Monthly Archives: January 2010

Unsolicited Deceptive Phone Calls & Sly Salesmen

General

One evening during the week, I received a phone call after 7PM from a number I didn’t recognise. It turned out to be an overseas number, which didn’t leave me with much hope that it was going to be a useful phone call for me to take and not yet another person trying to sell me a holiday.

After struggling to hear the woman and also comprehend what she was saying through a very strong accent, the lady informed me that someone would be coming around in the following week to check the power at our house. It was hard to understand her but I did pick up Energex and Origin throughout the conversation. At that point I thought it must have been something official, which was reinforced when she said it was like the recent in person visit from a Gold Coast Water employee to check the water quality.

As indicated, someone did come around to our place and they were there to check the power. They asked to see one of our power bills to check whether we were being overcharged on our bill. The bloke went through and checked the bill against his sheets and shuffled some stuff back and forward in his folder and then confirmed that I was being overcharged. At this point I thought, fantastic – we’ll be reimbursed for whatever we have paid over the normal. At this point in time, then came the sales pitch – the guy was from Integral Energy and said he could save me 7% of my power bill by switching to them instead of Origin Energy.

It pisses me off that they were deceptive on the phone, dropping names like Energex and Origin Energy so I’d feel comfortable with what was happening. It annoys me even more that the lady said it was just like the recent Gold Coast Water check, however with one distinct difference – Gold Coast Water didn’t try and sell me something, they were legitimately here to verify that our water quality was okay. I’m frustrated that the salesman wasn’t upfront about his intentions. I think it is sly that he said he was on knocking on my door because someone else in my area requested them to come around – which apparently gives an excuse to knock on my door and sell me something I don’t need. I hate and I d mean hate, not dislike, that people selling over the phone and at the door think their best chance of getting the sale is to pressure me into it and not let me consider it on my own time and furthermore that when I say no – that they don’t stop their sales pitch and piss off.

This sort of behaviour is the exact reason why I won’t change my power provider to someone offering cheap power. Not only will I not use their cheap electricity, if someone asks me about them – I’ll now be the first to tell them not to take the up on their 7% savings on their discounted power plans.

Perfect Personalised Plates

Humour

Bentley MotorsI love personalised license plates, not the standard ones you see with a couple letters and numbers – but the custom plates that let you have anything on it you like. I especially like custom license plates when they are clever or make me chuckle. On the way home from work today, I pulled along side a Bentley Azure T. For those that aren’t aware, Bentley make some of the finest motor vehicles in the world – they are big, plush and are generally speaking the most luxurious car you could imagine. Of course along with that luxury comes a luxurious price tag, don’t expect to get change from $500,000 even for a second hand one. With the lofty price tag in mind, I thought a personalised plate with DOUGH on it was fantastic!

Personal Information, Over Disclosure & Security

General, Life

These days too many businesses that we interact with on a daily basis require far too much personal information about each and every one of us. A prime example of this is signing up for a non-essential service at a shopping centre or local shop – some of those businesses require a comparable amount of information to that of a bank. Why do they need all that information?

I recently signed up at our local video store in Upper Coomera on the Gold Coast and they required a credit card or debit card, without one they simply wouldn’t sign you up for an account. I appreciate that they probably have issues getting money from clients who return videos late, however I’m not convinced that providing my credit card information is a reasonable measure and I’ll tell you why.

Every time I see someone pick up a pen and write down my personal information, especially if they aren’t an organisation who’s business is managing personal information, it worries me. Everytime a EFTPOS terminal is down and they take a manual imprint of a credit card, it worries me. In the case of the Upper Coomera video shop, the staff member wrote my credit card information down on a signup form – but once they’ve entered my information into the computer – what happens with that piece of paper? Is it simply scrunched up and put in the waste paper basket, burned, shredded or none of the above. What about once it is entered into the computer, is it encrypted or stored unencrypted for anyone to see. Can any staff member at the video store view my personal information, including my complete set of credit card details? Is the business and their staff adequately equipped and trained to handle that sort of sensitive information?

In my opinion, these are all good questions that the average person never thinks about. They assume that our personal information is handled with care, that businesses have reliable processes in place to minimise the potential risk of having their clients information disclosed or compromised.

These sorts of issues are being raised more and more frequently in the mainstream media, fueled by the unchecked rise in personal information and identity theft taking place. Getting this ugly secret out into the open is the only way to deal with it – people need to be made aware of it and what sort of measures they can put in place to reduce the likelihood of their information getting out into the wild.

The sad thing is, that while I read their terms of service and I know they are bound by the Australian Privacy Act – I still signed up for an account at my local Gold Coast video store. I pressed them to sign me up without that information but they wouldn’t budge and the alternative was a Video Ezy at Helensvale – a 15 minute drive away, hardly convenient.

If  you take anything away from this, let it be an increased awareness of what and how often you disclose your personal information and to what types of people, organisations or companies.