Scottish Power "Claim Back Money" Trickery?

webwahm

Hi, I can't quite believe what I heard today from a Scottish Power door-to-door salesman...not heard this one before and am shocked that it's OK to use this tactic...I'm with nPower at the moment.

Soon as I saw the Scottish Power jacket I said I wasn't interested...but he assured me he wasn't selling (yeah). Apparently I had been wrongly charged for my supply and nPower wrote to me to give me chance to claim it back...and since I haven't replied Scottish Power were concerned, as my supplier, as to why I hadn't replied. (I have heard 'the letter' spin before, but he put this one differently).

(...eh? What, had I missed something...???)

He went on to explain that Scottish Power actually supply me already, nPower just do the billing (is this true? ) ...did I realise that nPower is German (...and?), and that the problem is "when your meter goes round you have been charged 14p instead of 8p, nearly double what you should have been paying".

So, I asked, what do I need to do to rectify this..."just a quick application today"...ahhh so you ARE wanting me to switch suppliers...no no says the man, you are not switching suppliers as WE already supply you, you are just changing billing company.

WHAT??? He didn't push any further thankfully when I said no I'll stay with nPower.

I really can't believe the spin that was put on this sales effort - is this how these people are trained, or did the guy think it up himself?

He really came across as some kind of official 'checker-up' person, concerned that I hadn't claimed back the money. It got me for a moment, so I hate to think what elderly folk are going to fall for.

I thought there were regulations now against this kind of thing?

glasgow_DFW

Sound like to got a bad sales man I have hear this one (and variations) form loads of diffrent companys.
These are the comon one's
1 Did you kown the (insert co name ) is not british (dunsen't matter most are not)
2 We supply the the enegy ans they bill you for it, why not cut out he middel man?(this is a good one as can be kind of true they may distrobute the energy and be responsibl for the supply in your arae).
3 Did you know that you are paying a standing charge we(insert co name) don't. standing charge no standing charge for most perope this makes no diffrence but if you are a low user it should be considered.

There are regulation but it will be you agains him and if he has just old to facts but in a bad way eg Npower are German don't ya know (Scottish Power is now owned by Ibadrola so the argunent now would be that it is Spanish) and the npower bill you and sp provde.

brysiewysie

Door to door energy sales people should all be regulated by energysure.

http://www.energysure.org.uk/

The code of practice is here;

http://www.energy-retail.org.uk/salespractice.html

meeps and webwahm what you're being told is (in my opinion) out of order and underhand. You should (in my opinion) complain.

ronniemcinnes

lol!
makes me laugh these bad rep threads!

to be fair though, as I am one , i never use the "your energy company is german or whatever" i dont really see the point in it tbh. likewise, if a customer says that we are spanish owned i ask them what type of car they drive to see if they are keeping it british too, sometimes they do others dont.
It doesnt bother me what country the company is owned by. when I hear of keeping it british I tend to remind them that I am a british citizen too and it keeps me in a job, but not in a nasty way.
depending on what area you are in the country , you may well be in the supply area for that company, so it is not always a lie.
yes all reps are energysure acredited and have to follow the code of conduct.
if you feel that you have been mis-sold or whatever, then yes ,do complain.

brysiewysie

But the fact your company may actually be the supplier in the area is irrelevant. If it's part of a line spun about cutting out the middleman it's again irrelevant and misleading. Do you then mention because you're in area that the units prices are dearer for an in area supplier rather than your competition?

ronniemcinnes

I do agree that who the area supplier is and cutting out the middleman lines are totally irrelevant. also there are times when other companies unit prices are cheaper than the area supplier unit prices.