Unethical sales practises at big well known UK company

secretenergysalesman

PlutoinCapricorn wrote: »

Well, reformed poachers are said to make the best gamekeepers. The OP is now in a position to be able to speak freely, and whistleblowers always get attacked. It is standard practice for their former employers to accuse them of being unsatisfactory employees with a grievance.

We talk about sucker lists and boiler rooms on here and the techniques that MLM pushers use. Bringing these things out into the open on a forum with a large number of members is useful I think.

I honestly was just doing a sales job, i lost huge chunks of target towards the end because i refused to rip off farmers / charities / churches / small business's.

People would rip off a customer then put phone down and laugh about it, we'd listen to calls of customers going nuts , we had people crying pleading that their business wont last 3 months if they don't reduce the prices , sticking them into 3 year contracts on 18p per unit, customers like pubs using 40,000 units per year of electricity when they should be on about 10p.

One of the worst was a branch of the Samaritains up North which an agent was bragging about doing 3 year 13p notch, so 23p per unit and they said the person was new and had taken over the role of sorting out prices and this guy notched 13p over 'base' price, a charity, he just said that price is the best on the market blah blah blah. With the power of notch came the power to chose who you'd rip off or not, the Muslim lads would never rip off other Muslims, but they would happily rip off other business owners, it gave too much power to the individual, so if you were having a bad day you'd just get people punishing customers because they were pee'd off with work or whatever.
Managers gave away 'credit data' (customers in debt) as prizes, or gifts to agents, this was peoples lives! Business's needing some help or at least a chance to pay off debts not get into more strife!

I don't buy into the fact that in residential sales this would be stamped out, but business sales its fine, not every business person is Gordon Geko, some sharp shooter, most are just people trying to get on survive.

secretenergysalesman

naedanger wrote: »

The company has not been named, so how from this thread is awareness being raised, and how will people know whether they are considering taking a job with this company?

How is this thread going to help people identify "such companies" unless you are suggesting they tar all companies in this industry in the manner the OP has described this one unnamed company.

Can i name the company? Im worried about doing so, i'll await a MOD to inform me if its acceptable to do so.

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays

secretenergysalesman wrote: »

Can i name the company? Im worried about doing so, i'll await a MOD to inform me if its acceptable to do so.

If it's true, of course you can. See the BES thread for example!

naedanger

secretenergysalesman wrote: »

Can i name the company? Im worried about doing so, i'll await a MOD to inform me if its acceptable to do so.

I am glad you have reported what you have said to Ofgem. That means Ofgem should investigate your claims.

If you name the company here then they could sue you for libel. To defend any action you would need to demonstrate, on the balance of probability, that everything negative you have said is true.

So unless you have good evidence (and the company may put forward witnesses that have a different story) you are right to be worried about naming the company.

In practice I suspect, if you name the company without very good evidence, the company is more likely to complain to (or threaten to sue) moneysavingexpert rather than you (as they are richer than you). If they do this then moneysavingexpert will likely just remove the whole thread unless they feel you have a cast iron case.

secretenergysalesman

naedanger wrote: »

I am glad you have reported what you have said to Ofgem. That means Ofgem should investigate your claims.

If you name the company here then they could sue you for libel. To defend any action you would need to demonstrate, on the balance of probability, that everything negative you have said is true.

So unless you have good evidence (and the company may put forward witnesses that have a different story) you are right to be worried about naming the company.

In practice I suspect, if you name the company without very good evidence, the company is more likely to complain to (or threaten to sue) moneysavingexpert rather than you (as they are richer than you). If they do this then moneysavingexpert will likely just remove the whole thread unless they feel you have a cast iron case.

As i expected which is why i had the good grace to not use names. Based on that though i'm amazed this site exists! :cheesy:

But yes as someone mentioned previously even without names someone may benefit buy having the info to realise that if they are looking for a business energy supplier and they are saying anything over 11p per unit for a 1 year contract is the 'best price', its a lie, it isn't, they are notching...

Also that we should now if a customer asks us "what is your best price" we have to then give them all options including the 'best price" if we don't we were breaking the rules and guild lines, so you must ask 'is this the best price', they may still lie to you but if they do you can hold them accountable.
I'll be honest up till i left most agents were just ignoring that as how the hell could we of made target.
But knowledge is power.

Pincher

It's all very well talking about sharp practice, but without naming names, it's like saying there's a cowboy plumber in London.


I think Meter Registration Service was quite famous for a while on this website. Hopefully that alerted some people into putting the phone down.


Say you are a hair dressers, so you do quite a bit of blow drying and use a fair bit of hot water, where do you look for a list of "moral" suppliers?

secretenergysalesman

Pincher wrote: »

It's all very well talking about sharp practice, but without naming names, it's like saying there's a cowboy plumber in London.


I think Meter Registration Service was quite famous for a while on this website. Hopefully that alerted some people into putting the phone down.


Say you are a hair dressers, so you do quite a bit of blow drying and use a fair bit of hot water, where do you look for a list of "moral" suppliers?

As has been pointed out I could get post removed for naming, if a mod wants to confirm if that is true then till then i'll keep secret about the company.
Aside from all of the questionable sales tactics, the part about fudging figures to up targets etc, that sort of hit me recently with the whole TESCO thing.....sort of made my ears perk up!!!!! up somewhat..

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays

naedanger doesn't represent MSE. If what you've said is true, you have absolutely nothing to worry about.

As an aside, I can't see anywhere that whichever company you worked for engaged in anything illegal, or even unethical. A good business will charge as much as the customer is willing to pay. It's called demand and supply.

In my day margin add-on was quoted in £/MWh, and everyone knew that business energy prices were negotiable. What makes you think the Samaritans were being ripped off? Evidently it was the price they were willing to pay.

naedanger

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays wrote: »

naedanger doesn't represent MSE.

True

If what you've said is true, you have absolutely nothing to worry about.

Not necessarily. He has only nothing to worry about if he can prove on the balance of probability that it is true. Even then he could still be sued, just he should then win.

As an aside, I can't see anywhere that whichever company you worked for engaged in anything illegal, or even unethical. A good business will charge as much as the customer is willing to pay. It's called demand and supply.

In my day margin add-on was quoted in £/MWh, and everyone knew that business energy prices were negotiable. What makes you think the Samaritans were being ripped off? Evidently it was the price they were willing to pay.

Is your moral compass working OK?

To quote the OP "You think it OK to withhold information from a customers where their actually debt is false and a customer service agent could zero the debt and they could leave? You think its OK to not tell them that info?? REALLY?????" So do you really think this is ethical?

Also the OP seems to be suggesting the company is using inflated sales figures in its accounts e.g here: "Another thing was the faking of the margin we could make as agents. Quite simple really empty property back in landlords hands using no engery, we stuck in 3 year contract with massive notch generated huge margin, but it was fake, figures used for our targets, then went to the top and to the 'city' according to managers (hence why we had to hit targets). But these were made up of fake margin that if property we empty couldn't ever make that money back! Total fraud and yet when I alerted managers and those above them it was covered up and allowed to happen for years, 5 years in fact." Again this could be criminal, as Tescos are well aware.

secretenergysalesman

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays wrote: »

naedanger doesn't represent MSE. If what you've said is true, you have absolutely nothing to worry about.

As an aside, I can't see anywhere that whichever company you worked for engaged in anything illegal, or even unethical. A good business will charge as much as the customer is willing to pay. It's called demand and supply.

In my day margin add-on was quoted in £/MWh, and everyone knew that business energy prices were negotiable. What makes you think the Samaritans were being ripped off? Evidently it was the price they were willing to pay.

OK to say again, i know about sales, i worked at this company for 10 years and did 5 years sales before that elsewhere, over that time i worked in various different roles within sales.
I used to be able to play pretty fair and help customers where possible but not give stuff away, it was sales and its a process and a negotiation and it can be great fun and very rewarding.
I used to be able to play it fair and 'do the right thing' and earn on average 2-3 k per month bonus, top guys were on 7-10k bonus but did my own thing ad was happy in myself most of the time.
Towards the end though to play fair meant earning less than 500 quid bonus whilst the 'others' were earning 4-5 k bonus per month.
That was unfair as me and some colleagues felt we would have to start doing some questionable things that before we could avoid.
For example getting a customer in debt pleading for help and you just have to either stick them into a binding 3 year contract on massive over inflated rates as they are stuck and can go nowhere. That isn't sales that i know mate, that's a person with nowhere else to go but your way which is wrong, its wrong for the business as they would just get in more debt or even go under!! So much for a 3 year contract if they go under...come on its not hard to work out that agents to managers were on the gravy train and didn't give a fig about anything but themselves.

Sales was "x is offering me 10.2p per unit"
ok sir well we can do 11.3 but with that you get the peace of mind of a big company and great customer service no hassles etc etc...blah blah blah...

"oh ok great fair enough we'll stay"

not

"x is offering 10.2p unit"
but sir, you cant leave anyway as you are behind on your payments, you still owe us 600 quid, what i can do for you today so you dont go onto the out of contract rates and to stop you getting cut off is give you a rate of 19.5p per unit...but at least its fixed for 3 years for peace of mind sir...
"but thats horrendous X says 10.2p!!"
but sir THAT is your best option right now, you cant go to X....
"well i suppose i'll have to then as cash flow means i cant pay off the debt right now"


great just need to run through a few things sir........

boom.