Utilita, cold calling scam artists

Utilita, cold calling scam artists

Author
Discussion

A500leroy

Original Poster:

5,126 posts

118 months

Tuesday 2nd May 2023
quotequote all
Just had a guy from this company round saying they can remove standing charge from meter by installing a new version. I honestly thought he was from the meter manufactor and they were updating them,.

At no point did he say they were an energy company and thankfully when the confirmation girl at head office asked me for a switch date I twigged there an energy supplier and told them to do one.

Beware.

Ace-T

7,697 posts

255 months

Tuesday 2nd May 2023
quotequote all
Perhaps report to Ofgem



consumeraffairs@ofgem.gov.uk

Simpo Two

85,422 posts

265 months

Tuesday 2nd May 2023
quotequote all
Dodgy practice I agree, but it would be interesting to see if you'd have saved money by switching to their 'SC-free' tariff...

A500leroy

Original Poster:

5,126 posts

118 months

Tuesday 2nd May 2023
quotequote all
pre pay meters only.

Simpo Two

85,422 posts

265 months

Tuesday 2nd May 2023
quotequote all
A500leroy said:
pre pay meters only.
Erk, the most expensive tariffs. If they're fitting those without telling people that needs to be stopped.

A500leroy

Original Poster:

5,126 posts

118 months

Tuesday 2nd May 2023
quotequote all
offgem says I need to raise a complaint with the company, then inform offgem 8 weeks later.

matchmaker

8,492 posts

200 months

Tuesday 2nd May 2023
quotequote all
I had them at the door yesterday. When they discovered I paid monthly by DD they buggered off.

littlebasher

3,780 posts

171 months

Wednesday 3rd May 2023
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I had something similar, years back when switching was the new thing.

Told a cold caller that I was not interested, happy as I was and thought nothing more of it. Couple of weeks later, I get paperwork through the post welcoming me to my new energy company.

Obviously i phoned them and got it cancelled, but they were confused. They had received signed paperwork, despite me never telling the cold caller what my name was !

mr_fibuli

1,109 posts

195 months

Wednesday 3rd May 2023
quotequote all
An elderly relative had the exact same thing last week - some scumbag cold caller scammed her into switching to Utilita by promising that it would be a lot cheaper than EDF and would remain as a direct debit.

A week later her boiler cut out so she called out a gas engineer - this is when she found out that she had been conned into switching to a prepayment tariff that had now run out of credit and cut off the supply.

Its frustrating because we do try to drum into her never to sign up to anything like this on the doorstep and always ask us first. All the warnings were there in her email account (that she never reads) - we could have cancelled it before the switch if we'd known. But its all down to the way they present the scam - the victim doesn't even realise that they have switched provider.

After wasting hours on the phone the switch has been reversed, but it will be several days until she will be back with EDF. In the mean time the scammers are rewarded as she is forced to buy overpriced energy from them and left hugely out of pocket.

Note that this company seem to be a lot more proactive about taking down negative online reviews than they are about supporting their customers.

A500leroy

Original Poster:

5,126 posts

118 months

Wednesday 3rd May 2023
quotequote all
Given my utility company the heads up and they were disguisted with such selling techniques.

yolonce

5 posts

82 months

Thursday 25th January
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Well, I finally got this call too. Offering cheap smart meter installation.

Luckily I googled the number. Apparently this has been going on for years. Some of the reports are as far back as 2018 wobble

https://whocall.co.uk/phone-number/01916915715

The regulators really need to get their act together. Someone who is less paranoid would propably get roped in and lose money to these scammers.