Meter Registration Service ???!!!

neil-uk

Same thing here!

Where the hell did they get my details?! I bought a property in my personal name, and started to get calls harassing my Limited Company.

All I can assume is they did a Director search, or found my company/place of employment on Facebook.

Basically, we completed on a property around 12pm on 4th June, and from 9am on the 5th June, my phone rang non stop from a variety of landline numbers. The calls were in the region of one per hour.

Eventually, I picked up, and was told this person was from a company called Commercial Energy, and he was a Meter Registrar for my electricity. He told me he needed the registration of my meter, because I was paying emergency rates and he wanted me to sign a 5-year contract.....?!

I explained I hadn't even had the keys yet - and I would contact a suitable energy company when I had the time (and keys)! Not content with this the caller (an Alex Barlow) went into a high pressure sell, and I told him I wasn't interested. He said he would call back.

Bear in mind here, my company is on the telephone preference service, as I am personally. There is a legal argument that, which of course the legal adviser at BES tried; the TPS is canceled out by virtue of a 'relationship' - but I had nothing to do with the company, it was an unsolicited sales call and I expressly told them I wasn't interested; and due to the high pressure sell NEVER to call me again!

A few days later he called again, fed up I told him to email me prices, and that he was under no circumstances to telephone me again. On receipt of the email I also replied (copying in 2 sets of Lawyers) and reiterated my request...... Guess what, two days later the phone rang AGAIN, it was him!

Curiously, the email from the sales person was signed BES Utilities - not the Commercial Energy the guy told me he was from!

Luckily, I had a great guy at EON who took care of the actual energy side.

This post may seem an overreaction - but I urge you once you've read this email to do a Google search of BES Utilities and see what comes up. The sales person was rude, aggressive, high-pressured - and in fact lied several times.

I made a complaint to their 'Customer Services' team.... I asked they looked into my points, and also to either investigate and issue compensation for my inconvenience - or issue me a letter of deadlock so that I could ask the Ombudsman to investigate and make a decision.

They were prepared to do neither. Which is suspicious. Their claim was that they didn't have any evidence that the calls were continuous - but did have a recording of the calls from the mysterious Alex Barlow that they concluded were not a high pressure sell; this is despite me asking him verbally never to call me again!! In other words the evidence when they were in the wrong they didn't have - and the evidence when they thought they could intimidate themselves into being in the 'right' they suddenly did have.

It is also worth noting that BES only part-record the calls during their contracts, and stop the recording when stopping reading the terms out..... "Surely this is illegal, misleading and tampering with evidence" I asked a top Lawyer - to which the reply was "well we don't know what a Judge would conclude, because BES always settle their cases before they to court, and issue confidentiality clauses" suspicious, huh?

Amusingly, I had even listed the numbers, times and dates to the legal team in my complaint - who replied and told me they had "no relevance".....and in the same paragraph asked me for times/dates/numbers of these calls. So we're definitely dealing with bullies here, but people who are by no means the sharpest pencils in the box.

BES Utilities have come under numerous investigations by the BBC, Ofgem, UIA, Daily Mail and Ombudsman - and every time claim they are the victims, and aggressively peruse the aforementioned claiming harassment, personal grievance etc. They even asked Ofcomm to delete recorded evidence by an insider of their dodgy deals. By the number of articles out there they have beyond reasonable doubt crippled shops, hotels, restaurants and small business by their aggressive sales nature, and over-priced energy. I have been reminded by their legal team that of course, these have no legal grounds - however we are all intelligent enough to draw our own conclusions to around 10 websites and around 250 bad reviews - plus all the media coverage........and their preference to always settle out of court.

I told BES I would be making people aware of what they are like - and they have advised me that this could bring a deformation case against me, which is amusing as they would have no case; everything I have said here is entirely factual - and has been by no means exaggerated.

The companies to watch out for and whom may address themselves as; Commercial Energy, Commercial Power, BES Utilities, BES Electricity, BES Gas, Meter Registrations - and numerous others.

neil-uk

Forgot to add, once happily in our new contract with EON, we received a call from a disconnection agent.

I didn't really know what one was - but I later have found out they are responsible for any bailiff action to forcefully cut the supply off!

Quote how they planned on doing that with a firm contract with EON I don't know.

Anyway, before composing my complaint to BES, I called the mobile number of this 'Mr Lawson'. He got EXTREMELY cagey (sounded like he was sh!tting it), wouldn't give anything apart from his name and mobile, and said to contact BES for more information.

Guess what? The legal advisers at BES told me that they couldn't comment and that I would have to ask Mr Lawson directly.

I may have forgotten to add above that BES claim they can find no evidence that the calls were continuous, and only claim to have on recording of my conversation with Alex Barlow - despite him calling me and us having a conversation 3 or more times?!

neil-uk

Let's just be clear on something, which may make things a little more obvious....

We know very clearly that BES will claim you are bound by contract; by evidence of the alleged recording they claim to have.

HOWEVER - they are EXTREMELY quick to settle out of court when they know that they will need to use the aforementioned recording as justification of attempting to hold you in contract.

They are also equally quick to ensure that part of your out-of-court settlement is confidentiality

IF you part-record a call, as BES do, then you are in fact tampering with evidence.

IF BES go to court and use evidence tampered with, they are intending to pervert the course of justice, which is a custodial sentence to say the least.

For this reason, this is why beyond any reasonable doubt BES are continually running scared of being taken to court - and thus why you should forget about jumping through their pathetic complaints procedure hoops.

If you believe you have been entered into a contract with BES fraudulently or against your will, take it straight to a Judge, and see how quickly BES magic a "gesture of good will" out of the bag. Or better still take it all the way to Trial and give us a good laugh at BES's expense!

guyandzoe

we opened a shop and started getting calls from these people at once. 4 weeks later they continue to call and harass us. Disturbingly they have been monitoring our facebook page and are now asking to speak to one of the contacts on there that another user mentioned.

I spoke to offgen yesterday and they are out to consultation about bringing these 'agents' under their control. Dont suppose that will stop these scammers.

As I write this Aaron from 'utilities registrations' called.

We are signed to TPS and we are now monitoring and complaining to the information commissioner about every call.

neil-uk

Smells like BES all over.

Take a look on Consumer Action Group, do a search on BES and see what comes up!

adam9876

I would like to add to this discussion as I am getting calls constantly (5,6,7 calls a day) from the "Meter Registration" department telling me that my meter is running 40% more than it should be and that we are new tenants to the business premises.

We aren't new tenants. We've been in our premises (which we own) for over 14 months now. We did however recently update our address on a few of those "Free business listings" websites. This is obviously how they get their information. We update our address on these listing sites and within a week we're getting non-stop calls. It seems they use this and assume we're a "new business".

At first I was telling them it wasn't a new address and they were really stumped. Now it's gotten so annoying I just hang up immediately.

The most recent calls come from 01454 547006. The numbers tend to always end with 006 and come from area codes all over the country.

Long and short of it: it's a scam. They aren't you energy provider and they have no control over anything. They are trying to get you to sign up to something, most likely something which will cost £££.

Shocking to think this scam has been going on for so long.

koolaid12

Ofgem have opened an investigation into BES

BESUtilities

koolaid12 wrote: »

Ofgem have opened an investigation into BES

We are happy to comply with Ofgem and always have been, following an almost 10 year untarnished record as a supply business. Investigations are common place in the energy industry and this is one of 16 live investigations across all energy suppliers currently including many of the ‘Big 6’. We treat all Ofgem intervention seriously but we also see it as an opportunity to seek guidance on how to improve our processes and in this instance, as every other, we will be looking to Ofgem to help us tweak our processes for the future. I would encourage people to respect that an investigation is neither admission nor an accusation of any wrong doing, it is simply an opportunity for the regulator to understand in more detail how we approach compliance against a small handful of the many supplier licence conditions which are in operation in the market. Any outcomes of this process we therefore intend to use to strengthen for future growth as we look to continue to take the fight of the smaller independent suppliers to the wider market and in particular, the ‘Big 6’.

Ben Jones – CEO, BES Utilities

neil-uk

Well Mr Jones, I have to commend your attitude for optimism, and it is really great you optimistically anticipate that this is an "opportunity to seek guidance on how to improve our processes and in this instance, as every other, we will be looking to Ofgem to help us tweak our processes for the future".

You mention the 'big 6' have outstanding investigations, however these generally relate to Section 12 of the License Conditions, which is essentially using the 'wrong' meter, relatively trivial in comparison to what you stand accused of. In any case the 'big 6' certainly do not have multiple conditions of their License under review to the extent you do.

As for your request for some "respect" that the investigation is yet to be concluded..... I don't think I stand alone in advising you that your company never treated me with any respect - in fact complete contempt. I would anticipate this Ofgem investigation is just the start of what is to come.

One of the investigation's focuses is on Section 7B. For those who are unaware, this (in short) relates to being honest, transparent and avoid providing misleading or omitting information. The majority of complaints here and all over the internet counter your claim of compliance to these conditions.

You interestingly claim that "an almost 10 year untarnished record as a supply business". Have you ever Google'd your company's name? Have you seen the enormous amount of very upset and angry people there are who feel your company has in some way been the aggregator of circumstances leading to their business's demise?

What frustrates me more is that you had the audacity to instruct a reputable law firm to issue threatening letters claiming their genuine and honest accounts were "a malicious attempt to start an internet campaign of which [you] deny all veracity". Some of the people that got these letters have been treated for depression and have contemplated suicide since being in receipt of that letter! The letter infers that you had no idea as to why people may be making these claim/posts - and purports those claims to be malicious, false and defamatory.

How you managed to instruct a law firm claiming what you did and guarantee it as truthful and factual; when there literally thousands of posts from hundreds of users over tens of websites giving shocking accounts of your company, is entirely beggars belief and a cause for some grave concern. The balance of probabilities are that you have probably mislead or omitted information to allow a law firm to issue letters of that nature.

Mr Jones, wake up! I am afraid to inform you that your reputation has been tarnished for some years (no matter what you demand removed from the internet, or no matter how many 'gagging orders' people sign). I think quite frankly if it is found that BES have breached or failed to comply with license conditions, in particular 7B and 14 it is untenable that they can continue to hold a license, or remain suppliers to the energy market. Many others manage to keep to their license conditions, what makes you think Ofgem want to give you "guidance" to the pretty simple task of doing your job properly??? Maybe they just don't want companies with your apparent ethics in their industry any more?

Could you also advise when you will instruct your lawyers to issue letters of retraction and apology to these who got those nasty letters? Without doubt those letters were written without the 'full picture'.

dfb

Well this makes uncomfortable reading!!

I was completely sucked in and I have no idea what is now happening. We started a small business on the 27th October and have been bombarded with calls ever since. Like so many of you I took a call saying we were on an emergency meter reading, etc and needed to sign on with someone and that the person phoning was here to ensure we found the best deal. So we signed on with OPUS, like a muppet gave meter readings, bank details (yes I know) etc and rang off. Literally 2 minutes later the guys "manager" phoned and apologised and said I had been mis sold the contract, he was new and that he had missed off the best deal and that by law (ha ha) they had to let me know the best deal was with BES. SO I had to go through the whole thing again - a lot of stress, details etc.

It was only afterwards, when my partner received a call from BES stating SSE (existing supplier) were not willing to release us that I started to smell a fish. We were still receiving loads of calls a day, some quite aggressive. I contacted SSE direct and finally spoke to someone helpful who said that, they had received several requests to change, they had refused all of them, that we had never been on an emergency rate etc etc, that the 2 men were competitors not colleagues.

At this point was starting to panic slightly as it looked like I had signed on with 2 companies as well as our existing supplier. He told me not to panic and gave me their rates, which were much better. I basically said we want to stay with them, please don't transfer us and he sent me a contract to sign.

I have since emailed both OPUS and BES giving them my views, fully and frankly, about their brokers selling tactics. I have heard from OPUS agreeing to release us but nothing from BES. Just waiting and keeping everything crossed we can stay with SSE.

I can't believe I feel for it, they sounded so legitimate. i even queried giving bank details out over the phone and he persuaded me it was fine. What a muppet. Just waiting to see what happens now - from what I have read about BES I am not holding out much hope.... Just one thing though, this is a partnership, can we say that decisions have to be agreed by both parties?