Southern Electric

Pittsey

Got a knock on the door today from a SE "Area Manager" who informed me that I was on a high energy tariff and had been "specially selected" to be supplied by SE. He told me that he wasn't a salesman and that he wasn't trying to sell me anything and that he was trying to save me money by offering a 50% discount on my enegry by offering me units of gas for 3p and Electricity for 11p.

I found him to be delibrately misleading and pushy. He wanted me to sign then and there. Even though he wasn't selling me anything. I told him I'd be a fool to take him for his word and sign without researching and he continued his hard sell. I told him I'd consulted Uswitch.com and that I was on what they considered the cheapest supplier. NPower Dual Fuel. He said that SE are not on the internet and it is an exclusive offer.

Basically I didn't like how pushy he was. He wouldn't leave me any paperwork to consult as "it's against company policy." Am I right in thinking he is using a hard sell on me? He wanted me to switch and I could cancel within 7 days if I decided not too. I guess he is getting a comission if I pull out or not? Any advice would be appreciated.

pollythena

Pittsey wrote: »

Got a knock on the door today from a SE "Area Manager" who informed me that I was on a high energy tariff and had been "specially selected" to be supplied by SE. He told me that he wasn't a salesman and that he wasn't trying to sell me anything and that he was trying to save me money by offering a 50% discount on my enegry by offering me units of gas for 3p and Electricity for 11p.

I found him to be delibrately misleading and pushy. He wanted me to sign then and there. Even though he wasn't selling me anything. I told him I'd be a fool to take him for his word and sign without researching and he continued his hard sell. I told him I'd consulted Uswitch.com and that I was on what they considered the cheapest supplier. NPower Dual Fuel. He said that SE are not on the internet and it is an exclusive offer.

Basically I didn't like how pushy he was. He wouldn't leave me any paperwork to consult as "it's against company policy." Am I right in thinking he is using a hard sell on me? He wanted me to switch and I could cancel within 7 days if I decided not too. I guess he is getting a comission if I pull out or not? Any advice would be appreciated.

Of course Southern Electric are on the internet!

And if he wasn't a 'salesman' then what on earth was he? (Instinct here is probably a con man).

I'd keep an eye out to make sure they don't try and switch without your consent.

Incisor

Pittsey wrote: »

Got a knock on the door today from a SE "Area Manager" who informed me that I was on a high energy tariff and had been "specially selected" to be supplied by SE. He told me that he wasn't a salesman and that he wasn't trying to sell me anything and that he was trying to save me money by offering a 50% discount on my enegry by offering me units of gas for 3p and Electricity for 11p.

I found him to be delibrately misleading and pushy. He wanted me to sign then and there. Even though he wasn't selling me anything. I told him I'd be a fool to take him for his word and sign without researching and he continued his hard sell. I told him I'd consulted Uswitch.com and that I was on what they considered the cheapest supplier. NPower Dual Fuel. He said that SE are not on the internet and it is an exclusive offer.

Basically I didn't like how pushy he was. He wouldn't leave me any paperwork to consult as "it's against company policy." Am I right in thinking he is using a hard sell on me? He wanted me to switch and I could cancel within 7 days if I decided not too. I guess he is getting a comission if I pull out or not? Any advice would be appreciated.

No paperwork? If it's against company policy, then it's not a company to deal with?

If you pull out? After all that you signed something? What did you sign? Was it the "if you sign this, I'll go away" contract?

Pittsey

Thanks guys.

It seemed dubious. But he was promising me 50% reduced energy bills. Just wanted to see what members on here thought. Seems you agree with me. I think it's awful they are allowed to carry out this practice. My nan wouldn't have been quite so assertive, he was very forceful and didn't want to take no as an answer.

mech_2

I don't know if Southern Electric is a good deal for you, but I do know this: If you go for their online billing you'll hardly ever get a chance to see your bills as their website is run by monkeys.

It's always down. The server has returned a plethora of different errors for me over the time I have been with them and even when I can log in and see the bill listing, when new bills are due, as often as not, either the gas or electricity bill seems to have not appeared and got stuck in the system prompting a phone call to get it sorted out and then guess what? The following day when you check to see if the bill has appeared the whole website will be falling over again.

Oh look, now I can't even get their home page. What a ****ing surprise. :mad:

https://www.southern-electric.co.uk/

[/rant]

Scottish_Southern_Company_Representative

H
Hi Pittsey

My names David Davison, I work for Southern Electric and am really disappointed to learn of this sales tactic, this is definitely not what is expected of our sales teams, we are proud to be an open and honest company.

Have you contacted us to register a complaint against the salesman? If not I would invite you to send me your postcode and house number so I can raise a complaint. This would be done completely anonymously. It is really important we are notified when things like this occur so that we can take any necessary actions to prevent it occurring again. I would only require your postcode and house number so that I can see who was in your area to make sure the complaint is raised against the correct salesman.

In response to mech, I am really sorry you have experienced so many problems with our website; we are currently redesigning the entire website and the processes which are involved. We realise that the experience offered currently is not what it should be and we have invested a lot of resources and money into the new site.

If you would like to contact me my email is [EMAIL="david.davison@scottish-southern.co.uk"]david.davison@scottish-southern.co.uk[/EMAIL]

Please do not send any personal information as this is not needed.

peat

I must say I'm impressed with
a. Southern Electrics response
b. That they have the sense to monitor this site for customer feedback

Farway

Thanks mech, I thought it was just me having probs with the SE web site

Just tried to view my new bills online, as you guessed, not available at this time

looks like I may as well go back to post & paper, at least my postie is more reliable than SE web site