By Jeff Nagel Black Press

Jul 27 2007

Regulators have ordered natural gas sellers to take extra steps to protect customers from aggressive and unscrupulous door-to-door salespeople.

The B.C. Utilities Commission has fielded more than 600 complaints so far about the gas sellers’ practices since May 1, when 15 firms got the green light to sell natural gas as an alternative to Terasen.

“We’re inundated with complaints,” commission secretary Rob Pellatt said.

The independent firms sell fixed-price contracts – akin to a locked-in mortgage rather than a variable-rate one – that give customers stable natural gas costs for three to five years.

As of July 1, every customer who signs up at his doorstep must get a separate phone call to verify the terms of the contract. That’s in addition to a 10-day cooling-off period that allows residents who have agreed to a deal to back out.

The new provision won’t help Cloverdale resident Jackie Duzek, who said yes to a marketer at her front door in May as she rushed out to pick up her daughter from kindergarten.

“He mentioned Hurricane Katrina and how gas prices skyrocketed then and how that could easily happen again,” she said.

Her family tried to back out after it realized it means paying almost 30% more for natural gas than Terasen currently charges for the next five years.

Unfortunately, they called two days after the 10-day cooling-off period ended. Duzek later found out the clock started the instant the gas salesman left her door and phoned the sale in, and the cooling-off period also includes weekends.

She’s now hoping the commission will strike down her contract.

Pat MacDonald, a staff lawyer with the BC Public Interest Advocacy Centre, says the verification requirement is a good step but would also like to see a longer cooling-off period.

“A lot of people are vulnerable,” she said, adding seniors and people with English as a second language can be easily confused by the pitches.

In some cases, commission-based marketers have wrongly claimed they can save households money while others have said they represent Terasen.

“They will say anything to get that contract,” MacDonald said.

People who switch may also incorrectly think the rate they pay the alternate supplier is all they’ll pay. In fact, they must still pay Terasen a delivery rate to transmit the gas, even if it’s being bought from an alternate supplier.

Complaints about door-to-door selling also led Coquitlam council to ask city staff to prepare a bylaw prohibiting door-to-door sales except for charities. That bylaw will go before council in the fall. Langley already has a similar ban.

So far 75,000 people province-wide have signed up to start receiving natural gas from an independent seller starting in November.

Terasen’s natural gas rates were reviewed by the BCUC last month and will remain unchanged at $7.66 per gigajoule for at least the next three months. Independent gas firms are currently offering rates of $9.38 to $10.99 over three to five years.