... how robust procedures that identify someone is talking to an authorised person are.

Have recently moved our energy supply to British Gas and as a welcome courtesy call they rang up today to check if everything was set up as we'd want it. They wouldn't normally be able to talk to me as my name isn't on the account but as my wife (whose name is on the bills) had passed the phone to me then it counted as explicit permission for me to talk to them.

That was nice of them especially as my wife was still at work and it was an 8 year old microWishy that passed the phone over.

I'm sure I've got another thread about British Gas somewhere.

I have to say that I like the Dutch system. If I phone a company from my mobile, they take that as it being me - they identify me from the number and we get on and deal with whatever it is. It makes far more sense than my DOB and first line of address and postcode as being ID.

To be fair to British Gas, they had rung the landline although why they needed me to identify the address I don't know. I either live here or am a burglar and in both cases I could easily supply the information they asked me (postcode) to identify myself.

BG suck in Scotland as does SSE. Flow Energy seem to be mopping up left right and centre now.

I had his with Natwest once (admittedly a few years ago).

I called to do something fairly rudimentary - change a standing order date or something like that - but I was shocked at how simple the security questions were; DOB, address, mother's maiden name.

When I challenged them on it and pointed out that I could now tell them I've moved and order a new card they quickly claimed that I would need to go through additional security to do that sort of thing.

Not convinced.

I did have a great tussle with them a few years ago that lasted several months over them getting a digit wrong (a four figure one) with their estimate readings that had me using a thousand pounds of energy over the course of a weekend. The readings they had were allegedly actual readings not estimates which seeing as I was out of the country on the dates they stated meant that either
a) I was running a cannabis farm but had forgotten to bypass the meter
b) They lied about the frequency of actual readings so as not to fall foul of Ofgem
c) They broke into my house to take them

When I emailed photos of the meter I was accused of tampering with it. It took a few months of phone calls that got nowhere until I finally got someone with half a brain who could see the readings weren't correct. It took five minutes for the final phone call but I'd spent hours on the phone previously.

This is an on going battle I've had with every major supplier of, well, pretty much everything.

Only yesterday I was on my third call to Virgin Media when the guy decided to challenge me as..

"that's not the name on the account"

I patiently explained that I know that and had set up a password so we didn't have to go through this charade anymore.

He was adamant that he had to speak with the account holder to verify...I'm not sure what.

I challenged him to explain to me how me passing the phone to a person he couldn't see and had no idea who they were was verifying anything.

He just repeated the party line because, of course, he couldn't explain the logic of it.

So I pass the phone to the Mrs..

"yes this is she.....password...I don't know what the password is my husband set it up..."

I shout the password at her so he can hear me down the phone doing it...

she says it and passes the phone back.

Thank you he says..I ask him how him talking to a female and me telling the female the password so she can tell him verifies anything about the account.

He ignores this and off we go...for the next 25 minutes as he attempts to fix my connection..which he can't. Bunch of muppets.

The we get to the chemists.

I go to the doctors surgery and get my prescription, the piece of paper that says what my medication is and what my name and address is.

I hand this to the chemists assistant, who tears it in half and hands me back the bit with my address on.

I pay and wait for my pills and when she comes to hand them to me she asks me to confirm my address.

I say...er...I don't know.

She looks suddenly confused. I ask her why she needs my address.

"It's to confirm you are the person this medicine is for"

I hold the bit of paper up with my address on it.

"even if I wasn't I have the address of the person who it is for don't I and you know that because you gave it to me, so whats the point in asking me?"

It's not limited to things like that either.

I'm currently, (well when I'm not at home nursing two fractured wrists) involved in a major construction project.

On a walkaround of the building to discuss the current state of the wiring containment, it was brought up that massive sections were in fact missing.

The guy in charge of the fitting teams says..

"My guys tell me they have fitted it all, so as far as I'm concerned it's all in place"

"But it isn't, we walked it through and theres loads missing"

"No, it's all been fitted, my guys have told me, that's it."

At this point, we called him to take a few steps and pointed out the obviously missing half finished sections right above where we were standing.

"It's all in place" he says, "Take it up with XXXX"

You couldn't make it up.

Years ago, when I was at sea as a deck apprentice, the ship having arrived in Algiers harbour, the mate was telling the bosun to get the men to rig stages over the side to paint the hull.

"But Mr Mate, it's pissing with rain"

"I don't care bosun. The pilot said it shouldn't be raining, get the men over the wall painting"

This was first thing in the morning, too early for the mate to be pissed.

I didn't make it up.

It must have knacked to type all that then. On a more serious note I feel your pain. I did fracture one of my wrists years ago and it was of the most painful injuries I've ever had.

I've also had a classic from BT tech support when the company I worked for had an internet connection problems (before the advent of connected mobile devices).

"You need to go to xxx.com website and you'll be able to check the connectivity in your area...."

"How the flippityflop am I supposed to be able to do that then?"

Surprisingly not that painful really. More painful was the 8 hour stint in A&E.

Triage and Xray - hour 1

Waiting - hours 2-4

Hour 4, 1st doctor - "you've fractured your right wrist but the left is ok, take a seat back in the waiting room and we'll sort you out"

Waiting - Hours 4 - 7

Hour 7 2nd doctor - "You've fractured your right wrist but your left is ok, the doctors coming over to sort you out"

Hour 8 - 3rd doctor - "You've fractured both your wrists I'll strap you up myself"

The NHS is a wonderful, wonderful instrument, if and when you can get to the right person and that's the trick.

Day 1: You've broken your back in two places (and sundry other bits)

Day 21: You can go home, now, don't get out of bed without this fancy brace thing, come back in a month

Day 50 (local hospital): Oh, looks like you broke your back in *three* places. That'll be why it's hurting so much still.

Quite, when I fell out of a tree as a kid and broke my arm I didn't have the same amount of sky between me and the ground as you did.

Had I had a bit more sky I would have had a lot less pain...