Watching the consumer affairs show, Watchdog here. Some of the utility companies were hiring "dangermen" to go and bully the public into switching their utilities over to them. The job ads for these guys were pretty funny. They asked questions like "Is there some blood in your beerstream? Are you a chancer? Do you have multiple women on the go and love it?" and encourage all willing thugs to get in touch. These thugs were then dressed in official-looking meter reader uniforms and sent out to bully people into switching utility providers. As they only got paid on commission, they were going to extreme lengths to get people to switch over, including violence, intimidation, and stealing banking documents from gullible customers.

I think some of these companies need to be hauled into court and heavily fined for this heavy-handed chicanery.