British Gas moved me to paperless bills without my consent

Annemos

The thing is, though, we are not yet in a 100 per cent digitally transformed society. And the systems that are in place can have many problems. (Lots of posts on this.) 

There are many older customers and also people who might be struggling, who do not use computer technology. And those of us that do can have real problems with such things as setting up anti-virus. 

So paper bills are still being sent out. 

Dolor, I accept what you say makes sense, if you have moved to a Smart Meter. 

This is a similar argument in a way, to the disappearance of cash. We are being "nudged"! 

[Deleted User]

Annemos said:

This is a similar argument in a way, to the disappearance of cash. We are being "nudged"! 

Sky Business News this morning. The biggest growth area for African mobile telecommunications over the last few years is point-to-point money transfer via a mobile App. Who needs cash?

Eldi_Dos

Dolor said:

Annemos said:

This is a similar argument in a way, to the disappearance of cash. We are being "nudged"! 

Sky Business News this morning. The biggest growth area for African mobile telecommunications over the last few years is point-to-point money transfer via a mobile App. Who needs cash?

Who needs cash?

I do.


British Gas agents have stated to me that they cannot refund money I am due  because they have stopped issuing refunds due to increased level of scams.

triade

MattMattMattUK said:

I have never understood why British people are so against ID cards, especially when a significant majority of us already carry them in the form of Driving Licenses anyway. In countries where they have them they make a lot of life far easier, in the UK there seems to be an irrational dislike of them.

2 issues.

1. The issue of competency of, and whether or not people trust, the UK government.

2. The issue of consent. Any mandatory ID card would be met with resistance, but an optional one with massive benefits would likely see traction.

rp1974

MattMattMattUK said:

I have never understood why British people are so against ID cards, especially when a significant majority of us already carry them in the form of Driving Licenses anyway. In countries where they have them they make a lot of life far easier, in the UK there seems to be an irrational dislike of them.

Completely agree,should have been done decades ago but alas no,not in progressive forward thinking Great Britain.
Possibly down to the personal privacy and civil liberties brigade that instead of flashing a card in seconds would rather have complicated and expensive rigmarole.
As ever there's legitimate concerns that any reasonable person would have but,nowadays that usually veers off into generally excessive tin foil hattery and grand conspiracy rabbit holes,imho.

markin

rp1974 said:

MattMattMattUK said:

I have never understood why British people are so against ID cards, especially when a significant majority of us already carry them in the form of Driving Licenses anyway. In countries where they have them they make a lot of life far easier, in the UK there seems to be an irrational dislike of them.

Completely agree,should have been done decades ago but alas no,not in progressive forward thinking Great Britain.
Possibly down to the personal privacy and civil liberties brigade that instead of flashing a card in seconds would rather have complicated and expensive rigmarole.
As ever there's legitimate concerns that any reasonable person would have but,nowadays that usually veers off into generally excessive tin foil hattery and grand conspiracy rabbit holes,imho.

But then look at what China is doing, You can't buy food if your score is too low for dissing the government and being a bad citizen.

MattMattMattUK

markin said:

rp1974 said:

MattMattMattUK said:

I have never understood why British people are so against ID cards, especially when a significant majority of us already carry them in the form of Driving Licenses anyway. In countries where they have them they make a lot of life far easier, in the UK there seems to be an irrational dislike of them.

Completely agree,should have been done decades ago but alas no,not in progressive forward thinking Great Britain.
Possibly down to the personal privacy and civil liberties brigade that instead of flashing a card in seconds would rather have complicated and expensive rigmarole.
As ever there's legitimate concerns that any reasonable person would have but,nowadays that usually veers off into generally excessive tin foil hattery and grand conspiracy rabbit holes,imho.

But then look at what China is doing, You can't buy food if your score is too low for dissing the government and being a bad citizen.

The argument that something might happen at some point is a false one, the Chinese social credit system is closer to Facebook than an ID card, it was well parodied on The Orville.
https://orville.fandom.com/wiki/Majority_Rule
It is also one of the major arguments people use for assault rifles in the USA, so that they can protect themselves from "government tyrany". 

Do not oppose something useful/good now because it could be twisted in the future, implement it now with safeguards and make sure that it does not get corrupted in the future. If a potential future tyrannical government wanted to introduce social credit then the lack of an ID card system would not stop them, they would introduce that at the same time.

triade

MattMattMattUK said:

The argument that something might happen at some point is a false one, the Chinese social credit system is closer to Facebook than an ID card, it was well parodied on The Orville. https://orville.fandom.com/wiki/Majority_Rule It is also one of the major arguments people use for assault rifles in the USA, so that they can protect themselves from "government tyrany".

Do not oppose something useful/good now because it could be twisted in the future, implement it now with safeguards and make sure that it does not get corrupted in the future. If a potential future tyrannical government wanted to introduce social credit then the lack of an ID card system would not stop them, they would introduce that at the same time.

sounds like youre making it personal, while im pretty sure we were talking about why the british public are averse to id cards. if you think peoples reasoning is simply dumb, then you should start a campaign and convince them all.

Directly telling this forum member that what they said is false, is likely to result in arguments. 

The British people believe a lot of dumb things, like for example that brexit would equal more money for the NHS. Fact is, these are things that people believe. Think there's an issue with people looking at China as a warning? Then what's your solution for that? How do you convince the UK that the tories are actually really nice and just want what's best for the common folk?