Southern Electric and Billing Agents

patcat

Had a chap from Southern Electric knocking on the door the other day. His sales patter was built around the story that all Energy suppliers have to use (Government Legislation) Billing Agents to send and calculate their bills. He says that this legislation has been relaxed now and Energy Companies can do their billing direct and this of course will mean cheaper bills. He says Southern Electric are the 1st company to offer this servis and will therefor be cheaper than other companies. Is this true ? he was very insistent even though I told him I never sign up for things on my doorstep and will always compare prices online.

Ken68

Just another hook, Pat.even though,generally, Southern Electric have a good reputation.

patcat

yes,I know they are trying to pull in customers, but is what they are claiming actually correct ?

Bufflowbill

No he was telling porkies. The Southern Electric Outsourced Doorknockers are good at this.

Plushchris

I'd say that was rubbish, as Bufflowbill says, SE doorknockers talk complete tosh if they think they can get a sale out of you. I had one the other day trying to tell me they were the regional suppliers so they would definately be cheapest. Strange how EDF are my regional suppliers though!

patcat

Didnt think it was right. Got a good mind to phone SE and complain, but wont waste the cost of a phone call.

Plushchris

Yeah, waste of phone call and breath, just chalk it up to experience and shut the door on door-knockers in the future.

Calvin_2k

Southern Electric are the cheapest supplier and do have the best customer service, however their sales agents have the reputation of being the biggest liars.

I would say 80% of the complaints I received about sales agents are about Southern.

I'm not saying all the field agents for other suppliers are angles. But Scottish & Southern do have a bad rep for telling porkies.

Terrylw1

Hi,

This is completely rubbish.

Billing Agents are NOT allowed to directly bill customers and have never been able to do this since privatisation many years ago.

Suppliers are billing companies and you sign up to them. They manage your bills and payments, they then contract out to Agents who read you meter and keep your meter based data correct. These companies then pass the billing data to aggregators who in turn pass it to the local Distribution company (who owns the actual electricity cabling in the region) and they then bill the Suppliers for you energy use.

Suppliers don't even have to use this data to bill you if they believe it to be incorrect.

This is all covered under the licences and the Balancing & Settlement Code that these parties belong to.

So, either an incompetant sales agent getting the industry billing bit wrong or one directly lieing to you.