grrrr southern electric.

emmaroids

anyone had any run-ins with these??

at the weekend i heard that my gran (84) and my uncle (80) had a southern electric rep knocking on there doors,

when they said they didnt want to go with them, my unlce was called a moron, and my gran was called stupid :mad:

luckily there not `gullable` old folks and promptly told the bloke to !!!!!! off :T

they have had an appoligy from soutern electric and they will investigate further and have words with the rep (after a stern phone call from my mam)

this kind of cold calling is bang out of order and these reps try and bully the elderly into signing stuff.

but what can we do about it?

oldwiring

Why not lodge a complaint with Southern? TBH they're the best co I've had to deal with, and though I cannot be sure, I think you will get a better response than with many other cos. Also if you do not they will not know they have a rogure rep.

geordie_joe

I don't know if it is true now, but it used to be that these reps were self employed. They were "free lance" and got paid a comission for each sale they made.

They were just brought into the company training room and basically told all the tricks to get people to sign up. The local TV company sent in an undercover reporter and it was amazing the things they told them to say.

One of the tricks was to ask the householder if they had been registered for a fuel discount, when they said no, get them to sign the switch contract telling them it is a discount registration form.

The problem is, the more times they don't get a sale, the more desparate they get.

tripled

It depends on the company - some use outside agencies or self-employed personnel to do the door to door sales, others have them in house or a combination of both.

Taffyfella

Sorry to hear about that Emmaroids (funny name by the way) as I get protective of my Grandparents or any member of my family too..

I hear alot of bad reports of Southern sales reps, more so than any other company for being rude, mis-selling etc. However not (meaning to Tar them all with the same brush) Southern have a very good record with energywatch

Believe it or not Southern are number 1 in the EnergyWatch league table for for complaints. 1. Being not very many in comparison to others

So overall they fair very well against other energy providers.

Taff

utilitybroker

Any complaints will be taken very seriously as they are very protective of their customer service record.

They had problems before and ended up getting rid of the sales agency that employed the doorknockers.See:

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20051101/ai_n15824289

computerwoman

Hi
they were on watchdog last year, so you should get in touch with ofgem about it, southern electric were have suppose to have stopped this, but obviosly not, they use a different company for there reps which wont do you any good talking to them, I would report them to watchdog and ofgem by the way I get me dual fuel off these guys through Ebico,
cw
http://www.southern-electric.co.uk/