Beware of E4B contract

BusinessEnergyBroker

DS-2

You can't seriously state that its my fault that you have drawn the wrong concusion.

First, if I have drawn the wrong conclusion about how you do conduct your business, then that is your fault for not stating previously that you advise your clients of such clauses. You have defended the "salesman" who didn't draw attention to the possible problems with moving away from E4B at the end of a contract. In fact you appeared to place an emphasis on the customer having a responsibility to read the T&Cs.

This is exactly the point that I made earlier. Making a comment like that leads me to believe that you are exactly the type of person that is likely to take a contract that you (eventually)dont want 12 months down the line and then blame someone else because of your own inability to read the conditions attached.

At no point did I defend the salesman. What I did say is that he cannot be accused of misrepresentation because he hasn't done it.

Misrepresentation is a false statement of fact made by one party to another party, which has the effect of inducing that party into the contract.

I would have expected you to have had more than 2 instances of failing to move a customer away from E4B. What you were saying does not stack up, in my view.

Do you work in the industry and are you qualified to make such a comment? Or is it likely that you are just stating this based on the posts you have read on this or other forums. Please remember that bad news spreads much faster than good news.

Please remember that I have already stated that it is us as brokers that are taking control of the customers account, rather than leaving important things like issuing terminations to them. If we left it to customers I would expect the transfer success rate to drop from 99% to about 35%.

Maybe its worth starting a post stating "My account transfered away from E4B and I didnt have a problem" to see what happens.

However it would be pointless as people are on here seeking advice and discussing issues that they have and not to pat suppliers on the back when they actually get something right.

BusinessEnergyBroker

Update,

I have just received word that Scottish Powers SME directors are taking up a number of the cases of failed registration with E4B. Directors of supply companies are often able to come to an "arrangement" with each other and I will wait for further news.

However I am not optimistic and dont really expect E4B to let contracts go as easily as Scottish Power appear to be indicating.

DS-2

BusinessEnergyBroker wrote: »

You can't seriously state that its my fault that you have drawn the wrong concusion.

LOL - I drew a conclusion based on the information you provided. Are you blaming me for the lack of information you provided. tsk, tsk.

BusinessEnergyBroker wrote: »

Misrepresentation is a false statement of fact made by one party to another party, which has the effect of inducing that party into the contract.

Off-the-cuff dictionary definitions are not going to cut the mustard in a court of law. You need to be aware of legal definitions.

For example:check out the Fraud Act 2006: section 2 - "Fraud by false representation"

Our friend the salesman needs to watch himself.

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2006/ukpga_20060035_en_1

I appreciate that you tidied up the quotes in your previous posting.

Kind regards.

BusinessEnergyBroker

DS-2

I agree with the point that you made and I too personally believe that the salesman should have disclosed clause 4.3, after all have done it with each of our clients.

We will however have to disagree with the misrepresentaion aspect of the post.

I think section 3 is more appropriate in this instance.
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2006/ukpga_20060035_en_1

Fraud by failing to disclose information
A person is in breach of this section if he—
(a) dishonestly fails to disclose to another person information which he is under a legal duty to disclose, and
(b) intends, by failing to disclose the information—
(i) to make a gain for himself or another, or
(ii) to cause loss to another or to expose another to a risk of loss.

The salesman was not under a legal duty to disclose clause 4.3.

Just looking back through some of the original posts to check where this part of the debate started I saw that Lordie mentioned the Ugly in post 34. The salesman informed him that "you wouldn't have any problems with E4B".

Although this is a truely misguided comment by the salesman it could be what he genuinely believes. I return to my earlier points of my experiance with E4B and the fact that we have only received one customer complaint even though we have dealt with hundreds of E4B contracts.

If it was as simple as recommending a company that offers a good price with exemplary service and can guarantee transfers in the correct timescale, then I would have left the industry shortly after joining it as none of the suppliers can conform to that criteria.

As I said

And believe me the suppliers are very incompetent

lordie

"Although this is a truely misguided comment by the salesman it could be what he genuinely believes. I return to my earlier points of my experiance with E4B and the fact that we have only received one customer complaint even though we have dealt with hundreds of E4B contracts."

BusinessEnergyBroker, you again state that you have only had 1 customer complaint against E4B. That may well be the case in your dealings with them. All I can say is that you, and more importantly your customers, have been very lucky. The sheer length of this thread tells me that there is alot of disatisfaction regarding E4B.

I again would just ask you to take a moment of your time and phone Energywatch and ask them who has received the most complaints regarding contract rollovers. If you want to save the price of the phonecall I can tell you their answer will be ......E4B.

BusinessEnergyBroker

Hi Lordie,

I absolutely don't doubt for one second that E4B have the most complaints regarding the rollover of their contracts, they are the only supplier operating the 7 day clause.

I will also give you a pretty good guarantee that percentage wise E4B have the lowest complaints amongst business suppliers, excluding of course the issue surrounding the 7 day window. I would expect this as it would relate to not only my experiances with E4B but also of a number of other brokers that we work with.

The complaints will mostly consist of customers who failed to read or who weren't notifed of clause 4.3 and didn't follow the correct proceedure. I for one would take action against E4B if they objected to any of our clients accounts without valid reason and I would hope that others do to.

I posted on here to point out the facts and I do know that there will be many people reading this and thinking that I am somehow an advocate for E4B, however nothing could be further from the truth.

If Scottish Power were the cause of your supply remaining with E4B (was yours resolved I can't remember?)then your fight should be with them (as is ours on behalf of our clients). I can write it in blood if necessary but I will state that there is no way that our client is going to stand the £17600 additional cost due to the error made by Scottish Power. It doesnt matter to us if Scottish Power's directors use influence over E4B or if a judge decides liability in a court of law, the desired outcome will be achieved.

fatlad1971

BusinessEnergyBroker wrote: »

Hi Lordie,

I absolutely don't doubt for one second that E4B have the most complaints regarding the rollover of their contracts, they are the only supplier operating the 7 day clause.

BES have a 24 hour clause

fatlad1971

E4B are the only utility supplier I know you charge their customers 50p a minute for the privilege of calling them. They have had some very bad media coverage of late and IMO they deserve it.
They have also alienated a large percentage of the broker/tpi market lately and I don't see how they can continue much longer.

BusinessEnergyBroker

Informative for members (although I doubt any MSE members will have heard of BES gas although they may have heard of Commercial Power), but of no relavance as my points relates Electricity and to the level of complaints E4B recieve.

BusinessEnergyBroker

Suppliers have been alienating brokers since deregulaltion so thats nothing new. If a supplier decides to outsource to India and keep things in house then thats their look out.

They know they will lose business without the brokers and have been doing since the price increases.

It's inevitable that another supplier may come in for E4B at some point in the future. Weather they decide to sell is up to them.