Constellation Energy Shady representative misrepresenting his affiliation Chicago Illinois

I got a knock on my door today from a guy claiming to be a ComEd representative offering a rebate on my energy bill. In his pitch, he said that my apartment building had signed up for some program or another which would refund specific charges from our past bills, and we just needed to show an old bill for them to look up the account and apply the rebate. I agreed, but as things progressed it got shadier and shadier.

 

First, I had to sign the guy's tablet certifying that he had served me with notice of cancellation and the terms and conditions of service. He had not, and when I asked for them, he said he would give them to me after the process was completed. Stupidly, I signed anyway. He then called an agent to register my details, and said an agent would be calling me to confirm. He requested that I bring my phone to the door and put it on speakerphone while I go through the process, but noted that he wouldn't be able to say anything as the agent would be asking me if the representative had left the premises.

 

This sounded like hogwash to me, so I told him I would be going through the call on my own, and closed the door. When the agent called, it was NOT from ComEd as the representative had indicated, but from Constellation Energy, which appears to be an alternative energy distributor that is a separate company owned by ComEd. The agent said they could not answer any questions "about the product I was switching to", at which point I incredulously asked, "wait, I'm switching energy providers here? What the heck?" I told the agent that the representative had tried to stay near me during the call and he indicated this was not the first time this had happened. 

 

I then had to spend the next half hour calling both Constellation to confirm that I was not being enrolled in their service, and calling ComEd to make sure I wasn't being cancelled from theirs. I have no special attachment to ComEd, but even if it saves me money I'm not going to swap to a different company with tactics as shady as these. Hopefully this doesn't sucker in too many more people.