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.

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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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