MSE News: Energy giants face mis-selling investigation

slammingvictim

[FONT=times new roman, new york, times, serif]On 14th June Commercial power telephoned The **** Inn and talked to Mrs ***** about The C**** they were informed that the person responsible for that business was Mr ******, Marie's father in law, Commercial power then telephoned again and spoke to Mr ***** who then asked what their interest was. He ( **** of Commercial power ) went on to explain that because of the number of companies going out of business and new ones starting, his company had been appointed for the purpose of insuring the speedy registration of new businesses. He was informed that was the first we had heard of that and referred him to Mr **** broker, T*******l. gave him his phone number in case what he was saying was true. as he was very convincing.[/FONT]
[FONT=times new roman, new york, times, serif]T******** was telephoned by Mr ***** a short while later to ask him if he had been contacted, he had not. we explained the conversation and before we had completed a couple of sentences Tony said Oh no you've been scammed.[/FONT]
[FONT=times new roman, new york, times, serif]Our broker T******l was told we had said nothing except to refer him to T*****. he immediately contacted commercial power and told them that he was acting on our behalf and that he had already put the applications in place.[/FONT]
[FONT=times new roman, new york, times, serif]He rang me back and explained that we we're lucky we acted so quickly as he knew the company and had been able to save the situation.[/FONT]
[FONT=times new roman, new york, times, serif]Unbeknown to us ****** from Commercial power telephoned again that day to ******** the daughter in law who told him in the previous telephone call she had no connection with The C****, he went on to tell her he had spoken to J*** ( her father in law ) and to T*** his broker and explained it was OK as they had authorised her to deal with the matter, after a lengthy conversation and several false claims ***** from Commercial power convinced ***** she had been given the Authority to discuss the npower offer, she went on to divulge personal details on the strength of these false claims and unwittingly agreed verbally to a contract in Mr ******* name without his consent, knowledge or authority.[/FONT]
[FONT=times new roman, new york, times, serif]The utilities had already been agreed through the broker T***** who will verify this, Commercial power somehow gained all the necessary information by devious means and with false claims they fraudulently signed up a contract with npower without permission, Authority or Knowledge of the victim Mr *******.[/FONT]
[FONT=times new roman, new york, times, serif]A fraud has taken place and a criminal investigation is warrented, this is a blatant abuse of the verbal agreement clause and typical of mis-selling and telephone slamming[/FONT]
[FONT=times new roman, new york, times, serif]We would like an explanation of how Mr Whittington from npower customer relations concludes this is a closed matter and the contract is legally binding ?[/FONT]
[FONT=times new roman, new york, times, serif]Mr ******* refuses to aknowledge this contract as it is fraud and completely without his authority or knowledge ***** from Commercial power has absolutely no rights to inform the daughter in law she has authority to act in Mr ****** absence and committed a crime when he did so.[/FONT]

Chipping

I've had these energy 'salespeople' coming to my place at least once a year for the last 6 years. They seem to get more and more frequent. I have a 'no cold callers' sign right next to my doorbell, however, they don't believe it applies to them, even though their aim is to sell energy. When I bring this up now, they employ the tactic of just keeping me talking in the the hope that I am so thick I will forget.

The first were Southern Electric and I had to report them to Energywatch for misinformation (I got a short apology). I do know about the general concepts of energy deregulation, e.g., that gas is supplied by one company's pipes but sold by another. So, I was immediately able to spot a blatant con attempt (whilst they tried to stick to the letter of the law - badly). I got rather angry because their pitch was obviously designed to confuse and bamboozle less informed and vulnerable people. According to them, they knew I was paying too much through my provider because their company supplied the gas and they know how much everyone is paying (all lies - they didn't even know who my provider was). Their aim was to get me to sign a piece of paper, that is all. It was apparently a piece of paper requesting more information. Since when does that need a form and a signature?

Since then, I've just scared them away by querying the accuracy of their statements, and showing them my displeasure at their dishonesty. However, they had also toned down their attempts following complaints. So, Blair/Brown/Ofgem decided that the industry would somehow be better able to regulate itself following all the complaints.

Earlier this year Scottish Power came along and tried the same old dodgy dishonest tactics - obviously the exact same dodgy marketing twits were behind it. Still no doubt earning lots of money from their 'genius'. I complained to them, and according to the industry code of practice, they were supposed to reply - they didn't bother. Then a few weeks ago Southern Electric were back at it again.

Obviously another win for self-regulation. Put the foxes in charge of protecting the chickens from foxes! The aim being that the foxes would fight each other to keep the chickens out of each other's mouths. In reality, the foxes do fight each other, but only in trying to eat more chickens than each other. Joined up thinking - great job Ofgem/New Labour. Hmmm, I wonder if we could have learned lessons from the past about this? Maybe some other things could also have been avoided, eh Gordon? (...Banks?)

Maybe an effective approach would be to brand the responsible senior managers, in the marketing companies and energy companies, on their foreheads about this, then sack them. That way they wouldn't just keep turning up under new company names and earning masses of money from it. The fines obviously had no impact because they didn't hurt the instigators at all.

How is it that in Britain we manage to do something like deregulation (at great cost) in order to improve services for the customer, only to find that all the 'competitors' try to screw the customer? Maybe the cause is the recent British social ethos of short-term reward (take the money and run)?

undaunted

slammingvictim wrote: »

[FONT=times new roman, new york, times, serif]We would like an explanation of how Mr Whittington from npower customer relations concludes this is a closed matter and the contract is legally binding ?[/FONT]

As I said above it sounds like utter nonsense to me - you / they may as well argue that I can lawfully enter you into a contract too. Talking to Npower is like banging your head against a very thick wall unfortunately. I suggest you consult a solicitor & I suspect they will have this nonsense put to bed very very quickly!

jodi42

All the energy companies I have switched to have always put me down as having a standing charge with my former supplier...thus making it seem like the Company I'm switching to is cheaper as they wont be charging me a standing charge.
I have had door to door sales people who refuse to leave me with any of their energy prices and then tell me I can find all the tarriffs on line.
But the one that beats them all has to be BG who constantly ring me to tell me they can save me money on my energy bills.....that's before they even know who I'm currently with or how much I'm paying....
Recently BG advertised both on TV and radio to tell us they had the cheapest tarriffs for..I think it was electricity? Anyone reading the small print would realise, they can make this claim but it only applies to people who are avarage users ..so basically if your a low or high consumer of electricity then their claim to being the cheapest doesn't apply to you....:rotfl:and this they fail to tell you everytime they ring!!!

Bellydancer

I've just had a British Gas seller at my door, telling me they'd been trying to contact me by phone and letter for some time now, about my switching to them. I assured him they hadn't, and I wasn't planning on switching in any case. He gave a 'surprised' look, and said it must have been a little while ago - hmmmm.

He then started trying to ask me didn't I want to save money? and I told him yet again that I was definitely not switching and I was happy with my current arrangement. Maybe he thought I would assume that my husband had already agreed to switch over, but he wasn't counting on the fact that I have no husband and it is me that deals with all the finances in this house.

Seems to me this is how they are going to try to get around cold-calling, by making out they had previously contacted, or tried to contact people. I'll definitely be printing out the 'No cold callers' sign, but have no doubt they will use this method to get around their obligations.