Do I need a kVA Capacity Check?
Last year we wrote a news article entitled “Energy Brokers Cold Calling” in which we highlighted the dangers of “rogue” brokers and their deceptive practices. We have heard from our customers that these calls are once again on the rise, with the latest ploy being the “kVa Capacity Check”, as well as other callers claiming to be a specialist “energy check” company.
The most frequent complaint we are hearing is of businesses cold calling offering a free “kVa capacity check” or other energy check services. There have been numerous complaints from our customers of these operations just this month! They are fishing for business electricity details by bombarding companies with OFGEM regulations and giving false promises. These callers are contacting sites whether it is relevant to them or not, trying to confuse them with industry jargon and scare tactics. The rogue brokers are trying to persuade you to divulge your supply details so they can try and sell or lock you into supply contracts. Please be very careful! If they are bothering you, simply tell them to stop calling/e-mailing you and please do NOT divulge your supply details. Direct Power reviews kVa for all half hourly electricity customers as part of our standard service. We do not charge for this, so please do not hesitate to CONTACT one of our energy experts if you would like some guidance on this. Also note, we have recently published a new post on determining the appropriate available supply capacity kVa for you business site.
Just a reminder from our previous news article, here are a few of the different “rogue” broker tactics we have come across:
- Broker pretending to be the supplier.
- Broker pretending to be their existing broker calling to renew contract.
- High pressure sales tactics attempting to verbally agree a contract.
- Doctoring a recorded phone call in order to pass it off as a verbally agreed contract.
- Attempting to extract sensitive company information and current contract details.
- Cold callers claiming to give a free energy checking service.
- Cold callers claiming they are calling to sort out “DCP 161” issues with your site.
- Brokers claiming they are calling on behalf of OFGEM.
We have had several business customers duped by these tactics, and they ended up on very expensive contracts that were nearly impossible to get out of, so please beware! We recommend all business owners sign up with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) to stop cold calls to their businesses.
If you find yourself at the receiving end of one of these phone calls and feel that some of these illegal tactics are being used, please report them to the Utilities Intermediaries Association or directly CONTACT US at Direct Power to see if there is anything we can do to help out.