Southern Electric Door to Door Sales!

Heinz

more_money_for_me wrote: »

Another alternative if you can be bothered is to invite the salesperson in, offer them some tea, get them to sit down, ask lots of questions about the service and sound genuinely interested, should take at least half an hour, then at the end of it explain that you have simply been wasting their time as they have been doing to you.

Change the ending slightly - "Well, it's been nice chatting and I'll be sure to pass on what you've told me to the owners when they get back from their world tour. I'm just house-sitting for them you see."

vetfred

If I'm in, I just give a short, sharp "not interested, thankyou" and close the door. 2 seconds, no conversation. The area initiatives are good but don't seem to be in many places.

If it's every 2 weeks, perhaps a normal letter to them would do the job pointing out their cold-calling techniques make it less likely for you to ever use their company and that you do not wish for their representatives to come to your door. If the street is mad with them, perhaps a streetful of signatures and they'd get the message.

Anyway, unless you're caused distress or are in fear when they call (and not merely annoyed), I'm not sure how quoting harassment laws not created for this kind of thing would help and I wouldn't threaten to call the police etc - if there's no law being broken and no private injuction against the individuals "harassing", I can't quite see what the police could do and it seems a big waste of their time.

uktim29

How do they know your the owner of the house? They can't.

I'm a tentant and just say the landlord deals with the bills and lives abroad. They can't do a thing. Try that.

soolin

I wish I knew the answer...my father is vulnerable and due to confusion he is targetted by these Southern Electric people. On average his gas and electric is taken back from his company of choice every 3 weeks..and then I have to pay the small bill he incurs while i get it switched back again. I am sure he is marked as a target as it happens so often.

I've complained right up to Watchdog level and they say that there is nothing that can be done. Even though I have power of attorney I can't over ride anything that my father agrees to in a panic, all I can do is wait to get the DD instruction (which is the first I know of it) and cancel the change again.

SE never ever fight me when I get cross at them, they just promise not to target my father in this way, ask me to pay the few pounds or so bill he has incurred while they have supplied his gas/electric and phones and then send his details back to the proper company. I've even told them I will pay no more bills in future, but the watchdog people and Citizens advice have said I can't do that as the bill is strictly payable as for a short week or so they have supplied services.

It's doing my head in.

Col.Mastard

uktim29 wrote: »

How do they know your the owner of the house? They can't.

They got a clipboard, with a list of people not with them

Garnet_Gem

Why should you open your door if you don't want to? Post a no cold callers sign and ignore them.

ben500

My wife simply shouts down the hallway, "It's a salesman love" I scream from the lounge "another one! where's my fvcking baseball bat? tell him to wait a minute I'm looking for my pen" make some general banging and clanging noises whilst he's hot footing it away from the door.
Southern Electric are about the worst in the industry for bogus transfers by the way. Have you actually ever seen a signature as a common practice is to ask to look at a bill or the meter to ensure you are being charged "your discounted rate" the salesman can then surreptitiously note your MPR number and forge the signature later as they are NEVER checked. Some salesmen were dismissed in the early days of the energy shareout for racking up thousands of pounds per WEEK in commission using this method, the first the customer knows about it is when the suppliers bill drops on the doormat and by then they may have been supplied by that company for anything up to a year in some cases. I would ask for evidence that your dad is signing these documents, if it is happening as regular as you say I'm pretty certain his name is being passed around for "bagging". this was the term used then, it referred to "bagging the dopeys" those people confused by the whole process and generally not savvy enough to realise what was going on. There were many many instances of the same customers being targetted, many people went into substantial debt as the billing processes were an absolute shambles.

trisontana

Southern Electric have been featured on Watchdog a couple of times. They don't use their own salespeople but an agency who employ people on a commission-only wage. So this is why they will do anything (including lying and cheating) to earn their commission. You would have thought that Southern Electric would be ashamed to be associated with these tactics, but evidently not.

ben500

The reason being the amount of frustration and hassle you have to endure in order to return to your preferred supplier is incredible and the retention rate is good as a result.
The poached customers invariably stay THAT is why they are happy with the current situation, if they were fined for EACH poached customer there would be less incentive for them to be so tolerant, bear in mind the only reason they use outside agencies is because their's is one of the companies that helped develop the problem and things were getting too hairy for them to continue their sharp practices, now they have someone else to blame.

dangeroussports

You could invite them in and show them your butterfly collecting jar and talk about the merits of kangaroo boxing for hours.

Also, tell them that if you join up then you want them to joing the church of scientology immediately.