A ROGUE salesman has been sacked after forging signatures as he touted for new customers for Norweb Gas Ltd. Three furious Bolton residents complained yesterday after receiving notification that they had "signed" up to the company's deal. But none had in fact put pen to paper after the agent knocked on their doors.

Instead the man - who had worked on behalf of the company in Bolton since March - had forged their signatures after they all declined the offer.

Bosses at Norweb Gas admit the agent had written fake signatures on the contracts, swapping their gas accounts over to the company. The man was sacked yesterday morning.

A spokesman added: "This particular agent appears to have gone AWOL and he has forged people's signatures. The agent has been sacked this morning and we apologise to those customers and are arranging for them to stay with the companies which control their gas accounts at present.

"We received complaints from three people living in the Bolton area. It is the first time we have had complaints about this man.

"There is an audit system in place which quickly brings to our attention anything of this nature. We would stress that no money exchanged hands at all."

But one of the furious "customers", Mary Pennington, of Breightmet Road, Breightmet, says she now plans to sue the company, claiming her fake contract constituted fraud.

Last month Mrs Pennington was visited by the agent who asked if she wanted to swap her gas account over to Norweb Gas Limited.

She declined but two weeks ago was amazed to receive a standard letter confirming the account was to be transferred.

She queried the letter and was yesterday sent a copy of a contract which she had supposedly signed.

It had been signed as "Joan" Pennington and described her as retired. In fact Mrs Pennington works as a private home care assistant.

She said: "As far as I'm concerned the bottom line from all of this is that it is fraud. How many other people have been affected by this man?

"I will be contacting a solicitor to take the matter further. I'm horrified that this has happened."

The Norweb Gas Limited spokesman confirmed that checks would be made with all the sacked agent's customers to ensure no other contracts have been forged.

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