Southern Electric - Mis sell update?

leam

Hi, Martin Lewis mentioned that Southern Electric may have mis sold electricity over a couple of years through 2009.

We feel that this happened in our case, we rang them and they said they were collecting data and would be sending letters out to all customers who may have been effected at the end of January but we have heard nothing.

Has anybody else been effected by this and have they heard from Southern Electric?

NittyGritty

mis sold in what way?

leam

Know they were definetly being investigated for door to door selling. The man that came to us told me that they would definetly be cheaper than the current supplier which never materialised over the course of the year we were with them.

I can't remember which weekly newsletter of Martins it was in but i think it was in December. It said on here that they had been instructed to contact all customers who could have been effected and who had signed up on the doorstep.

I think it applied to the whole of the group that Southern Electric is part of.

Hope this helps

macman

leam wrote: »

Know they were definetly being investigated for door to door selling. The man that came to us told me that they would definetly be cheaper than the current supplier which never materialised over the course of the year we were with them.

I can't remember which weekly newsletter of Martins it was in but i think it was in December. It said on here that they had been instructed to contact all customers who could have been effected and who had signed up on the doorstep.

I think it applied to the whole of the group that Southern Electric is part of.

Hope this helps

That alone would not constitute mis-selling though. It would depend exactly on how he set that out.
And how can you prove it?

leam

There is more to our case but i just wanted to give a general outline so that people are aware of the issue and to see if anybody had received a letter from them.

tinkle

I wonder how many people will now think they were also 'mis' sold, when in reality just trying to claim some c*mpo!!

teabag29

omg this happened to us about 3 yeas ago when we lived in Notts. Guy knocked on door about electric and my wally of a husband couldnt get rid of him and let him in. Eventually he told him we're happy with npower and dont want to change and he said they were a part of npower and we were guaranteed to save so much if we changed to their tariff or some rubbish. Stupid husband signed the paperwork. Skip 6 months and we got an electricity bill for just over £600, I was fuming. I refused to pay and told them what the guy told us and that he lied, and also my husband (although we werent married at the time) was not even the electricity account holder so shouldnt have been allowed to sign it anyway, I was the tenant and elec was in my name. Anyway next thing I know I had a baliff at my door who charged £20 for the call out and was going to cut off my electric. Apparently as he lived in the house also he could sign the paperwork. They then also put the bill in my name too as I am the tenant and the only way I could stop them cutting off my elec was to agree.

As a result I have been paying off the bill for the past 3 years via my pre=payment meter (they take £3 per week). How the hell it even got to £600 i dont know its ridiculous, and they lied to us saying they were part of n power.

Is there anything I can do about this so late on? I made numerous calls to southern elec with no joy and i cannot change suppliers until the full bill is paid

leam

Hi, that's shocking.

I don't know if it will help but if you look in this sites archive there's more information on the mis sell investigation in Martins weekly e mail dated 21st December 2011.

Southern Electric (and their parent company) are contacting all customers (400,000!) who signed up on the doorstep from Oct 09 - July 11.

Personally i would ring Southern Electric and register your complaint. They do have a specialised team who are investigating and are working through the complaints. We have been told that they are hoping to contact customers from around the end of February.

It has to be worth a try even if was slightly before the dates, given the circumstances.

Hope you get sorted.

macman

Anyone living in the house could sign the paperwork, it does not have to be the existing account holder. It may well be mis-selling, but that doesn't make the whole bill invalid.
You say that you phoned SSE numerous times, but did you make a formal complaint in writing?
3 years on, proving that he told you a lie is next to impossible. He probably didn't even work for SSE, just a commission only agent.

leam

The company are obviously having to take some responsibility for what their sales reps were saying regardless of whether they were an agent or not as they have been told they have to investigate.

The period of time that is being investigated is 2009 - 2011 so it wouldn't be too late to look into it further if you feel that it's justified to do so.

Joyful

You can now change supplier if your debt is less than £200. The new company can take this over.