Southern Electric - worrying doorstep call

Jandy123

Dear All, I had a pair of sales reps from Southern Electric knock on my door a couple of days ago and the sales patter went along the lines of ' We want to show you how we can save you some money, we think there are some discounts you might not be claiming on your gas and electricity'. As I don't sign up to doorstep salespeople I thanked her and declined the offer, but her parting shot was a very poisonous, 'Well, we are the only electricity supplier in your area, so you have already been signed up whether you like it or not, we were just trying to save you some money'. The more I think about it, the more I am irritated that these people can go around saying stuff like this to customers. If I had been a little old lady thats the sort of thing that might worry them into signing on the dotted line. Does anybody know if there is a body that these people could be reported to? Its really dishonest, shady dealing and there should be some sort of control on it. I wish I had been more mean with her and taken her name etc, and I would've complained direct to the company. I've left a message for our neighbourhood newsletter editor to ring me, thinking that warning my neighbours might be a good idea. Thanks from Jandy

Ken68

Thank you for the warning Jandy.
I am with Southern Electric via EBICO, hope it's not a taste of what is to come.
Southern Electric 'Low Graphic version' website has more pictures than the Tate and a most irritating sound to catch your attention.

hurrah

Are you sure they were not from an agency promoting Southern Electric.

Snow_Dog

Most likely agency staff that are hyped up to sell you a new tariff to get commission, that fact that you (and probably the previous 10 people) didnt sign up meant she was peed off by then. Not saying her having a go was justified by any means but it might explain it.

The only way to deal with these people is confusion, when they insist on saving you money, you need to insist very strongly you dont want to save money, you are really happy spending it, you even went on moneysupermarket to find the highest tariff and deliberately changed to that one.

The other way is to act dumb and tell them your OH pays the bills and they aren't in. Its really amusing to try that one when through the open doorway they can see your OH is in.

Had one poor guy almost in tears once with the dilemma of wanting to call me a liar cos he could see my OH but trying to stick to the mr nice guy approach.

mprice1988

Jandy, you could always directly complan to SSE. The Association of Energy Suppliers (AES) and Energysure deal directly with door to door sales and marketing. So if you had issues regarding door to door sales or suggestions I'm sure they would like to hear.

Unfortunately, sales job usually are paid in commission which means people do tell you things or say things that are not strictly true. In my customer services role, i do receive issue with customers being misled by salesmen. Its an issue that needs to be addressed.

Sweety83

I had a similar thing happen to me. A man came to the door and said I just need to come in and read your meters and then you have to sign this form. I asked him why and he went into this spiel about how my energy supplier was to expensive so they were going to switch me over.
I explained that I didn't want to switch and if I did I would do it myself using the recommendations of the moneysaving expert. He was not very impressed and got quite stroppy with me.
There are a lot of elderly people that live in my road, I wonder how many of them signed up to this as they thought they had to.

I think back now and wish I had complained.

LilMissEmmylou

sweety83 i had a similar thing happen, he came to say he was reading the meters and so i let him read it, then he made a phone call and the woman was like " yes so you want bla bla bla to be your service providor" i was like erm yeah (i had only just moved to the area so assumed that was the current one and figured id change if i found a cheaper one) next thing i knew i had a letter telling me i owed one company and another letter from the comapny who conned me into changing to them grrrr needless to say i changed just to spite them and called my readings in after that

Tiglet

I had a visit from Southern Electric a few days ago and their sales technique was totally dishonest.

First, he told me that they had sent me a letter telling me about a new cheap tariff. I'd had nothing, but he told me that he'd spoken to my neighbour, and that they had had a letter. This was clearly intended to make me think that he wasn't really lying at all, but that I'd forgotten.

He told me that according to "their records" I was currently being supplied by Powergen and British Gas, and that I was paying 16p per unit for electricity. He was wrong on both counts.

He also told me that he wanted to put me on to a tariff that cost a flat rate of 11p per unit, but that I wouldn't need to change to different supplier.

Nothing he said was true, but that doesn't matter. Anyone who isn't on the tariffs he mentioned will immediately spot that he knows nothing and is merely guessing which tariff they are on. But, since they won't be interested anyway, the conman doesn't care.

They are only interested in the ones who are on the worst tariffs, and these people are likely to fall for the con. As far as they are concerned, the trickster does actually know who the are supplied by and how much they are paying, and will think that the conman is actually telling the truth. They are therefore more likely to trust him and less likely to realise that they are being tricked into transferring to a different supplier.

robnye

when they called on me - i was informed that i had moved away from them recently.......... well if you call 7 years ago recently then the answer was yes....... that shut him up.........

wills34

quite alarming some of these comments especially the meter reader comments. There is no need to give the salesman a meter read even if you sign up as it takes 6 weeks approx to switch and the supplier does not need a read until then and will disregard any salespersons read. The initial comment about we already supply does not suprise me though, if you live in a hydro, southern or swalec distribution area this is technically correct not best practice though. Companies charge a premium in the 'own area' due to customer inertia and complicated competition regulations though so just use that against them. What was the point of de-regulation if we all switch back to the 'gas and electric board' as my gran still calls it

r.mac_2

if this were me - I would contact the energy company and complain directly to them - perhaps a an email to energywatch informing them of this situation would be a good idea too.