German energy company RWE has been hauled across the coals, rather ironically, by energy watchdog OFGEM today for mis-selling its £5bn stake in electricity company NPower.
RWE has been fined for sending failed pizza delivery people and bored gap year students door-to-door around the country, telling residents that they can save £500 per year on their energy bills by buying the whole of NPower.
This is without actually knowing anything about the occupier's existing energy tariff, the number of people in the property or their consumption habits.
'It's marvellous' said Mrs Winifred Berry of Islington. 'Until now I was worried about leaving my TV on standby or charging my mobile phone for more than an hour at a time, but now I have a chance to own NPower, I can afford to change all my old energy saving light bulbs back to 100 watt halogen ones, and I can spend more than ten minutes at a time pleasuring myself with my 30kW mains powered Iron Penetrator'
Mr George Manning of Plymouth said 'To think, I had a prepayment meter fitted just last week to help me budget for my energy use. Now I have a chance to own NPower, I'll be able to operate my cannabis growing business without having to resort to an Economy 7 tariff'.
A spokesman for RWE said that it regretted the fact that many of its cold callers made up most of what they said, and that it would undertake a massive retraining programme to ensure that their operatives' lies were much harder to detect in future.
In a statement, an OFGEM spokesman said 'We are satisfied that this attempt to hawk one of the big 6 energy companies to individual residents was really very naughty and we believe the fine of £47.28 that we have imposed upon RWE will be sufficient deterrent to put off any other major company from trying it on in the future.'
Meanwhile, energy secretary Chris Huhne has decided not to change the amount of money people are allowed to spend on their energy bills before they're considered to be in fuel poverty. 'The 10% level' he said 'ensures we maintain a balance with those poor individuals who are in beer poverty, fags poverty and Sky TV poverty'.
