Airtricity Saleman signs me up without my consent

duchalla

A couple of months ago, an Airtricity salesman called to the house, I was mowing the front lawn, He says "seeing as you're already getting your electric from us, I'm just going to sign you up to get gas from us too, great discounts blah blah blah". I said Nope, not interested. He persisted. "dont you want to save money? all you're neighbours have signed up". I asked him did he not hear me the first time? I'm not interested, Good luck. He asked was my wife at home? (electric account is in her name). I got thick at this stage, told him none of his fcuking business, I've no intention of signing up to airtricity gas, in fact, I'll probably be leaving airtricity electric shortly, go away. He left, thought that was the end of it.
2 weeks ago, I got an email from airtricity thanking me for signing up to get the gas off them!! As you can imagine I was well p!ssed off, replied to the mail straight away, saying I never signed up tp anything of the sort, told them about their sales rep, asked did he sign us up without our consent, just to get his commission? that I wasnt one bit happy with this kind of carry on, (twas worded a bit more strongly than this but you get my drift).
I had to mail them twice more over the next week before I eventually got a reply. Basically they apologised for the behaviour of the rep, that they dont condone his behaviour, that he'll be reprimanded or retrained and that they'll investigate the matter further. They also said that they've requested a cancellation on the gas, my previous supplier will have to accept this cancelation, if they dont, I'll have to contact them myself and sign up with them again!
Mailed them back, asked them how will I know if my supplier has accepted the cancellation? why should I have to sign up with my supplier again when I never left them in the first place?? said theres fraudulent activity being carried out by their sales men, forging my or my wifes signiture. I asked them to respond asap. I've heard nothing from them in over a week. Surely this carry on on is illegal? Signing somebody up to something , without their knowledge, that they expressly asked in no uncertian terms, not to. The mind boggles!! I'm not going to let this go, just wondering what are our options. Cheers in advance for your replies.

Duchalla.

RangeR

Stop emailing them.

If it's as point of principle [as mine would be]...

Write a full letter of complaint. Mention the words FORMAL COMPLAINT in your opening sentence. Detail everything. Be polite but firm. Tell them in no uncertain terms that Airtricity are responsible for getting you re-connected to your previous supplier.

Tell them that if they fail to comply, you will have no option but to initiate legal proceedings. At this point, initiate proceedings with the Small Claims Court.

Send this letter of FORMAL COMPLAINT via registered post. Any other format can be treated as "lost in transmission"

sandin

had same issue with Vodafone - all these companies use outside contractors who don't give a sh1te about anything except sales and will do anything to get them.

Between the jig and reels it cost me over €300 to get back to where I was and hours of crap because for some unknown reason these companies cannot cancel the line / service, you must re-sign up with old supplier.

Had last laugh when mobiles (8 in the co.) came up for renewal - told VF to take a hike s they didn't deal with the issue in any way properly.

Pawwed Rig

Ask them for copies of the contract where you 'signed' up. Get names of people, ie agent, customer service reps, time and dates of phone calls.

If there is a forged signature I would be contacting my solicitor.

I would be livid if that happened

dudara

Just a reminder to posters that this is not a general rant thread. Stick to the topic at hand (these type of threads have a habit of getting derailed, based on past experience).

dudara

Tow

Count your self lucky. Last week we (business account) got a gas bill back dated for over 1,600 from this shower. Their excuse... We did not get any meter readings from Bord Gais for several months, so everything over winter was estimated. This is dispite the fact that we phoned in the readings each month.

dudara

Tow - please read my warning above. I don't want any off-topic comments.

kodoherty93

Complain to the energy regulator about it.

foggy_lad

kodoherty93 wrote: »

Complain to the energy regulator about it.

+1 on complaining to the energy regulator just as soon as you send off a formal complaint to the company, and I would also drop into your local Gardai station as there may be something they can do about your details being used fraudulantly or your signitures being forged.

Lplated

Think a complaint to the Energy Regulator is probably the best approach.

Afaik the Gardai wont/can't take any action here as there is no loss to you, [if i understand your op correctly].

The advice to go to the small claims court is poor imo - have a look at their website and see, but I doubt there is any case that they have jurisdiction over that you can make based on what you've said.

That said, one or two other posters in the thread, who have suffered loss and inconvenience, may have a case but I don't think its a small claims court matter, more likely civil case in the District Court [to get back costs/losses], or summary criminal matter.

RangeR

Lplated wrote: »

Afaik the Gardai wont/can't take any action here as there is no loss to you, [if i understand your op correctly].

Fraud
Impersonation
Identity Theft

Pick one.

Lplated

RangeR wrote: »

Fraud
Impersonation
Identity Theft

Pick one.

Based on the assumption that salesman defrauded the OPs signature? We don't know whether there is any signature on any form, nor do we know if it is provable that tthe impersonator were the salesman.

At its most innocent, it could be a simple mistake somewhere along the line.

In either case, given that there is no actual loss and the matter is hardly at the serious end of offences, I think my point would probably be borne out- the Gardai couldn't or wouldn't bother with something like this.

RangeR

Lplated wrote: »

Based on the assumption that salesman defrauded the OPs signature? We don't know whether there is any signature on any form, nor do we know if it is provable that tthe impersonator were the salesman.

At its most innocent, it could be a simple mistake somewhere along the line.

In either case, given that there is no actual loss and the matter is hardly at the serious end of offences, I think my point would probably be borne out- the Gardai couldn't or wouldn't bother with something like this.

I see where you are coming from. I'm not a legal expert nor anywhere close. However, on a technicality of "op hasn't lost anything". They lost service from the provider they signed up to. They did not request this change. In fact, they were very vocal about what they did want.

In my mind, it doesn't matter HOW it happened. An agreed contract was terminated by an interested, non related, third party. In my mind, a service provider can only transfer you over with a written declaration signed by a person of authority. Ignorance or incompetence is no defense. Airtricty have already said that they will not rectify their **** up.

It may be a simple error but that doesn't take away from what actually happened. If it was a case that the autorisation form was handed in to change service, it must have passed through at least three or four people. The door to door sales person would have handed it into their back office staff. It would then have gone to head office. And then to the "Transfer Team". Admittedly, I'm assuming a lot in that last statement and don't know the process 100% but the bones of it is, if this mistake happened there was a systemic failure as the document would have gone through a lot of hands. It's not impossible but it's highly unlikely.


I don't know much about the Energy Industry but in the mobile phone space a, mobile operator can reverse a port in a matter of minutes or hours if an error is found.

Lplated

I don't disagree with the thrust of what you're saying RangeR, just making the point that for every wrong [in the legal sense] there isn't necessarily a right.

The degree of interest by the authorities in investigating something like this will depend entirely on its severity, and in the general scheme of things, I doubt it makes the grade. Annoying, yes. Fraudulent, maybe. Pain, sure. But not actionable [imo] in the civil courts and very hard to force something like this to the criminal courts.

Best course is a complaint to appropriate regulator and trust that that clears up procedure for everyone - kind of a public service by the OP if you will.

Sponge Bob

foggy_lad wrote: »

+1 on complaining to the energy regulator just as soon as you send off a formal complaint to the company, and I would also drop into your local Gardai station as there may be something they can do about your details being used fraudulantly or your signitures being forged.

There is a slight issue here which applies when someone is slammed ( bounced into a fraudulent contract) and that is that you have NO LEGAL RELATIONSHIP with the slammer/fraudster. So why waste money on a stamp for starters. These people are nothing...there is no contract.

If anything I would send a Formal Complaint to my CORRECT supplier and cc it to the regulator. You can get an email address in any suppliers "Code Of Practice" . They will not ignore a "Formal Complaint" cc'd to a regulator I find.

eg http://www.electricireland.ie/ei/home/EI-COP-Complaints.pdf and it is service@electricireland.ie

Airtricity also have an email address in their code of practice but I always recommend sending the complaint to your correct supplier and to cc the email to the CER.

Saves a lot of time and postage costs. Furthermore the slammers are fully liable for your lekky bill until you are back with your correct supplier again.