It IS worth reporting dodgy salesmen!

lesley1966

Today, a salesman from an energy supplier knocked at my door, and said he had been sent by head office as I wasn't claiming a discount I was entitled to. He showed me his ID badge, looked legit and was very polite.

I told him I wasn't a customer of his company and when I was looking to switch I would consult other sources.

He said ok and left.

I felt this was a very dodgy sales technique. Although he was upfront about the company he came from, he masqueraded as an official who was looking to save me money, not a cold-call salesman. So I did a quick seach on MSE, looked up Consumer Direct and called them. They asked me if they could pass on my details to Trading Standards.

Within an hour, a trading standards officer was on my doorstep taking details of the salesman and what was said.

He then drove around the area until he found the salesman, warned him that his technique was against the rules, took his name and number and warned him that if he had any more complaints about him he would get him sacked.

The trading standards officer then came back to me to let me know what had happened, thanked me for contacting Consumer Direct and encouraged me to do so again if anything like this happened again. :T

I was amazed that something actually got done! So it IS worth raising the alarm.

Cheers

Lesley

trisontana

I think you should name and shame this particular energy company. I imagine that the official line from the company would be along the lines of "this was not up to our usual standards, and the behavior of salesman is not representative of our company etc."

Except that this is not a one-off occurrence, there have been many, many reported cases of energy salesmen deceiving people on the doorstep. This is why several organizations such as Help the Aged and Trading Standards are calling for a ban of door-step selling of energy products.

jamespir

lesley1966 wrote: »

Today, a salesman from an energy supplier knocked at my door, and said he had been sent by head office as I wasn't claiming a discount I was entitled to. He showed me his ID badge, looked legit and was very polite.

I told him I wasn't a customer of his company and when I was looking to switch I would consult other sources.

He said ok and left.

I felt this was a very dodgy sales technique. Although he was upfront about the company he came from, he masqueraded as an official who was looking to save me money, not a cold-call salesman. So I did a quick seach on MSE, looked up Consumer Direct and called them. They asked me if they could pass on my details to Trading Standards.

Within an hour, a trading standards officer was on my doorstep taking details of the salesman and what was said.

He then drove around the area until he found the salesman, warned him that his technique was against the rules, took his name and number and warned him that if he had any more complaints about him he would get him sacked.

The trading standards officer then came back to me to let me know what had happened, thanked me for contacting Consumer Direct and encouraged me to do so again if anything like this happened again. :T

I was amazed that something actually got done! So it IS worth raising the alarm.

Cheers

Lesley

i think it sounds like you have too much time on your hands they all do this its a way to get you to listen and is quite within the law of what thyre saying

maninthestreet

jamespir wrote: »

i think it sounds like you have too much time on your hands they all do this its a way to get you to listen and is quite within the law of what thyre saying

Trading Standards seem to disagree with you.

jamespir

maninthestreet wrote: »

Trading Standards seem to disagree with you.

yes and they turned up in their pink cloud car trading standards don't make house calls :rolleyes:

trisontana

jamespir wrote: »

yes and they turned up in their pink cloud car trading standards don't make house calls :rolleyes:

So, are you saying that this incident never happened?

jamespir

trisontana wrote: »

So, are you saying that this incident never happened?

seems too good to be true to me
im not saying the op is a liar but i have freinds who have worked for trading standards and they have said they dont do house calls and have much better thing's to do than chase round after one salesman on the basis of one complaint

trisontana

Trading Standards do do house calls. There have been a couple of TV programmes showing them driving round housing estates looking for the signs of dodgy builders etc.

This personally happened to me this summer. We were having our bathroom re-fitted and the builder (from a reputable local company) was doing some of the work on our front lawn. I had a knock on the door from two women. One was a police officer and the other was from Trading Standards. They had been driving round looking for signs of building work at people's houses. The woman from TS then asked me how I had found the building company, did they cold-call and, was I satisfied with the standard of work.

lesley1966

jamespir wrote: »

seems too good to be true to me
im not saying the op is a liar

I know! I was amazed too - that's why I posted.

I didn't expect anything like that to happen. But TS did indeed turn up (in an unmarked, very normal car).

Cheers

Lesley

mc33033

jamespir wrote: »

seems too good to be true to me
im not saying the op is a liar but i have freinds who have worked for trading standards and they have said they dont do house calls and have much better thing's to do than chase round after one salesman on the basis of one complaint

Trading Standards are run by your local council and as for all services run by councils the level of service varies throughout the land. Some are short staffed so can do very little apart from deal with criminal issues, others give extensive support to all kinds of civil consumer issues. Some have teams set up to deal specifically with cold callers like this, so implying that this didn't happen when you have no knowledge of the TS in question and your friends never left the office is just not on. Could even have been a dedicated officer combining his lunch break for all we know!