CBC: Marketplace on Door-to-door Energy Contracts

CBC: Marketplace recently did a story on door-to-door energy contracts in Ontario and the high-pressure (and in some cases illegal) sales tactics used to sell them. It focused on Direct Energy and Universal Energy. In an earlier post I wrote about Ontario Energy Savings' tactics and those described in that Marketplace episode sound very similar.

Door to Heaven found in Princeton, BC

Originally uploaded by Tyym

Great pic by my friend Tymm looks like a celestial doorway.

Amazing Story about Dogs and Babies

Lex-: this lady zips into our parking lot (stops in the entrance of it, turns it off) runs in and shes like do you see those 2 dogs in my van? they arnt mine, i was in the sw and i saw this dog running down the road so i went to get it to look at the tags and it jumped in the van
Lex-: then her friend called and said her car broke down, so she went to go pick her up and 15 minutes later she found a nother dog
Lex-: so that dog jumped in the car, so she got to her friends broken down car, who had a baby, then drove them to get help or whatever, so the lady had her friends baby in the back of her van
Lex-: so i had to call animal services to see if they could pick the dogs off before we closed cuz it was the long wknd, they said they could so i went out to get the dogs with her
Lex-: well the dogs locked the van
Charles: ...
Lex-: baby is in the back...
Charles: oh god
Lex-: the lady is freakin out, she didnt have a spare key and it wasnt even her baby!
Lex-: well the baby started freaking out, im out there trying to calm this baby down thru the window playing peek a boo and stuff (made it worse)
Lex-: while she called ama or whatever and shes like the dogs locked the van and my friends baby is in there!
Lex-: they came within 5 minutes (good thing)
Lex-: she takes the baby out closes the door, dogs are still in there...
Lex-: i run out there get them out before they lock it again! gosh!
Lex-: well she leaves after all the comotion, we have the dogs, and we cannot reach the owners cuz they didnt update the dogs microchips so we had their old number
Charles: this story is amazing
Lex-: then @ 5 oclock ( we close a 530 animal services called and she wouldnt be able to make it by closing because she was dealing with a dog attack. so she asked if i could meet her somewhere with the dogs
Lex-: so we ended up taking them to our place and wait for the by law officer. they were little shitzu's, smelly barky shitzu's but they were kinda cute.

Groundhog Invades Cat Sanctuary

Groundhog Invades Cat Sanctuary
Originally uploaded by slearch

The food laid out for the cats at the Cat Sanctuary near the parliament buildings in Ottawa gets eaten by a very non-cat animal. We stood there and watched it for a while and it ate for literally 10 minutes straight, only then switching over to the water dish next to it.

Amoral Adhesive

Charles: have you ever bought something
Charles: that had like
Charles: a label stuck to it
Charles: saying something like
Charles: "warning, before using this, please read the manual"
Charles: ie something that is meant to be removed
Charles: only to try to remove it
Charles: and it have this super adhesive glue on the back
Charles: that gets left behind on the thing you bought
Charles: and be able to clean it off with nothing?
Shaver: hm
Shaver: why do you have to remove the sticker?
Charles: the specific label that i had
Charles: said "valve may have opened while shipping, please close before turning on
Charles: and it was right on the front
Shaver: :/
Shaver: yeah i've had that
Shaver: but i usually leave labels on
Charles: (this is an espresso machine btw)
Shaver: just cuz they've such a pain
Charles: so i removed it, left behind a lot of glue
Charles: so i tried scrubbing it off
Charles: and it just left scratch marks around the glue
Shaver: :/
Shaver: unlukcy
Charles: making the slight eyesore i would have had with the label into a large one
Charles: on a fairly expensive present from anna
Charles: and now i am pissed
Charles: i think my plan is to put my own sticker on it
Shaver: a big smiley face
Charles: good idea
Charles: god
Charles: any company that uses that adhesive is amoral
Charles: :P
Shaver: yeah that is pretty awful
Charles: it is on a contoured surface too
Charles: so putting a sticker on it isn't a simple matter
Charles: ok
Charles: if you are ever faced with this amoral adhesive
Charles: lime juice
Shaver: seriously?
Charles: once again i should have checked the internet before i started scrubbing
Shaver: yeah
Shaver: that's a theme of my life
Shaver: getting angry over things that are easily solved with a simple google seach
Shaver: search
Charles: slearch
Shaver: slearch
Shaver: yes
Shaver: mistyped
Charles: it would have had some level disfiguration anyway i think
Charles: but it would not have been as bad
Charles: fuck
Charles: in the grand scheme of things this is a pretty dumb thing to get worked up about
Charles: but i can't help it
Shaver: oh those are the worst things
Shaver: if something like that is bothering me
Shaver: i have trouble studying
Shaver: or sleeping
Shaver: sometimes
Shaver: i generally work from lowest priority to highest
Charles: i wish i could edit----> undo portions of my life
Charles: this is the top of my list
Shaver: life is the process of realizing that an undo function would make it worthless
Shaver: that is my attempt at a grand statement for today
Charles: not bad
Shaver: worthless is a poor choice of words
Charles: meaningless?
Shaver: but it's a good starting poing
Shaver: point
Shaver: sure
Charles: worth less?
Charles: haha
Shaver: yeah
Shaver: that'd actually be better

An Intense Moral Dilemma

My old roommate Tim was against killing anything. He hated spiders perhaps even more than me, but if we found one in our apartment he would want to catch it and escort it out the door rather than let me throw a phone book at it. I guess this rubbed off on me, because last night I discovered this little guy scurrying over my floor.



I trapped him easy enough, but didn't know what to do with him. Tim's brother suggested on MSN that I let him out in the apartment lobby, but it didn't really look like he had anywhere to go in there (it's just a stairway to the upstairs suite anyway). I briefly considered the basement, but I don't think it would have been a great idea to start a family down there. Letting him outside seemed like a death sentance -- it's around 0C here. I was torn! What would Tim do?

Well, I took him in his glass down the street to someone else's house and set him down near it. Hopefully he found a hole inside or under their porch or something. Best of luck little buddy.

Ontario Energy Savings: Scum of the Earth

Ontario Energy Savings is a company that offers to fix energy costs for Ontario Hydro customers at a rate higher than the current rate to "guard you against uncertainty in the market". Why are they the scum of the earth?

The main reason is their sales tactics. Employees who are presumably on commission sell contracts door-to-door. They usually open with something like "I'm from Ontario Energy Savings and I need to check if your hydro rates are protected." The name "Ontario Energy Savings" coupled with their "need" to check suggest to the customer that the person at their door is from Ontario Hydro or, at the very least, some utility the customer already has an account with. The employee then asks to see a Hydro Bill and copies down the account number from it. They then say that they can save you money by fixing your electricity rates and that thousands of customers have reported such savings, boy energy rates are sure to go up don't you read the news? Just sign here and you will be protected.

If you ask them to leave the forms here to let you think it over, they tell you that you can just sign it now and cancel any time within the next 10 days. This is true -- it's actually part of Ontario law that any door-to-door contract has a "cooling off period" of 10 days wherin the contract can be cancelled. After the 10 days the company actually has to call you and ask you if you still want to enter into the contract. This call is recorded (again by law) and you may ask for a copy of the recording.

My first contact was with a young lady at about 9pm last summer. I kept asking her to leave the papers with me and I'd talk it over with Anna and send them in if I decided to sign. She was adamantly against this. I was kind of sketched out at some random company going door to door asking for account numbers, so I passed.

The second time was maybe a month later. Anna was sick so I slipped out to grab some Subway for us. When I got back there was a contract tacked to our cork board. She was kind of out of it and the guy had pressured her and given her the line about being able to cancel within 10 days. We called the next day to cancel, and they told us it was cancelled. We then got the 10 day follow-up call asking us to confirm our participation. Not once, but five times. FIVE TIMES?! Good lord. What a bunch of scums.

We have since turned Ontario Energy Savings away at our door twice without talking to them. That is 4 times in 3 months or less.

This company victimizes people with high-pressure sales tactics to get them to sign expensive long-term contracts. In fact, if they suddenly changed their deal from a bad one to an awesome one I would still hate them -- their sales tactics are that disgusting. There are many stories on the web about Ontario Energy Savings tricking people into signing contracts, claiming affiliation with Ontario Hydro to gain access to apartment buildings, and even convincing a couple's 18 year old son to sign the contract (and confirm the follow up call!) under the pretense that they had already spoken with his parents (any household member 18 years of age is able to sign this kind of contract). Since it is likely that the employees are on commission it is hard to get mad at the people at the door; I'm closer to feeling sympathy for them for having what appears to be a terrible job.

Ontario Energy Savings truly is the scum of the earth.