National Trading Standards and Lancashire police last week raided the offices of business energy supplier BES Utilities and sister company Commercial Power in relation to allegations of mis-selling energy contracts to business customers.
As part of its investigation, Trading Standards officers also visited Fleetwood Town football club, where BES Utilities co-owner Andy Pilley is chairman, and where some of the energy suppliers’ offices are located.
Commercial Power, a network of energy brokers founded by Pilley, was also raided.
“Officials from Trading Standards and Lancashire Police visited the officers of BES Utilities in Fleetwood and Commercial Power in Bispham, Blackpool,” a spokesman for the companies said in a statement.
“We are fully co-operating with their enquiries and hope this matter can be resolved as quickly as possible.
“We would like to stress BES Utilities is open for business. We apologise sincerely for any disruption customers experienced last week due to circumstances beyond our control and our teams are addressing any issues which may have arisen from this.”
The raid comes less than a year after BES was hit with a penalty just shy of a million pounds by regulator Ofgem for bad practices. The regulator’s investigation found the supplier was treating customers unfairly by not telling them about important contract details. At the time, BES said it had “improved our processes” and “learned a number of vital lessons”.
BES has more than 40,000 non-domestic business energy customers, according to the spokesman.
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