Standard content for Members only

To continue reading this article, please login to your Utility Week account, Start 14 day trial or Become a member.

If your organisation already has a corporate membership and you haven’t activated it simply follow the register link below. Check here.

Become a member

Start 14 day trial

Login Register

EDF and Scottish Power call for wider review of sales tactics

EDF and Scottish Power have called for a wider inquiry into sales tactics by the Energy and Climate Change Committee (ECCC), following allegations from the media that SSE used scare tactics and misinformation to keep customers.

The ECCC published responses to its review of sales tactics by the largest energy suppliers, in which EDF and Scottish Power urged the committee to broaden its inquiry to include smaller suppliers, third party intermediaries and price comparison websites.

“We cannot achieve this alone, it requires the entire industry to consistently uphold the highest standards. This is why we encourage your committee to broaden the scope of this inquiry… To improve the service delivered to customers, we should all face the same scrutiny,” EDF said in its letter.   

Scottish Power noted that in the latest statistics from Energy UK, 43 per cent of all switched in April were from larger to small and mid-tier suppliers, suggesting that for this reason “it might, therefore, be useful for the committee to take a wider industry perspective and review practices across a wider group of suppliers.”

SSE was accused of using unfair sales techniques including scaring customers about switching in May 2016 and a probe has been launched by Ofgem to investigate.