Video: IDT Energy Reps Won't Leave Until Customer Busts Out Camera, Calls Cops
Here's a video a citizen took of some classy IDT energy resale reps that infested her building and refused to leave. After 25 minutes, she took out the camera. Check out the video to see the kinds of professionally trained individuals IDT Energy uses. Note how at one point of the girls says she's "from he energy company." Not so, IDT Energy is not "the energy company." They're an ESCO, an energy resale company. According to the notes on the video, the girls only left after the cops showed up and told them to vacate the premises.
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Comments:
Can we ban this crap yet? IDT and everyone like them, GTFO.
Um, why did they descend on said building in the first place? They must have wanted something?
Yea, like money from everyone in the building?
@Mika Hutchison: IDT is one of the companies that Consumerist loves to hate the most. Click the "IDT ENERGY" tag after "Read More:" above and you'll start to get the idea.
They're from the energy company? I wonder if they know Lawrence Fishburne.
@Mika Hutchison: Yes, to sell something. Much like brush and encyclopedia salesman, most people don't want them.
@Mackinstyle: Honestly, I'm sure you have a ton of crappy things that happen in Canada so us Americans are hardly the only ones who deal with crappy people.
An IDT rep came to my boyfriend's door this past weekend after he left for work.
Quite polite, but still pushy. She gave me the usual spiel with a new one "your rates are going up TONIGHT!" (almost started laughing at that one). When I informed her I wasn't the apartment renter, she asked if I knew where he kept his ConEd bills. I was sort of stunned by this one.
Just wow.
@Mackinstyle: Yes, but you have those handsome mounties to ride to the rescue. Maybe we could borrow a few?
@Mackinstyle: Yep. I don't know why either.
Something along the lines of... more corporations less government.
Yet people fail to see that in the pass 100 years that more corporations hardly ensures the health of our nation. More corporations simply means high medicine prices, monopolies, and record profits in times where companies deny benefiting from high prices (I'm looking at you Valero and Exxon Mobile).
Sigh.
I guess I can't complain, or I'll here the "If you don't like it here you can move!" comments.
Don't know what province you're from but this kind of thing happens all the time in Ontario. CBC's Marketplae even did a show on it. 3rd-Party reseller of electricity and/or gas comes to people's door and says they want to look at your utility bill (making it look like they're from the utility co). Once they have your customer # from the bill they then sign you up (regardless of whether you've actually agreed to or not).
@loquaciousmusic: He misses the perimeter shot...
and slams the rebound!
Seriously, though... 1971?! GAWD, I'M OLD!
@RoryMaynard: @Mackinstyle: I live in the Greater Toronto Area and this happened to my wife. I was on my way home from work and she called me, saying that a representative from Enbridge (the gas company) was there to give us a discount, but she wasn't sure and he wouldn't leave. I talked to him on the phone and he said he was from Enrbridge, and we qualified for a discount. I told him to wait or come back later, and he said he couldn't. Then I told him no thanks, and told my wife to tell him to get out. She did, but then he said she had to sign this form in order to state that we didn't want the discount. Of course, that form was to sign up for Universal Energy and lock us in at a rate for gas for the next 5 years. The agent didn't sign the form or leave his ID number, and didn't show my wife any ID when he was there. When I got home I called Universal Energy up at once and started yelling, saying I was going to call the police because one of their agents had misrepresentated themselves. Apparently in Ontario you get a 10 day grace period to change your mind and we got out of it successfully.
While it is easier to block them with no solicitor signs than it is to block political or religious canvassers, it may not have been the OP's business to say who may and may not come into her building. I would love to see IDT go down, since clearly they are training their "agents" to lie and getting around it by claiming not too; nor do I like someone coming to my door uninvited. But if this is legal, as it currently is, it will keep being done.
@Mackinstyle: Believe it or not, Americans don't want to deal with this. That's why the police escorted them off the property.
Your mounties get called if people are doing things they don't mind putting up with, eh?
@Mackinstyle: Oh look, another Canadian with a smug sense of superiority who doesn't know that this happens all the time in Canada, too.
@RoryMaynard: Well, it depends on the province. Here in BC, we don't have that kind of mess because the energy companies are highly restricted. No deregulation allowed, unless the company works on a national level, and is granted the permission to do so, like Telus and Bell.
@AutoTuneShouldBeACrime_GitEmSteveDave: I skimmed the comment, went on to the next one, then processed it and giggled into my iced coffee. Well played. ;)
@Mika Hutchison: There's a term for the scam, like utility pushing. Basically, they're door to door sales men, reselling energy. On it's face it's just like the old school vacuum cleaner or encyclopedia salesman, but these people claim that they're from your current energy provider even though they're not, refuse to show identification and trick people into signing something using old tricks like putting a different piece of paper over what you're actually signing.
With energy reselling sometimes you can get a good deal, like if you sign up for a year long deal for your gas when the prices are low. Most of the time, not.
The days of the door-to-door salesmen are coming to a close because of stuff like this and the general (well-founded) mistrust of strangers and Jehova's Witnesses and Mormons.
@Mackinstyle: You know there's a politically correct term for socialism in America? It's 'public'...as in public schools, public police department, public highways...etc.
Burn these words into your mind. Post them on the wall beside your door if your spouse doesn't always remember them.
"I'm sorry, but I don't buy or sign anything via the phone or at my door. Please leave the information with me and I'll consider it (send it to me if it's a phone call). You're welcome to include your business card if you are paid by commission. Thanks!" (close door on their face if they choose not to heed your decision)
If you always do this you will never be scammed (except by high pressure sales at the car dealership, but that's another story). Make it a house policy. And make it one you stick by no matter how good the deal is, period.
@bobpence: If they had a sign clearly posted, no solicitors/salesmen or agents, then it is clear that they are not permitted and anyone can call to have them removed for trespass. Especially if it is a locked building. They would however, have to be an agent for the owner (landlord/manager) in order to have them arrested for trespass.
That' how it work in my area... but if no signs posted (closed to the public with the municipal code listed) then they are out of luck for the cops doing anything. Must be posted at the entrances. IANAL
Oh, and as a resident of Kitchener, ON I can tell you that when we moved into our townhouse we got various people trying to sell us BS energy "plans" for about a year. I think we shooed off at least a dozen of them.
It isn't illegal. And, for gas, the plans might have saved you (*very little*) money if you signed up at the right time. The returns aren't worth the risks, though.
@bobpence:
Most (all?) secured apartment buildings ban anyone who isn't either a tenant or escorted by a tenant from the building. In most of these buildings, even the paperboy is banned (you pick up your numbered newspaper from just beside the apartment intercom in the front hall).
The only other exceptions are usually for actual utility people, but only when they have a reason to be there (fixing things, hooking up customers, etc) and these people have access to a utility key box to enter the building with.
So, odds are these solicitors are NOT permitted on the premises.
Wow.
Sheena is NOT smart.
"Put me on YouTube being a scammer and a douchebag!"
@shepd:
My dad taught me these rules when I was young and I'm passing them on to my kids.
1. Don't buy anything over the phone
2. Don't buy anything at the front door
3. Don't buy anything from a TV commercial
Here in California (SF Bay Area) we have a regulated monopoly for our electric/gas which works for us.
There is nothing in that video to indicate that they were scamming anyone!!!
All you have to do is not open the door. Why do people open their door's for strangers?? I say no thanks and walk away. No utility company sends someone to your door without prior notice. And in an emergency, will provide you a phone number to confirm the situation.
IF YOU WANT TO FREAK THEM OUT:
Tell them you want to order Girl Scout Cookies. Or perhaps look them over and say "I could really use my bathroom cleaned, I'll give you $20 to scrub it really good"
Insist that they aren't representing a utility company and that you have no interest in buying an encyclopedia.
Or if you really want to scare them. Every time they pause break out into hysterical laughter and start a conversation with your alter ego.
@TrueBlue63:
Please post the number of times you have successfully "freaked" anyone "out" by doing any of these things because it sounds like you're just making unbelievably stupid crap up to appear funny on the internet.
Sorry- but if an apt building asks a salesperson to leave they are required to do so. By refusing to leave they are trespassing. What if they were a group of teens with skateboards skating on Apt property? You wouldn't say they couldnt be asked to leave.
I suspect an IDT troll.
"There is nothing in that video to indicate that they were scamming anyone!!!"
TrueBlue,, The IDT rep stated she was "From the energy company", when clearly she is not. Sounds like she was scamming someone to me...
@loquaciousmusic: Bizarre... that song was ALREADY playing in my head this morning... then it pops up on Consumerist.
I have the misfortune of living in a "deregulated" electricity market (Thanks Enron et al!) The way that I turn these schmucks away from my door is by having a contract for my electricity. Texas has a website where the resellers have to post their plans in a somewhat-standardized format for comparison. You still have to be watchful to get a good comparison, the disclosures all manage to look a bit different and to diddle around with the final $/kWh figure slightly, but at least it's all there to be deciphered. I pick the least-gouging one for the current contract cycle, and I can tell the door-to-door people to go away because I'm not paying to break my contract, or that their rate is too high (or both.)
@metaled: I don't care what's posted on the door. If the property owner, or a representative, asks you to leave private property then you must leave. Cops will throw you out or arrest you. No signage is necessary.
@GearheadGeek: Here I thought one of the joys of living in Texas was having a gun on you and being able to shoot trespassers.
@TrueBlue63: Excuse me, but I'm kinda busy cleaning. You can give me the pitch while I'm working though.
Then get to work cleaning a dozen firearms...
@Skankingmike: If all they are doing is trespassing, one can only shoot them with impunity after dark.
Dunno why so many Americans want to put up with stuff like this. Up here in Socialist Canada, we have laws and regulations strict enough to prevent this stuff. Instead of "Not a Utility Company" ours simply aren't allowed to exist.
Oh no my freedoms!