sainsburys EDF con trick

DCHANNEL

Well Al Mac

I have just been listening to Justin King on the radio. He promises to reply to any letter directly addressed to him. I shall put all the information names contact numbers etc, in a letter to him and await his reply. When I have it I will let you know.
Thanks for the support

dchannel

Terrylw1

DCHANNEL wrote: »

Hi Terry

Thanks for the reply. I contacted the manager who apologised and said it shouldn`t go on. He gave me the name of the area manager who agreed. I then spoke to a regional manager who also agreed it shouldn`t happen. The area manager said they would send me a letter saying this practice will stop. At no point did they deny it was going on. I have copied all correspondence to Philip Hampton and others at edf and sainsburys. All the above agreed they are breaking the law

I will contact the store manager tomorrow and ask him where I should send the summons as they have admitted breaking the law. Should I send it to Justin King, who ever gets it is legally obliged to reply. If they want to stress me out I`ll do the same to them. They record phone messages and I shall remind the store manager that I have done the same.

DChannnel

This is a well known sales con that has been used in the utility section for years. Ofgem, Energywatch, CAB & Trading Standards will be well aware of it.

Cardew

DCHANNEL wrote: »

Hi Cardew

Thank you for the support I shall continue to hassle them until I get an outcome that I am happy with. It funny but I have been in tesco asda and the like and never been approached by some smart alec conman (apart from halfords but he was so thick it was unreal).

My ‘support’ is confined to any attempts to stamp out the unscrupulous practices by all Utility Company salesmen; and/or the agencies they employ.

Your wife was obviously conned by one of these salesmen, but contributed to the situation by not reading what she was signing; understandable, but perhaps naïve?

If you feel that Sainsburys are culpable and condone such action; then you are at liberty to take court action as you indicate; I have voiced my reservations about the outcome of any such action.

A far bigger problem is the door-step salesmen; some of whom reputedly forge the signatures of customers on application forms.

As far as I can gather you(your wife) have experienced one example of this scenario and it happened to be on Sainsburys’ premises.

To conclude from this one incident that Sainsburys “allow this sort of thing to go on” and to try to organise a countrywide boycott of Sainsburys would not have the support of any thinking man IMO.

Yet Asda and Tesco appear to be in the clear because you haven’t been approached???

Do you think any company would have a policy to condone deception? Any manager dare allow such a practice?

Get some ruling against Sainsburys before you start trying to organise a vendetta.

There is a huge organisation, funded by the Government/Council, called Trading Standards who are charged with taking action on exactly this type of case. Yet you seem to have dismissed them.

I would be pretty certain that they would not entertain any action as you have no proof that everything wasn’t explained to your wife – and to repeat she signed the form.

Salesmen have conned the public since time began. In the grand scheme of things this is 'small beer'. You haven't lost money, it is all reversable so apart from hurt pride at your wife being taken for a mug

---

I am afraid anger and logic are not bedfellows!

Terrylw1

I agree with Cardew. I would never bank my money on a case like this and I doubt a solicitor would approach it on a No Win No Fee basis as is there is a high probability of failure.

Ask someone for some free legal advice on this. Your case would be landmark if it did win though as there have been thousands of people in your situation.

Ofgem also make it far too easy for the dodgy salesmen to gain access to your supply numbers allowing them to sign you up without even speaking to you. Thats been going on for years and still occurs.

secondrule

You have no chance of proving that they have.

The EDF employee has attended an Energywatch course (5 days) he will have been continually assessed (12 weeks, 6 months, 12 months) and if he still has his Energysure badge then he will continue to work.

This will be a disputed matter and they will put him on a retraining course to say "dont do it again (if you were doing it in the first place)

You will be allowed to leave EDF and return to your supplier.

For everyone out there;

The salespeople are obliged to do three things when selling on the door or in store

1) Use the words "Legally binding contract"
2) Point to the word "Contract"
3) inform them of 14 day cancellation period & the 28 day notice period.

Sainsbury's are only selling space.

They can only ask the sales person to leave.

Dont waste your time trying to sue someone that has nothing to do with the erroneous transfer you have been subjected to.

The industry protects itself and will continue to do so

DCHANNEL

Hi Secondrule

Thank you for your reply.

I don`t even know if he had his "energysure" badge on whatever that eludes to.

He was selling sainsburys services and an interesting point that Justin King on the radio yesterday, said that none food items are an area of growth for them.

At no point has my allegations been denied by either sainsbury or edf. He may of been obliged to used the works contract and legally binding but he didn`t. My overall point is that someone vulnerable may well be signing a contract that has not been fully explained to them. I expect to shop in a safe friendly environment and not be hassled in this way. But as previous I will write a letter to Justin King to get his point of view.

http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:dtmmkCIqc9wJ:www.dti.gov.uk/consumers/buying-selling/ucp/index.html+high+pressure+selling+uk+law&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=uk

D channel

secondrule

I used to work for one for the Big 6 as an ins-store consultant, as these people are called.

To work in the Gas/Electric industry, you have to be accredited by Energysure.

It is an industry regulating body that makes sure things like this dont happen.

Without his energysure accreditation, he cannot work for any company.

That being said, there are always ways around getting censured.

Again, I beg to differ. He was not selling Sainsbury's services, no more than Eon sell Tescos services (Even though thy give away clubcard points)

The Sainsbury's energy deal is backed by EDF (used to be Scottish Power). They sell under license. EDF pay for the space and are governed by area and selling rules.

So, your initial complaint should first be to EDF.

You want the name of the advisor (although this should be on a copy of the contract your wife signed) If you werent given a copy of the contract, then this is also a major complaint.

(You should have been given a written copy of the contract, any promotional literature and a copy of the price tarriff for your area (there are 14 different electricity regions))

Your allegations will not be denied by EDF, as they have a duty to check this out.
What should happen, is that someone from EDF will call you to discuss your side of the story.

Then with that info, EDF will interview the adviser. (The adviser should have been suspended from the date of your complaint) As this is a 5 point complaint, potentially leading to a dismissal on the grounds of fraud.

If your evidence is overwhelming, then the worst that will happen is that the adviser will get a final written warning, put on a training course and will more than likely carry on what he is doing.

If however he is relatively new to the industry (which I doubt) and his figures are not good, then he will be summarily dismissed.

The "You are only signing for information" scam has been going on for ages, and still is prevalent in the industry. The elderly and the uninformed are very susceptible to this. (With no disrespect intended to the greyer-haired members of our community)

Due to the ability to swap companies if things get a little hairy, this adviser works for EDF today and could work for Npower tomorrow.


If things do not go your way with EDF, then contact OFGEM.

Whoever this Justin King is, will, Im sure, advise you the same way.

If he doesnt, then mail me, and I will run through all the angles you can go through.

Good luck

Terrylw1

I agree.

I have seen many scams used by salespeople over the years and this one is one of the tried & tested methods.

I have a feeling you won't have a copy of that contract though since it was stated that it was for further information to contact you with. Thats the scam so you go away thinking you have signed authority for them to give you a later call.

I think you should just consider making a complaint to Energywatch (it's quicker than Ofgem for a start, and they record all these complaints to discuss across the industry - very publicly)

You may get an apology, perhaps some small form of compensation but beyond that I doubt you will get anything.

At the end of the day, I can guarantee you that whoever he/she works for (may be a third party sales company) will state they have trained everyone and that they find it disgusting (which they appear to have)

Beyond that, they will be very willing to point fault at the individual. Ofgem, CAB, Energywatch & Trading Standards will think the same way. Unless there are a lot of cases attributed to one individual sales force (third party or otherwise) the regulators will see this as a little fish issue.

There are much bigger complaints to address across the industry that cost consumers lots of money. This one doesn't.

So, you are taking on a bit of a crusade to either a) get some settlement of some kind out of them b) you want this person disciplined or c) you are hoping to highlight a dody salesforce overall publicly.

I know how it will go because I've helped people such as you deal with this from within a Supplier. Trust me, customer service & complaints staff have little love for salespeople as they take all the complaints due to the attitude of individuals.

Only way to ever stop it is stop sales targets & stop commission. It will never happen though.

Good luck whatever you do.

secondrule

Also a waste of time going to Energywatch.

They will only refer you back to the company.

1) EDF
2) OFGEM

These are the only two avenues you should pursue.

You will get no satisfaction from Sainsbury's and no compensation from EDF.

Going for either of these is also a waste of your effort. Neither are obliged to give it to you and neither will.

As I said, I used to work for one of the big 6 and I know how this procedure works, as I was a manager for one of the sales teams in the south.

Terrylw1

I disagree with SecondRules final comments.

I've also worked in this industry (for one of the big 6) and from my experience a complaint to the company, Ofgem or Energywatch won't be handled by a sales team. For a start, there are central complaints teams per Ofgem's insistance that would own it and liaise.

If you have been erroneously transferred, there can be many more problems and this is something often not understood by non operational teams. You could have a phone bill to pay due to lots of calls sorting these issues out, your bills might get messed up because of errors in the transfer, your bills will be disrupted for up to 6 months if there ar data issues, etc etc.

The list goes on.

So, if you have physically been transferred - you may get some compensation. However, be realistic. It's more likely going to be £20, or your call costs and you may even be lucky enough to get a Sainsbury's voucher.

Thats it though. You won't be getting money like on a NWNF case.

Utilities often throw £20 at you when it gets to the EW/Ofgem stages anyway as they want to close complaints as quickly as possible.