Sweetpeach, your story reminded me of when I first moved to New York City in 2004 or so. I called up ConEd to get my electricity account set up, expecting to have to jump through a lot of hoops proving my trustworthiness at all my previous addresses, etc, etc.
I was surprised to find that all it took was one 2-minute phone call to tell them my name and where I lived. When I told the guy I was surprised I didn't have to give account numbers from my previous electricity suppliers, the guy said (in a perfect New York City accent):
"We used to do all that, but it cost a ton of money to check the information we got, so we scrapped it. These days we hook up everybody, and if you don't pay, we just turn the electricity off."
Hope you're able to get it worked out with BG.