Aggressive callers-claiming to be Scottish Power

smallclanger

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My girlfriend just called me, she works from home.

She had a knock at the door and two guys claiming to be from Scottish power were there asking to come in and look at our meter.

She told them that we are with eon but they claimed we should have received a letter explaining that they need to look at our meter as they supply the power for eon.

Anyway my girlfriend called eon just to be sure and they told her to ask them to leave. These guys were getting very aggressive and forceful and were trying to push their way into the house.

The police have been called and hopefully they can find them before they pick n a more vulnerable person such as an OAP.

This is disgusting, really annoyed that I wasn't there to sort them out!

Anyway just a warning watch out for these sort of callers.
 
All meter readers carry cards to verify they are who they say they are. I've never had one try to argue their way in! Definitely dodgy.

I thought your post was going to be about SP cold-calling with aggressive sales pitches. :rotfl: Considering the content, I think the thread title is a bit misleading and probably isn't the kind of thing that Scottish Power want featuring high on a search engine result. ;)
 
All meter readers carry cards to verify they are who they say they are. I've never had one try to argue their way in! Definitely dodgy.

I thought your post was going to be about SP cold-calling with aggressive sales pitches. :rotfl: Considering the content, I think the thread title is a bit misleading and probably isn't the kind of thing that Scottish Power want featuring high on a search engine result. ;)

Fair point, don't seem to be able to edit the title now.

These guys did have ID badges but they could either be made up with the intent to rob or could be for real, hard to tell with the way they were acting.
 
You should have thrown boiling chip fat on them.
 
I once had an aggressive little twit cold-call my door, on behalf of one of the telephone companies.
It may have been talk-talk, IIRC.
Anyway, I was polite and told him not interested.

"Even if I can save you money?"
"Nope, sorry"
"Well if you don't want to save money that's your bloody lookout"

and he stormed off down the path....:eek:

Well, red rag to a bull and all that.
I was right after him, pointing out I didn't ******* ask him to come to my ******* door and he's lucky I didn't knock his ******* teeth down his ******* throat for speaking to me like that on my own doorstep.

Really, he just pressed all the right (wrong) buttons and made me lose it.
Jumped up little twit in his cheap suit.:mad:
 
I severely doubt they were with scottish gas. Trying to force their way into your home? The police can't even do that without a warrant!
 
I severely doubt they were with scottish gas. Trying to force their way into your home? The police can't even do that without a warrant!

Somehow I don't think they are really following the rules. They obviously wanted that meter number very badly. I've found similar stories with other companies online.
 
I once had an aggressive little twit cold-call my door, on behalf of one of the telephone companies.
It may have been talk-talk, IIRC.
Anyway, I was polite and told him not interested.

"Even if I can save you money?"
"Nope, sorry"
"Well if you don't want to save money that's your bloody lookout"

and he stormed off down the path....:eek:

Well, red rag to a bull and all that.
I was right after him, pointing out I didn't ******* ask him to come to my ******* door and he's lucky I didn't knock his ******* teeth down his ******* throat for speaking to me like that on my own doorstep.

Really, he just pressed all the right (wrong) buttons and made me lose it.
Jumped up little twit in his cheap suit.:mad:

You really are the nicest person in the world arent you :)
 
You really are the nicest person in the world arent you :)

Do as you would be done by.
If he'd been nice, no problem, thanks but no thanks and goodbye.
But, by all means, criticise my reaction to the jumped up little twit.:rolleyes:
 
You really are the nicest person in the world arent you :)

To be fair if a young scamp had spoken to me like that on my own doorstep they'd have gotten a thick ear too.
 
Do as you would be done by.
If he'd been nice, no problem, thanks but no thanks and goodbye.
But, by all means, criticise my reaction to the jumped up little twit.:rolleyes:

Completely with you on that one. I wish I had been home this morning to deal with these guys.
 
title changed :smashin:

Dave
 
I wouldn't be surprised if they were in fact Scottish Power!

I remember about 2 years ago a Scottish Power man cold called on my door with identification, an employee agent number and clip board, asking to read me meter and asked who I was currently with. It is a hard sales tactic to try and get you to switch suppliers (by signing up there and then). I telephoned Scottish Power to confirm the man's agent number. I kept him waiting on the door step refused him entry and then told him to leave.

I had no intention to switch anyway, but checked his details and ensured he waited just in case he was a rogue trader or a distraction burglar.
 
I wouldn't be surprised if they were in fact Scottish Power!

I remember about 2 years ago a Scottish Power man cold called on my door with identification, an employee agent number and clip board, asking to read me meter and asked who I was currently with. It is a hard sales tactic to try and get you to switch suppliers (by signing up there and then). I telephoned Scottish Power to confirm the man's agent number. I kept him waiting on the door step refused him entry and then told him to leave.

I had no intention to switch anyway, but checked his details and ensured he waited just in case he was a rogue trader or a distraction burglar.

I have the feeling they were who they claimed to be - that was probably the only honest thing they said!

These power companies should be forced to take responsibility for how these people behave and be punished if they break the rules.
 
If you're fairly certain they were SP employees, you could get stuck right into the complaints process. They should be able to identify who they are based on the jurisdiction they were covering.

This is their complaints charter - pages 6-8 might be of interest to you (page 8 specifically refers to sales staff working on their behalf). They have a fairly robust complaints process, and if after that you still aren't happy you can take it to the Energy Ombudsman.
 
I got the hard sell from a Southern Electric representative, followed by his manager when I wouldn't sign the form that was "only" to say I had taken part in the energy survey, yeah right.

I complained to Head Office and got a nice apology, still it made me feel better :)
 
If you're fairly certain they were SP employees, you could get stuck right into the complaints process. They should be able to identify who they are based on the jurisdiction they were covering.

This is their complaints charter - pages 6-8 might be of interest to you (page 8 specifically refers to sales staff working on their behalf). They have a fairly robust complaints process, and if after that you still aren't happy you can take it to the Energy Ombudsman.

Cheers for that. Might have a look. I've had to report npower to the energy watchdog before after a couple of callers at the door were telling a bunch of fibs to con their way into see my meter.
 
Intersting thread, my meter is an exterior one so anyone with a cupboard key can get to it so what to stop them just opening it and taking the number claiming i signed up?

I had a guy selling crap door to door the other week on release from prison and selling stuff like dish cloths etc really odd, the guy smelt bad and got really aggrssive when i siad i didn't want any dish cloths/dusters or ironing board covers!

HE had ID (very badly produced so had to be legit!) he stormed of ranting about " !"£$%^&* people round here.." etc etc etc.

Often get a mini bus of young lads in polyester suits pushing double glazing (they are like a hoard of hormones and cheap aftershave rolling down the road) amuses me whe i point out all the windows and doors are double glazed.....and they look confused!
 
Intersting thread, my meter is an exterior one so anyone with a cupboard key can get to it so what to stop them just opening it and taking the number claiming i signed up?

I had a guy selling crap door to door the other week on release from prison and selling stuff like dish cloths etc really odd, the guy smelt bad and got really aggrssive when i siad i didn't want any dish cloths/dusters or ironing board covers!

HE had ID (very badly produced so had to be legit!) he stormed of ranting about " !"£$%^&* people round here.." etc etc etc.

Often get a mini bus of young lads in polyester suits pushing double glazing (they are like a hoard of hormones and cheap aftershave rolling down the road) amuses me whe i point out all the windows and doors are double glazed.....and they look confused!


It's often useful to say you are renting even if you are not.

A colleague of mine once agreed to a persistent conservatory salesman coming round for a visit. The guy seemed quite dissapointed to find out my mate lived in a 1st floor flat!
 
My Dad let a cavity wall salesperson talk their spiel for 20 minutes before telling them he had solid stone walls. I wonder whether the fact she was young and attractive had anything to do with it :)
 
My mum got stitched up by one of these dodgy meter readers at the start of this year. Got a knock at the door from someone asking to read the meter and when she saw ID and clipboard she just let him in and thought nothing more of it till a couple of months later when she's getting a quarterly electricity bill from e.on, which was a surprise as she's been signed up with Southern Electric for past 7 years!

She phoned e.on and SE up and told them there must be some sort of mistake and the operators assured her that the bill was sent in error as SE is still her registered electricity supplier.

However a few weeks later she receives a final demand from e.on so she's on phone again and this time they send round a Siemens engineer to check out the MPANs and serial codes on the meters (apparently there's a separate Day and Night rate meter) and everything seems to be sorted.

Well till last week when she had the meter' read and, probably no coincidence, a couple of days later is getting a call from e.on asking where their money is :rolleyes:
 
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'A large gas company' was found guilty of dodgy sales practices a few years ago.
The tactic was to send round an engineer, to service your boiler.
He would then say;

"You can't get spares for these any more, would you like a quote for a new one?"

Then the BG (ahem..) salesman would come round and quote you £2500 for a boiler that you could get replaced for £1500.00 from any CORGI engineer.:mad:

I was a victim of this tactic, but I didn't fall for it.
I investigated, found out spares were easily obtainable for my boiler and wrote to the gas ombudsman to complain about the lies.
Cue profuse apologies and denials from all sorts of management within the gas company.

The tactic became the subject of an investigation by a Sunday Telegraph reporter.
 

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