Who texts these 'talk to girls in your area' services?

[Greg_D]

As per the title really.

You know, the "text hotty to 81155 and speak to girls in your area", you will soon be exchanging photos and chatting to girls type thing you see advertised on late night telly. I was wondering this the other night, they charge £1.50 per text that they send you.

Surely noone is stupid enough to think that they give a st about what you are saying and are anything else other than a call centre manned by 50 year old blokes texting suggestively to the latest saddo.

They are obviously doing alright as a business if they can afford to run the ad budgets that they do.

I am just intrigued as to the type of person who would do this?

Greg

[speedchick]

Please, please, please, do not put people off texting these services. And they are not raking it in, by the time they have paid the advertising bills (which can be pretty steep), the short code licences, the web platform/software/administration, there isn't an awful lot of money left in the pot, even less if the texts are answered by operators at a fullfillment company and not the 'orginal' company. Most of the operators work from home not call centres.

so in short, it's bloomin hard work for not a lot of money, well being busty Brenda/sexy Sue/whoever anyway!

[tonyvid]

I thought you might pop up....now get back to texting me, Juicy Lucy!

[toothrot]

isnt there a bloke on here pretending to be a bird so mongoids can text in?

Anyone texting such a service needs to be put into stasis and fired off into space. Speedchick, the only thing that is making me stop going further with my arguments is that you might be hot. Can you post a pic so I can decide where to take my argument next?

[speedchick]

Afternoon off, missed you while I was doing the 7 am till 9 am shift this morning.

And no, I can't be bothered telling you what I am wearing, and I am not getting back in that wheelie bin!

[dmitsi]

speedchick said:

Afternoon off, missed you while I was doing the 7 am till 9 am shift this morning.

And no, I can't be bothered telling you what I am wearing, and I am not getting back in that wheelie bin!

Was that a freebie? Got me all hot under the collar.

[eightseventhree]

I once txt into Radio One for some competition or other and put in slightly the wrong number. .

I cost me 3 quid for the 2 txts they sent in about 30 seconds then another 1.50 to txt stop.

I wonder how many of these are setup on numbers that are close to these standard txt rate competition numbers, i bet they make a fortune

[speedchick]

toothrot said:

isnt there a bloke on here pretending to be a bird so mongoids can text in?

Anyone texting such a service needs to be put into stasis and fired off into space. Speedchick, the only thing that is making me stop going further with my arguments is that you might be hot. Can you post a pic so I can decide where to take my argument next?

It doesn't matter if I am hot or not, the fact is that the girl that they are chatting to is (in some cases) and it's their pics that we use, and we just build a persona up around it, so you are chatting to a real girl, just in real life she might be a redhead, and not the blonde that you think. It does take a lot of work to bring this characters to life and make them interesting enough to keep the customer chatting. And please don't have the customers fired into space, this is actually how I pay my mortgage, gas/leccy, feed my kids etc.

[Hoolied]

The lad who is financing his Clio @ carcraft for proabably thinks they are a bargain.

[tonyvid]

speedchick said:

Afternoon off, missed you while I was doing the 7 am till 9 am shift this morning.

And no, I can't be bothered telling you what I am wearing, and I am not getting back in that wheelie bin!

Shsssssshhhh!


As for Speedy's picture, I have seen one somewhere and you would be very happy

Edited by tonyvid on Monday 15th June 15:38

[Nolar Dog]

toothrot said:

isnt there a bloke on here pretending to be a bird so mongoids can text in?

Oi!!!!!!!!!

I gave you my number in confidence.

Edited to add: I know a girl who models for the posters for these ads (Think she's been on a TV ad for one of them as well...)

She's a munter in real life but they make her look gorgeous.
She doesn't "do" the texts either, just the pics.

Edited by Nolar Dog on Monday 15th June 15:43

[Famous Graham]

Nolar Dog said:

She doesn't "do" the texts either

I think that would be a bit above and beyond....

and a bit tricky to type a reply too

[theshrew]

speedchick said:

toothrot said:

isnt there a bloke on here pretending to be a bird so mongoids can text in?

Anyone texting such a service needs to be put into stasis and fired off into space. Speedchick, the only thing that is making me stop going further with my arguments is that you might be hot. Can you post a pic so I can decide where to take my argument next?

It doesn't matter if I am hot or not, the fact is that the girl that they are chatting to is (in some cases) and it's their pics that we use, and we just build a persona up around it, so you are chatting to a real girl, just in real life she might be a redhead, and not the blonde that you think. It does take a lot of work to bring this characters to life and make them interesting enough to keep the customer chatting. And please don't have the customers fired into space, this is actually how I pay my mortgage, gas/leccy, feed my kids etc.

Is this for real ?

Just out of interest. How did you actually get into doing this then ? Obviously people do it but you never see any adverts or anything for jobs like this (or i havent)

[crofty1984]

toothrot said:

isnt there a bloke on here pretending to be a bird so mongoids can text in?

Anyone texting such a service needs to be put into stasis and fired off into space. Speedchick, the only thing that is making me stop going further with my arguments is that you might be hot. Can you post a pic so I can decide where to take my argument next?

Not me. Thought about it though. So did Dan1981 i think.

[tonyvid]

There was a huge thread about a year ago - have a look at Speedy's profile replys and you might be able to find it


ETA - I've saved you the effort http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/gassing/topic.asp?h=0...

Edited by tonyvid on Monday 15th June 16:23

[Crusoe]

probably the same people who text here,

www.textsfromlastnight.com

some highlights include

(212): i want you now
(916): you need to stop dating girls with the same name as your mother...or stop drinking so much...I don't want to see this


or

so I was just driving high and I stopped to let a pinecone cross the road because I thought it was a hedgehog.

[crofty1984]

Crusoe said:

probably the same people who text here,

www.textsfromlastnight.com

some highlights include

(212): i want you now
(916): you need to stop dating girls with the same name as your mother...or stop drinking so much...I don't want to see this


or

so I was just driving high and I stopped to let a pinecone cross the road because I thought it was a hedgehog.

(847): this wart on my finger ripped off while i was fingering this girl the other night. she thought she had gotten her period and started crying so i went with. its better for both of us that way

My goodness.

[Jasandjules]

Who texts them?

I have no idea, but someone must or they wouldn't advertise.. Quite frankly I have no idea how anyone can afford to sit and text back and forth at £1 a pop or whatever the rate is, it must be easy to rack up £££s in minutes....

and now I await the usual PH, I am speaking from experience etc. type of answer!

[speedchick]

theshrew said:

Is this for real ?

Just out of interest. How did you actually get into doing this then ? Obviously people do it but you never see any adverts or anything for jobs like this (or i havent)

the first job I got was actually from an advert in the tv mag, looking for fantasy chat operators, I hadn't heard of it till then, most of them you are self employed, and like I say you get paid a pittance, but if you are at a company with good traffic, then it can be ok. Most of the jobs are filled via word of mouth, that's how I got the two that I am doing at the moment, it was a case of a job came up, someone in the company knew I was looking and put my name forward.

Other times they are filled on operator forums (yes we do have our forums, usually along with the cam and phone ops), the companies mostly like to recruit from within the industry as they know that they don't have to go over the rules, training etc, and they know they are getting people that just get on with the work, treat like the job that it is and produce messages that are good enough for good customer retention.

There are also specific job sites, where actresses, phone ops, web cams op etc go to find work. And where the companies go to hire.

the main problems at the moment at the companies that 'hire' their own workers (I generally work for a fullfillment company), so they cut the op pay down to next to nothing, or as is the case at the moment, take on barely literate overseas workers that they don't have to pay that much too, of course the recession is having an affect, and as is the people that hear about it, see it being a bit of fun to do, and are willing to work for pennies, which then has a knock on effect on the people that rely on it for a living.

[chunkymonkey71]

Must be pretty crap if you live in the western isles...

"talk to girls in your area". There might not be any!!!