IDT Energy Continues To Con New Yorkers
Door to door marketers working for IDT Energy are still preying upon New Yorkers, pretending to work for ConEd in an effort to get residents to switch over electrical service to the energy reseller.
Reader Patrick provides the latest dispatch, from the West Village, where the neighborhood was crawling today with IDT salespeople. In typical fashion, the IDT employees maintained that they worked for ConEd and tried to bully residents into showing their bills. According to his report, the IDT workers resisted residents demands that they leave and argued with the super. Patrick called the cops but by the time they arrived, the IDT salespeople had left.
Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and the Public Utilities Commission need to deliver these guys a swift kick in the nuts, stat. Until then, residents beware. Patrick's letter, inside...
If IDT has come to your door, impersonating ConEd, file a complaint with the NY Attorney General's office by calling 212-416-8000.
Patrick writes:
Today a representative of IDT Energy came to my door (we do not allow canvassing in the building), presented herself as a Con Edison employee, (her EXACT words were "I'm with Con Ed"), and tried to convince me that I was entitled to a "reduction" in my energy costs, and literally DEMANDED to see my bill. She kept repeating, completely ignoring my asking for her Con Ed badge, "I NEED TO SEE YOUR BILL".After I insisted she was not with Con Ed, she said, well, "I'm with IDT", and I promptly asked her to leave the building. She refused, and continued to try and get me to sign over my energy commitment to IDT, pen in hand. After I threatened to call the police, I heard one of her colleagues talking to a tenant upstairs, realizing that there were four young women in the building, all very aggressive, perhaps not even knowing that they were slamming for an energy reseller...
These girls clearly thought they were doing something above board and verbally fought for the right to remain in the building. I demanded again, and when three of the four blocked my access to go back upstairs I then called the police. The girls waited a bit, arguing with the super, and then left. When the police arrived I informed them of the issue.
...Yet another issue of something which may be "technically legal" but which through means of lying and door to door intimidation, ends up hurting consumers and New Yorkers.
— BEN POPKEN
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Comments:
How can impersonating Con Ed employees be "technically legal"?
I don't see how this can be legal, either. This smells much like the "pretexting" thing that happened with the HP spy case.
From the FTC (http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/pretext.htm):
"When you think of your own personal assets, chances are your home, car, and savings and investments come to mind. But what about your Social Security number (SSN), telephone records and your bank and credit card account numbers? To people known as "pretexters," that information is a personal asset, too.
Pretexting is the practice of getting your personal information under false pretenses. Pretexters sell your information to people who may use it to get credit in your name, steal your assets, or to investigate or sue you. Pretexting is against the law."
Sounds like somebody ought to print up a couple of hundred thousand flyers that essentially say IDT = criminals and dump them out of a Cessna over Brooklyn at night. Back in the 1990s when I was in the military stationed in Seoul we would constantly find North Korean propaganda on the ground, and it always generated a small buzz when one of us found a flyer somewhere. We never did figure out whether they came in on balloons or were dropped by the Korean civilians, but it always got us saying "hey, look what I found".
Maybe the Consumerist should make up a PDF that people can put up in their buildings, documenting what IDT does.
Timmus do you think they'd be able to do that without crashing said light plane into the side of a building?
Im with John. I don't have the time to make a flier about IDT, but I do have the time to print a few out and post them by the front door of my building.
I live in the East Village and have yet to see any IDT impersonators, but Im sure they will be around soon.
I just got my 2nd bill from IDT, and a quick google search got me here.. Ok, I kinda felt this is a scam, but I neer signed up for this! Turns out my roomate did, but the account is under my name. That can't even be "technically legal", is it?
When someone continues to block my way they get punched in the mouth. They usually move. Sounds in order here.