Grrr!  I've had two calls today on my mobile, with a foreign lady asking to speak to me, using my Christian name only, about one of my accounts with a certain bank.  Having reluctantly confirmed who I was, she then started asking for personal details which I refused to give. I terminated both calls.

Curiosity whetted though I phoned my bank to see if there were any problems and it appeared that an online payment I'd made in full on 13th October on my credit card hadn't been taken out of my account.  I paid it over the phone straight away and wasn't charged a penalty for late payment.  I've just had another call on my landline - from a different woman but from the same call centre.  I explained what I'd done but she said she couldn't continue the call unless I gave my personal details to her.  I now know that they are who they say they are but I refused to give anything on principle because of their attitude and said if there was a problem in future I'd rather they wrote to me.  She persisted in saying she needed my personal details for me to even explain to her what I'd done.  I told her the exact amount I'd paid - and the idiot said she'd still need my personal details so that she'd "know we were talking about the same thing". 

I told her to get lost and put the phone down.    I've registered a complaint about their attitude and I'm not in debt at all - trouble is it will take a few days for the payment to register so I hope they don't blacklist me out of spite or something, just for a few days.  What bar stewards people are these days.  What with them and British Gas!

I have now transferred my gas account to Eon.  It isn't capped at that rate, but I'm saving £30 a month just swapping over.  I've saved £58 per month on my mother's.  So it's British Gas who is the loser.  I was told they'll probably ring me with a silly offer to try and "win me back".  I shall try to be polite but don't count your chickens. 

Good for you, Milly. There ought to be an authority to which this kind of behaviour can be reported but, if there is one, I don't know what it is.  I've never had this from my bank (but then I'm with the Co-op which seems to have only minor faults compared with others I've heard of) but my insurance company sent me a renewal reminder this year in the form of an email which linked to their website and invited me to enter my user name and password.  And when I was with BT people were always ringing me and asking me to confirm security details before the call could continue.  I got seriously fed up with ringing their Customer Relations department to tell them they really shouldn't be doing this.  I told OFCOM but they said it wasn't their area.


I think studied politeness is probably the best policy.  I had one of those circulars from BT, crudely mail-merged to make it look like a personal offer.  I called the 0800 number and, when I finally got through to a human being I politely asked if they had any idea why I'd closed the account (I wrote to them several times threatening to close the account and then gave reasons when I actually did so).  They hadn't, so I asked if anything had changed with regard to their extra charge for non-dd payments.  Nothing had changed so I calmly told them that, contrary to their circular, they had nothing new to offer me.  As for British Gas, I don't know if they've improved recently or if they've put me on a database of customers who aren't to be messed with (seems unlikely); but I haven't had a major problem with them for several quarters now so, for the moment, they still have my custom.   
   

I think it is ridiculous that we're expected to give out a load of personal details before they will proceed with the call, after asking who you are.  How do we know that they're who they say they are?   We are warned never to give personal details over the phone time and time again, so whose bright idea was this I wonder?

The name "Customer Services" at British Gas is a misnomer as far as I'm concerned.  They're obnoxious.
I know we were warned of a hike in prices but my increase was a joke.  I've managed to save £88.00 per month just by changing myself and my mother to E.On.   There were cheaper deals out there too on Uswitch.com but I was wary of the ones I saw after having read customer feedback.  I've also had, since I looked on there, a cold call from "Scottish Hydro".  They don't appear on the Uswitch website but they said that I "keep popping up on their system for having looked into changing but haven't done anything about it yet.  Could they interest me......".  Big Brother eh? 

I chose E.On because a lot of my friends are on it and say it's reliable and customer-friendly.  I have to say that the nice Scottish lady who looked after me was charm personified.

I am glad that everything worked well for you, <illy. the call centre wasn't in India or some such country was it, because I find that they can be rather persistent, as if they are reading from a script and dont deviate from it inany shape or form. I tried a bit of humour with them but they  are more or less human robots, if there are such things!

The call centre wasn't in India unless the code for that is 0203. The number actually came up on my phone, which was odd.  Firstly there was the same Asian woman twice - barely polite.  She said "Could I speak to..(my real Christian name) and when I said "Speaking" that's when it started - I need your details before I can carry on.  I said no and asked her not to 'phone me again.  Unfortunately she did, a couple of hours later and said which bank it was and that I had an account with them but she needed to check my details.  I asked "My bank?"  and she replied "Yup (sic)".  I asked "My account?" and she replied "Yup."  I said I wouldn't give details and hung up.  YUP?? What's all that about? I also don't like strange people addressing me by my first name.   And I don't like being yupped at! Then later on it was a Scottish woman but this time on my landline, who made out that she knew nothing of the previous calls.  That was the one I told to get lost. 

Anyway it's all sorted out now.  They were genuine I found out later, but it's certainly no way to carry out financial business.  I have made a formal complaint as I said before.

Could be quite interesting, as far as Milly was concerned HtoHe.

I expect the compalint will get a standardised response Milly. Let us know!

I rang them when I got the price rise to ask for my credit to be returned to my bank, to which they replied that the new rise had taken into account the credit and that if they returned it to me, they would have to cancel the current direct debit and renegotiate a new one.  Very clever!  It would therefore have gone up again without the credit taken into account.  I asked if they could guarantee that the price would stay the same as the risen one they'd quoted me and they said no. 

I'm now assuming that when the changeover takes effect, my credit will be returned to me.  If not, I shall be on the phone again.  I may even contact Watchdog.

That really is diabolical.  When I phoned them about the same issue, but only about £50 in credit, they said "we don't advise customers to do that since this is summer so you may need credit for the winter."  That's at least believable and sort of reasonable - the line they gave you is definite Watchdog-fodder!  Bar stewards...