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March 02, 2007
Is this pain in the a**?
You have to give it to these guys. Last evening, someone rang the door bell and when I opened the door, there were these 2 guys. They introduced themselves as marketing executives for British Gas and asked for some name which I had no clue of. I told them there is no one of that name living in this house and they said its fine, we want to talk to me.
The conversation went like this:
BG: Which company bill you for gas and electricity for the house?
Me: Southern Energy.
BG: Do you pay any standing charges for gas and electricity?
Me: I might but I am not sure.
BG: Can you show us the latest bill, we can see if you pay any charges?
Me: Bills are somewhere in the attic and it will take some time for me to trace it out
BG: We will wait no problems.
Me: Can I know what exactly do you want?
BG: Actually, we (BG) have withdrawn standing charges and it should not be charged and also reduced the tariff for gas and electricity.
Me: I am not with your company, so how does that matter?
BG: If you switch over to BG now, we will give you £40 credit, reduced tariff is frozen and no standing charges for 2 years. If you give us the bill, we can tell you how much saving you will make.
Me: I know that BG has slashed tariffs, so does other companies and I am sure SE would also follow suit, so I don’t intent to switch over now.
BG: How does it matter who bills you, the supplier for all houses is national grid. Switching is very easy and you stand to gain a lot.
Me: I need to think it over and I can’t make any decisions now. Leave me with your contact details, I will contact you once I made up my mind.
This went on for another 15 minutes and finally I got really fed up and told the guys that I am not interested and they can leave. They didn’t leave any contact details with me and I was wondering whether these guys are genuine marketing guys from BG.
After about an hour, some one again rang the door bell and when I opened it, the same guys stood in front of the door. I was about to scream at them, probably sensing my mood, one guy said they have finished off for the day and asked if they could have a glass of water?
Did I mention both the guys were South Asians?
Posted by Vasanth at March 2, 2007 07:23 PM
Comments
Thanks Ramesh, but these guys are relentless and are not going away at all..
Posted by: Vasanth at March 19, 2007 04:13 PM
Dude, I am sure you are within your rights to ask for proper identification from people that claim to be from the utility companies like BG or BT or whatever. And if for whatever reason you are suspicious of their credentials, you should be able to call someone in the company they are claiming to represent, and verify that they do indeed work for said company.
Posted by: Ramesh at March 19, 2007 08:54 AM
Chakra - its a real nightmare.. need to develop some special abilities to tackle these people
Karty - Ikaraiku Akarai Pachai - that's all
Posted by: Vasanth at March 9, 2007 09:50 PM
UK vum India maari thaana appadina?
Posted by: karthy at March 6, 2007 01:23 PM
hahaha... you got caught buddy. Once i had a real, real tough time as I gave my name to these guys and they converted me (to British Gas)!
Posted by: Chakra at March 5, 2007 09:06 PM