BES Scam - said EDF unable supply sole traders & EDF asked them to supply me - LIARS!!

[MissyT]

Hello, I urgently need some help with BES utilities.

 

I have business premises and my current electric supplier - PFP Energy - was due to expire on Friday 23 July.

 

On Wednesday 21 July, I searched for quotes via compare the market for a new supplier and was told a broker would get in touch with me.

 

Bionic called me immediately and signed me up to EDF. Fixed rate for 2 years. I was happy with this.

 

On Friday 23 July I received multiple calls from a new broker - Power 4 Business - who told me that EDF were unable to become my supplier because they weren’t supporting sole traders. They said EDF had passed them my details to find an alternative.

 

I was very harassed and said I didn’t have time to go through another registration process as was in with clients all day. They said I had to get it sorted immediately or I was at risk of being cut off (I realise now I was naive to believe this).

 

In a panic, I authorised them to speak with a friend who helps me with the admin side of my business. They phoned her and agreed on a slightly more expensive tariff than EDF but said this was the best we could get. The new supplier was BES. My friend went ahead with this on my behalf, believing it was the best deal available.

 

On Saturday 24 July I received a Welcome email from EDF.

 

On Tuesday I phoned Buonic, the original broker to try to find out what had happened. They said that EDF had accepted me as a new account and everything had gone through as expected. On further investigation, they confirmed that my EDF supply switch had been cancelled by BES as my new supplier. At this point I realised I had been scammed.

 

I called BES to explain the situation and they couldn’t have cared less and have told me that I can’t cancel the contract, there is no cooling off period. I was on the phone for over an hour. Tried to escalate, managers were “all in meetings”. They stated they’d listened to the onboarding call and I had no grounds to cancel the contract.

 

In addition to the above, the “contract” with BES has been incorrectly set up in my friends name, not mine. 

I have emailed them to confirm in writing that I want this contract terminated with immediate effect, and copied in ofgem. I received an automatic response stating they’d reply within 14 days.

 

Can anyone advise what I should do next? I’ve read so much on the internet tonight about BES and I absolutely do not want to go with them based on their customer service reviews and the fact that they seem to frequently acquire business via brokers who have lied to the consumers and tricked them into signing up to their supply. No one seems to have successfully navigated past their poor customer service and harassing sales tactics. They are due to take over the supply on 12 August.

They’ve said they’ll send recordings of the calls, however I know that they only switched on the recording function selectively throughout the process. 

 

Any help would be gratefully received! Thank you.

[dx100uk]

deal with EDF directly explain to them BES have done their usual trick and told you a lie that EDF were unable to become my supplier because they weren’t supporting sole traders and They said EDF had passed them my details to find an alternative.

 

tell them you wish to be with EDF .

[MissyT]

Will that work? From everything I’ve read, BES block you from changing supplier.

 

ps. Thank you for replying so quickly.

 

[dx100uk]

works both ways. 

if BES can block EDF ...EDF can block BES. 

they will be well aware of how BES operate i can assure you.

 

the issue here is you told Power 4 Business who was suppling you, well got cleverly scammed into revealing that on the phone, as there is no way they would ever been a party to that info!!

 

you also phoned BES, they'll lie through their teeth to scam anyone.

 

yo can ring EDF and sort it out, but don't ever ring scammers without recording the call.

 

 

[BankFodder]

Also please get hold of the recordings.

If they have been switched on and off – or edited, it will be clear from the recordings.

If you are unable to switch back to EDF then if you fancy an interesting fight, we will help you because it's about time that somebody took on BES Utilities and we would be very pleased to assist.

Get the recordings before they are deleted under their "retention policy".

 

Also, I suggest that you and also the other person involved sit down for half an hour or so and make a detailed statement of exactly what happened – the conversation. Make sure it's timed and dated.

If this does have to go further than having contemporaneous statements – or as close as possible will be enormously helpful.

If this did have to go further than I would envisage a claim for misrepresentation.

[MissyT]

EDF have said there is nothing they can do to help. They advised me to get in touch with the 2nd broker. 

[BankFodder]

In that case get hold of the call recordings.

Also, start claiming this forum and also the Internet for similar stories. Get screenshots – or better still save the pages out into PDF format so that you can gather together a bundle of similar stories which becomes overwhelming.

If you're able to reach out to any of the people who have made similar complaints to you then that would be helpful if you can get their contact details for yourself. If you do get any contact details then we can give you advice as to how to approach them and what to ask for.

I'm quite sure that there are lots of people who have fallen for this telephone game in exactly the same way that you have and they would love either to get out of their contracts or else to share information to take BES down once and for all.

I'm afraid that it is already be very time consuming – and maybe you can get your friend to help you with this because it seems to me that that friend has contributed quite substantially to the problem.

The call recordings will be extremely important. It will become completely clear whether they are complete. Set about gathering them. You could try sending BES and SAR and asked for the call recordings.

However you should also approach them on the telephone and asked them for the call recordings.

Of course I suppose you don't record your calls. Please read our customer services guide. It is a big mistake for anybody not to record their calls when dealing with businesses – especially if you are a business yourself. This should be standard practice and now you're starting to understand why

[MissyT]

I’ve think I’ve managed to get this resolved. My existing supplier has objected to the supplier being switched. Energy Advice service recommended this course of action. Hoping that this puts an end to it and a valuable lesson has been learned.

[BankFodder]

That's great news. Thanks for updating us.

When it's all confirmed maybe you can let us know that as well.

Thanks