British Gas ?? Dirty tricks campaign

Kernowc

I had a British Gas representative on my doorstep last night to say that he is calling at all the houses in my area following a complaint about previous British Gas customers being charged too much/twice.

Aparrantely my supplier, Southern, pay British Gas from our bill and also within our bill we pay both Transco and Western Power who then also pass the money on to British Gas!!

After telling me that Southern was now owned by Atlantic and being an American company they were charging more, he asked to see my Southern gas & electric bills and guess what - he said that yes we are paying too much; in the case of the gas we are also not receiving a second discounted rate after a certain useage. He then offered to sort it all out for us incliuding a £25 refund, guess what - we only had to change back to British Gas to get this!!!

Can anyone tell me if they have experienced the same sales pitch from British Gas or even if any of this could be true (which I don't believe.)

Thanks :rolleyes:

SwanJon

Pass on all the details to the MD, Phil Bentley (address floating round here somewhere), including when it happened and your address.
This all boils down to commision based selling.
All the suppliers have this problem, and the best way to stop it is to report it.
I've heard variations of this from Southern and SP as well in the last few weeks.
Southern were fined a few years back, and I'd be suprised if others havn't.
Copy in Energywatch as well if you like.

PS - It's absolute nonsense.

mikeywills

I sold Gas door to door for about two weeks a few years ago, I worked on behalf of an agency selling Calortex, we would get £8 for every conversion we made, which would be between 2 and 8 a day. The talk was very similar, you would introduce yourself, apologise for interrupting them, say I am not trying to sell you anything, just looking at ways I can save you money, if you can spare me a few minutes. If you didn't swop that evening, you are unlikely to hear from that person again, because cold calling in this way will look to cover areas and once visited they move onto the next location. They are never alone, anything from two to four in a car, its a rubbish job that confuses the heck out of the elderly. If you have signed up for anything, as it was done in your home you have 7 days cooling off period to cancel.

I stopped doing it when I was sat one afternoon in a lovely old dears house who told me she had recently swopped to swalec no more than two weeks earlier, they had not explained what it all involved as she thought they would be calling round shortly to dig up the road and lay new pipes. I took the time to explain how it all worked while she made me a lovely cup of tea, she thanked me and asked where do I sign up, I replied you don't I am only offering something similar to what you have changed to so you would be no better off.

I realised that the £8 was not worth taking advantage of a little old dear, and walked away from her and the job.

lisyloo

Good for you mikey :T

Plushchris

Yeah nice one Mikey!

Some of these salesman are complete scum and will say anything to make whatever company they are representing seem the cheapest. How they can live with themselves tricking the elderly like that is sickening.

Terrylw1

Here's the address for the MD:

Phil Bentley
Managing Director
British Gas
Millstream
Maidenhead Road
Windsor
Berkshire SL4 5GD

This guy may have been an outsourced company rep as well since many do that. Those outsourced companies are in the game a very short time and just swap to the next.

Ofgem do little to prevent this. The only way to ever stop it is to remove these commissions and targets. More than likely they will just blame the employee and say they are retraining him and Ofgem just say "ok, thats fine".

Probably find he is working for another Supplier a month later.

Report this to Ofgem as well.

Good one Mikey, I know not all sales reps are like that but it's nice someone can reassure people on here. Calortex (Npower), could tell you a fair few scams used by the elec side of that group!!!

OP - people often make the mistake that BGas are a distributor. Thats not the case in the same was as you no longer have local elec boards anymore. Distributors do not sell direct (they can but only aim for the odd business customer), so anyone knocking in your door who isn't an engineer is a salesman. Always ask to see their badge first. If they appear dodgy, treat them that way. A real engineer will never try and sell anything since they can't.

I love how they use confusion tactics to try and worm their way in. I had one try this on me until I asked to see his badge and then ripped him a new one for not identifying himself. I then let him into the fact that at the time I was a manager for the company he was selling for. His tone really changed!!!

Kernowc

I didn't sign up thanks.

I am always up front and tell any doorstep sellers that I will shop around before I buy anything, I never make an instant decision. I'm no good to them as far as any commission is concerned!

Thank you for the MD's address I will be writing to him and to ofgem, who knows if we all do this we may then force their hands into reducing their prices to attract customers, it makes sense that if they save money on employing these sellers and paying commission they may as well pass it on to us - here's hopeing!
:T