Calling DNO/ power company types? Complex meter!?

Let's drift further ... ?


Callers who request personal information! If I call my bank, I expect to verify my identity. If they (or anybody else) call me, they really should provide evidence of identity. The callers always mention GDPR, but seem nonplussed when I decline to give personal data to an unverified caller 'cos I am entitled to safeguard my own data. ?

Alan Capon:

Unfortunately everyone is still scared of the GDPR legislation, because of its teeth. Fines can be up to 4% of the companies annual turnover, or €20M, which ever is the greater. 


Regards,


Alan. 

It seems to me that some organisations are super-cautious while others couldn't care less.


A few years ago when I was busily occupied at work, I asked my wife to renew a slightly overdue subscription over the phone, using the payment card of our joint bank account. Although we were paying the organisation money (well trying to) the request was refused on the grounds that the subscription account was in my name not hers. I posted them a cheque with a letter saying sorry it was slightly late but I my wife had already tried over the phone and gave them time of the call. I was wondering whether this was just a case of an inexperienced clerk not sure what to and erring on the cautious side.


I got a reply to my letter saying, "waffle waffle waffle waffle waffle waffle waffle  waffle waffle waffle data protection act waffle waffle waffle waffle waffle waffle waffle waffle waffle waffle."


This was the last time I renewed our subscription to that organisation.


On the other hand I still get silly calls out of the blue from people who seem to know my name, address and phone number, and want me to take part in some survey where I will divulge even more information about myself than that which they already should not know. Thankfully not so many since GDPR became law, but there are still some.


I sometimes wonder on whose side GDPR is supposed to be.

Chris Pearson:

One ought to give a number as 023 9255 xxxx in which case it is more obvious that within 023 land, one may start with 80 or 92. I don't know whether there are any 023 81xx xxxx numbers, but there are 023 93xx xxxx ones, presumably because they exhausted the supply of 92 ones.

When Portsmouth and Southampton changed to the 023 code with eight-digit numbers, Portsmouth numbers were prefixed 92 and Southampton numbers were prefixed with 80. This in itself made around 200 000 new numbers available, by enabling 0 and 1 as third digit of the 8-digit number. This supply of new numbers has now been exhausted. I have indeed seen Southampton numbers starting with 81 and no doubt there will be many more to follow.


BT recommends using brackets around the code to indicate it is optional, (thus (023) 9255 xxxx) and not required if the code of the calling number is the same. This format is used in the BT phone book. Unfortunately not so many conform to this. This is a pity because the code is the most meaningful and memorable part of the whole number.

A conversation five minutes ago.


A lady requested smart meters, but she has seperate suppliers for her gas and electric. British Gas say they cannot fit a smart gas meter,  because it won't communicate with her new Npower smart electric meter.


There is an assumption that you will take a dual fuel contract with a single supplier. 


Andy Betteridge

Try a trip to the Isle of Man, standing in the hotel reception looking at the taxi cards on the wall you soon discover that they don't display the area code because they assume everyone knows it and you don't need to use it from local landlines. 


Not much use if you have a English mobile phone in your hand.


Mind you I did have an old phone with a Manx SIM card in at one time due to the excessive roaming charges and the prefix was the area code with a seven instead of one. 


Andy B.

Actually folk who babble their contact info into the answering machine are a constant problem, some minutes of random waffle about the matter in hand and then a number rattled off so fast there is no time to write it down. I have no interest in the division between area code, sub area codes and final no. The phone handles that. But leaving  a successive escalation of ever more distressed messages, each demanding an urgent response, but  none of which have any intelligible contact information is depressingly common. That or folk who say 'it's Derek here' or whatever their name is, and not realising this is of marginal use to me. (Parents of scouts going on Easter camps take note) Four digits is too many to write down in the time it takes to say them, and triples are about the upper limit. This is a feature of the speed to writing and the way the mind works. Replay on  the answerphone helps sometimes, but not in every case.

There is a good reason that bank PINs, not meant to be memorable from looking over a shoulder are 4 or more digits, and numbers on the sides of vans that are part of an advert are broken into memorable triples, and in countries with longer phone nos, doubles. To me 02380  123 456 is just about memorable, but only because all phone nos start with a zero or a plus, and the memorable part is 238 123 456, you could do it as 02 38 12 34 56, and if you were in Germany or parts of France, you probably would,

01234 123 123 with breaks for breath and the other person to note it down, also repeat it at the end of a voice mail message.


Andy Betteridge

One ought to give a number as 023 9255 xxxx in which case it is more obvious that within 023 land, one may start with 80 or 92. I don't know whether there are any 023 81xx xxxx numbers, but there are 023 93xx xxxx ones, presumably because they exhausted the supply of 92 ones.

MHRestorations:

Off the original subject but inability to understand how phone numbers work drives me mad... especially down here in 023 land. People still routinely quote numbers as 02380 xxx xxx or 02392 xxx xxx


It's like they don't care that the area code is 023?!


 

I think that the problem in this area is lack of cohesion. If the code 023 and eight-digit numbers applied to a sizeable contiguous chunk of southern English exchanges it might work better. As it stands we have in the setup just Southampton (first digit 8) and Portsmouth (first digit 9). Calls from one of these cities to the other do not require the 023 code. However calls to these cities from places in between, i.e. Fareham (01329) and Locks Heath (01489) do require the full number with area code, even those these calls involve less distance. This I think adds to the confusion between the code and the actual number.


Things are getting more complicated and irregular in that calling a Bournemouth number now requires the code (01202) to be dialled in all cases, even within Bournemouth, for the reason to make more numbers available, i.e. numbers can now start with 0. It seems to me that it will not be long before this change runs out of numbers again and a further change will be necessary. Could not Bournemouth be a candidate for a 023 code, thereby making available as many landline numbers as it will probably ever need? Can any telephone engineers comment?