Mis-sold Small Business Energy

pdg87

Asking this on behalf of a family member who has been mis sold energy by a company called Eco Save LTD based in Manchester.



After being cold called and told they were speaking to their energy broker (of which is they did have) and to cut a long story short they have fallen into their pushy/confusing tactics and outright lies and have eneded up signing up to highly inflated rates with npower.. I'm guessing the company has added on their cut to the unit cost. They were told the company would work on their behalf and find them the best deal which is clearly not the case. At one point upon speaking to the company and complaining about the rate they were told by Eco Save that they can't understand why they got put on that deal and 'a trainee must have been working that day!'. After looking up Eco Save there is very little information about them online, they appear to have gone bust at some point and possibly set back up.



Two contracts have been agreed upon for two premises for 3 years. One of which has already started, but one can not start yet as the previous supplier contracts are not finished.



I've been reading up and it seems like this is quite common and there doesn't appear to be much protection/regulation for small businesses when it comes to energy contracts/rouge brokering.


I was just wondering if there was anything that could be done/avenues to look at the either cancelling at least the contract that technically hasn't started yet?


Is it worth writing to the energy Energy Ombudsman or will they not have a leg to stand on?

Robin9

pdg87 wrote: »

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I've been reading up and it seems like this is quite common and there doesn't appear to be much protection/regulation for small businesses when it comes to energy contracts/rouge brokering.

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I agree - I describe the energy broker as equivalent to double glazing salesmen.

There is certainly less protection for the consumer in the business world than in the domestic world.

farmer_confused

Earlier this week a call from Eco Save apparently in Manchester confusing me with trying to tell me that if I did n't swith to N Power my electricity bill would go up considerably as of that day, basically unless I signed up to go with there deal, which looked considerably more attractive. They seemed to think that I am on a contract with current providers but we discovered that it is a variable rate and we are not locked in. Unfortunately they seemed to be trying to convince us otherwise. I found a post placed in April about same company who were using confusing and pushy tactics and felt that I must endorse what they said. To cut a long story short, after reading the online post it convinced me that the best thing to do is to stay with our current providers and choose to change on our terms at some point. I also tried to look up the possibility of reporting to trading standards which seems to be through the CAB but didn't not have time to wait and wait for phone to be answered (also now aware that CAB is far too stretched and cannot only rely on money from Government). Looked up Offgem but that seems to deal with complaints about providers of electricity if you are using them. A comment after the April post says there does not seem to be enough regulation for energy companies selling tactics. This appears to be true. Therefore putting a post on this website seems the best option at the moment but really it seems that there needs to be an energy company selling Ombudsmen. If there already is please can someone tell me. I feel that companies such as this are preying on possibly vulnerable people with calls out of the blue.

To finish be aware ECO SAVE based in Manchester, best avoided however good it may seem, if for no other reason than there selling tactics are unethical.