Energy market de-regulation
In Ontario the energy market (natural gas, electricity) was de-regulated a few years ago to introduce competition in the energy marketplace. This has created a lot of problems because the energy resellers use door-to-door salespeople to sell the contracts and many of them seem to be crooks.
The problem
The biggest danger from door-to-door salespersons of any kind is that if they knock on enough doors they will find people who are vulnerable to making a hasty decision – old people, mothers with a young child or two, someone who is sick. All these groups are people who might normally be able to see through the lies of an energy market reseller but sometimes fall prey and sign a contract that they either don’t want or don’t understand.
My experience
Two summers ago I was relaxing on our back deck when someone knocked on our door. It was quite a loud knock and I originally thought it was one of the neighbours who was making some noise. I ignored the noise and kept enjoying the fact that my new little baby was asleep. Then I heard the knock again – this time even louder. Still I didn’t move – until the third set of knocks and I heard my wife who had been sleeping in the front room with our two week old baby, talking to someone at the door. It was only then that I realized someone had been knocking on our door – immediately I was quite annoyed that someone would keep knocking even though we weren’t answering the door.
The trap
Since I knew my wife was in even more of a sleep-deprived zombie state than I was, I quickly went into the house and talked to the person at the door. The man seemed normal enough and had his two kids with him – probably around 10 years old. He asked me if I had received my “discount” on my natural gas bill yet? I said no since I had not heard of any sort of discount. He then asked me to go and get an old gas bill and he would make sure I would get the discount. Now at this point, anybody who has any sort of intelligence would probably start to smell a rat – but given the fact that I was extremely tired and overwhelmed by the new baby – didn’t suspect a thing. While the “suspicious” part of my brain was taking a rare nap, the “greed” brain portion was wide awake and prompted me to listen to the guy and go an find an old gas bill. When I couldn’t find one I returned to the door and asked the guy if I could still get the discount without an old bill. I asked him if he could look up the account number at his office since I thought he worked for my natural gas provider. He said it shouldn’t be a problem and asked me to sign a document he had on a clipboard. On top of the clipboard I noticed quite a few gas bills that he had obtained from my neighbours for their “discount”.
The awakening
I took a look at the paper (I wasn’t completely brain dead) and noticed right away that it was a contract where if I signed I would be agreeing to a fixed rate natural gas delivery for three years. At that point I knew exactly who and what he was and and that he was trying to rip me off. I told him that this was not a discount but a contract for gas delivery. He said no – it’s for a discount on your gas bill and then showed me a table that indicated that his company’s gas charges had been lower (supposedly) then my provider. I even asked him what company he worked for and he wouldn’t say.
The punishment
Had he not had his two kids with him, I think I would have been quite tempted to literally throw him off my porch since I was quite annoyed by then. I was angry at him for waking up my sleeping family and trying to rip me off. I was also a bit angry at myself for almost letting him get away with it. I did tell him what I thought of him and his lies and told him to get lost.
The lesson
I learned that even if you are as sharp as a tack (or like to think you are), it’s important to remember that sometimes your guard is down whether you realize it or not and people like door-to-door salespersons can take advantage of that. It’s also a good idea to keep in mind that older friends and relatives might have more of those moments where they let down their guard so you should talk to them about not signing anything at the door. This can also apply to people who are looking for charitable donations at the door. Many of them are professionals who’s job it is to solicit donations so make sure that you be careful with them too.
See another post on this problem.
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Oh, and I didn’t sign any contract. It was all through the phone. Can I argue saying I didn’t sign any contract and therefore not liable?
Minty: We’re not lawyers, so we can’t really provide any advice (would you really trust legal advice from some anonymous guys on the Internet anyway?).
Maybe ask them to send you documentation proving you owe the money or talk to Ontario hydro and see if they have any suggestions.
My understanding is you *CAN* make legally binding agreements over the phone (they record the conversations in case of dispute). That’s how people change long-distance providers and whatnot.
I wouldn’t advise fleeing the country and leaving it unresolved unless you don’t mind getting hit with a surprise at some point in the future…
We all know by now that Univer$al Energy Corporation are all a bunch of scammers. THey hire anyone who walks in the door, that’s right!
They are sooo desperate to get people because once you findout that there are:
No benefits
No H/R pay
No year-end incentives
No paid training
No promotions
No gas or car allowance
They usually all leave soon anyways
I was sure that signing the contract with universal energy will decrease my monthly payment but the reality is different and now I been told about “smart Reader” that will take place in 2 years and only than I may be paying less.
Jeffie
“I hate all you people”
Why?
We have exactly the same door-to-door tactics used in Australia!
..and when a phone salesperson just wont’ take the hint that I’m not interested, I just put the phone down and go back to the washing up, or whatever, only takes them a minute or two to realise that they are wasting their time, not mine anymore…!!
Peter – great suggestion!
sarah robbins you should reasearch alot more before oping you mouth because you oviously didnt even lission long enough to know that your knew hydro metre is called a “SMART METRE” and it charges you different fee’s for different times of the day such as you will have to pay almost double for ur hydro on on peak hours than off peak hour
instead of lissioning to your dumb neighbour down the street and your ignorent couin or who ever there are government site you can go to to find out real information your hyfro provider works with the suppiers an all your do is switching providers not the company that delivers it thats why ur bill dosnt change stop being so suspisious and take the discount.
Thanks for the advice, Mr. Cheap =), although I’d to leave town in a hurry to see my Mom. I decided to leave the matter unresolved, simply because I’d changed my first name a year and a half ago and Universal Power still had my old name on record. On top of that, I don’t need my cell since I’m outta town, and I won’t be coming back till next year. Universal Power will probably (and hopefully) have given up on me by that time. There’s another solution outta this too, as posted by Mrs. Mustard. I’ve put the link on my name. It seems a few of you here were there before as well.
Thanks again for the “legal advice”, lol, I do appreciate your effort in helping.
I have been duped by fixed price gas scam, as soon we occupied house next day Superior Energy Sales man came to my wife and she accepted this contract.
Now when I want to discontinue they are asking 670 $ as liquidated damages fee.
Can someone suggest any rescue as lawyer fee may be more than this so it won’t be worth. Beware od Superior Energy Scam.
my husband signed with superior energy 2 of our blocks in montreal and when my bill came i was crying because it was so high so i called them and they said if i wanted to cancel it would cost me 18,000.00 thousand dollars and the lawyer fees i said they were just scamers like there sales person door to door but my husband did not understand all the contract so when my husband told the saleperson if he could cancel he said no problem but not telling him that there were these big fees to pay so i had called serveral times to them but don`t even want to answer they just said well your husband signed even explaining them i was a mother of 5 kids and i was not working the bills were to high i live with revenue they did not want ot understand so if there is someone out there that reads this give me a hint to do something i know all my friends say go to the lawyer i have no choice to do so because superior energy are scamers they are so evil that they should pay for all the pain they give to people but the best part is that i had told them that i wanted to speak to the sells person they said it was private information so they scamed us good they will for for this i can`t let it go like this .
For Connie or anyone else stuck in these contracts,
I think that depends on where you’re from, this might help
http://www.energyshop.com/es/faq/naturalgasfaq.cfm?r#9
(sorry you may have to copy paste that link cause I dunno how to set it to a link)
you want to click on #9 that will give you all your rights to cancel out of these types of contracts. It states ways to get out of those contracts for Canada, Ontario and BC, as well as the USA and UK.
Thankfully I called within the first 10 days when they got my boyfriend last year who was tricked into signing us over to Universal even though it was in my name. I hope you get this in time, and hope you can cancel without them trying to get you for more money!
I don’t care what anyone says to defend these companies, I know its a scam, These companies don’t care if you were scammed into signing a contract or not. If they did, they would have no issues with canceling your contracts. It’s not like these shady salespeople are not a common enough occurrence in their company for them to think that you are not being truthful. And because of all that it’s just given them a bad name.
Now, I’m glad when they come knocking at my door like they do religiously every single month. I must say I do get a good venting out yelling at them, or just smiling and saying no no no no no no no no no no until they get frustrated and walk away, or make them explain everything slowly in great detail and asking a lot of questions that Ive asked at least 3 times before in the conversation. Made one guy swear once under his breath haha:) I like to waste their time like they do mine, at least I know its a scam, its taking time away from them going to some other poor unsuspecting persons house while I get a giggle out of it!
Anyway Good luck to all of you, together we can get em! or…just really annoy them:)
Funny, the same thing happened to me last month, as described in your post. I had encountered the “energy resellers” before, but this guy started out with “I’m checking to see if you’ve received your discount yet,” not anything about signing a contract with an energy reseller. He even had prominently-displayed invoices from Enbridge (my regular provider) giving me the impression that he was from them.
I consider myself to be fairly scam-resistant, but on this occasion I had actually given him my account number before I had clued in. Even after he brazenly handed me a contract to sign, assuring me that it does not say what it looks like it says, it took a moment to fully realize what he was trying to do. I should have told him what I thought of his outright deceit, but I guess I’m just too bloody Canadian.
I phoned Enbridge first thing next business day, and confirmed that no changes had been made on my account, and made it clear that I didn’t want any changes made. I’m waiting for my next bill to make sure nothing happened.
Jude – very interesting. Those guys are good! I’m surprised he wasn’t wearing an “Enbridge” cap.
In January, I had a man come to my door, saying he was from Toronto Hydro, giving refunds for Smartmeter installations. He asked to see my Hydro bill and I naively gave him my bill. But then he asked me then to sign for the refund, and when I asked to read the paper first, he said I couldn’t! He said he would only give me a copy if I signed it first. From my glimpse of the paper, it definitely did not have Toronto Hydro written on it so I told him I refuse to sign it. He argued with me, and then got aggressive and took off with my Hydro bill! I called Toronto Hydro the next day to inform them that someone/company had taken off with my bill, and to confirm that no changes should be made to my account. Toronto Hydro said they cannot change my account number, nor be responsible for supplier changes.
I thought everything was ok, since I didn’t sign the paper and got my next Toronto Hydro bill as normal. Then in my June statement, it said that my new energy supplier was “Universal Energy”! I just received a letter in the mail on July 16 from Universal Energy, thanking me for signing up in JANUARY for a 5 year fixed contract! I immediately called UE, and they informed me that they have my signature on a contract, and a recorded telephone call on Feb 2 confirming my agreement with the contract! I advised them that this was obviously a forgery by their shady salespeople, and checked my cellphone bill for Feb 2 which showed NO phone calls in/out that day! They advised that I must’ve agreed to the contract because they had all my information including my supposed email address and my supposed telephone number. When I asked them to confirm this personal information, it was all incorrect! I asked them for a copy of this supposed telephone conversation they had with me. The representative listened to it first, and said that it actually did not sound like me, so he wouldn’t bother sending me a copy(!). His solution was for me to fax them my government ID so they could verify my signature on the contract. But if they have shady people who would forge the signature in the first place, I do not feel comfortable giving such a company even more of my own personal information!
I have filed a complaint with OEB regarding this forgery. How do I fight such an outright lie? Is this identity theft?
isg energy is SCAM
universal is a SCAM
ALL OF THEM ARE A SCAM
to get out of the contract is very easy,just disconnect service,get the service in somebody else’s name for 1 month billing cycle,then get it back in your name
it knocks these scam artists right off your bill
My dad got tricked into signing with a company called Just Energy. The sales guy insisted on taking photocopies of the gas and hydro bills to sign my dad up for lower costs. The sales guy wouldn’t let him see the contract right away. Today my dad already started proceedings to get out of it but my siblings and I are really worried about either identity theft or some sort of scam on my dad’s house, given that the guy took copies of the two energy bills.
It’s really frightening how this all went down.
Andrew Steele
The Ontario Tories’ leadership race continues to get more divisive.
The latest salvo is an anonymous attack on Frank Klees from quarters unknown, under the psuedonom “Tory Detective.”
The allegation is a serious one: that Mr. Klees is on the board of a company fined $200,000 by the Ontario Energy Board for making false and misleading statements.
Mr. Klees was considered the best performer in the leadership debates, a wily blend of Brian Mulroney and Ernie Eves. He’d better keep it up. It will take every ounce of Irish Blarney and double-E slickness he can muster to explain away these claims.
The e-mail read as follows:
From: Tory Detective
To: torydetective@yahoo.ca
Sent: Sat May 30 22:24:05 2009
Subject: Frank Klees: Business Experience & Judgement? Uh oh….
Someone is walking the walk, but not talking the talk.
Frank Klees wants Ontario PC Party members to believe that he should be elected leader due to his “business experience”. But it looks like Frank’s business experience may not be quite the positive attribute he once thought it was. And judgement? Well…
Frankie sits on the Board for Universal Energy Group and is a member of the Audit Committee for the company. He even chairs the Compensation and Governance Committee.
As reported by the Toronto Star earlier this year, that same company – Universal Energy Group – was fined $200,000 by the Ontario Energy Board for making “false, misleading or deceptive statements to consumers.”
A copy of the order (which isn’t the first time) can be found here.
And another one in April (wasn’t there a Leadership going on then?).
And the people are some angry. Victims of the “Universal Energy Scam” can be found talking about their experiences.
…
But Frank doesn’t just sit on the Board. Universal Energy CEO Mark Silver, through his company, OPTUS Capital Corporation, made the single biggest donation to Frank’s campaign: a whopping $34,000 – about 20% of his entire campaign.
Frank’s campaign even reported the donation in the real-time donor disclosures to Elections Ontario.
Wow. Frank’s “business experience” seems to entail managing an energy company ripping off old ladies door-to-door. Judgement, indeed.
Hope you find this enlightening.
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