The Ranting Room

 

I'm having this minor (and oh-so trivial) run-in with British Gas marketing department. A few weeks ago I got fed-up with their unsolicited telephone marketing calls offering me discounts on dual-fuel tariffs so I went to the British Gas website looking for a means of removing my name and number from their marketing list. The only thing I found was a general "complaints" form, which I duly filled in and had to provide a telephone number before the form would "submit" itself which was a little ironic since given the nature of my complaint. I also had to provide a valid email address which is fair enough I guess, for communication to take place it is necessary to provide a conduit for verbal exchange to occur and email is a far more reliable medium than telephone in many respects. Also given that I was initially requesting that all unsolicited telephonic sales communication from British Gas to myself could perhaps be reduced in number, email is indeed preferable to telephone. Still, at least the email acknowledging my complaint began with the line:

 

"Thank you for your recent email.  I’ve tried to telephone you today but unfortunately you were not available."

 

Which I found amusing, but not as amusing as the email that arrived nine hours later:

 

"You recently gave us your email address so we thought we would let you know that..."

 

For those that don't know British Gas, they are a utility company that has two products, Natural Gas, one they "manufacture" and Electricity, one they simply sell-on. So the choices on offer to me are basically four: I can buy the product that is an inherent part of the company name, and to be honest the one they are famous for; or I can buy the product that they are not famous for, yet forms an essential part of the utilities requirement for my domestic domicile if only for providing illumination on dark winter nights since the abject failure of gaslight to be a viable source of lighting in the twenty-first century (and most  of the twentieth as I recall); or I can buy both products simultaneously; or I can elect to pay someone else for the privilege of pretending supplying these utilities. It's that last bit that irks me - I can pay someone else but it is still British Gas that physically pumps the natural gas from the storage tanks down the pipes into my house and it is still The Southern Electricity Board who feeds the electricity from the national grid down the wires into my fuse box. So while we have "deregulated" something, I'm still in the dark (reading Fanny By Gaslight) as to what it is we have in fact deregulated, but never mind, I'm sure hat intelligences greater than our own do understand and with intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic regard our fuel-bills with envious eyes and slowly, and surely, draw their plans against us. Laaa-ooooooo!

 

Thus, faced with four relatively simple choices the number of possible answers follows a similar mathematical relationship that by some quirk of logic also results in the number four. From my perspective this is not a one in four chance of guessing the right answer, once I select an option that is my final choice, no need to phone a friend or ask the audience. Choosing anything but option 2 puts British Gas into Mrs Doyle mode "You'll have some duel-fuel tarrif... are you sure you don't want any? Aw go on, you'll have some. Go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on GO ON! "

That's really the problem with the TPS scheme - it doesn't stop BT, British Gas or AOL from cold calling because I am a customer of theirs and those are the three main villains.

 

I was contacted by an opt-out scheme a few months back after I complained to BT about their cold-calling (I asked if I should put them on my Friends & Family list as they called me so often). We reached an impasse when guy on the other end of the phone wanted my credit card details as confirmation of who I was: "You know who I am because you phoned me..." "we just need your credit card details to confirm who you are..." "I know who I am and I don't give those kind of details over the 'phone, that's the whole point of opting out, I don't buy anything over the phone..." "if we can confirm who you are then you'll be put on the list and you won't be called by 'these people'..." "I don't want to block 'these people', I just want to block BT from trying to sell me stuff I don't want..." "If you just confirm the credit card you pay your BT bill with then we can continue..." "But I don't pay BT by credit card..." *click*

 

BT are indeed my favourite of all the cold-callers, they even pestered me when I was ex-directory: "Why are you calling me? I pay you to be ex-directory to stop these kind of calls..." "Then you can be assured that only BT will call you..." "But I don't want BT to call me, if you've something to sell, send me a letter..." "But we're BT..." "And if being ex-directory doesn't stop BT from calling me then there is little point me paying you to be ex-directory is there?..." "we only contact you with offers to save you money on your bill..." "My call charges are less than the line-rental, if you want to save me money the only way to do that is reduce the line rental charge, or remove me from the ex-directory list..." *click*

 

The PC scam one are easy to spot and I do admit having fun with them - I was called by Microsoft Security Response Centre once over a 'Report this to Microsoft'  report I'd apparently sent them: "So, which App did I report?..." "The one you sent the report for..." "You must know which one, it's part of the report message details..." "We have several registered to you..." "Really, I never send any reports..." "Someone in your household did..." "I don't think that is possible." *silence* "So how did you get my telephone number?..." "It is included in the report..." "No it isn't" *more silence* "You're not really Microsoft are you?" *click*

 

 

 

Not sure about overseas call centres, but it certainly cuts out about 90% of cold calls.

 

I know someone who phoned his insurance company to report a problem with his chimney. The call centre was in India and they asked him what a chimney was.