Unethical sales practises at big well known UK company

Ken68

Private Eye journal is also another place to voice your concerns.
They have a regular article titled "Keeping the lights on". about malpractices in the energy industry.

secretenergysalesman

Ken68 wrote: »

Private Eye journal is also another place to voice your concerns.
They have a regular article titled "Keeping the lights on". about malpractices in the energy industry.

Fantastic! thanks, funny thing is it was watching Martin Lewis passionately discussing various things in TV that first got me interested in 'doing the right thing' and making notes on things i witnessed etc at work, funny how a few people on this thread seem to be acting as the devils advocate, im not expecting everyone to agree but blimey to blinding say "well that's sales folks" "your weak" or "whistle blowers get destroyed one way or another" LIKE THAT IS OK!! Jesus people we want to at least try to effect change for the good! surely? Why ar you on here if not?? This is a massive company that spreads a very public line about how it should treat customers, then behind closed doors on daily basis the opposite happens.....that is worth exposing frankly.

The MD said this 1year ago:

X X MD on why he wants to hear from you (feb 2014)

"I’ve been at X X for just over a year now. I joined because I’m passionate about making a difference and I’m determined to change your perception of our business and the B2B energy industry as a whole. We’re making some big changes to achieve this. Some of them we’ve delivered already and some will take a while. In the meantime, you can be sure I won’t be ignoring or hiding from the concerns of business customers. At X X, we’re absolutely determined to re-build the trust in the energy industry through doing what’s right at all times.

During that time it was at its worst.

secretenergysalesman

email to MD: (his public email he actively wants people to contact with so im not stalking him):

During the last 5 years, 2 of which we were / are MD I feel you should know (encase you weren't aware) of just some of the things that were occurring on the sales-floor of x.

Falsifying margin figures, basically notching up empty premises on full or high notch for 3 years despite that fact its back in landlords hands and they are actively trying to re let. Generated highest amounts of margin for sales agents but if property was empty its all false added to that if it gets re let in few month then 3 year contract would not then exist. We were told margins were used to give to the city so that is fraud is it not? This all occurred in the x team.
This was all known as long back as 4-5 years ago as I had told xx at the time during a meeting about this loop hole, I then told pretty much every manager and head of sales but nothing ever changed, that loop hole of fake margin was exploited for agents and managers gains by getting targets.

Also the aggressive sales tactic of customers in debt with x calling up the 'help line' number then being passed to sales agents on huge margin targets, this meant agents were exploiting customers in debt advising them they couldn't move supplier and sticking them in 3 year high notch contracts, clearly something should of been in place to help them at least start paying off debt not making it worse, if not only for a moral reason but for a cold business reason as they will just continue not to pay whatever the rates ares so thus debt gets worse. Agents could gain massive margin and as such targets kept increasing and managers / agent benefited financially from this.

None of this looks good from a PR level based on your words i year ago (above), nor will ofgem think its particularly impressive.
All that is before you deal with the questionable margin structure anyway which rewarded the most and callous greedy and sometimes down right corrupt sales agents and managers.
Either you knew all of this, or you were in the dark, either way its something i felt the need to contact you about as you have the public email address for any concerns. No managers or heads of sales ever did anything but try to bully me out of the way when i raise ANY concerns of ethical or business fraud nature.

Even if all this stops today, most of these types of exploited customers were put into 3 year contracts so that a 3 year legacy of high notched contracts for struggling customers in debt, the worst type of customer to have on your books.
Hopefully it is actually really you who reads these emails and hopefully if you didn't already know you can at least have an insider sales agent view on some of the goings on.

Regards
Secret sales agent.

naedanger

secretenergysalesman wrote: »

email to MD: (his public email he actively wants people to contact with so im not stalking him):

During the last 5 years, 2 of which we were / are MD I feel you should know (encase you weren't aware) of just some of the things that were occurring on the sales-floor of x.

Falsifying margin figures, basically notching up empty premises on full or high notch for 3 years despite that fact its back in landlords hands and they are actively trying to re let. Generated highest amounts of margin for sales agents but if property was empty its all false added to that if it gets re let in few month then 3 year contract would not then exist. We were told margins were used to give to the city so that is fraud is it not? This all occurred in the x team.
This was all known as long back as 4-5 years ago as I had told xx at the time during a meeting about this loop hole, I then told pretty much every manager and head of sales but nothing ever changed, that loop hole of fake margin was exploited for agents and managers gains by getting targets.

Also the aggressive sales tactic of customers in debt with x calling up the 'help line' number then being passed to sales agents on huge margin targets, this meant agents were exploiting customers in debt advising them they couldn't move supplier and sticking them in 3 year high notch contracts, clearly something should of been in place to help them at least start paying off debt not making it worse, if not only for a moral reason but for a cold business reason as they will just continue not to pay whatever the rates ares so thus debt gets worse. Agents could gain massive margin and as such targets kept increasing and managers / agent benefited financially from this.

None of this looks good from a PR level based on your words i year ago (above), nor will ofgem think its particularly impressive.
All that is before you deal with the questionable margin structure anyway which rewarded the most and callous greedy and sometimes down right corrupt sales agents and managers.
Either you knew all of this, or you were in the dark, either way its something i felt the need to contact you about as you have the public email address for any concerns. No managers or heads of sales ever did anything but try to bully me out of the way when i raise ANY concerns of ethical or business fraud nature.

Even if all this stops today, most of these types of exploited customers were put into 3 year contracts so that a 3 year legacy of high notched contracts for struggling customers in debt, the worst type of customer to have on your books.
Hopefully it is actually really you who reads these emails and hopefully if you didn't already know you can at least have an insider sales agent view on some of the goings on.

Regards
Secret sales agent.

In my view it would be better if you could be more specific as the MD could simply say all your allegations were vague, with no details of clients who were exploited. Then if his managers deny your allegations his investigation is complete, with no evidence of wrong-doing found.

Can you give the MD the names of specific clients and details of how they were exploited? (You gave one the name of one client in an earlier post.)

You can then tell the MD to investigate these cases by speaking to the clients. Then add that while you have only given a few examples (if you only have a few) you know that the practices were widespread (assuming that is true).

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays

secretenergysalesman wrote: »

Fantastic! thanks, funny thing is it was watching Martin Lewis passionately discussing various things in TV that first got me interested in 'doing the right thing' and making notes on things i witnessed etc at work, funny how a few people on this thread seem to be acting as the devils advocate, im not expecting everyone to agree but blimey to blinding say "well that's sales folks" "your weak" or "whistle blowers get destroyed one way or another" LIKE THAT IS OK!! Jesus people we want to at least try to effect change for the good! surely? Why ar you on here if not?? This is a massive company that spreads a very public line about how it should treat customers, then behind closed doors on daily basis the opposite happens.....that is worth exposing frankly.

The MD said this 1year ago:

X X MD on why he wants to hear from you (feb 2014)

"I’ve been at X X for just over a year now. I joined because I’m passionate about making a difference and I’m determined to change your perception of our business and the B2B energy industry as a whole. We’re making some big changes to achieve this. Some of them we’ve delivered already and some will take a while. In the meantime, you can be sure I won’t be ignoring or hiding from the concerns of business customers. At X X, we’re absolutely determined to re-build the trust in the energy industry through doing what’s right at all times.

During that time it was at its worst.

Stephen Beynon became MD at BGB just over a year before Feb'14 (Nov '12). Did you work there? :cool:

Cardew

secretenergysalesman wrote: »

The MD said this 1year ago:

X X MD on why he wants to hear from you (feb 2014)

"I’ve been at X X for just over a year now. I joined because I’m passionate about making a difference and I’m determined to change your perception of our business and the B2B energy industry as a whole. We’re making some big changes to achieve this. Some of them we’ve delivered already and some will take a while. In the meantime, you can be sure I won’t be ignoring or hiding from the concerns of business customers. At X X, we’re absolutely determined to re-build the trust in the energy industry through doing what’s right at all times.

During that time it was at its worst.

'Your' MD must have copied those words from Stephen Beyon the British Gas Business MD;)


http://www.britishgas.co.uk/business/blog/what-stephen-says/

Stephen Beynon, British Gas Business MD on why he wants to hear from you I’ve been at British Gas for just over a year now. I joined because I’m passionate about making a difference and I’m determined to change your perception of our business and the B2B energy industry as a whole. We’re making some big changes to achieve this. Some of them we’ve delivered already and some will take a while. In the meantime, you can be sure I won’t be ignoring or hiding from the concerns of business customers. At British Gas Business, we’re absolutely determined to re-build the trust in the energy industry through doing what’s right at all times. - See more at: http://www.britishgas.co.uk/business/blog/what-stephen-says/#sthash.2ZRwCkvp.dpuf

Edit - posts crossed with Bluebirdman