nPower underhand tactics

leitmotif

I have just a guy from nPower show up at my doorstep saying he was from 'gas and electric'. He told me he had identified that we were on too high a rate and that he was going to switch me to a cheaper rate. Given that we are not a customer of nPower, this was an underhand attempt to switch us to nPower without our consent (or at least without informed consent). When I confronted him and told him he was trying to switch us he said 'I'm not trying to change your supply'. I said 'not supply, but supplier'. He was misleading throughout and at the end became abusive, telling me that 'if you want to stay on a more expensive rate then what does that say for your intelligence?'. At that point I told him to !!!! off and slammed the door in his face.

I reported this to both Watchdog and Ofgem and complained to nPower. I note retrospectively that his badge was turned inwards so I couldn't see his name on it. I should have asked to see it first.

Still, I was quite clear in my e-mail to Ofgem that this has been going on for years and they seem impotent or unwilling to do anything about it. In 2008 I found a guy (also from nPower) outside my house looking at the meter. He hadn't even rung the doorbell, and when I confronted him he said 'don't worry, I'm just switching you over to a cheaper rate'.

nPower

Hi leitmotif

I'm really concerned to hear about this. We take allegations like this extremely seriously and would like to look into this for you.

Please can you email your address details to forumresponse@npower.com so we can look into this for you as quickly as possible?

Thanks,
Sally

leitmotif

Thanks for your response Sally. I have e-mailed you accordingly. It's good to see nPower take these matters seriously.

forgotmyname

Strange that NPower name crops up several times for this. I have had letters from them twice now.
Thanking me for joining them.

I never speak to them on the doorstep so could be why i got letters in strange names.

Meter's right by the doorstep easy to access the numbers. Wonder if removing the serials will put
a damper on that.

Premier_2

forgotmyname wrote: »

...
I never speak to them on the doorstep so could be why i got letters in strange names...

Sounds like the work of an incompetent slammer.

If the request to switch is not in the account holder's name, the current supplier won't allow the request to go ahead. :cool:

echoecho_2

Premier,

unfortunately that is incorrect. It would be logical to do it in that way but the account holders name is not cross referenced at any point between suppliers.

leitmotif

I refused to give the guy my details. Obviously he had my address, but I wouldn't give my name or my current supplier. He remained very calm throughout but still managed to be pushy, rude and deceptive. Here are a few of his deceptions I remember off the top of my head:

1) [On entry phone to our building] Me: 'Hello?' Him: 'Hello, gas & electric' [i.e. not 'nPower', whom I would have turned away as we have no business with them]
2) His badge was turned to face his jacket. I suspect deliberately. I only realised what company he was from because he said 'can I just confirm your address?' and showed me his screen. I saw the nPower logo and realised this was a sales call. The showing me the screen thing is also a tactic to win confidence - he knows my address because he's stood at the door, so it's purely to give the impression of you already being in their system therefore he must be a legitimate caller, etc.
3) He then said 'I'm here today to see whether you've received a letter about energy prices going up?'. Not 'our letter' or 'a letter from your provider' but just 'a letter'. Again, very non-specific, not giving away the fact that he is not from your supplier, etc.
4) Realising what his aim was, I said 'I'm not interested, this is a sales call'. He said 'no it isn't... I'm not trying to sell you anything'. [Just because billing isn't a tangible product doesn't mean it's not sales.] He said 'I just want to know whether you've received a letter.' I said 'no, I haven't, but I'm aware of the imminent price rises'.
5) He then said 'well, you should have done. we need to switch you to a cheaper tariff because you're paying too much'. [Outright deception. nPower may or may not be cheaper than my existing provider - how does he know? It's not the tariff he was here to change but my provider.]
6) I said 'I'm not interested. You're here to switch my supply'. He said 'I'm not here to switch your supply'. I'm not as stupid as these underhand tactics require, and I recognised he was playing with semantics. The supply (the actual gas coming through your pipes and the electricity coming through the grid) doesn't change. I said 'no, not the supply but the supplier'. He then switched back to saying 'all I'm here to do is established whether you received a letter'. But there wouldn't be such a letter, so again this is misleading. Only one energy company has hiked their prices so far. I don't see why all the others would send out 'a letter' until their own prices hikes are imminent. It doesn't make good business sense to send out letters weeks in advance.
7) I said 'And I've answered that question; the answer was no, so what else are you here for?' He still doesn't give straight answers. He now says 'I want to make sure you're on the best tariff so you're not overpaying'. I said 'so you are trying to switch my supplier'. He then became abusive (although still perfectly calm) and said 'look, if you want to stay on a more expensive rate then what does that say for your intelligence?'

At this point I was wondering why I'd wasted 2-3 minutes of my life being polite to this guy. Probably only because he remained calm throughout which induced me to reason with him rather than just shut the door. He was deceptive, slippery, and in the end exceptionally rude. He even said the 'if you want to stay on a more expensive rate...' line with a slight laugh. His eyes said that line more than the words. Which is ridiculous because I'm already on a rate that's cheaper than nPower. I switched a week ago.

Anyway, I'm impressed that nPower responded to my complaint (on here too, though I didn't think they'd ever read it here), but I suspect that this is standard practice. He was either very experienced or had had proper training/tips from colleagues on how to beat around the bush and mislead people. Many years ago I worked in telesales for switching energy customers and we had exactly this kind of training, though I should stress this was in a call centre to whom the telesales were outsourced.

DirectDebacle

Ofgem have previously investigated energy suppliers for this type of behaviour. They fined npower £1.8m last year for doorstep mis-selling.

Now they have yet another enquiry underway:http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/About%20us/enforcement/Investigations/CurrentInvest/Pages/CurrentInvstgtns.aspx



Fat lot of good it will do unless they just put a blanket ban on all energy companies doorstepping or tele-sales.