Customer Service call and GDPR

[Mr_Mauve]

Hi, I have a situation regarding GDPR and a customer service call.

I have a friend who had a slow broadband issue on BT, he is 85 and not very knowledgable on IT things so asked me to help him. I made the service call to BT (0800 800150) to request they look into why his line was so slow (0.21 down and 0.50 up) I know quite a bit about IT so had already done any preliminary tests a script tech would have asked me to do and had moved the router to the main outlet, the issue still remained.

Anyway, as part of me making the call the Customer Service Rep (csr) asked for my name, I gave her my first name, I expect this as part of courtesy so the csr can refer to me by name, then she asked for my surname, contact number and address, I refused, they cited GDPR as the lawful reason to request this info and if I did not give her this info they would terminate the call, I told her all she needed was my first name and that I had their customer in front of me and that he had given me permission to act on his behalf, unfortunately they did not see is as a valid reason and insisted on me giving out my personal data else they would terminate the call. I told them their customer was in front of me and all they had to do was validate his ID (a simple process that I have been through countless times before) but they had become fixated on obtaining MY info not his, none of my personal information would have helped fix this issue and validating their customer should have been the primary goal so that he could then give them permission to deal with me. There is more to this phone call but I have outlined the main points.


My question: Under GDPR, was it Lawful for them to try and obtain my information and was I legally bound to give it or terminate the call?


It's very difficult to find information relating to this situation that's why I'm asking here and on other forums.

I consider this a very serious matter and a breach of my rights to protect my personal info, I make calls for people regularly and have never come across this and it actually scares me where all of this going.

I am fiercely protective of my information and what I find odd is how people become suspicious and defensive when I apply my right to privacy, I find it creepy.

[R0b]

As someone who used to work in a call centre for various Telecom ms companies such as BT in my younger days, I can understand why they would want to ask this.

Regardless of the fact that you are calling on someone else’s behalf, they do need to verify the account holder, and in some cases the person calling on the account holder’s behalf. Sometimes a third party can discuss the account by giving a password that has been set up or other occasions there might be some note on the account to say you are authorised to access and discuss it but each company will have their own method and procedure. Since the introduction of GDPR, companies have tightened up their verification procedures and become more stringent so perhaps this is the reason why the call centre advisor was asking for more information from you.

The easiest thing to do in that situation is to pass the phone to the account holder, let the advisor verify him and then he can give consent for the advisor to talk to you about the problems and his account.

I understand people want to be protective but personally, I think this is just an overreaction on your part and if you are fiercely protective of your personal data, then you should consider stop calling up on other people’s behalf.

Based on what you’ve said, there has been no breach of your personal data and it was legitimate of them to ask you for further information, but if you disagree, please tell us how you think your data has been breached.

[Mr_Mauve]

I too have worked in customer service, so I know both sides of the fence.

The mistake I made was in being the initial contact instead of the BT customer, people don't like being told no especially customer service operators it messes with the script, I expect most people to respond in a hostile manner when I deny them a lot of my personal info, but I am well versed in making a case and showing clear reason not to. Unfortunately this rarely sits well with people and they become suspicious and or hostile, I show them Irony by asking for their details but 100% of the time they will refuse, I explain that now they know their personal info has no value to the issue and neither does mine.

The craziness is when I have both the BT customer and his details to hand and in front of me. So all of the BT customers information I can validate and they can speak to the BT customer as well, so my details are superfluous and have no relevance in the face of all of this other info nor to the resolution of the issue. Had they just asked to speak to the BT customer none of this would have occurred but they became fixated on obtaining my details, it took approx 30-35 mins to get around this with approx 15 mins of that time speaking to the BT customer who also became very vexed at their attitude, he understands my policy on privacy as he himself is a very private person and would not have just anyone helping him.

The issue was never resolved with next to no actual technical support from them other than to log on to speedtest.btwholesale.com this was futile because had they spoken to me about the issue I could have told them it would fail, they remained on the line waiting for this speedtest to finish but we all gave up after 15mins of nothing happening.

I shall apply the workaround: The customer makes the call and I shall listen in and explain any technical details to him and relay any technical responses they need to know in order to facilitate a successful solution and help them gain a resolution to this problem.

Thank you for you opinion