Southern Electricity sneaky cold calling tactic

balbs

Sneaky tactics from a Southern Electricity cold caller... this from my e-mail to head of customer services....

...........He rather cleverly implied that as Southern owned the metering system there was a problem with the meter reading compared to my actual supplier as if it was a technical fault - of course this was bunk and it was simply an attempt to cold call me to change supplier. My concern is that if I can be taken in by this enough to let someone in the house how many others (particularly the elderly) may not realise. He was also quite happy to show me lists of neighbours addresses and his 'sign-ups'which I regard as a breach of their privacy in a commonsense way, yet alone any legal considerations.

This really isn't on - I intend to check with elderly neighbours that I know that if they were signed up then they fully understood the reasoning and under what pretext your representativewas introducing himself to them. In the meantime perhaps you would like to comment as to what 'tactics' are seen as acceptable in these circumstances.

Andy_WSM

balbs wrote: »

In the meantime perhaps you would like to comment as to what 'tactics' are seen as acceptable in these circumstances.

None! I NEVER respond to cold callers (other than to say "no thanks" and close the door). If I want something I go and look for it myself and shop around. If the call is of a different nature, i.e. fault with electric, water, gas etc - then the company concerned would need to make an advanced appointment with me to gain my attention; unless there was an obvious problem, like a power outage/lack of gas/water at my property, then I'd give them the time of day.

david39

It's a scam - and the caller is almost certainly not from Southern Electricity, no matter what his documents might say.

He is trying to get your electricity meter number and your name - he already has your address. With that information he can then, without your knowledge, change your supplier and get a commission from them. It may be weeks before you find out about it - usually by your own supplier calling you to know why you are leaving them. The scammers often leave a long period between them calling and actually initiating the switch.

The scam is quite complex and I don't know fully how it works without bank details, but we had the same thing happen here and I sent the guy packing, but several of my neighbours got involved with the con - they did not know about it until they had been changed.

There is a similar scam going on with telephone and broadband suppliers, another of my neighbours got switched from BT to TalkTalk and the first he knew of it was BT ringing him up and asking him to change back - days afterwards, he got his first TalkTalk bill. Everyone in the road had been visited a month or so previously by someone claiming to be canvassing for TalkTalk. I don't think that the canvasser was officially from TalkTalk - his literature, which he did not leave, was dog-eared and tatty - plus the fact that I am already with TalkTalk!

balbs

Thanks for the posts - the other question Im now going to ask SE is whether they were actually doing any cold calling in my area - hadnt occurred to me that he might not be from SE at all - the good news is that one of the neigbours has a good face on a CCTV.