Personal Info Over The Phone to Compaines

For cold calls I tend to laugh when they ask for personal information and say I’ll call you back. If I am concerned about phishing, I ring the company’s main line number that I find myself on the company’s main web page and go to the process to finally ask if it was them that called in the end. I then request no future cold calls.

The only time I give personal information for security purposes is if I initiated the call. Your bank calling you back was expected as you initiated the call so I would probably accept that as real and give information as required.

I ask for a direct number to call them back on and if they don't have I usually just end the call.

If I'm expecting a call then I'd probably answer the questions especially if its a person I've dealt with before.

I think it's taken privacy to a whole new level.
If you ring me you should have the details, simple as that. Asking one question is enough, not 5.

If my husband rang to pay my ESB bill by card, having the account number, knowing all my details (even though they shouldn't be needed) and they still won't deal with him.

Absolute rubbish.

And the misuse of GDPR as a reason for obtaining information and refusing to deal with people is mind boggling

Ulster Bank are so stupid/arrogant that they rang me from a withheld number and then asked me to identify myself using my mother's maiden name etc. I hadn't even requested a call back.

Had Vodafone call me a while back. Unknown caller number, chirpy girl introduces herself as a Vodafone agent, says she has some things she'd like to talk to me about, and asks me my Name, DOB, address. I said that I wasn't giving that information to anyone that I couldn't verify, and could she prove that she was from Vodafone. She couldn't, and insisted I was missing out on vital information that I would want to hear. I asked was there something wrong with my account, but she said she couldn't say why she was calling until she verified who I was. I said as she had called me, from a masked number, I couldn't verify who I was until she verified who she was - it was a simple matter of security.

I even asked was there a number I could call to contact her, but she said it was an "outbound only contact centre" that could not receive calls. I expressed my surprise at Vodafone - one of the world's biggest telephony companies - not having the ability to receive a phone call. We both got bored with the conversation at this stage, so agreed to leave it that neither of us could verify who we were, and we went our separate ways.

I'm 99.99% percent sure she was from Vodafone, and 100% sure she was just flogging something I didn't want, but there's no way they should be let away with that kind of carry on. Using a withheld number for calls like that should be outlawed.

Here's the gas thing, but not sure if Irish based companies are doing the same. Last place I worked was for an American based company selling products in America, Canada, Australia, UK and Ireland (and some other European countries, but we only dealt with the english speaking ones). Anyway, the whole trans thing really took off while I was there (about 3 or 4 years ago) and all the madey up genders was increasing in numbers, so it was the talk of the company at the time (no, i'm not changing my lanyard to a rainbow one to 'show support').

Anyway, I asked a simple question, how can we verify that the customer on the other end of the phone is the gender we expect them to be. After a few back and forths, it was decided that no matter how male or female the voice sounded, if they verified the details on the account, we talk to them as if they're the account holder. So yes, that means if a Julie rang in and sounded like that drunken Kerry fella talking about skulling pints, as long as the information was verified correctly, we believe it's Julie.

There's one thing that avoids all this, and that's a pin/password on the account. Some companies already have this, you verify the pin or password and no personal details are held. Problem here is the rigmarole to get past it if you forget it, which the vast majority of people do.

bobbyy gee wrote: »

Lots of scammers do that

I agree, but in fairness to the company, they were right. What's worse, giving out account information to someone else who verified your account, or mis-labeling/mis-gendering someone over the phone? I know the former is worse, society seems to infer that the latter is more important.

I don't like being cold called at any time. But if you breath heavy into the phone constantly throw in a little moan. The caller has a tendency to hang up. But beware if your doing this on unknown mobile numbers, because I was, I didn't know my mother changed her number. I can still hear her scream my name

Gregor Samsa wrote: »

Had Vodafone call me a while back. Unknown caller number, chirpy girl introduces herself as a Vodafone agent, says she has some things she'd like to talk to me about, and asks me my Name, DOB, address. I said that I wasn't giving that information to anyone that I couldn't verify, and could she prove that she was from Vodafone. She couldn't, and insisted I was missing out on vital information that I would want to hear. I asked was there something wrong with my account, but she said she couldn't say why she was calling until she verified who I was. I said as she had called me, from a masked number, I couldn't verify who I was until she verified who she was - it was a simple matter of security.

I even asked was there a number I could call to contact her, but she said it was an "outbound only contact centre" that could not receive calls. I expressed my surprise at Vodafone - one of the world's biggest telephony companies - not having the ability to receive a phone call. We both got bored with the conversation at this stage, so agreed to leave it that neither of us could verify who we were, and we went our separate ways.

I'm 99.99% percent sure she was from Vodafone, and 100% sure she was just flogging something I didn't want, but there's no way they should be let away with that kind of carry on. Using a withheld number for calls like that should be outlawed.

Id have given them fake details to see where it would go

Gregor Samsa wrote: »

Had Vodafone call me a while back. Unknown caller number, chirpy girl introduces herself as a Vodafone agent, says she has some things she'd like to talk to me about, and asks me my Name, DOB, address. I said that I wasn't giving that information to anyone that I couldn't verify, and could she prove that she was from Vodafone. She couldn't, and insisted I was missing out on vital information that I would want to hear. I asked was there something wrong with my account, but she said she couldn't say why she was calling until she verified who I was. I said as she had called me, from a masked number, I couldn't verify who I was until she verified who she was - it was a simple matter of security.

I even asked was there a number I could call to contact her, but she said it was an "outbound only contact centre" that could not receive calls. I expressed my surprise at Vodafone - one of the world's biggest telephony companies - not having the ability to receive a phone call. We both got bored with the conversation at this stage, so agreed to leave it that neither of us could verify who we were, and we went our separate ways.

I'm 99.99% percent sure she was from Vodafone, and 100% sure she was just flogging something I didn't want, but there's no way they should be let away with that kind of carry on. Using a withheld number for calls like that should be outlawed.

If they were chirpy, they almost certainly weren't a Vodafone employee.

Vodafone outsource telesales quite a bit afaik so while the call was probably a genuine call on behalf of Vodafone, it would explain the outbound call centre aspect.