In-dupe-itably

I've now spent my first day at home, of my normally working week. I'm beginning to realise that being at work actually saves you a lot of time and money, as you don't have to worry about door to door salespeople.

An Indian man, with very bad skin, a clipboard and an origin energy ID card just tried to dupe me. He told me that because I am an Origin Energy customer for my gas, I could get some free green energy lightbulbs or something. I was all like, well, I have some of those so thanks but no thanks. Then he said, well if you don't want the lightbulbs I can give you a free 12 month subscription to Marie Claire magazine.

Alarm bells went off in my head: Why do I get this for free? What do I have to do?

I more or less asked him that and he said, in his very hard to understand Indian accent, that it was not a contract and I was just agreeing to make my energy that I use greener and it would help the environment etc. So I looked at the leaflet he gave me, and reiterated what I was getting to the salesman to ensure that he knew my understanding of the deal. And I signed. Then he phoned some origin energy phone line and I had to give this woman a heap of numbers, and she said:

Ok, so do you agree to signing up with Origin Energy for both your electricity and gas needs and signing a lock in contract for this service?

At this point I realised that I had been duped. I told the woman on the phone that I had no intention of signing up with Origin for my electricity as I am happy with my current elec provider. She then asked to speak to the salesperson so I handed the phone over and he got what I can only assume was a bollocking and hung up.

I told him; you didn't explain that to me at all, you made no mention of electricity to me. I think in the future you should try explaining the situation fully to any customers that you're selling to.

His response?

Please give me my leaflet back.