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JP residents barraged by energy-company salesmen with clipboards
By adamg on Sun, 01/11/2015 - 5:15pm
On Boston Reddit, jamesishere recounts an encounter with a Spark Energy salesman who showed up during the Pats game last night, demanded to see his electric bill and then wouldn't leave even after he dialed 911:
I figured he was going to run at this point, but he says he will wait for the police. So I make him wait out on the porch, and I think he was about to walk away, but 6 cruisers seem to appear out of nowhere in 45 seconds (pretty amazing response time, though I do live quite close to the police station).
They don't arrest him for some reason, because he says he was let into our hallway (not true, neighbor says he just followed him in). The police told me they have been getting calls about these guys all over Boston, and the officer knows it's some sort of scam but it was too complicated to explain. He said to ignore them and tell my friends the same.
Max White seconds:
One of them tried to get my info today, in JP. I was going to show her my bill and realized mid-process not to.
TsunamiSkweek thirds:
They tried to hit up one of my coworkers, same area/tactics. Is it not a crime to impersonate utility workers?
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Comments
Why is there no way to take
Why is there no way to take him away to the police station? What if his intentions were to come in and kill someone?
You need a crime first.
Sounds like there wasn't one, at least in the estimation of the police. Seems like Jamie doesn't own the building, and being in the common area of an apartment complex is sketchy in terms of sustaining a trespassing charge against the a-hole salesman.
it's very simple
Landlord puts up no trespassing sign. First time they come around, you tell them you want them off the property and they are not welcome to come back.
If they re-enter the property, they're trespassing. They're also trespassing the second you tell them you don't want them around.
Also, getting past a locked door by following someone else in is still a crime. It's called "entering", and it's the latter half of "breaking and entering." Yeah, breaking a lock and actually entering the property are two different things.
TLDR, call the police on these assholes and tell the cops they're trespassing.
Boston
Had a company pull the same crap two years ago. I believe it was called Just Energy. Same scam, same pushy salespersons.
energy scams
As I began to look into these scams I noticed that Nstar has Just energy listed as a competitive supplier on their website. Why?
Just Energy
Residential
Contact: Customer Service: [email protected]
P.O. Box 2210
Buffalo, NY 14240-2210
Telephone: 1.866.587.8674
Fax: 1.888.548.7690
www.justenergy.com
Sounds like
A perfect opportunity for that unemployed shitbag, sob story guy. He's absolutely qualified.
This is probably the graduate
This is probably the graduate program for those college kids on the street that take donations for abortion clinics and treehugger programs that follow you around everywhere.
Let in or Not...
I too find these "let me see your bill" people to be extremely obnoxious. You don't know who is at the door (could be a delivery or a neighbor) so it's hard to "just ignore" them when they knock. I keep meaning to generate a fake gas/electric/internet bill with the price being extremely cheap and tell them I'll switch if they do better.
"I pay $0.03/KwH with a long term contract locked in until 2020. If you agree to pay the $500 fee to break the contract and can offer me a rate of $0.02/KwH for 5 years I'll switch right now"
In most cases the scam is this ...
The excuse they give for wanting to look at your utility bill is to explain how they will save you money.
The REAL reason they want to look at the bill is that the bill contains enough information, particularly the account number, service address, service name etc. for them to take that data back to "home base" and then remotely transferring/moving you over as a new customer.
It's a variation of the landline phone cramming gimmick where all of a sudden you find yourself switched to a new long distance phone company without your knowledge or permission. In this case they are fraudulently switching your energy provider.
This cannot be overstated enough
Besides the pushy tactics and purposefully misleading statements, this is the actual crime that is being committed. It's well-documented with all of these secondary providers, and by the time you notice it it's almost too late. Fortunately, if you call your REAL provider right after the first impacted bill, they will usually reverse everything since it is a crime to do this kind of slamming, but if even just a small percentage of the victims never notice then it works for the company(ies).
TL;DR: don't ever, ever, ever show them your bill, even if you've made the mistake of letting them in.
Cite? I've never heard of
Cite? I've never heard of people being involuntarily switched.
Are you lazy?
Or just obtuse?
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=energy+company+scam+slamming
*edited-- the link didn't work initially*
There's no need for the
There's no need for the insults. *You* made the claim, so it's your responsibility to cite it.
Oh, my deepest apologies!
My dear anon, for suggesting that you were lazy or obtuse.
I should be the one apologizing for assuming that people who want to check things out can do so without a citation to back up every broad claim. Google is tough.
And I hadn't heard the term
And I hadn't heard the term "slamming". When I googled energy company scam, most of the reports were of sleazy sales tactics that promised big savings but jacked up the rates later.
I had to dig deep into multiple results before I found anything about totally involuntary switching based on stolen account numbers, which is what I asked for a cite about.
Well, then
Just show me your bill, and let's talk about how much money you'll save ...
Liberty Electric in East Boston
Liberty Electric in East Boston came by on Dec 10th. I also called 911 because they had hand written badges. Seemed pretty shady.
I get phone calls from them daily.
Figured that they were a scam. Thanks for the confirmation.
Allston/Brighton Too
We've had to call 911 on the Liberty Electric people too because they trick their way into the building [and that is equally the fault of the naive idiots who buzz people in without seeing who they are] and then won't leave.
And there is a No Soliciting sign at the building entrances.
It may not be as bad as those water company fakers that rob your house, but they need to make any soliciting [at your door or on the street] a felony offense.
Last week a guy with a
Last week a guy with a clipboard showed up at my house in Revere claiming he could save me money on my electric bill. Don't know if it's part of the same scam. After repeatedly telling him I wasn't interested, finally got rid of him.
Had a pushy lady in Malden
Had a pushy lady in Malden trying the same thing. Slightly different tactic this time - said she was from my "energy provider" and that I "forgot to complete the registration on the back of my last bill." I asked her directly if she was from National Grid, and she repeated that she was from the energy provider for National Grid. Grilled me about my bill, and got real snarky when I said I had paperless billing. Had to literally close the door on her to get her out of my foyer.
Sketchballs
I had a similar experience a while back. A group of these sketchballs were canvassing my apartment building. When they asked to see my bill, I did a "thanks but, no thanks--I will contact you directly if I need your services." Looked up the company online within minutes, and lo-and-behold, it was a scam that the BPD reported to be on a lookout for. I called the police, and a very nice officer showed up and spoke to them.
As I'm slowly but surely working my way toward becoming a dedicated equal-opportunity curmudgeon, I'm calling BPD when the Comcast douchebags show up and leave their pounds of flyers and trash around the building every September as well. "No soliciting" means no soliciting, and the inside of a locked apartment building is not a public area for you to leave your "promotional materials" under residents' doors. Get off my lawn.
In Roslindale last year
We encountered this scam in Roslindale last year. Different name for the energy company, but same "show me your bill" tactics. We have moved to another part of Rozzi and posted a 'No Soliciting' sign on the door, so I'm not sure if they have been around these parts lately.
me too
They came to my home in Roslindale a year or more ago. I asked if they could leave me a brochure to study and consider on my own but they didn't have one and continued their high pressure tactics to get me to sign up on the spot. Later I looked them up and found complains on various websites and BBB where people said their elderly relatives were scammed into signing up and they couldn't get out of the contract. Terrible.
Interrupting people watching the Patriots game ....
... isn't a smart way to sell anything around here. Wonder where these folks came from?
My alma mater
A small, liberal arts outfit which knew nothing of Sportsball, tried calling me to hit me up for money during a Patriots game a few years back.
I politely told them to look at a football schedule and area code map.
I was chatting with a friend the next day. He—a Seattle fan—had had the same phone call. Needless to say I didn't donate that year (for other reasons).
It seems that today everyone owns
a smart phone with a cameras. Take the persons picture and post is as you would out of concern for a lost pet or as a doppleganger. Now who does this energy salesperson look like?
Or you could go all Elaine on him
Seinfeld had this covered eons ago.
West Roxbury too
Yup happened to me too- right after I had a baby. Screaming infant in my arms and the guy wouldn't take no for an answer. Actually rolled his eyes and huffed at me- not the best scenario for a new mom.
What's the legality of the
What's the legality of the common space in a building? I live in a triple decker and my downstairs neighbor never locks the front door. A guy came in and knocked on my apartment door for a different reason - never rang the bell outside the house. I felt a little sketched out that he just let himself in, even though it wasn't into the apartment itself.
Door to door
Our nieghbors are tied into Nextdoor.com and when one of the pest shows up at someone's door we send out an alert to everyone (343 members) . The creeps learn fast and leave our area. It has been about a year since we seen them.
I was associated with Viridian Energy.
I really liked the concept of Viridian Energy because, if worked properly, there are potential fundraising benefits for non-profit corporations and maybe a bit of a savings for consumers while promoting the use of green energy but the inevitable actions of the independent contractors associated with companies like Viridian Energy have tarnished the industry. This is what happens when you have starving people trying to sell anything. There are no barriers to entry except for a paltry fee to get the business started. I'm not saying that I want the government to step in because it usually just makes a mess out of anything that it touches but maybe these third-party companies like Ambit Energy and Viridian Energy need to take a step back and reevaluate their processes because they're doing permanent damage to their brands right now.
Door knockers
A few years ago these guys (or ones like them) were going around the North End and got themselves into my building enough times that I'd started to just ignore the front door buzzer. One Sunday afternoon my door buzzed and I ignored it, then I heard my neighbor's buzzer across the hall go off and then my upstairs neighbor - which confirmed my first guess that it was these scammers. I guess someone answered the door eventually, because after a while someone knocked on my apartment door. Pissed off, I stayed on the sofa and ignored it twice before I yelled, "What????" in the general direction of the door.
To which the response was, "Boston PD, ma'am. Conducting a welfare check on [downstairs neighbor]."
Boy, did I feel like a asshole.
Pretty sketchy
Per the dozens of Yelp Reviews of Spark Energy. I almost feel bad for "April L" and "Martha L" of their Business Customer Service who reply to most of the bad reviews with "Spark Energy is certainly not a scam". One thing I learned a long time ago is that if someone says they're not a scam, they're a scam.
Spark Energy Scam Salesmen
Just had a young man with a clipboard knocking on my door and saying that rates with Eversource are going up and he could lower my rates. I told him just read an article that stated Eversource rates are going down and to get the --- out of here and I'm calling the cops. The cops questioned him and let me know that he was with Spark Energy (he did not tell me) and that they are getting calls from all over the city about these guys. The cops told him he was to check in with them before soliciting in the neighborhood in the future. I sent two emails to Spark Energy complaining about their salesmen and spoke on the phone to a Spark Energy Customer Service rep who told me they are using subcontractors who are supposed to identify themselves as agents of Spark Energy.