and start "call tasks" based on that.
If I left a service because of reason X and got a cold call a reasonable amount of time later where the caller could explain why they did X and that Y replaces X, and could clearly and concisely address my concerns, then I'd be much less averse to the idea of cold calls.
But despite do not call lists etc, I can no longer answer my cell phone when I don't recognize the number, because of all the unwanted commercial calls, scams, surveys, etc. Many are falsifying their caller ID data because they know that everyone would block them if they could.
This product really really looks like it will be used to make that situation worse. "90% MORE LIKELY TO CONVERT A LEAD if you reach out minimum six times". Blech.
Somewhere, people are failing to communicate about something important because these people are pissing in the well.
Wow, I can't believe that's actually on there.
These are not cold calls: they are inbound leads that you have to source and have permission to call. If someone fills out a lead form on your site and checks the “contact by phone” option, this allows you to scale a bit more rapidly in high-volume top-of-funnel lead gen where you are trying to filter out unqualified or low-value leads.
Edit: sueders101 pointed out that they reference cold calls. With the TOS in mind I bet that’s a copy mistake as they require permission to call berg secured before making a call. Thy definitely could use some copy updates and calling out security/privacy more clearly.
When you hover over the solutions options they literally say
"Prospecting: We cold call businesses and generate new leads for you."
They say on the prospecting page:
"UPLOAD YOUR LIST: Upload a list of target businesses to call. We can help you finding one too."
It doesn't sound like you need an Established Business Relationship.
How does Upcall verify this? Does their employee UI have a big red button that they have to hit every time the person picking up the phone says "Sorry, I've never heard of CLIENT_X", and after a certain number of "cold call alarms", the account is terminated?
https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html
Also first time submitted was 2 years ago.
It is a slimy business, it is booming at the moment, but there are a lot of other, healthier ways to make money and I think they built perception to be better then others for good reason. This just doesn't suit them.
I am open to hear opposing views and explanations, sans kposehn who acts as these guys advocate here.
When I get an unsolicited call, I always ask pertinent questions. If they can't be answered swiftly, I know that the company doesn't care enough to properly train their sales critters, and so my trust in them to do anything properly is significantly decreased.
Pertinent questions might include "how is your software or service delivered?", "where is the company located?" or "where is your security policy documented?".