Kyle Lewin

Kyle Lowin, tested my patience over 9 mins and 2 seconds. We cycled and recycled around his apparent need for my private data and he was no fun, instead he got personal and threatening. I still persisted in maintaining the conversation, despite my a customer snorting with laughter in the background at some of the terms and phrases I asked him to clarify. Santa won’t be coming to THAT particular little boy this Christmas. He has no idea how dangerous it is to refer to me as “miss”! Doesn’t he know I am a bone fide elf with links to the big man in the red suit.

The next day…

I had noticed that since the new approach on the 8th October that the calls had slowed up.   wondered if this was because they were recording data and had got me down as some mad old bint. Feeling a bit more serious today I thought I might get to the bottom of this database and data protection issues.

Georgia

I was feeling a bit sorry for the boys and girls at Commercial utilities, so when Georgia rang up, I thought I would share the Kieran love again. She was either less receptive to the possibility of inter office romance or Megan had already got in and bagged him. She hung up after 2 minutes 45 seconds.

Sweet Megan

Well, this afternoon, I have been playing Cupid at Commercial Utilities Registrations Department. Megan called, such a pretty little voice, if that is possible with flat vowels. I told her I knew all about commercial utilities as my friend Kieran worked there! We were going to be Facebook friends! She kept trying to waffle on about meters, but I asked her if she knew Chelsea and Matt. It seems there are over 200 of these battery hen telesales youngsters there and they are not allowed to get up and talk to each other! It sounded awful she doesn’t know her co workers! I told her that at break time or lunch time she should look for Kieran, was she single? , because he sounded very nice! She hung up after 3 minutes 20 seconds.

Matt Davies

Commercial Utilities seem very concerned, now Matt Davies is informing me that I am paying emergency rate tariff! So I asked him,  if he knows I am paying emergency rate tariff why does he need to know my current supplier, and account details, and if I have a supplier charging emergency rate, then surely my meter is registered with them and not unregistered. He hung up after 3 mins 37 seconds, smart boy moved on to a potentially more gullible call.

Chelsea Norton

Oh my, the whole of Manchester seems to be worried about my electricity meter. Now Chelsea Norton has called me minutes after Kieran, she didn’t know Kieran, but apparently she is in the commercial support department, maybe it is on a different floor? Chelsea seemed a little challenged between the ears, so we had to go over quite a lot of things two or three times. She seemed such a sweet child, explaining to a fifty year old business person that when you get a new shop you need to sign up for an electricity account, I could almost smell the eggs on her breath. So I gave her some grandmotherly advice, that she could do so much better than this, even if she didn’t do well at school, there must be better and more worthwhile careers she could try. It took 11 mins 21 seconds before she hung up.

Kieran Martins

This morning Kieran Martins of Commercial Utilities Registration Department called me. Twice. He didn’t seem to recall me the second time, despite the fact he had called me just 20 minutes earlier and I had told him to sod off. Apparently he claims that Commercial Utilities are a not for profit organisation who represent and work on behalf of all of Britain’s electricity suppliers. He believes my electricity meter is unregistered, and he is not here to sell us anything, just a Good Samaritan tracking down unregistered accounts. Such a lovely chap, I thanked him for his kind interest and offered to friend him on Facebook, seeing as he was doing me a friendly favour. I didn’t want to trouble him any further, so I didn’t give him my account details, etc, and said I would sort that out with my supplier, he seemed so keen to take my meter number and account details and do it for me, almost insistent. Such customer service. After 7 minutes 34 seconds Kieran figured out we were only going to be friends, and pointed out he wasn’t allowed to chat to friends in works time and hung up.

Revenge Is Sweet

On the 8th of October, I decided to enjoy my calls from Commercial Utilities. I set myself a game.  If I hung up onthem it resulted in the call back punishment, so the aim was to make them hang up on me. I started posting this on my facebook page to give all my friends a laugh too.

Not Amused

Every day the phone rings out,

“Hello Silversides & Friends”

“Can I speak to the person in charge of your electricity account”

I tried a variety of responses:

  • Yes we are registered, we have an account
  • It’s none of your business, I don’t reveal business data to cold callers
  • I’m not interested

If I hung up, I would usually get an immediate call back within a few second with someone else trying the same gambit.If I entered into any form of dialogue it would get quite pointed, and argumentative, with the young Mancunian demanding to know why I was uncooperative and being difficult and that I must register.

I knew I had a perfectly good account at a favourable rate organised by Make It Cheaper, the commercial organisation that is linked to Compare the Market and the various other comparison sites, specifically to service small businesses.

After three weeks of this I was reaching explosive point and told one of the operatives exactly where they could stick their Meter Registration Department.  The telephone rang constantly then for in excess of 20 minutes, each time for 4/5 rings, stopping and then redialing. I had been punished.

So I decided it was time to get even