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MSE News: Victims told to pay twice for electricity doorstep scam

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in Energy
This is the discussion thread for the following MSE News Story:
"Power firms want affected households to pay for criminals who sell cloned keys to top-up pre-payment meters ..."
"Power firms want affected households to pay for criminals who sell cloned keys to top-up pre-payment meters ..."
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The people I am most concerned about are vulnerable but the supplier does tell them where to top up. If they choose to do this elsewhere why should the Suppliers take the hit?
Why should the energy company take the hit, who in turn then pass it onto law abiding users.
That said I've never used a pre-payment meter so I'm not sure of the specifics of the process.
I see what you're getting at, but this isn't quite the same thing. The energy company could be doing a promotion or something, you could probably dress it up in some semi-plausible way. And you have to bear in mind that legitimate energy company salesmen do have a natural tendency to turn up at peoples doorsteps making a lot of promises that sound too good to be true anyway, so it's less clear who is a real salesman and who isn't.
If you buy forged tickets for a football match/pop concert/theatre, do you expect the football club or theatre to refund what you paid?
You 'buy' a stolen Ford car that is reclaimed by the owner, should the Ford Motor company refund you?
Never sign up for anything on the doorstep. I always ask them to leave me some information on the deal and I can then sign up later. Funny thing though, they never want to do that...
Pay As You Go mobile phones have Top Up deals like £15 credit for £10 cash all the time.
What they need to do is get smart meters installed everywhere, so there is no need to faff around with keys at all. It should be possible to pay online or by mobile phone any time you are running low. The same meter can be used for stored value or monthly account, and they can make thousands of meter readers redundant.