The older members of the cooperative were the victims of an unfair commercial practice. On the phone they ask for personal data, there is a risk of being with another manager
IVREA
Many, too many reports arrived in the last two weeks on the Aeg toll-free number, from members and customers who ask for explanations on the phone call just received from one of their operators. These are mostly elderly people, over seventy, often alone at home in these central weeks of August when children and grandchildren are far away, who apprehensively ask if there really was a cheaper rate in store for them. They call them unfair and aggressive business practices. “Because – let Aeg know – our commercial operators do not behave in this way”. Those who are calling these days ask for the personal data of the customers and the contract number; all information that Aeg obviously already knows and does not need to ask.
On the phone they say they are from Aeg or more generally from gas. “Being in gas”, in the territory of the Eporediese, means being from AEG, a cooperative with a great territorial identity, strong in its 120 years of history at the service of the Canavese area.
Sometimes the caller comes by saying that the contract for the supply of electricity or gas is about to expire. Or try to induce to change the supply contract, switching to more advantageous rates. An opportunity to be seized on the fly but which requires you to fetch a bill where in addition to personal data there is the supply contract. To be targeted, as mentioned, are mainly older members, less accustomed to the digitized use of AEG services. However, there are those who, realizing that something is wrong, manage to get rid of the interlocutor and immediately call the toll-free number 800 213565 to understand if the cooperative is really contacting its members to propose new rates. However, many do it when it is too late.
Of course, Aeg also works by telephone with its commercial operators, but there are differences, and how. Aeg operators do not ask for the data because they already know them and after the phone call they either make an appointment with the partners in the Ivrea office or send an email summarizing what has been said over the phone.
What will happen now to those shareholders who have been contacted on the phone by phantom Aeg operators and who have provided data and details of the supply contract? Difficult to predict at the moment also because the latter have nothing in their hands, having all happened over the phone. The results of this unfair and aggressive commercial practice will only be known in a few months. However, it is legitimate to put forward the very concrete hypothesis that some of them find themselves a customer of another energy service provider without having chosen them in full awareness and with a practice that borders on deception. From Aeg they invite those who receive strange calls to contact the toll-free number 800 213565 or write to the email [email protected]
Last March Aeg had also denounced about sixty cases in which the members had found themselves in front of the door of the house false operators of the cooperative who with kind ways tried to steal the trust of the ppeople and then get a bill talking about tariff changes, expired contracts and various promotions.