Unsolicited Call From (presumed) Broker

Qyburn

I received a call to my mobile from a Manchester number. The caller expected to be speaking to a family member - ie they had her name but my mobile number. The caller wanted to speak to her about her British Gas account. That must be reference to a charity she's involved with, which uses BG for electricity.

So now I'm wondering where the information had leaked from. I assume BG don't hand out customer details to outfits that are going to call with a promise of better deals elsewhere. Any generic lookup of the charity is only going give a list of trustees, it won't name the person dealing with the electricity bill.

My mobile number could only be known because I called BG to help understand the slightly odd metering arrangement. But BG wouldn't be giving out my number as main contact, nor would they associate that number with the family member's name.

flaneurs_lobster

There's a lot of presumptions and assumptions in your post.

Is your question "do BG hand out contact details to third parties?" . Well they shouldn't without your permission.

How do you know that the call wasn't from BG themselves?

Do you have a BG account in your own name?

Are you associated with the charity that has the BG account? If not, then why would BG discuss a third party's account with you?

la531983

Also to add to the above: Have you spoken to this "family member", they may have given them your number?

Qyburn

Thanks. To answer some of the questions, no definitely not BG themselves, I specifically asked and tthe answer was along the lines of "do you realise BG will only discuss their own pricing whereas we look at all suppliers".

Yes the charity the only outfit any of us deal with who have a BG account. I'm not a trustee.

I certainly hope it's not a debt collector as the account's up to date, although I guess you never know with BG. It would be a stupid way to introduce themselves though.

Are you suggesting you have a mobile phone number that you exclusively use to only call British Gas with?

I hope that's not a serious question.

I don't have a BG account in my name.

flaneurs_lobster

Is this situation made more "open" in that the contract between BG - Charity is a business contract rather than personal and perhaps the rules around data protection are less restrictive?

Qyburn

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82079689#Comment_82079689

Yes it's a business contract.

Qyburn

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82079674#Comment_82079674

It was a serious question, and was based upon your earlier post where you said "My mobile number could only be known because I called BG to help understand the slightly odd metering arrangement."

I hoped the context would be obvious. You seem to be saying that if anyone, for whatever reason, is aware if my mobile number then that's sufficient for an organisation to conclude it must be the correct contact number for a BG account that's not even in my name.

Why would you expect BG to discuss an energy account with you that is not in your name (or you are not a named individual associated with managing that account)?

I wouldn't, nor can I see where anything I wrote could be interpreted as such expectation. In fact I was expressing concern specifically because this outfit did exactly that, against my expectation.

WiserMiser

Can't believe it's five years since Zog ceased trading. Wasn't even their fault, they were some of the good guys.

Could have been a leak or data breach by their administrators? C(r)apita had a pension fund data breach so it's not just a theoretical possibility.

TroubledTarts

Report it to the ICO if you are sure you have not consented or a friend or family member has not given your number over as well

flaneurs_lobster

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82080545#Comment_82080545

Broker cold-calls person whose name is is on charity's website.

"Hello, I'd like to talk about your gas bill"

"I don't deal with that, you need to talk to MsOPsRelative, the number is 07nnn….".

TroubledTarts

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82080553#Comment_82080553

Can you come up with 99 other ways, yes anything is possible but I would still report to the ICO if the OP is interested in pursuing this.