Power giant’s dirty tricks probed after MoS exposé
SHAMED power company SSE is to be investigated by the Government’s energy regulator Ofgem after The Mail on Sunday revealed ‘sharp practices’ used to keep householders on higher tariffs.
Ofgem praised this newspaper for an undercover investigation that exposed a trainer instructing staff to ‘exaggerate the fear’ about changing suppliers, despite the Government making it easier than ever to do so.
The watchdog announced it would conduct a ‘thorough investigation’ into one of Britain’s biggest energy suppliers after we passed them a dossier of evidence obtained while an undercover reporter posed as a trainee salesman at the company. The enquiry will focus on our revelations that staff were told to encourage hard-up customers to install prepayment meters – potentially cutting them off from cheaper prices.
If the regulator finds the company has breached the terms of its licence to supply energy, it could levy a fine of up to ten per cent of its turnover – amounting to millions of pounds.
Commons Select Committee member Glyn Davies praised Ofgem for following up our report and said that if it found SSE had made customers pay excessive tariffs, then its behav- iour would be unacceptable. During our four-week investigation, The Mail on Sunday found:
Call-centre staff in Cardiff were told not to tell customers who they were trying to entice back that they faced penalties of up to £100 if they ditched their new supplier;
They were told that, although personal sales incentives were banned because they encouraged mis-selling, they could instead compete for ‘team targets’ worth up to £2,000;
Trainees were taught to carry out secret ‘personality tests’ on customers, branding them ‘Doers, Actors, Friendlies or Thinkers (DAFT)’.
The Ofgem investigation will consider our undercover footage of an employee telling our reporter that the company misled customers who had racked up debt into installing meters forcing them to pay up-front.
These meant the customer was forced on to a standard tariff and could not access other cheaper deals on the market.
Tory MP Mr Davies said: ‘If Ofgem finds that SSE was making hard-up people pay expensive tariffs, then the firm’s behaviour will have been unacceptable. It makes you wonder how much of this goes on that we never find out about.’
A spokesman for Ofgem said: ‘We thank The Mail on Sunday for bringing this information to our attention.’
A spokesman for SSE said: ‘We are committed to treating all our customers fairly and will be co-operating fully with Ofgem’s investigation.’
You can see our undercover footage at www.mailonsunday.co.uk/sse.