Another update: Speaking of reading ability, the next two JE reps who came one after another (and started in immediately with many of the same misrepresentations and outright lies outlined here) in October 2012 completely ignored the 'NO SOLICITORS' sign on our mailbox and were thankfully escorted off our property by the next neighbour they tried (I didn't have the energy or courage to go that far that day.) I've made a bigger sign with an explicit ban on JE. How it fares remains to be seen.
This is the account of our visit from an employee (or Independent Contractor...not sure how it works but that's the term used on their form) of Just Energy Ontario L.P. named Sarah. I will put a footnote beside everything that later turned out to be blatantly false or misleading. Update 2012/05/16: I forgot to correct this before to mention that some of the illegal actions by Just Energy ICs committed that day, e.g. the verbal assault, littering, and trespassing, I have not footnoted where they occur in this account, since I thought they were obvious and did not need further explanation.
Our visit began shortly before 3pm on Saturday, May 12th, 2012. Sarah showed up at our door with some forms. She may or may not have introduced herself, but she did not give a business card [1] and was not wearing a badge [2] (it was with the papers she was holding). She said she needed to check our hydro bill quickly (she tried to keep everything at a fast pace) for the Ontario energy credit.[3] Being wary of electricity scams that I had heard of over the past five years or so, I said that I didn't have our bill handy and she could just leave the forms with me to look over. She said it'd be better to sign up now, because we would get a $50 [4] credit on our bill [5], and that practically everyone else in our co-op had already done this: we were among the last three.[6] Since we were one of the newer members of our co-op, having moved in late November, 2011, I took her at her word and went and got the bill. When I returned with it, I asked her if she was from Waterloo North Hydro, and she said that she was with "the green energy company", which I at first took a bit literally to mean that she was with a company called The Green Energy Company [7] (I hadn't heard of it, but I also hadn't heard of Just Energy, either.) She went on to explain that Ontario was getting rid of coal and nuclear and focusing on wind, solar, etc. (that much I had read in the news) and that almost everyone in the province had signed up to convert to this.[8]
I was still skeptical at this point, so I insisted on reading the forms we were being asked to sign. She assured me that there was no risk in signing, because of all the scams going around, there was a new law this year [9] allowing a cool-off period, so that we could cancel in the next ten days without trouble.[10] She underlined on a form called Electricity Contracts / Disclosure Statement that if we did not verify the contract after signing, "it will become invalid." It's at this point that I noticed that she was holding what I thought were two copies of this form, stacked in such a way that the this form was on top and one underneath had only its signature line (the bottom 2 cm of the form) peeking out, and assumed that the one underneath was for the next person she would be calling on--so little of it was showing, and they're tall forms, it'd be easy for them to slide a bit from being stacked squarely. So I read the main form, the Just Energy Customer Agreement (ON_SVC_PAD_MT_CODE34667_117190_V2_APR_24_12) and insisted on reading through the terms. I took a look at the page underneath the white top page I was looking at, and it was a pink carbon copy, so it seemed that the form was only one page. The only HINT on this page that there are more pages, is right at near the bottom, where it says, "For more details please see paragraph 6 'Charges under this Agreement'." Sarah never indicated that there were more terms to read, despite my expressed interest to read all the terms before signing anything. Also this is the only form I've ever come across (and I'm an administrator, I fill out a lot of forms) where the signature comes *before* the full set of terms and conditions, unless they're in an entirely separate document. It doesn't even say something like "page 1 of 4".
That's not the only problem with the form itself. It also says, "You received a text-based copy of this Agreement, including the Disclosure Statement(s) and Price Comparison Document(s), before signing this agreement." However, the Disclosure Statement states at the bottom, in bold, "This disclosure statement is not part of the contract." Unfortunately, due to the fast pace of the conversation and the fact that I'd already spent 20 minutes of my free Saturday time on an unsolicited sales call, my initial read of both these pages did not result in me realizing this contradiction. In fact, due to the "(s)" in the statement on the form, I didn't even realize that I had not been shown a Price Comparison Document, either. As it later turned out, this was the document that I had thought was a second copy of the Disclosure Statement, hiding underneath it with only its signature line showing.[11]
But I did insist on reading the disclosure statement, which convinced me that it was from the Ontario Energy Board and not their company. That reassured me enough about our ability to cancel the whole thing to continue the conversation. Sarah explained that we would be saving money because the most we would ever pay is under the mid-peak price.[12] She then underlined our on-peak time on our bill and said, in her words, "that will be wiped off your bill." I asked her about this, because it didn't make sense to me. To me "wiped off" means erased, meaning we don't have to pay for it--but that couldn't be right, because on-peak time is the most expensive for the company to provide, there's no way they would it give it for free. I explained this a couple times to her (each time eliciting a response of on-peak being "wiped off your bill"), and after pressing the issue, she admitted that she had only worked there a week or two and didn't quite have all the details down yet. I said I understood, that it takes time to get used to a new job, and related one of my own experiences at a new job, not getting really in the groove for the first month or two. She asked how she was doing but at first, because I had just mentioned my experience, I misheard her as asking how I was doing now with it, and I said, "okay, I guess." When I saw her reaction I then realized what she had actually said and, embarrassed, retracted my "okay" and said she was doing just fine and explained how I had misheard and even repeated my "okay, I guess" in a much more dramatic way, and we shared a laugh about it, and she said that was good to hear, and that all my skepticism and questions were good because they were a good learning process for her, things she'll have to find out about so she's more ready with answers. I apologetically told her I did believe we'd be saving money, but there were so many scams, I needed to check.
After this point she knows she has my trust and sympathy, and even if she has only been there for one week, she seems to be aware that now she can use it to just override the printed words we're binding ourselves to with my partner's signature. We return to the bottom of the form, which says "Mid-Peak RPP Price - 0.1 cents / kWh for a 5 Year Term" and although I've become convinced by hear that this only lowers our on-peak price and does not raise our off-peak price, she preemptively explains that the "5 Year Term" (she had the gall to underline it while contradicting it) does not lock us into this pricing [13] and merely protects [14] us for 5 years even if we move (hey! bonus! that sounds nice, right?), but after that we can renew it ourselves just by calling them.
After signing [15] the Price Comparison Document that we were kept from reading, Sarah crossed out, on our yellow carbon copy, the two parts of the comparison, explaining that "this really only applies to rich people" who "live in mansions" and "keep everything running all day." [16] I said that we had a refrigerator going and such but otherwise tried to keep it to a minimum, so I thought, I guess that's true, and still did not read the actual comparison until after she left, trusting that she had a reason to cross it out, just as she had crossed out the natural gas part of the contract and brochure earlier. She was good at crossing out inapplicable things. It made sense and simplified things and by this point it would have been nice to get on with enjoying my Saturday afternoon with my daughter and my partner who was leaving the next day, which, it turned out, thanks to Sarah and Just Energy, would be more difficult to enjoy than it should have been. I now feel foolish, looking at this Price Comparison Document, which has essentially nothing that wasn't crossed out by Sarah, except for my partner's signature (and other signature carbon from the Disclosure Statement that was on top of it.) Had I read these crossed-out sections I certainly would never have told my partner that it seemed legitimate to sign, because it clearly shows, based on a hypothetical residential customer who uses 64% off-peak, 18% mid-peak, and 18% on-peak, that they would pay about 23% more for their electricity every month if they signed up with Just Energy ($79.20 as opposed to sticking with our utility for $64.53.) Update 2012/05/16: I just took a second to calculate how much our last bill would be with Just Energy @ 9.1 cents / kWh (since at the time of our last bill, mid-peak was 9.2 cents / kWh), and it's about 15% more than with Waterloo North Hydro. I wish I had done this in the first place. A real salesperson would have insisted upon it.
This is where Sarah's use of their brochure is also a shining example of deception. The brochure shows the same time-of-use charts the province has put out, and says, "If you are like most Canadian consumers, a significant portion of your electricity usage will occur in expensive mid-peak and peak periods." Sarah explained that this is how it is with our current bill. She then drew a line between that part and the next part, which has no pie charts--because that would make it obvious that "most" and "significant" are highly relative terms, and obvious that the off-peak price *increases* to just below the mid-peak, which I did not realize until after she left--and reiterated that after signing up with MyTime advantage everything is cheaper.
After she left, and I started to realize what had just happened, I went online to check up on these things. Unfortunately, at the time, both oeb.gov.on.ca and ontarioenergyboard.ca were down (verified with downforeveryoneorjustme.com ) so while I started finding blog postings about Just Energy and checking the Better Business Bureau web site's profile of them, an e-mail came in from one of my neighbours, reporting that he had just been visited by Just Energy and had been lied to. Meanwhile my next door neighbour heard me cursing while reading about Just Energy and realizing just how extensive their misdeeds had been, from Sarah who had appeared to be a nice person and had the nerve to wish my partner a happy Mother's Day while having just signed her over to pay more for our necessities. He let me know that the neighbour who had sent the e-mail was over at the other end of the co-op asking the three Just Energy representatives to leave. So I went over there to meet him coming back from around the corner where the representatives had just been asked to leave, and after exchanging a few words, he saw that he had my support and we went together to ask them again to leave the co-op property.
There we found Sarah, and reps whom I will call R1 and R2 since I don't know their names, sitting on the curb together. My neighbour told them that they had lied to us, and that they were not welcome here. They (throughout here, mostly R1 and R2; Sarah may actually have been telling the truth about being new, because she didn't talk much during this interaction) responded quite defensively, saying that we weren't officially signed up if we didn't activate, etc. (see [10] again for my skepticism on this.) We began to explain precisely how they had mislead us and why we didn't want our neighbours--some of whom are elderly, others on disability, etc.--to also be mislead. They accused my neighbour of being "full of shit" and said that he had "escaped from an insane asylum." We again asked that they leave, and said that we should be calling the cops, to which they responded that they should be calling the cops on us because we were harassing them. They said that we should leave them alone because they were just waiting for their ride. We said they could wait off of our property, on the traffic island or the walking trail about 20m away. They said where they currently were wasn't our property. We said it was, because this was a co-op, and the members all own it together. R1 responded by saying a co-op was "just" government housing, which it isn't--only a small portion of our co-op is subsidized by the government, but the co-op itself, as we said, is owned and operated by its members, together. They still refused to leave, and R1 said that the conversation was over. R2, who had been smoking, at this point threw her cigarette butt on our walkway. I told her that recently we had all been out here and I personally had cleaned up many cigarette butts, and asked if she could pick it up. She responded by asking what she should do with it, since there was no garbage can or ashtray around. I asked her why she wasn't carrying anything to put it away in. She didn't respond. (I've never smoked, so I don't know how these things work, but nonetheless, this added to the list of ways we had just been treated disrespectfully today.)
Ignoring R1's claim that the conversation was already over, I pointed out something I had just read online, that legitimate salespeople wear badges and distribute business cards. They showed that they had their badges with their forms (not the same as wearing them) and R1, despite her own claim that the conversation was over, also then said that the business card rule was for commercial, not residential. [17] My neighbour then asked to see their badges. They covered them up, R2 adding, "No, then you'll just file some stupid complaint!" My neighbour responded by affirming her logic. Nonetheless, he and I are not very pushy by nature and were clearly out of our element in dealing with these three, so we left them there (they still refused to leave our property) warning them that if we saw them making any more sales calls here we would be calling the police. They said that was fine, their ride would be here in a half hour; one of them then joked that that would be all the more motivation to make another sales call, just to see what would happen with the cops. I started to say that I realized there are some crappy jobs out there and that these days you don't always get a job you can feel good about doing, when R1 cut in with, "Whaddaya mean? I love my job," and that anyway this conversation was over a long time ago. We walked away. Unfortunately we were not able to monitor them as well as we had told them just then, and later we heard from another neighbour very close to where they were that they had also been conned into signing up. It's not clear (our memories and records of what occurred when are not precise enough) whether they came back for another sales call despite our warning and their assurance that they were done here, or if this other neighbour was just one of the last ones they visited, but after everything else it wouldn't surprise me either way.
As my neighbours have also expressed about this situation, it's not so much that we signed up and have to cancel--although that bugs me too--but just how deceitful these representatives were that really hurts us. We have enough other things to deal with in life without such visits that leave you feeling that either you have to never trust anyone at your door in the slightest, or risk being scammed. It's really erosive to community trust, to trust in human beings; the whole thing just makes you feel dirty, like someone has attacked you for no reason. I've had a headache since then, and trouble sleeping. I hope that by having written this out, I can more easily put it behind me, and hopefully help others to avoid getting caught up in such a thing in the first place. I feel I'm a pretty cautious person with good reading skills. I also have a math degree from the University of Waterloo. If I can get duped so easily, I worry for the more vulnerable among us.
Sincerely,
Kevin Field
Resident of Waterloo, ON
PS I'm submitting this to the Better Business Bureau, among other places, but I have to note that I'm not entirely confident in their system, which gives our regional Just Energy company an A- on a scale of A+ down to F.
PPS Update 2012/05/16 on my interaction with the BBB: It gets "better" in that the "Better Business Bureau" closed my complaint after talking with me yesterday on the 15th. Agent Theresa from the BBB basically told me it's my fault for signing, the OEB provisions don't help and the BBB has nothing to do with them, and that I'd better spend money on sending a formal cancellation request (per the 2002-legislated cooling off period, not the 2010/2011 OEB legislation...and not even per the 2002-legislated right to cancel if they lied to you or did not provide all the information, even if it's not within 10 days) by registered mail even though Just Energy said on the phone they had cancelled*, because you're only protected if you take extra steps to protect yourself this way. With such falsely expedited complaint resolution, it's no wonder the BBB feels justified in its A- rating of Just Energy by the manner of the "response to 479 complaint(s) filed against business" and the manner of the "resolution of complaint(s) filed against business." This whole interaction seems to be fighting wholeheartedly against their vision of "An ethical marketplace where buyers and sellers can trust each other," but then again, the BBB isn't listed on its own web site, so at this point my recourse for complaining, I suppose, is to be rich enough to afford a lawyer. No can do.
* The cancellation was obtained after the fourth call, which my partner made on the 15th, and in which Just Energy's Amrit, ID 75228, insisted that there would be no cancellation confirmation number, and hassled her for details even though it's her right to cancel for any reason whatsoever and she had already told him some of the principal reasons, that they had lied to us and directly insulted us while on our property.) So much for "better" business. I was tempted to call back after thinking about my conversation with Theresa at the BBB, but I'm not even going to bother getting into it, because she was just as pushy as Sarah at Just Energy (and their phone reps), if not more, and, it seems pretty clear from our conversation, had not even read the story of my complaint and wasn't even up-to-date on provincial consumer protection legislation.
Update 2012/05/18: Today I received a letter in the mail from the BBB stating: "We regret to inform you that your BBB cannot process your complaint. [...] The following items are not handled by your BBB: [...a long list of things that don't apply except for...,] criminal allegations, [...], cancellation of contracts [...]." Sure, those two things are PART of our complaint. However, if NO part of our complaint actually does fall within the BBB's scope, I'm not sure what the point of the BBB is (especially given that I had trouble choosing a subcategory to file the complaint under, because so many of their subcategories DID apply.) Meanwhile we had succumbed to the BBB's scary stories of what happens if you don't protect yourself by sending a cancellation letter by registered mail, and sent it. According to Canada Post's tracking system, it was successfully delivered, but the signatory name and signature are not available. So I called them, and thank you Canada Post that I didn't have to wait on hold, but apparently the driver is able to register something as "delivered" before it actually is. Further update 2012/05/18: as of 3:15 pm the signature did show up, even though since 12:17 it has been marked as delivered, and now the signature appears as if it happened before it was marked as delivered, also at 12:17. It was signed for by one J Downey. So they got our formal cancellation-reply (we want a letter back saying that it's cancelled, my partner explicitly stated in the letter) request within ten days of the sales call, for the record.
Meanwhile on 2012/05/18 a representative from the Ontario Energy Board called, with reference number 20120006138, to say that the complaint would be sent to the company, and said that the legislation does say we can cancel via letter but that some companies also allow cancellations by phone. She also confirmed, however, what I had tried to tell the BBB agent, that the signature does not cause the contract to come into effect until it is validated by phone, because it falls under the 2011 legislation, not the 2002 legislation. She stated that what the BBB agent had said about this, that it does not protect us sufficiently from having our account definitively cancelled, was misinformation. However, I still am not sure I trust Just Energy to follow the 2011 rules, since they, as I showed above, went out of their way to skirt them already: that is to say, we legally do not have to do anything except wait for Just Energy to call, and then tell them that we do not wish to validate the contract, but our experience thus far suggests that it would not be beyond the record of their tactics to do something like "accidentally" activate the contract in their system contrary to our verbal non-authorization over the phone. It would be much harder to undo that than it would be to do it in the first place, which so far has been the whole nature of their game. So, as the OEB rep said, now we wait.
So far, this nice little "no obligation" visit from "Just" Energy has cost me and my partner over 12 hours of labour and $8.25 in postage. I'll be glad when this really is finally over. Hopefully the last piece of this headache of a puzzle will be when the Ontario Energy Board responds to my complaint.
Another update on 2012/06/12: This past Saturday a Just Energy representative called our house, and since I had someone visiting briefly and it was already clear that they weren't able to get into any actual details (so said the representative, anyway) I asked if they would call me back in 20 minutes, and she said she would. Not only did that not happen, but as of Tuesday nobody has bothered calling us again.
[1] According to http://www.ontarioenergyboard.ca/OEB/Consumers/Energy+Contracts/Before+Signing+an+Energy+Contract "A salesperson who comes to your home or business must provide a business card that includes, among other things, their name and the name, address, phone number and Ontario Energy Board licence number of the company they represent."
[2] According to http://www.ontarioenergyboard.ca/OEB/Consumers/Energy+Contracts/Before+Signing+an+Energy+Contract salespeople "must also wear a valid identification badge that includes, among other things, their name, a recent photo, and the name of the company they represent."
[3] The Ontario energy credit has nothing to do with Just Energy. According to one former Just Energy employee, the reason they check the bill is to verify that you're not already signed up with a term contract. See "Posted by: Julia | Saturday, September 04, 2010 at 12:27 PM" at http://ivebeenmugged.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/05/just-energy.html .
[4] This should have been "up to," which she never said. It's actually only $25 since we don't also have gas service--she never ended up mentioning this. Update 2012/05/16: This is the fine print of enrollment brochure ON_DUAL_PREDTBLL_MYTME_BROCHURE_EN_v11_MAR_27_2012, the one they write your activation code on:
[5] It's actually a prepaid MasterCard. Ibid.
[6] I've personally so far talked to people from four other units since Sarah visited, who have verified that they do not have a contract with Just Energy. This is the second time in the past six months, according to one neighbour, that Just Energy has come around here.
[7] Although the forms we ended up signing do say "Just Energy" on them, the pace of the conversation was kept fast enough that it did not click in my mind to call her out on this. Meanwhile, she never verbally named Just Energy as the one she was representing.
[8] The provincial government's overall energy plan and people's signatures on Just Energy forms are two different things. Also, nowhere in the contract does it mention Just Energy actually ensuring a green energy supply like Bullfrog and other companies. They may do it, but it's certainly not what they're advertising. And I don't think it's too unfair an assumption to make, in this era of greenwashing, that if a company was a green energy supplier they would add that to their brochure, especially with companies like Bullfrog using it as their main selling point, as can be seen on their front page at http://www.bullfrogpower.com/ . Also, according to one neighbour, several people who have signed up for Just Energy from here in the past were merely given energy saving kits as a signup bonus, but this wasn't part of our conversation with Sarah. Furthermore, after some research, Just Energy does appear to offer a green program, JustGreen Power ( http://www.justenergy.com/green-energy/our-green-products/ ) , but nowhere in the papers left us is this mentioned. In fact, the product we were pressured into signing up for is called MyTime ( http://www.justenergy.com/residential/products-and-rates/ ) from their web site does not appear to be green-sourced.
[9] It came into effect January 1, 2011 according to http://news.ontario.ca/mei/en/2010/04/new-protections-for-energy-consumers.html .
[10] About 20-30 minutes after she left, and I realized we did not want this contract, we called Just Energy to cancel. The man I talked to said since it was so recent, it was not yet in the system. However, Sarah had called them, from our phone, to obtain an activation code for us by doing just that: putting us in the system. I said this to him, and he said he couldn't do anything about it, and that we would have to phone again in 1-2 days. I asked if he couldn't put a post-it note on his desk to take it out of the system when it was available. He said no. My partner, the signatory, is away now for the next week, even if it is available. So, that's fine, it's still within 10 days, after she gets back. As if we have nothing better to do, and, all this from an unsolicited sales call. According to the Energy Board, if we do not verify the contact, it becomes invalid. But can I trust, after everything else I am recording here, that Just Energy will properly follow that rule? I guess we will find out. She just notified me (today, May 14th, 2012) that she tried calling the number that Just Energy included in her sign-up e-mail (we never activated, thankfully) and that when she phones it says their office is currently closed (at 1pm on a Monday? when their reps are even out on Saturdays?) and or it says that the number is not in service.
[11] I have evidence of this, thanks to carbon copy technology: you can clearly see on the Price Comparison Document a second, slightly more faded, signature and date above the first, where, when my partner signed the Disclosure Statement, her signature went through 3 layers instead of 1 to get to the carbon copy of the Price Comparison Document. So it was clearly signed without my partner getting to read it first either! Furthermore, if you place the one on top of the other such that the faint signature lines up with the stronger impression of it, so you can see how the pages were arranged at the time of signing, not even the line above the signature is showing. Had it been, it might have been more obvious that two different documents were being signed, because on the Price Comparison Document it says in normal type, "I acknowledge that I have read and understood this price comparison" whereas the Disclosure Statement says, in bold type, "I acknowledge that I have read and understood this Disclosure Statement", which sticks out a bit further and catches the eye. This left only the tiny document control number in the lower right hand corner as the only difference to be noticed between the two papers being signed: DSEL012011 vs NER700. Again, with a fast-paced conversation that you never asked for, this is not a detail that might easily be picked up. Update 2012/05/16: here are two scans, showing how the DS was covering up everything on the PCD except the very bottom at the time of signing and dating (I've left my partner's signature off this so as not to drag her into it, but you can tell from the date alone just the same):
(You can tell the two dates apart pretty easily by the style of the "1" in the year. If you then line up the stronger imprint over the lighter imprint, you see how it looked during the signing of both documents):
[12] This is not saving money. What she never mentioned is that your cost for your off-peak usage will also be mid-peak pricing minus a tenth of a cent. Since, like most people--especially those who try to make use of TOU pricing to save money--our off-peak usage is the majority of our usage, there is no possible way that nearly doubling the price of the majority, even if a minority also gets cut back 20% in price, results in a net savings. This would have been abundantly clear if we had been shown the Price Comparison Document, but more on that later.
[13] That's exactly what it does, unless you are willing to pay "liquidated damages in the amount of $100 for each full and partial year left in the Term, per Location," according to paragraph 10 of the terms I did not even know existed until after she left. So, sure, if you have up to $500 that you don't mind giving to Just Energy, you can purchase the right to not be locked in, any time.
[14] This may or may not be true, in the same sense that locking yourself into a particular mortgage rate may or may not "protect" you from a market fluctuation that is not in your favour. If electricity goes down, it's protecting you from savings. Furthermore, it doesn't even appear to do that. According to the line just below it, "The Mid-Peak RPP Price may change every six months in accordance with OEB policies and practices and the Customer will not receive notice of such change." So, if my understanding is correct now, you're locked in for five years to a price that changes every six months, on the first less-than-six-month span of which you can know in advance.
[15] Again some carbon copy evidence, there are blue pen marks on our carbon copy, distinct from the black carbon of the signature and date. Furthermore, the other neighbour I mention later who also was conned into signing up, said that Sarah, who was the rep who visited them too, also crossed out the price comparison document after they had signed it. Update 2012/05/16, see for yourself:
[16] I work from home but don't usually heat the house much and work off a low-power laptop. Our last bill showed that we used 57% off-peak, 19% mid-peak, and 24% on-peak, so apparently according to Sarah's estimation, we're much more wasteful than the supposedly rich, mansion-owning energy gobblers the Ontario Energy Board allegedly decided to select as a useful example for the average household to read.
[17] See footnote [1]: the rules are, "home or business."
10 comments:
Hello there Kevin.
My name is Devin and I am currently an independent contractor who is hired by Just Energy Group in Waterloo. I am very displeased to hear of your terrible experience with these particular contractors and with the company in general.
I haven't been working with the company for long, but I am older than many contractors they have and much more educated, so I very quickly gained a grasp of what they do.
I have a degree in moral philosophy, which clearly does not guarantee that I am an ethical person, but it does allow me to give a better than average judgement of business practices.
I read through your post about Just Energy in detail (I found it doing my own research on the company) and from what I can tell your real complaint is not really with the company itself but with the practices and behaviour with individual sales persons. The company is legitimate, have over 8 million customers in North America, and is publicly traded. They are bound by all the same laws as any other energy company in Canada. The company is not deceptive itself and all of the information they give in brochures, forms, and their website is accurate.
What you experienced was the reality of the nature of sales and of the nature of independent contractors. The company hires people in this way for legal liability reasons, and so that they only pay commissions.
Also, some people are pretty desperate for work (myself included) and are doing this work because it is hard to earn their living. The good contractors (like myself) are going about it honestly, which believe it or not can be done. I have never signed up anyone with making everything clear and without being sure the customer understood completely what they were getting into (well to the best of their ability anyway).
Some of these sales people actually make more money than you think (some people I work with bring in 6 digits AFTER taxes doing this), and so the person you spoke with may not have been lying that he enjoys his work. Personally I am doing this to help me get by for now and help raise money to go back to school to get a master's in social work.
Unfortunately, bad sales people make my job harder, and so I am just as displeased with your experience as you are. If you will consider my perspective on this for a moment you might see things a little differently. From my perspective I am legally approaching potential customers to present them with a legitimate service on a deregulated commodity that could save them money and give them the convenience of not needing to pay attention to when they use power in their home.
I welcome people who ask a lot of questions and make sure to understand before they sign the contract because these people are at least listening to me and considering the offer. I also like this because it ensures for me that they are confident enough in themselves to consider an offer and potential take it if they like it.
(continued in next post)...
From my perspective it is the responsibility of the customer to understand what they are getting into before signing and later confirming. Many people turn me away without even listening, or turn me away because they are afraid of being taken advantage of.
This doesn't really bother me personally, but I do find it odd behaviour. Why? Because I am a regular person, a decent human being who should be treated with respect (just as you wanted those other agents to treat you with respect). Of course it is your right to turn me away, but I only ask that people do it politely (and trust me, many don't, so much for our view of Canadians as very polite people).
These are people who in other contexts would treat me nicely, but suddenly because I am doing my job marketing a product/service, they treat me like crap. I know it is probably because they have had rude or sketchy people at the door before, but why should I have to deal with rude people when I haven't done anything wrong or disrespectful?
The above responds to the people who rudely turn you away (without being nice about it). I will now explain my confusion regarding people afraid of being scammed. When I need to by something (or want to buy something) I do my research and make an informed decision as a consumer. If I see socks being advertised cheapest at one store then I go there and probably buy them (assuming quality is the same). I am happy that they advertised this to me and I take advantage of it.
Now I know there are reasons that people at your door can be more annoying than a typical advertisement, but technically speaking it is the same thing. All we want is for you to consider the deal and make an informed decision. If you are too busy (or just don't feel like it at the time) we understand and offer to come back at a better time of your choice. It really isn't my fault if people do not trust themselves enough to make an informed consumer decision about energy usage. I can only do all I can to explain and answer questions. After that it is up to the customer to crunch the numbers, read the fine print, etc. to make the decision.
The fact that some people are so unsure of their own ability to do this and thus won't deal with anyone at their door mystifies me, especially since we are living in a long time capitalist economy where we are basically forced to make these sorts of decisions. Personally, I happen to be a socialist and believe that we really shouldn't be fettered with such consumer decisions, but unfortunately we are, and it is no excuse (unless you really don't understand due to language barriers or incompetence) to send someone away because you are afraid that you aren't confident enough in yourself to make a decision.
Some people call it being afraid of being scammed. I call it being afraid of your own stupidity. I don't mean to be offensive to anyone with this, but it is true. The facts are laid out for you. The contracts include all of the relevant information and you can crunch the numbers yourself. You know the terms and enter them willingly. If you can't do this for yourself, well then god help you in making life decisions.
I am not worried about being scammed when I get flyers in the mail for two competing grocery stores and see that one has a cheaper price on produce this week. Why would I be worried about being scammed when deciding who my energy supplier is?
All this said, if you are interested, I would be happy to come by your place at your convenience and discuss with you anything you want to know about the services offered by Just Energy. Even if you have done the calculations and know it isn't a good service for you, I would still be happy to explain things to you properly so that you no longer have a bad taste in your mouth about the company and so that you understand precisely what the company offers and how they make money. You can contact me at 519-721-7502.
Just to give you and readers of your blog a better idea of how this works, I will give a basic outline. There are companies that produce the energy we use. Then there are companies that purchase this energy from the producers and sell and deliver it to the local utilities. These are suppliers like Just Energy. The local utility (such as Waterloo North Hydro) owns the power lines and then distributes the energy locally to homes and businesses. They add that nice big fat delivery charge to your bill. If you have no supplier, the local utility purchases the energy from the supplier(s) of their choice and then sells and delivers it to you at a rate that is set based on fluctuating market values and regulated by the government. So no matter what, if you want power you must pay the local utility who in turn buys the energy from suppliers. If you choose a supplier yourself, then although everything is essentially still done through the local utility (with all their same fees and such), the actual price of the energy itself can be different since you are asking the local utility to purchase your energy from a particular supplier that is offering you a certain price. This supplier of course makes more money the more customers choose them as their supplier. No matter what price the utility gets on energy, if you don't choose a supplier, you are always paying the government regulated price. So even if the local utility happens to be purchasing a lot of their energy from Just Energy, if you as the consumer haven't actually designated Just Energy as your supplier, the local utility will charge the price the government says rather the price Just Energy will offer you.
People often don't understand that the local utility is a private company and is no more trustworthy than suppliers like Just Energy. If they get their energy cheaper and sell it at a high government set price to you, then they make more money from you. If Just Energy is offering customers a cheaper price for their energy than they are currently paying, then the local utility just makes less money. In some cases, Just Energy doesn't even make any more money than before as the local utility might have been purchasing energy from Just Energy anyway, but now the company has more guaranteed energy being bought from them rather than another supplier, which is obviously beneficial since there is heavy competition between energy suppliers as with any other market. The reason the supplier may be able to offer you a cheaper price than you are paying without a designated supplier is because they have the buying power to purchase energy in bulk and sell it to the local utility cheaper. Just Energy will sell energy to the local utility cheaper if that energy is going to customers who have designated Just Energy as their supplier (which only makes sense).
(this is the last of my 4 posts, I promise)...
This might help to dispel some of the accusations of lying that people make to energy sales people. Technically we aren't selling you anything. We are asking you if you would prefer to let your local utility to keep purchasing energy from the suppliers of their choice and charging you the government set price (now time of day pricing), or if you would prefer to have the local utility to purchase the energy you use from Just Energy. The forms we use are basically to get the information needed to ask your local utility, on your behalf, to buy your energy from Just Energy, and charge you based on our pricing scheme rather than the government set one. You also have the option to ask Just Energy to buy their power from green energy producers rather than brown energy producers.
People think choosing an energy supplier (or choosing not to have one designated) is complicated, but it is similar to choosing a mobile phone service provider, which we are all more familar with. There are different plans to choose from with different prices based on usage, and the lines are still owned and there are charges on top of actual usage because of that. With telecom companies it is even shadier because in some cases they actually own all of the total operation instead of just one part of it. Rogers for instance, owns the means of production, all of the equipment for delivery, and also sells you the service itself. In energy, the one company produces the energy, another supplies it, and yet another delivers it. So in actuality, as a consumer, you just have a higher degree of choice when it comes to energy, and it is more regulated by the government than other markets like telecom. This scares some people and for some reason this causes them to default to allowing the local utility to make all of the profit and choose the supplier themselves, instead of the consumer choosing.
The unfortunate part of this is that with energy, unlike other services, you have to have it and so the choice will be made for you one way or another. You really should use your power as a consumer to do your research and choose your own energy supplier. Otherwise you are stuck with the government set prices and the local utility makes more money from you in most cases. Also, you are stuck with brown energy as it is cheaper for the local utility to buy than green energy. Again, keep in mind that the utility companies are private companies that are using this system to their advantage to make higher profits. They just love selling you energy at government set prices and making a killing off of it since they are paying much less for the energy. If somehow in your region and based on your personal usage, you are able to pay less by not designating a supplier, then hey, that is great. But don't make this decision by default because you are too scared to look into it, make it by informed choice.
Thank you for taking the time to write, Devin.
I trust myself to make informed decisions. The problem comes when the facts are intentionally hidden from you, and when your trust and goodwill are taken advantage of. Had I done what was necessary to see all of the relevant facts during this visit, it would have taken extraordinary rudeness on my part; in fact, it would have taken a basic mistrust of the salesperson to actually get a clear picture of what was going on.
Our neighbours were actually visited by Just Energy reps again recently. This time our neighbours knew the first think to do was ask to see their badges (which legally need to be worn visibly in the first place!) and the reps refused, just like when we had confronted the three of them as I wrote about. This is plainly illegal practice. Why would they do this? What do they have to hide, if this isn't a scam, if this isn't something their target client will later regret?
I'm sorry that the bad sales people are making your job harder, but that's Just Energy's responsibility, and they don't seem to take that very seriously.
Also, your allegation that you are "stuck" with government regulated prices if you don't sign up with JE is simply false. JE is the one with the 5-year contract. My local utility puts me in no such position. Nor are you "stuck" with brown energy--I can get Bullfrog; on the other hand, had I signed up with JE, I truly would be stuck with brown energy, because although JE offers a green energy contract, that is not the one that was being offered to us at the door (perhaps your job is different.)
I could address more of your post, but at this point I have a summer to enjoy, and this has taken enough of my time, and while you've addressed many things in your long post, you didn't really touch upon what I wrote about.
Blessings,
Kev
I understand your frustration with bad reps, but that doesn't mean that the company is providing a bad service. The contracts and other documents don't hide anything. You should always read anything you sign in full. You also don't have to be rude at all, just ask questions and the rep will answer. If you are lied to then that counts as grounds to terminate an energy contract, which is enforced by the energy board of ontario.
If reps aren't showing badges (which I find very hard to believe, but will give you the benefit of the doubt in this case), then they may actually not be real reps. Any real rep would show you the badge up front because as you said, it is the law. I always do and I wear it.
When I said you are stuck, I mean that although you have no contract with the local utility, you might as well have one because unless you choose the supplier then you are basically on a "forever" contract with the utility. Your logic makes no sense here. You have to pay for energy (unless you want to go without power) and so if you don't choose a supplier then you really are stuck with the government regulated prices charged by the utility. They don't need to get you to sign a contract because they own you already.
The green option with JE is just that: an option. We don't offer it until you are already interested in the service. Bullfrog is just another supplier like JE, so I am not sure why you mentioned that. I wasn't even arguing in favour of JE, but rather in favour of looking into choosing a supplier. Maybe Bullfrog has what you want, I don't know. But it is at least worth listening to someone promote Bullfrog to you to find out.
I am not sure what I didn't address in your post as I clearly addressed everything, but maybe your post was just more of a rant to vent your frustrations with a few bad door-to-door sales people. It certainly doesn't make any legitimate points against listening to legitimate offers and considering choosing an energy supplier.
Devin
"doesn't mean that the company is providing a bad service."
When 100% of the reps we've encountered have been explicitly not following the law with regards to showing their badges, I have to wonder how they were trained.
"The contracts and other documents don't hide anything."
They do hide some things, as I've shown in my original post. Merely saying the opposite of what I said is not an argument. Also, the rep went out of her way to hide parts of the contract and other documents we were meant to read, c.f. the scanned images I provided.
"If you are lied to then that counts as grounds to terminate"
Sure, if you have the time, and potentially money for lawyers (or at least, in our case, postage), to go through the process of obtaining an termination, and proving their lies.
"I find very hard to believe"
Get your head out of the sand. I have multiple witnesses. This is not 'benefit of the doubt' territory. Next time I will arm myself with a digital camera, will that make you feel more comfortable?
"they may actually not be real reps"
Explain this. What are they, if not "real" reps, if they have access to "real" paperwork that causes me to have a "real" contract with JE via their "real" rep IDs?
I get that you're a real rep and I don't say all reps behave as these ones did. It's just that all of them that I and my neighbours have so far met in person have behaved illegally, unprofessionally, and with great manipulation. That is cause for extreme caution in dealing with JE reps, wouldn't you say?
"Your logic makes no sense here. ... They don't need to get you to sign a contract because they own you already."
MY logic makes no sense? Here you are readily redefining the word 'stuck' to mean its opposite...I'll let the reader decide on this one!
About green, it was YOUR claim that I was stuck with brown energy with my local supplier, which is false. Your further claim that "We don't offer it", if you count our friendly neighbourhood JE reps as part of your "we" is also false: as I said, they told us we would be getting green energy even though that's not what they were signing us up for.
"I am not sure what I didn't address in your post...maybe your post was just more of a rant...It certainly doesn't make any legitimate points against listening"
I'll leave that up to the reader to decide, again. My original post was certainly a rant, but also much more than that, as I wanted to document everything precisely, not just get mad about it. The thing is, with all of the lies and manipulations added together, it actually does make a legitimate point about listening to JE reps. If I can't trust what they're actually saying, then it is worse than "not worth my time" to even talk to them. They actively prevent you from making an informed choice by presenting you with misinformation. Your earlier statement, "If you are too busy (or just don't feel like it at the time) we understand and offer to come back at a better time of your choice," suggests you think you have some right to my time. You don't. By your arguments for considering all options, I suppose you also expect me to read every flier I get in the mail, every ad I see around town or on every web site, etc. Obviously, this would be very difficult, even if you didn't have to work, eat, and sleep. This is people learn to filter things. For me, JE has become an easy filter, if for no other reason than their contract would cost me more money every month, which I believe would typically be true for anyone who has been capitalizing on TOU pricing. If you don't believe me, read your own advertising, which targets people who don't want the "hassle" of trying to limit their energy consumption during on-peak hours, and can afford to take on the luxury of a JE contract.
Anyway, I have bigger fish to fry. I hope the reader will have had more than enough material even just in this exchange between us to judge for themselves.
$100 per partial year is for the gas which you don't pay. Learn to read before you sign, and learn to read better after you sign.
"$100 per partial year is for the gas which you don't pay."
Read the paragraph I quoted. You owe JE $100 for each full or partial year for "damages" if you decide to cancel your contract after the provincial cooling-off period. I.e. you are locked in, exactly the opposite of what the rep claimed.
Your phrase "for the gas which you don't pay" is not only grammatically incorrect, but also meaningless without some explanation. I'm not sure where you get off attacking my reading ability. (Also I'm not sure how you were able to comment at all, and will be re-closing this thread.)
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