Columbia Gas Company – The Valves Line

Customers trying to call a listed number for Columbia Gas Company were in for a surprise. Instead of learning how to turn off their gas valves, phone sex was on tap.

Utilities and Sex

It seem a month can’t go by without a utility company sending out the wrong phone number to customers. There have been untold stories regarding psychic lines being used…”I predict your gas bill will go up, up, up…”, but lately it seems phone sex lines have come to the forefront. It’s happened in numerous states, not to mention countries.

In this case, the Columbia Gas Company promoted a line where customers could call to get information on turning off their gas bill as well as payment plans for the bills. When customers called the number, they were confronted with discussions of valves all right, but mostly of the sexual type.

In such a situation, one tends to laugh at the stupidity of the utility company. In this case, however, there was a fairly interesting reason all of this happened. A year earlier, the gas company had closed an office and terminated the phone lines. The phone sex company, being opportunistic, purchased the phone numbers in a mass buying spree. At the gas company, the left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing and the old numbers were used.

Natural gas is certainly used to heat things up, but who could’ve expected the phone lines would be part of the process!

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