$1:
What's the worst thing about a door-to-door marketer? That they're annoying? That they use crooked hard-sell tactics?
Well its not just "hard sell" tactics but outright lies....dressing in official-looking uniforms and badges that say things like "Utilities agent", and saying that they're from the public utility, that all residents must sign up for an electricity contract now,etc.
Not only that but the laws were so loose, there was no recourse in the Harris days. Under the Harris regime, any person of age who answered your door could sign the multi-year contract (whether it was your 18 yr old child or your 99-year old senile grandparent) and legally bind you, even if they are not the bill payer. Consumer complaints went no where.
People were put on contracts even when they told the salesperson no and never signed anything - and these energy retailers replied by saying just because they can't locate a copy of your supposedly signed contract doesn't mean you didn't sign it; the fact that they're billing you must mean you did sign one, so you'll have to hire a lawyer to try to get out of it.
And then there was the secret 'ever-greening'. These contracts were for 5 or 10 years, after which, you had a non-communicated 30 day window to get of out it before the contract automatically renewed for another 5 or 10 years. It was up to completely up to you to keep track of that tiny window over the years as the Energy retailers said it wasn't their job to remind you and after all "whatever happened to individual responsibility?" as the Conservatives loved to say.
Never mind that anyone on these contracts never saved a penny vs. the actual public utility rate.