The Red-Faced Tale of Red Energy

This is a tale of complete shadiness.  Just google Red Energy Reviews and you'll see a ton of similar stories.


This happened at our old apartment - now we know that door-to-door knocking and salesmen are not permitted in the building, so when we heard someone knocking on our front door (without buzzing us downstairs first) we deliberately didn't answer because we knew it was most likely going to be some dodgy sales rep trying to push you to buy something dodgy.  They tried a couple of days, once even buzzing us from downstairs - we said no, we're not interested in changing our electric company but they came up and knocked on our door again!


Anyway, one day I was coming back home and I got out the lifts on my floor when I was approached by two Indian guys.  Now they were not wearing uniform and had no name tags, just holding a folder, which already seems a bit dodgy to me.  They immediately ask me if I'm staying at my apartment and that they represent a few different companies and noticed that a lot of people in our building had been billed wrongly and that he needed to see our electric bill to check.  I thought this sounded really weird and I ask which company does he represent, and he names a few, including AGL which I'm with.  And I ask, so, does the IEC real estate agent know you people are here? He tells me yes.  (Thinking back I should have made it more of a challenge and asked him, so, what's my real estate agent's name? LOL)


Anyways I didn't know if this was real or not (seemed awfully dodgy still to me!) so I went to my apartment, asked them to wait at the front door and got a bill to show him.  I ask MerlinFan to call the real estate agent to ask if this is legit but she refuses, as usual, wants nothing to do with it.  @_@  


The salesman starts explaining stuff about how our electric company is overcharging us and how I could save more and then takes out a form that suspiciously looks like a bloody contract and asks for my details.  He then starts telling me in a week I'll see a document with Red Energy on top of it and I'm like wait a minute!!! I make MerlinFan wait with him and I get on the phone and call the office downstairs.


Anyhoo, basically when I call and explain the situation, the real estate guy downstairs was already like "Which company did they say they were from?  Is it Red?"  I answer, "yup!"  


The agent asks me "Are they still there?"  And I tell him, "yes, he was on my floor, he met me at the lifts when I got out.  He's standing at my door right now."  The real estate agent was like "Don't talk to them.  It's a scam."


Too right.  So I went to the Red salesmen and tell them look, I've spoken with the real estate agent and the office doesn't know you're here, they have nothing to do with you.  The Red salesmen still stubbornly asks me "what exactly did your real estate agent say?"  I was more than happy to tell him, "That you're a scam, and don't talk to you."  Sorry.  I'm not going to sugar coat things if you're lying to me.


The Red salesman was really persistent, still stubbornly saying "can I speak to your real estate agent then?" (Ahem... thought you said they knew you were here, buster... uh oh, someone's pants is on fire...)  


I told him "sure!  If you have a mobile phone I can give you their number, or you can just go downstairs to the IEC office just around the corner!"


So they left dejectedly - after of course I made them return that form where they wrote my details.  And later as we were leaving in the afternoon, we saw them dodgily pushing the buzzer at the main entrance and harassing people on the floor above ours.


Honestly, I've never heard of this company before that day.  After they left, we googled Red Energy and found out how many conman stories there were of Red door to door representatives trying to scam people into changing energy companies with the same lie... even found similar stories to ours!


Needless to say, a notice came up on our apartment entrance the next week, saying door-to-door knocking is NOT permitted, if so you will be asked to leave, if not, the residents will be calling the police.  LOL.