I just had a lovely phone call from someone pertaining to be from my electricity company where they refused to prove they were from my electricity company by telling me any of my account details, or even tell me why they were calling. I hung up.
To bring everyone up to date with this saga:
I set a flag in the database to send this number (which is in Redditch, not Nottingham) directly to voicemail.
After several more calls, and no sign of them giving up, I contacted Robin Hood Energy directly on their published 0800 number to ask WTF?
It turns out that they've contracted a third party agency to contact everyone they have on variable direct debit to ask if they'd like to switch to fixed direct debit. "LOL no", says I (or words to that effect), and gave them a good moaning
[1] about calls from out of the blue asking to verify account details possibly being a bad move security-wise.
I got another call about half an hour later.
I called back and was increasingly sarcastic. They promised to send a message to the agency asking to remove my number from their list.
That was yesterday.
This morning I found another, epic 1:17 second long voicemail in my inbox:
*hold music*
"Hello is that Mr Leslie?"
*awkward silence*
*clicks*
*hold music*
PEBKAC, presumably, but not exactly confidence inspiring.
(I assume Robin Hood has run out of money and is hoping to stay afloat by persuading as many customers as possible to pay next winter's gas bill now.)
[1] Not in the 'pissing by the door' sense.