An idea for improving trust on sales and customer service calls

I get an innordanate amount of phone calls from people trying to upgrade my mobile phone, most of them start like this;

“Hello sir, we are calling from <insert phone company here> you to let you know you are due for an upgrade”

It always gets me interested that they don’t know my name. Sometimes they do; “Hello Mr Smith…”

Either way, it turns out that most of them are not actually from the phone company at all. They are deliberatly misleading about this though.

I have similar problems with trusting calls from the bank, or Barclaycard. The questions in my mind are always along the following lines;

1. How do I know this is really <company> I’m talking to?
2. Why are they asking me for all these personal details when I’m not sure of #1
3. Everyone would be happier if there was a simple solution

“Hello Mr Smith, we are calling from <insert phone company here>. Our password for your account is XXXXX. We are just calling to let you know you are due for an upgrade.”

“Ok, tell me more!”