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By Councillor John Ward
This is a tricky issue for those of us who genuinely want to find out what people’s wishes are, their opinions, and (around election times in particular) their voting intentions if they are prepared to disclose this. Incidentally, that last is actually quite useful as far as the one questioned is concerned, but that is a lengthy discussion, so is for another time, I think.
Being pestered on one’s own doorstep, or in the street, is something about which many of us feel uncomfortable. So much “cold calling” and similar still goes on in this way, especially as other forms of cold calling have (rightly) been outlawed, such as by telephone, fax or email. Obviously, this was done for very good reasons: it wasn’t a spurious reaction, but in the interests of consumer protection.
Not that the legislation stops them: they merely ring, fax or email from abroad instead. Obviously, any outfit going to such lengths to flout our British laws has to be dodgy, by definition — and that leads me onto my subject for today.
Yes, it’s the ongoing saga of energy providers to pay people to come around with clipboards and identity badges to try to persuade you to change your energy provider. The fact that they feel the need to “cold call” in this way — despite the clear message from legislation in this area that the practice is considered unacceptable — once again shows that they are not to be trusted — ever!
It is nowadays well known that the cold-calling “representatives” at your door are very highly trained to elicit a sale, particularly to the most vulnerable and susceptible members of society, and even in extremely difficult circumstances — they have the “patter” and the techniques to break down resistance. Personally, I put them in the same category as all others with a similar self-serving agenda. To me, they are amongst the lowest of the low. I can and do handle them, usually quite emphatically after reminding them that no reputable business would conduct itself in such a manner (which it plainly wouldn’t).
I permanently “blacklist” any organisation that ever tries this on: they will never get my business. This is the only way to discourage these people — make sure they lose out through their dubious practices.
Remember that, no matter how attractive the sales pitch might be, that is all it is. The rep’ will do very well out of a sale (i.e. by signing-up to them) as will the company behind the initiative. These people aren’t trudging around our streets as volunteers — they are well-paid employees (or equivalent) of very profitable companies.
My advice: don’t deal with them — ever!
Councillor Ward is one of the 3 Councillors for Rochester South & Horsted Ward on Medway Council – you can view his website here.
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I agree.
We were thinking about having our home phone/internet all provided by Orange (we currently only have internet provided by Orange).
The cold-called us or something (I can’t quite remember this bit) and we said we were thinking about it. I lost count the number of times they rang that week. Eventually we told them to stop calling, or we’d stop with them altogether.
By continually calling, they’d lost a potential customer.
But yeah, something should be done about foreign callers, we must get one about every three days, maybe more. We have caller ID, so it shows as “International” and we don’t bother picking up.
Very irritating, I agree.