Rob writes:
“I just received a text purporting to be from Bord Gáis in relation to outstanding bill. The number provided is 1850 787 785 and the website for the terms and conditions is listed as bge.ie. Trying bge.ie website does not appear to be working (for me at least, while all Google searches lead to bordgais.ie/bordgaisenergy.ie), while I can’t find any reference to the above listed number on any of Bord Gáis official pages. Has anyone else received a similar text and/or know whether same is legit or scam?”
Anyone?
Sponsored Link
All the banks, utility companies, etc. have been telling us for years that they will never intitate contact by phone, text or email with a customer. This is fairly basic stuff everyone should know how to deal with.
Afraid you’re wrong there. I’ve had calls and texts from utility companies.
Correct. They will call you, but they won’t initiate contact that way.
Wrong they will text you if you’re overdue with payments
(I’ve worked for an energy and communications companies and they’d send out texts to customers in arrears on a regular basis. The number above could be a collections line/credit control number)
Okay. Now put on your credit controller hat again and explain why the links on the text aren’t the Bord Gais website or main phone number. If you were trying to collect a debt, would you really expect the customer to use a web-link that doesn’t work or ring a phone number that isn’t listed on the main website and give out bank details. Not likely. Where’s the validation, confirmation & security????
As someone who works in Credit Control I can confirm that it’s common practice in some companies to text reminders about overdue bills (which will be stated in T’s & C’s).
Having said that the account name and overdue amount should be displayed on the text along with the phone number as a way of verifying the information is coming from a legit source.
Text messages are a cheaper and more environmentally friendly way to connect with customers which is why they’re becoming more common.
Harry you might want to step off your horse there for a minute, you’ll give yourself high blood pressure. Never said I was a credit controller so you can keep that hat for your horse. Maybe it can answer the questions you’ve highlighted
Presume BG are trying to keep info within the confines of a single SMS and using ‘bge.ie’ to reduce the size – silly numpties obvs haven’t actually checked that link – pinging http://www.bge.ie returns a ‘host unreachable’ error suggesting it’s either an invalid address or an off-net domain
Off-net domain…. is that like, someones house or office like?
It’s basically the hidden level in Super-Mario 8
I absolutely hate credit cuntrol