Imagine working at a call center for a power company. What would you do if a customer wanted you to stop sending them a bill? Would you probe for answers, or would you insert your own answers to their unanswered questions?

In this story, one employee had no choice but to assume this could be an emergency situation when the homeowner refused to answer some basic questions.

Keep reading for all the details.

Don’t want to pay your gas bill? Fine I’ll take you at your word

I’ve had a few jobs and one was working for a UK energy company in one of their call centres.

I was in the website team and dealt with emails as well as calls, anything incorrect online or unable to login on the website, but complaints handling was one of my duties.

So I open an email from a customer who is having some issues and wants to have a call straightaway, gave a time to call him and a threat to go to Ofgem (the regulator) if he didn’t get his call.

Let’s call him Bob. So I phone out to the number on the email.

Here’s how the phone call went…

Me: “Hello is that Bob? I’m calling from energy company about…”

Bob: “Why are you sending me gas bills?!”

Me: Sorry can you confirm that I’m speaking to Bob?

Bob: “It doesn’t matter who you’re speaking to there’s no gas at this address!!! I want you to stop sending bills!!!!”

He refused to answer the question.

Me: “Are you saying Bob doesn’t live there anymore?”

Bob: “THERE! IS! NO! GAS! HERE!”

5 minutes later and I’m not getting anywhere trying to find out who actually lives there or if he’s the landlord so switch my approach.

OP asked different questions.

Me: “Ok, so when was the gas supply removed from?”

Bob: “There’s no meter it was taken out of”

Me: “We can update our records then, has the supply been capped?”

(Capped: Meter removed and supply pipe sealed off so no gas can be used at all – usually the contractor would contact the supplier to update this – if not this is a gas emergency as there is a risk of an explosion – just to give you an idea at that time £0.50’s worth of gas would blow up a house – about an hours worth of a gas leak)

Time for more questions.

Bob: “No! Nothing like that’s happened! The meter has just been removed!”

Me: “Can I confirm that for the last 9 months there has been an uncapped gas pipe at that address?”

Bob: “YES!”

Me: “Is there gas coming in to the property now?”

Bob: “I don’t know!”

It could be an emergency situation, right?

Me: “Are you in the property? Or have you visited”

Bob: “THERE! IS! NO! METER! OK?!!”

Me: “Thank you for that, the emergency services will be there within 1 hour and if no-one is at the address the police will have to force entry. This has been reported as a gas emergency and your reference is 666-666. All costs and fees for this will be charged to Bob or whomever is resident at the address.”

Bob: “but…but…”

OP tried the original question one more time.

Me: “Can you confirm you are Bob xxxxx?”

Bob hangs up

Found out there was a meter still, he was Bob and he tried to complain I’d took it too seriously.

But really, OP actually handled the situation perfectly.

Police, gas emergency crew and fire engines were sent and the road had to be sealed off and he tried to say it was me being a jobsworth.

Call was listened to and because he wouldn’t confirm who he was and insisted that there was an uncapped gas pipe at his property for the last 9 months, I’d tried to confirm this more than once and asked about gas, it was found I’d done everything as I should have.

Moral of the story: when things can go bang don’t try to be smart

Seriously! Don’t mess around and avoid answering questions when the answers would explain whether or not there’s an actual emergency.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

Exactly!

This person has questions.

Here’s another question.

Another person loved the story.

Avoiding questions can lead to unintended consequences.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.