Came home yesterday to a message on the answerphone. The five second silence that tells me it’s an automated call, followed by a sweet old lady’s voice saying this was an automated call from a company whose name I didn’t catch “on behalf of your electricity supplier”. Please could I phone up with a meter reading, or alternatively enter it at a URL that I also didn’t get. It really was a crackly recording.

Hmm. They’re calling on behalf of my electricity supplier yet can’t actually name the company. My electricity supplier can’t make a call like this itself. I suspect a cunning plan to enmesh me in a conversation that will lead to my changing suppliers to whoever is behind this little scheme.

Sadly it’s probably not illegal, apart from the outright lie of “on behalf of your electricity supplier”. There’s no law that says you can’t ask someone for a meter reading, or try to persuade them to change suppliers. But no, I don’t think I will be making that phone call. If it’s genuine they’ll try again. And the worst they can do is cut m-