SSE to refund mis-selling victims

16/12/11

By Dan Smith

Energy supplier SSE has announced plans to compensate customers who were victims of door-to-door contract mis-selling.

Around 400,000 customers will be contacted by the firm, which trades as Southern Electric, Swalec and Scottish Hydro, in January.

Refunds will be offered to those who lost money because they were encouraged to switch to SSE from another supplier on the basis of inaccurate information.

Those who were mis-sold products between October 2009 and this summer could be eligible to receive payouts from the company. According to SSE, £5 million has been put aside to meet the costs of the compensation payouts.

An independent team will assess the applications people make for compensation, SSE said.

SSE took the decision to call time on its commission-based doorstep selling in July, becoming the first UK supplier to do so.

In May it was found guilty of unfair trading as a result of a misleading sales script.