Well not quite evil but close to it. I chose Scottish Gas for electricity/gas supply because they would let me sign up online. Scottish Power’s website only gave me a big notice saying “you need to use Internet Explorer”. So an easy choice there.
Today someone from Scottish Power comes round saying they are reviewing my details and want to check to see if I’m paying the correct amount. Somewhat suspicious I point out that I’m not a customer of Scottish Power but oh no Scottish Power are indeed my actual supplyer (true, for some definition of supplyer) and it’s important that they review to make sure I’m paying the correct amount. Is this a marketing call? No. Being the trusting sort, and brought up to believe that no means no I show the bills. So she looks at the bills, tuts at how I’m paying for an estimated amount, tuts at the kilowatt hours I’m paying and says it should really be only 1.7, a bit more scribbles etc. She looks at the metres, somehow making it believable that she is doing something with them when it’s quite clear she’s using it as an excuse to get into the house and not be left standing on the doorstep. Is this me on the bills? Oh but one of them is spelt wrong and one of them isn’t taken by direct debit, would I like to change my direct debit to be joint on both bills? Yes I would actually but that’s none of your business since I’m not your customer. You seem to be filling in a form for change of supplyer. No no, we are already your supplyer, she’s just changing it so I’m only going through one company instead of two. Politely told her I don’t wish to change supplyer thank you and I have good reasons for going with their competition (i.e. the website that mostly works).
When I lived in Bridge of Allan an incompetant salesman from npower came round and tried to get me to buy electricity from them, unlike this women he didn’t lie he said he didn’t “actually know how the supplyer thing works”, he had a list of prices so I could see what I would be paying if I changed and he had an interesting product (wind power only, I’m into those sorts of things) so he got his commission. Scottish Power’s website looks like it does work with something other than IE now but there’s no way I’m changing my supplyer to one which will lie to me.