One of the first things Christine Babbe and her husband Ivan did when they got the book was to tear out all the card advertisements, which Mrs Babbe said made the book difficult to flick through.
But it was the way the couple’s directory entry had changed that really upset her.
‘Our entry had been changed from both my husband’s and my initials, as it has been for the past 42 years, to just one of my husband’s,’ she said.
Mrs Babbe was then unable to phone a married woman, whose address and husband she did not know, after could not find the woman’s initials in the book. ‘I had to look in last year’s directory to find her,’ she said.
Sure explained that she and her husband would need to visit the Sure store with photographic ID. ‘Due to directories now being based on Sure account information we would need relevant documentation and permissions to change the account into joint names,’ said the email.
‘I think this is bureaucracy gone mad. This information was in previous directories,’ said Mrs Babbe. ‘So why not keep that data, but only update new entries?
‘I recommend that any married women, who still want to receive phone calls from people who don’t know their husbands or where they live, go to Sure with their other half and their photo ID and update their entries.’
She also took issue with the new typeface used, saying that it was too faint, and also that the white pages were now at the back of the book.
Mrs Babbe was one of several people who were annoyed at the changes.
Many took to the Facebook group ‘Good or bad Guernsey businesses’ to vent their wrath.
‘Really cannot understand how this can be changed without a signed document from us,’ wrote Karen Vaudin after changes were made to her and her husband’s entry.
‘Our problem being now, unless people know our address they cannot get the phone number.’
Colleen Bison was also annoyed: ‘Our entry has changed as well – private one in twice and business one only one number and I pay for that privilege.’
Karen Niles’ mother’s entry did not appear: ‘And my brother, whose surname starts with C, has been put underneath his partner’s, whose surname starts with an S. What are they playing at?’, she said.
Another woman whose mum’s entry had vanished was Nikki Senior. ‘I think they also quoted my dad’s mobile, even though it’s not been in there before and they are only quoting my name and mobile number not my home address and home number, all seems a bit of a mess really.’
‘The new telephone book is a mess,’ said Theresa Brown.
‘We now have my mobile listed when we requested them several years ago to delete it.
‘Also have my mother-in-law’s telephone number listed at our address... Does not even live we us.’
It was not just people whose entries had changed or were missing from the book who were angry. ‘We have never been in the book and this year we are fuming,’ said Karen De Carteret.
There was some upset last year, too, after Sure said that the new data protection law meant they were no longer able to provide the reverse look-up pages that allowed people to look up a number to find the name of the subscriber.
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