Stadtwerke Lindau warns all customers and citizens against telephone calls where the callers pretend to be service providers or employees of the Stadtwerke, energy advice centers or agencies, ask for personal data from customers and want to conclude energy contracts. These are “cheeky marketing campaigns”, as the municipal utilities write.
Above all, the uncertain mood is currently being increasingly used to foist contracts on citizens or to obtain information. An attentive Stadtwerke customer reported to the company on Monday about a particularly cheeky incident: the caller pretended to be a Stadtwerke service provider and offered a new gas contract on behalf of the company. At the same time, he threatened the customer that if he did not sign this contract immediately, he would no longer receive any gas in the winter, which – according to the municipal utility – is of course not true.
The Stadtwerk therefore advises never to give details such as meter number or account number over the phone. This information is sufficient to foist a new contract on consumers and unintentionally switch electricity or gas providers. The Stadtwerke know the meter numbers of their customers and do not have to ask for them by telephone. “And under no circumstances,” says Head of Sales and Marketing, Markus Schmidutz-Ries, “in the current situation, in which people are already afraid and unsure, would we go one step further and spread panic. So please be careful. If you were nevertheless given a contract, you have a 14-day right of withdrawal. There are very clear and unambiguous rules and sequences for gas shutdowns in an absolute emergency. And that is not determined by us as Stadtwerke Lindau, but by the federal government.”
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