IT was late in the day and Billy Aitchison was getting edgy. The Scottish Hydro Electric salesman had deployed a full range of tricks to secure a sale but no-one was biting. The lack of trade was worrying him because, the way the company’s reward structure works, if he didn’t sign-up 20 new customers by the end of the week, he would earn nothing apart from his basic £150-a-week salary. Previous cancellations are added to that threshold and even one customer short earns sales staff no extra cash.

The young male recruit, fresh from training in door-to-door sales techniques, who was shadowing Aitchison for the day, asked why he wasn’t just honest with customers and, perhaps that way, get a sale. Aitchison shot him a patronising smile before delivering a lecture on how to deal with customers in the real world.

“You will notice my script isn’t quite the same as the one you were taught. You will also notice it changes with different people. I mean you think you might get away with talking bollocks to one, but not talking bollocks to another.”

Aitchison, in his navy zipper-jacket with the Scottish Hydro Electric logo, is one of dozens of salesmen employed by the company, owned by Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE), Britain’s second biggest supplier. It is also one of the country’s fastest growing energy firms, attracting 350,000 new customers between April and June, taking its total clients to 8.8m. Much of the firm’s success is down to the persistence of staff like Aitchison who pound the streets, knocking on doors, trying to convince customers to switch from other energy suppliers.

Determined to meet his quota, Aitchison showed his ability not to let the truth get in the way of a sale, lying relentlessly to virtually every potential customer with whom he spoke that day.

At several addresses he told householders that Scottish Hydro Electric supply gas and electricity to all other energy companies who are “middlemen”, and that dealing directly with him would save them money. This is a lie and an example of mis-selling.

“Remember the gas board? We are the new gas board . . . and that’s why we are cheaper. We’ve always been 12% cheaper than anybody [because] they have got to buy off us.”

Aitchison, who boasted of earning £1,100 a week, also admitted making up potential savings that customers would never receive. He pretended to work out figures, offering proposed savings of 12%, 14%, 16% and 54%.

“Scottish Hydro are your supply company. We supply you. Your billing company buy off us, make a slight profit and sell it to yourself. I can probably save you a house this size £14 to £22 a month,” he told one man. Aitchison later admitted privately that this approach was economical with the truth.

“In 1996 Scottish Hydro took over the supply to this address, every company buys off us . . . sounds feasible doesn’t it? It’s a pile of bullshit . . . we own 49% [of Scotia Gas Networks which operates two of Britain’s gas distribution networks] but I tell them we own it.”

What Aitchison didn’t know was that the trainee standing on the step beside him was an undercover reporter. The Sunday Times decided to investigate SSE which, according to Energywatch, the consumer watchdog, has acquired a reputation for unethical practices by cold-call salesmen.

While the Perth-based company made a pre-tax profit of £1.2 billion last year, it has attracted complaints from customers. Mis-selling by utility companies emerged after the deregulation of the energy supplying industry in the late 1990s but was generally considered to be a thing of the past. An exposé by The Sunday Times in 2000 was partly responsible for the introduction of a code of practice by the Association of Energy Suppliers.

The code requires sales staff to identify themselves clearly to customers and explain what they are offering. It warns them not to “exploit a person’s inexperience, vulnerability, credulity or loyalties”. Giving out misleading information over potential savings is particularly to be avoided. Pensioners must be given the opportunity to have a friend or a member of their family present before they sign anything.

Last year 5m customers changed energy supplier, the highest figure since 2002. Ofgem, the industry regulator, said it was evidence of market forces working well but a study by the University of East Anglia found a third of those changing were worse off as a result.

So what was the truth behind the new wave of mis-selling, and is it true that SSE’s sales staff are not to be trusted?

The reporter successfully applied to join the company as a sales adviser at the beginning of August. After two interviews he was offered a position and told that his basic salary would be £11,500-a-year with commission on top. This would be accrued, depending on which utility and package he got customers to sign up for. The reporter was issued with a copy of the code of conduct, known as “the script”, which he was urged to stick to at all times. After four days of training he was sent onto the streets to shadow more experienced sales staff and it became clear that the training was being consistently ignored.

One salesman boasted about how he had signed up a customer by telling them that their energy bills would be “capped” until 2012. The next week the company raised the cost of its gas by 29.2% and electricity by 19.2%. The salesman said he had signed up several pensioners in a sheltered housing complex, forbidden under the code.

Another boasted of telling a customer that he was under an obligation to change to Scottish Hydro and of lying to a recently bereaved widow that she would receive electricity insurance cover free when, in fact, it was costing an extra £4 a month.

“Its not lying, it’s a fabrication of the truth,” the salesman said. “I went through it all at the door and I actually had to stand and think, how much of that is actually bollocks. I mean there was a wee bit of f***** truth in there. I don’t use any of the script at all.”

After shadowing Aitchison, the reporter was twinned with Sonny Devlin, 22, father of two and reputed to be one of the best sellers and highest achievers in the office. At 17, Devlin acquired notoriety by becoming the first Scot in a century to be convicted of the ancient offence of “violation of a sepulchre”, legislation formerly used to prosecute grave-robbers.

He was sentenced to three years probation for entering a mausoleum in Edinburgh, decapitating a corpse.

His opening line on the doorstep was: “We are the gas and electricity board,” before launching into a sales pitch about how EDF, the customer’s supplier, had high prices because they were “middle men”. On the following doorstep he began with: “Hi, we are the Gas and Electric, do you know you are entitled to reductions on your energy tariffs?”

One customer said he was happy with his distributor. Devlin replied: “We are supplying those companies.” On another doorstep, where the customer was supplied by Scottish Gas, Devlin told him: “You are entitled to come off Scottish Gas and go direct — you are cutting out the middle man.”

Devlin knocked on the door of 76-year-old Eleanor Lyall, blind in one eye and who told him she had trouble reading. He failed to ask her the required questions and pressured her into buying insurance despite being told repeatedly she wasn’t happy about signing.

On three occasions she said: “I really only like dealing with my local man and don’t want to change . . . I want to think about it if you give me some literature.” He ignored her objections. Lyall later told The Sunday Times that she couldn’t read what she signed and cancelled the policy the next day.

The reporter took his findings to Finlay Mason, area sales manager, and Lindsay MacDonald, acting office manager, for Scottish Hydro. Both warned the reporter not to lie on the doorstep but did not appear to take any action.

A former salesman, who did not want to be named, said he reported deception and mis-selling by salesmen to Luke Schultz, the Edinburgh sales office manager, but that only one, who had accumulated 27 complaints, was sacked. The salesman resigned from the company last week because he felt the management had misled him about price rises.

“I felt sick because I had been signing people up telling them, ‘we have had this honesty policy that we when we put our prices up it will be last and by the least amount’. We weren’t. Our company has been making me lie to all these people.”

Doorstep energy salesman targeted elderly

Eleanor Lyall, 75, a partially sighted retired nurse from Currie, in West Lothian, is an existing Scottish Hydro customer but was pressured by salesman Sonny Devlin into signing up for a new servicing contract, which would cost her an additional £16.20 a month. Despite being a pensioner, she wasn’t asked any of the questions required under the company’s code of conduct. She cancelled the contract.

“I was feeling quite flustered. I had my grandchildren over and I didn’t want to be talking to these salesmen, but they kept going on and on,” she said. “I told them I couldn’t see, but the chap showed me the form and I signed. I couldn’t see what I was signing. I just wanted them to go.”

Elizabeth McCaig, 75, also in Currie, was approached by the salesmen. She told them she was with ScottishPower and wasn’t interested in changing. “One asked me what I paid. I told him I paid £82 per month for gas and electricity. He just turned over a page in his pad and said it would cost £55 with them. I didn’t believe him. The way he came up with the figure didn’t seem right.”

Norma Divine, 61, a payroll administrator from Currie, was deceived into switching to Scottish Hydro after Devlin told her that her previous supplier, ScottishPower, bought its gas and electricity from his company.

“They seemed quite convincing. They told me their company cut out the middle man,” she said.

Ian Cormack, 78, from Balerno, West Lothian, was also approached by Devlin. “The first thing they said was that they were going to turn the gas off. They didn’t get very far with me — I chased them off,” said the retired health service manager.

Past woes

SCOTTISH and Southern Energy (SSE) has come to the attention of Energywatch, the consumer watchdog, before.

A documentary by the BBC’s Watchdog in 2005 revealed bullying by its salesmen. Earlier this year its reps were alleged to be using a script that made false claims.

In January the firm was second only to NPower for the number of customer complaints it received — 35 per 100,000. By June the number was the same but its position had improved, because Scottish Power and Eon received more.

“This is not the first time SSE have been caught employing the most disreputable salespeople,” said Adam Scorer, Energywatch campaigns director. “Complaints about their sales teams have been a running sore for a number of years.”

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