MSE News: Victims told to pay twice for electricity doorstep scam 9 September 2010 at 12:10PM in Energy 23 replies 2.7K views

Former_MSE_Guy

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 ..."

Read the full story:
Victims told to pay twice for electricity doorstep scam

DVardysShadow

Fairly simple resolution. Energy suppliers write to all houses which have the meters and warn them. By the end of September. Energy suppliers take the hit until the end of September, after that, customers take the hit.

molerat

Do the people who buy these honestly believe they are genuine ? Come on, pull the other one.

Joyful

This is not the same as debit card fraud as in the info shown. With a Debit card it can be used without your knowledge. With a key if someone advises you to pay £25 instead of £50 you must surely know it is fraud.

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?

cheepskate_2

Why shouldn't they pay, they were willing to take the initial freebie , in all probability knowing it wasnt legit.
Why should the energy company take the hit, who in turn then pass it onto law abiding users.

FATBALLZ

While usually I don't take the side of 'victims' who are merely victims of their own stupidity, isn't this a big security lapse by the energy companies in allowing these keys to be cloned? Surely they shouldn't accept the same key twice?

That said I've never used a pre-payment meter so I'm not sure of the specifics of the process.

michaels

If I turn up at your door offering to swap one of your old tatty tenners for one of my freshly printed 20s would you think it was on the level or would you not be surprised on taking the 20 to the bank to discover it was a fake? And I don't suppose the bank would say 'poor thing let me take the £20 anyway because you are vulnerable'.

FATBALLZ

michaels wrote: »

If I turn up at your door offering to swap one of your old tatty tenners for one of my freshly printed 20s would you think it was on the level or would you not be surprised on taking the 20 to the bank to discover it was a fake? And I don't suppose the bank would say 'poor thing let me take the £20 anyway because you are vulnerable'.

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.

Cardew

There is a criminal gang defrauding people with pre-pay meters and by some twisted logic people think it is reasonable for a third party (the utility company) to pay compensation.

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?

Merkin

FATBALLZ wrote: »

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.

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...

Pincher

Joyful wrote: »

This is not the same as debit card fraud as in the info shown. With a Debit card it can be used without your knowledge. With a key if someone advises you to pay £25 instead of £50 you must surely know it is fraud.

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?

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.