Scottish Gas to pull plug on doorstep cold calling

Scottish Gas owner British Gas is to stop doorstep selling for an initial three-month period, following a campaign by consumer groups to outlaw the practice.

The firm is the second major energy supplier to make such an announcement, following in the footsteps of Scottish & Southern Energy, which suspended all doorstep sales activity last month.

In July, consumer groups demanded the energy industry end cold-call doorstep sales, claiming people felt pressured to switch by representatives turning up at their homes.

The company said in a statement that it had been reducing the use of doorstep selling for many years and had cut its number of field sales agents to less than a quarter of the 1,300 employed in 2006.

British Gas said the move would be "an important step towards rebuilding trust in the energy sector". The company is likely to use the three months to restructure and potentially retrain its doorstep sales team to introduce alternatives for face-to-face contact with customers.

Ian Peters, managing director of energy at British Gas, said: "Doorstep selling, in its current form, is no longer a sustainable way to engage or build a relationship with customers. We want the energy advice we give our customers to be trusted and delivered at a time and place that is convenient to them."

Consumer groups, which had called for energy companies to offer appointments that would be agreed before a sales visit, welcomed the announcement.

"Scottish Gas has responded to our call for action," said Trisha McAuley, deputy director of Consumer Focus Scotland.

"We applaud the move. This is the sort of move that responsible companies make when it becomes clear that consumers are unhappy with the way they do business."

Richard Lloyd, executive director at Which?, said: "We want the rest of the industry to follow the lead of British Gas and SSE."