Reply #26: Are you really sure the person you've talked in was in North Dakota?

[chalky]

I've heard of calls being rerouted from US area codes to call centers in India.
And cultivating an American accent is now part of the training:

Article: Microsoft's call-center business in India gets an American accent(sorry, free registration required):

BANGALORE, India — Indians working at Microsoft's new call center in Bangalore may sound a bit like they're from Seattle.
For the past year, the center's 350 employees have been taught to speak more like Americans by Seattleite Andrea Koehler, a former University of Washington language instructor, who is part of Microsoft's training team.

During a six-week language program, Koehler teaches the "technical-support professionals" to speak in a way that's clearer and easier to understand by U.S. customers who call for help with their Microsoft products.


And a quote from an archived Wired article:
"We manage to carry off the conversation but if someone suspects that we are actually in India we tell them that one of our parents is Indian but that we grew up in and are calling from the United States."