00:53 - 01.05.07
intimidation
Service providers seem to be a bete noire for me these days. Today it was one of the natural gas distributors that was the problem. In this province it used to be that there was only the one authorized service that both sold and delivered gas to residential properties. Then the provincial government deregulated the service. Think Enron and you can guess how well-served Albertans have been by that little boondoggle. I digress. There are now three agents that are licenced to deliver gas to one's home, in addition to the original service. I've stuck with the original service, because I know and trust their company. That has been a good choice given the news of the gouging that a couple of the new kids on the block have done to their customers.
Today there was a knock at my door around noon. I opened the door wondering who it could be - I thought maybe my Dad had dropped by. There stood a young adult of the red haired and blue-eyed persuasion, with an official looking nametag and company security badge. Tyrell was who I was talking with. The badge had the name of the original natural gas provider, only something didn't seem right with the logo. My bill is up-to-date with respect to payment, so what was he doing on my door step? He asserted that I had to talk with him immediately. Well no, I deal with my provider directly by phone. "Well you can't with this issue." What issue. "No one read their bills last month, so we've been hired to go door to door making certain everyone responds to that information that was ignored." Ummm. No that isn't the way my natural gas company operates. "Yes it is and you either have to talk with me now or you have to set an appointment with me now. You have no option." Well yes actually I do. The young male was very forceful and aggressive. There was an "or else" tone to his voice and it was apparent he wanted to get inside the house. Nothing doing. I said I wasn't properly dressed for visitors and wouldn't let him in. He said how I was dressed was irrelevant and that he wanted in the house now, regardless. I asked to take a closer look at his identification, but couldn't tell if there was evidence of fraudulent representation. However, not even a police officer can enter one's home without either a search warrant or the consent of the resident. Some pushy little twerp with an attitude wasn't going to ever be given more authority than a representative of the law. He was becoming even more verbally aggressive, implying that he had the force of my gas company behind him to take "action", although since he still hadn't disclosed the supposed problem. Therefore, what action would be triggered was unclear to me as well. I told him that I was going to call my natural gas company for more information. My youngest had the day off and was down in his bedroom. I was wondering if I was going to have to call him to take this young man on verbally, since he seemed to think he could bully his way inside. I decided to try to deal with the jerk by myself, so I told him I would not deal with him unless I had no other options and shut the door. Fortunately he didn't try any further force.
My bills were lying on the kitchen table, as were my bank statements. I checked to ensure I was all clear with respect to bill payment, then called the toll free number on the most recent bill from the provider. Even if one is behind on one's payments, one receives written notice of that oversight. One is also contacted by phone. I had physcial evidence of payment and no written communication from the gas company. No calls from that company listed on my call display either. Nothing about what that young adult said to me at the door had me convinced he was a legitimate representative of my natural gas company. The woman who responded made it clear their company never sent people door-to-door to deal with customers. I felt relieved and said so, asking if I should call the police. She said no, because another company had appropriated a very similar name to them and often sent salesmen out to communities. It - the door to door salespitch - apparently was deceiving a lot of their customers. I explained what he had said and had tried to imply to me during our exchange of words. It was obvious that she wanted to say something to me, but wasn't really allowed to offer information without being asked. My next question was to ask who I could register a complaint with, so that it was effective in stopping that person's behaviour and misrepresentations. She gave me one other toll free number which turned out to be a provincial government information service. No human, just bulletin board style announcements on various topics. When I reached the topic I wanted, another toll free number for the ombudsman's office for energy regulation was given. There was an accompanying web address too. Surfed to that website, as I was dialing the number. I wanted to talk with a human, because I wanted the jerk stopped today if possible. The woman who took my call got quite steamed up when I explained to her what he had asserted to me. Especially that part about the information purportedly on my bill that I hadn't responded to. I also explained that I thought dealing with him immediately was urgent, because so many people in my community don't have English as their first language. They aren't dumb by any means, but discussing contractual subtleties with this person was difficult enough for me - catching the twisting of the truth and the implied rather than factual authority he was trying to claim. I said I was concerned he would be able to intimidate a lot of peope into signing a contract using false assertions and claims. She filed my complaint instantly. She sounded as though she felt he had overstepped his bounds too.
Later in the afternoon the young adult returned to the duplex to the west of my home. I opened my door to verify his name in case further action was required and to tell him I thought he should be more careful when presenting his sales pitch, since it was so misleading. As I was saying that, I realized there was another person with him wearing a patch on his jacket that indicated he was also from that company. I'm hoping it was a supervisor and that they had been sent out to cool his salespitch down to a fair representation of what who and what he actually was.
That was all the excitement I had for the day and frankly it was enough. I was actually grateful that there was just the regular daily routine to follow. Used the stair climbing as a way to burn off the extra adrenaline built up during that one little exchange. Time for more reading right now though - at least I can concentrate on the page in front of me again. Good night, dear diary.
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