Companies trying to sell gas/electric services...

[tony84]

Where do you get the details from that I have moved address?

My old office - managed office, the management company deal with gas/electric.
My new office - exactly the same.

When I get calls saying "you are calling about the change in meter name" its clearly a lie as I have never been named on either meter, but more so I still have my old office until tomorrow.

I can only assume it is companies house? If so, is there a way to opt out of them selling my details?

 

[NickGrogan]

Companies House publishes new company data and updates when the registered office changes. This is public data, so it's free and there's no option not to share it.

But this only reflects changes to the registered address.

The other source of data like this is social media - when you post on X, Linkedin, Facebook or Instagram hundreds of companies pick up this data and use/sell it. Again no option to not sell, as they are just reading your posts.

The third option is that they are lying, don't care and just say it to everyone. A certain percentage will have moved with the last few months or be about to move, and a percentage of those will fall for the "change of meter name" lie.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

When I get calls saying "you are calling about the change in meter name" its clearly a lie as I have never been named on either mete

Maybe the calls are just the usual spammers - I get calls to my businesses for power, internet, phone systems, mobiles etc all the time

 

[tony84]

The normal calls I get are that they are calling about energy...

These ones are quite a bit more specific in that they are calling about the recent change of address etc.

 

[GLAbusiness]

I share your concern. The normal calls (as has been said) are generic "I am you account manager for your area" etc.

This is much more specific. They actually know some (correct) information about you. The 2 scenarios I can see are:

1. They are tracing you specifically
2. They are tracking changes in some specific data source

I think option 2 is much more likely

 

[tony84]

I have done some reading it up and it looks like it probably is companies house. They even have an API for companies to use!

 

[alamest]

This usually comes down to recycled data rather than anything targeted at you.

Most of these energy sales outfits buy old business lists pulled from Companies House, directories, previous occupiers etc. When a unit changes hands, the data doesn’t get updated properly and the new tenant just inherits the calls.

A lot of them don’t even work off company names, just postcode + “commercial property”, so if there’s ever been a business there, you’re on the radar.

Annoying part is there’s no magic way to stop it. TPS/CTPS helps a bit, telling them to remove you sometimes works, but plenty just ignore it. Blocking numbers is about as effective as it gets in the end.

More sloppy data reuse than anything sinister.

 

[DontAsk]

They don't even filter for commercial property. I work from home and get lots of calls asking about our business energy contract. Needless to say they get short shrift from me.

 

[NickGrogan]

The Companies House API is free. You can use ChatGPT to generate code, run it in the background on your PC, and it will provide a live list of companies that have changed their registered address, new company formations, or whatever else you want.