Martin Hayfield can remember his excitement when told he had a job at Generation South Wales. "It felt like the biggest moment of my life," said the 26-year-old, who had previously been working as a delivery cyclist. "I rang my parents to say I'd got it."
He claims his interviewers had depicted "an amazing job that everyone wanted" after he answered an ad for a permanent role based in Cardiff city centre with a salary of up to £25,000 and 'performance bonus' for additional pay. He wasn't sure what "lead generation" or "objection handling" would actually involve, but he was told he had beaten 30 others to the position of "trainee sales and marketing assistant".
What Martin and others have alleged to WalesOnline, though, is that Generation did not mention in job adverts or interviews that they would be doing door-to-door sales or that shifts would last up to 15 hours. It was, according to former workers, not mentioned that their pay would be zero if they did not make sales, or that they would have to pay for petrol and accommodation while travelling across the UK, sometimes sharing beds with colleagues in tiny Airbnbs. Generation's owner Roel Mojico has denied these allegations.
Scenes that unfolded each morning in Generation's office above a Cardiff Poundland have been likened to "something out of the Wolf of Wall Street", from claims of blaring dance music to intense swear-filled pep talks. The words "cult-like" and "dystopian" kept coming up in WalesOnline's interviews with people who say their mental health suffered from their time at Generation. One 22-year-old woman was never paid at all despite more than a month of gruelling work that left her ill, but she still found herself feeling guilty afterwards. "They really put it on you," she said. "I felt it was my fault for not making money."
Mr Mojico claims he "always strived to treat members of the Generation team — consultant or otherwise — kindly and compassionately". He added: "Hearing that some feel that they did not receive such treatment is never nice, but typical in the demanding industry that is sales. On the other hand, I maintain that there are many I work/worked with that have been sales consultants for a long time and have thoroughly enjoyed doing so."
Sometimes the doorstep sales involved energy deals. Workers were asked to memorise a script and tell people they were not selling energy and were "not from a supplier" but simply wanted to "stop your prices going up £200". Yet, even if the household was on a cheaper deal, a text would allegedly be sent saying money would be saved by switching to ScottishPower or So Energy. If a bill went up "we were told to say they wouldn't actually pay that amount", claimed one former worker.
Mr Mojico insists workers were never told to lie. He claims the deals really did save people money. But ScottishPower told WalesOnline it has launched an investigation and "condemns the processes and practices highlighted", while So Energy says it does not "condone the practices mentioned". Both say they did not "directly" contract to Generation.
How does Mr Mojico defend paying workers nothing if they went days without making sign-ups? He says the role was commission-only, yet employers are still bound by law to top up staff's pay when they don't make enough commission to earn the minimum wage. But Mr Mojico claims Generation's workers were not actually staff — they were "self-employed contractors". Job adverts that said the opposite were simply an "oversight", he told us. "Why would you apply to a sales company if you don't believe you can do sales?" he asked.
The entrepreneur has only just turned 28 but he has been running "marketing" companies since as far back as 2016. Despite growing up in leafy Ascot and attending the elite public school Charterhouse — where fees are up to £44,000 a year — his LinkedIn page claims he "didn’t come from a background of abundance or success". In his Cardiff office he reportedly kept a toy cash cannon, emblazoned with the word "supreme".
When WalesOnline phoned a mobile number linked to Generation, a man purporting to be Mr Mojico defended the company's practices for eight minutes before asking us to call back in half an hour. When we did, he said he was "not actually Roel Mojico" but had "just wanted to hear what you had to say".
We later received a call from the real Roel Mojico, who said one of his former "top sales guys" had "f****d up" by pretending to be him. Mr Mojico said the ex-"contractor" had been incorrect in saying Generation was still operating in Cardiff. The company no longer does door-to-door sales and "acts purely on a consultancy basis", he added.
'This is a bit of a cult isn't it?
It was October 2021 and Kate* had just moved from her native Northern Ireland to live with friends in Cardiff. The then-22-year-old was "desperate for a job" at the time she saw a sales assistant role advertised on Indeed with a base salary of £20,000.
The first step of her interview was a video call with Mr Mojico. "It seemed like he was bragging a lot about himself rather than asking questions," she said. "He was sitting in his office with Lakers jerseys framed behind his desk, and he said things like, 'You will be rich if you work, work, work.'"
In the next stage Kate spoke with several Generation account managers in a video call which allegedly involved little discussion of her own skills. "They spent most of the time talking about themselves and their own success. They were talking about people earning 'a grand' in commission on a weekly basis and saying, 'That's what you could be earning.'"
After getting the job Kate met an account manager one morning at 200 Degrees coffee shop on Queen Street. The woman took Kate on the short walk into the Generation office above Poundland on Windsor Place. The scene inside was far from what she had expected. She recalls music pounding from speakers as suited sales workers aimed mini basketballs through hoops.
Kate claims that at 22 she was among the oldest of around 30 workers, all of whom were standing up. Apart from Mr Mojico's own office, there were allegedly no seats, computers, phones or desks. Kate remembers thinking: "Oh my God, is this door to door?"
She added: "Roel gathered everyone in a semi-circle for a big pep talk. He'd do these very repetitive Wolf of Wall Street-style speeches with a lot of cursing. If you were new, he'd do this strange thing where he'd really big you up in front of everyone, even though he'd barely talked to you."
The company had existed in multiple guises. When Mr Mojico lived in Liverpool it was called Generation Northwest, which changed in 2021 when he moved to Cardiff. Jarringly the website for Generation South Wales is still dominated by an image of the Liverpool skyline.
Kate said: "One red flag was that when Roel moved from Liverpool to Cardiff, he took all these 19- and 20-year-old kids with him. About 15 people had followed him down from Liverpool. They were either living with him at 'Roel's place' in Cardiff Bay or they were in Airbnbs... There was one boy of about 18 who idolised Roel and followed him round like a puppy."
On Kate's first day none of the workers went door to door — allegedly because someone had complained to ScottishPower that Generation was "pressure-selling". The matter was discussed with much frustration on a Zoom call between Generation and around eight sister offices in cities across the UK, Kate claims. "That's how we were trained: to pressure-sell," she alleged.
WalesOnline has seen the "pitch" that workers were told to recite on doorsteps. It reads: "Nothing serious, just speaking to the neighbours today because of all the lockdowns there was a lot of complaints about the energy. I don't sell it."
Later the script reiterates they are "not from a supplier". After a text is sent to the customer, the pitch continues: "If there's a number on it, the bad news is that means your prices are due to go up. The good news is that you might qualify for an exclusive tariff... They'll stop your price going up £200."
Kate claims the text would always advise people to switch to either ScottishPower or So Energy. "If they were already with ScottishPower, the text would recommend So, and if they were with So, they'd get ScottishPower," she alleged.
In one group-chat message, a Generation account manager said there was an issue with So Energy payments. She told workers: "Can we divert everything to sp [ScottishPower] until they give us the nod please."
Kate claims that when customers called the supplier to make the switch, she was meant to say: "They're going to ask if I'm still here — say no." But she had allegedly been told to stay with them throughout the call to make sure they signed up. She added: "You were meant to tell them things like, 'Oh, energy companies can be so confusing but I'll stay on the call so it doesn't overwhelm you and I can answer any questions you have.'"
Mr Mojico denies workers were ever advised to lie. He said: "There was in fact a price rise and the customers would have spent more on their existing energy bills, however we managed to save customers significant sums of money using the exact pitch which you seemingly now seek to disparage. With regards to the pitches... we were not acting on behalf of an individual energy provider, but offered a comparison between providers to find customers the best deal."
Generation criticised Kate for being reluctant to stay with customers during calls. In one message a manager said Kate had not been "building or playing on a problem" and instructed her: "Just really place an emphasis on how they will be affected with the price rise tomorrow."
The alleged "pressure-selling" complaint had seemingly been resolved by Kate's second day, which she spent going door to door in a Valleys town. Each day Generation would drive groups of workers to a new area and split them up to knock on doors, although Kate was accompanied by a manager at the start. She would be out from around 9am to 9pm — on top of pep talks and debriefs at the office to bookend the exhausting shifts.
Katie was often taken to low-income neighbourhoods. "There was one man who signed over and I felt so bad because we'd moved him onto ScottishPower and his bill went up. We were told to say they wouldn't actually pay that amount. I felt terrible. He had a newborn baby."
Although Kate believes most people could tell her "heart wasn't really in it", she thought she had made a few sales. But Generation said none of them had gone through. "Maybe after you left, they cancelled it," Kate recalls one manager telling her. It meant she was getting zero commission — but she claims she was reassured there would be a minimum salary of £1,000 even if she made no commission in her first month.
Soon she found herself selling alone at night in unfamiliar neighbourhoods. "I didn't feel safe. Sometimes it was raining or frosty and I'd be out there until 9pm. But you weren't allowed to be negative or everyone would turn on you."
Within a couple of weeks Kate was going on group trips hundreds of miles away and having to cover her share of petrol and Airbnb costs. Ahead of a week in Peterborough, one manager messaged workers: "PBs [personal bests] are gonna be broken, more money to be ever made and most importantly self-development to be absolute beasts on and off the field." She told them to pack essentials but "most importantly a sick attitude, work ethic and student mentality!!"
Kate claims there was one week when 12 workers had to cram into a two-bedroom Airbnb. She allegedly had to share a bed with a female manager and each morning would wake to the sound of a motivational podcast.
Generation organised trips to sell door to door in low-income neighbourhoods in north-west England. Kate said the company had "sister offices" in Manchester and Liverpool, complete with loud music and table tennis. "In Liverpool, we stayed in a big two-bedroom apartment that Roel said was his penthouse," she added. "It had a balcony with a view over the Liverpool harbour.
"In Manchester I was taken to what they called a Winners' Circle dinner, a big sharing meal at a middle-eastern restaurant. I was told it was for 'people we believe are gonna make it far'. There were 'board members' there. I just wanted to go home."
By this time Kate's family were becoming concerned. Her father was baffled that she seemed to be in a new location every time he called. "You're in Manchester?" he asked on one occasion. "You were in Liverpool yesterday."
Kate still wasn't making any money but she had fallen into what felt like a "cult mentality". Managers would allegedly tell her: "You have to have a better mindset, you have to ignore the negatives to get to the positives."
She added: "My family and friends would say, 'You've made no money, you're constantly exhausted, you're never at home.' My friends didn't see me for a month and I lived with them. But you start to believe the lie. I never thought I'd adhere to a cult mentality but I remember arguing with my sister, telling her it would work out because I could make this money and they're saying I could do it... You're thinking one good day can set you for the month. I felt like the goal was to keep you so exhausted and cut-off that you did what they wanted."
One source of hope was the prospect of becoming an account manager, which would allegedly mean getting part of the commission from junior workers' sales. "The higher up you went, the less door-to-door you had to do," said Kate. "I kept reiterating the rhetoric, 'You will click and make sales and make £600 a week and it will all work out. You will be an account manager and get money for every person under you. You just need to get to account manager.'"
As the long outdoors shifts continued in mid-November, Kate's health began to deteriorate. "I took a couple of days off because I was feverish. I was still kind of sick when I came back. They were going, 'You will be fine, just go out and try your best.'"
We have seen messages showing that workers had to pay Mr Mojico as much as £55 each for their accommodation on trips. Towards the end of Kate's time at Generation, the money she had brought to Cardiff was dwindling and nothing was coming in. But a turning point arrived one day when Kate and other workers had regrouped for lunch at a McDonalds in Cardiff after a morning of door-knocking.
"They never left entry-level people alone together but that day the account manager took a phone call. I was with this other new girl and as soon as the guy left, we were both like, 'This is a bit of a cult isn't it?' We were both thinking how insane it was."
That Friday, Kate and some colleagues planned to go to Cardiff's Christmas Market for mulled wine after work. "I remember waiting around because one of them was in a meeting with Roel," she said. "One of the account managers heard I was going for a drink and said to me, 'Do you not think you should be focusing on being more successful and trying to improve yourself?'"
Kate went to the market anyway and quit that weekend. She claims that because she had taken two or three days off due to illness, she was denied any minimum pay guarantee — meaning she received nothing after more than a month of work. She believes a lingering "cult mentality" stopped her from complaining and made her blame herself.
When we asked Mr Mojico if he thought it was acceptable that Kate received no pay, he replied: "I agree that it is not acceptable and that is the reason why we respectfully asked her to leave. Our last conversation with [Kate] was to the effect of us suggesting that we part ways owing to her lack of sales and consequent lack of remuneration. In fact, she asked for more time with the company, which we refused. This is commonplace in the sales industry."
But Kate shared a message with us showing she told a manager: "I won't be coming back to the office. This job just isn't for me." She has since got a job as a legal assistant.
'Brainwashed'
Another former Generation worker, James*, spent time with the company last March after answering a "marketing assistant" advert. When he met a manager at 8am one Friday in the 200 Degrees cafe, he thought he was attending a third interview round, but it turned out he already had the job. The manager asked him: "Want to do some work?"
They went into the office where about 40 to 50 people were standing due to an absence of chairs. James, who was 25, believes many were in their late teens. He was bemused to see an office full of "little footballs and kids' toys" as "happy" dance music played.
At this point Generation was offering charity sign-ups — and it was allegedly only when James was taken through the pitch that he learned he would be going door to door. "It's like a guilt-tripping speech," he said. "You go with someone the first three or four days, you listen to it hundreds of times and learn it."
WalesOnline has seen an elaborate Generation script aimed at getting donations for the National Deaf Children’s Society. It includes lines such as: "Hey, how's it going? (strategic pause)" and "Nothing serious (ICE BREAKER)." The pitch goes on to ask if the potential donor agrees with getting sign language into high schools. If they say they do, the script continues: "Perfect, I would've been a bit worried if you would've said no haha." (The National Deaf Children’s Society told us it "does not currently work with Generation and has no plans to do so".)
James felt the language was "manipulative" and claims he was told "the older the person, the better", although we understand there was a ban on pitching to over-80s. "You're told if the person who answers the door is under 30, don't even try, because you don't get much money from them," he added.
On James' first day, he and a dozen or so others were taken by car to Weston-super-Mare and each assigned a patch until around 8pm. He had Saturday off but on Sunday night he embarked on a Generation trip to Surrey. "There were 10 of us and it was an Airbnb for only six people," he said. "I slept on a sofa for the five nights we were there. My back was in bits. We were told we had to be quiet because there were too many of us in there.
"When you're on a trip, you work an even longer day, up to 15 hours. By the Wednesday it had clicked in my head. There was a cult-like mentality. It became clear they did these trips all the time. I was thinking, 'Do you have a life outside this job?' The guy leading it was about 20 and would say things like, 'You've got to be first in the office, last out at night.' He sounded brainwashed."
James recalls that almost from the moment they woke they would be learning "persuasions" to get sign-ups. They would pull a purple National Deaf Children's Society t-shirt over a smart shirt and tie, then head out for the day. He found himself wondering: "Why are we working constantly?"
They would get about £30 for each sign-up, says James, who pitched alongside a manager. "I made about £400 after splitting with him. We came back late on the Friday night and I was coughing in the car all the way back. I ended up getting ill because I'd been out in the cold so much. I remember coming home and just being exhausted.
"They were setting me up to go on another trip on the Sunday night, I think to Taunton, with a group of about 30. The team leader texted me on the Sunday morning to double-check the numbers and I said, 'I'm not coming back. I'm done.'"
In his motivational speeches at the office, Roel allegedly talked about how he had begun in the same place his workers were, before starting his own operation within a year and making "big money". James said: "A lot of the workers were kids of about 19 who had not gone to uni. It was their first job outside retail or hospitality, and they had it dangled in front of them that they could earn £800 to £1,000 a week.
"The top earners got to go on ski trips and other holidays — anything to make it look like we'd get paid a lot," added James, who now works in education. "I can't imagine doing it for more than a month without it really straining you. It was work, work, work. After a day of work people would stay around in the office with music playing until late at night. It was very cult-like. It felt like they were preying on young people."
'Imagine explaining to someone what you did to get rich like that'
Martin Hayfield's short stint at Generation came last May after a three-stage interview. He was surprised not to have faced more probing questions, but was full of optimism after a congratulatory call from Mr Mojico. "He spoke a lot of jargon about marketing and said it's really well paid," said Martin, who was expecting bonuses on top of a salary of around £25,000. "At no point did he say it was commission-only."
On his first day he met two Generation workers at 200 Degrees. "Both were bigging up what a great place it was. They bought me a tea and I thought, 'Wow, I'm being treated alright.' I'd brought my ID and national insurance number but they didn't ask to see anything."
When they went into the Generation office, the club music was allegedly so loud that Martin could barely hear anyone speak. One manager told him it "got everyone pumped up for the day". Martin said he was struck by the youth of the 30 or so workers and by Mr Mojico's "huge" office containing a toy money gun and glass cabinet full of awards.
"They turned the music down for a motivational speech from Roel," he added. "It was only then I found out we'd be going door to door. We were told, 'With every 100 doors you knock on, at least one person will say yes — it's the law of averages.'
"Everyone was clapping. I felt like I was watching a film. Roel was congratulating the top employees, and one of them had apparently earned £1,000 the previous week. Roel said that guy had just joined but later I looked at the company's Instagram and I could see he'd been there at least a year. It's like they wanted to send out a message: 'You could be this good just as quickly.'"
Martin recalls being asked to go over a National Deaf Children’s Society pitch script around 30 times before travelling to Newport in a car of five. He described the script as "dystopian", adding: "It's really clever and designed to make people think it's spontaneous."
He was paired with another worker and they spent about 12 hours knocking on doors, with a 20-minute lunch break at an Aldi. "The guy I was with would try for a sign-up every four knocks, then I would do one, so there wasn't an equal opportunity."
The other worker secured three or four sign-ups that day and earned £30 for each, according to Martin, who got none and was informed he would not be paid for his shift. After being driven back to the office he felt "shattered, demoralised and a bit shocked". It was around 9pm at this point but he was allegedly told to stay another hour while managers filled a whiteboard with things to improve on the next day.
Shortly after returning the next morning Martin had a "eureka moment" and thought to himself: "What the f*** am I doing here?" As he confronted Mr Mojico, he noticed two managers watching on with shocked expressions. Mr Mojico, though, "kept his cool" and had "perfect responses", allegedly telling Martin: "You knew what you were getting yourself into."
"That comment played on my mind so I went back to the job advert and I was right," Martin told us. "I didn't know what I was getting into. I was thinking about going to the small claims court but I thought it wouldn't be worth the hassle. I just don't want businesses like that to think they can get away with it. It was a traumatising experience."
Martin, who has returned to delivery work, added: "A lot of people working there were vulnerable and had been looking for a job for a while. Roel said he'd been abroad six times that year. Imagine explaining to someone what you did to get rich like that."
'Hey man, it's all commission-based'
Paul*, who applied for a job at Generation last June, posted on Reddit to warn others of his experience. He showed us messages in which Mr Mojico asked him to delete the post. The candidate had written on the social media platform: "Applied for a job online. Was already wary due to the fact the wage stated was £17k-26k (bit of a gap). Company was called Generation South Wales. However, I could only find limited information of them online — poorly made website and nine employees on LinkedIn under Generation Wide.
"Roel showed up 10 minutes late for my Zoom interview which consisted of him stating he had 50 interviews and four positions, him asking one question (what skills do you have?) before offering me an hour-long Zoom interview at 8am. At this point alarm bells were ringing — this has to be the dodgiest/easiest interview I have ever taken part in. I decided to query if the position was office-based with a fixed wage as listed or was in fact door-to-door knocking... All [messages] ignored. This morning 7.55am I receive a text confirming I was attending the Zoom interview. I queried if it was a fixed wage etc. and was blanked once again!"
In an exchange of messages on LinkedIn, Mr Mojico asked Paul to take down the post because it was not "an accurate reflection of my company, recruitment process or ethos". He claimed there had been a "huge mix-up" and added: "We're so busy with candidates and also understaffed in our recruitment team which is obviously not your fault."
Mr Mojico told Paul he was "keen to know about the services you can provide". But the former candidate replied that he would not be removing the post, which went on to attract 44 comments, many of them sharing experiences of Generation. Few were complimentary.
When WalesOnline called a number linked to Generation, a man with a northern English accent answered. Falsely purporting to be Roel Mojico, he defended Generation with comments including: "If someone's not done any sign-ups then what are they getting paid a commission for?" Asked if there should be a minimum wage guarantee, he replied curtly: "No."
Is Generation South Wales still operating in Cardiff? "It is." Is there still an office on Windsor Place? "Not anymore." But there is still an office presence in Cardiff city centre? "Yes."
The man cut the call short after eight minutes and later admitted he was not Mr Mojico. We then received a call from the real Mr Mojico, who has a Home Counties accent and told us the other man we spoke with was a "self-employed contractor sales rep who worked in my firm, or with my firm, when I was in Cardiff" and had been responsible for "training of staff".
He added that the former sales rep had called him "panicking" and said: "Hey Roel, I think I f****d up... I made a massive mistake." Mr Mojico told us: "It's really strange. I don't know why he did that, to be honest. But you're speaking to me now."
Generation has not actually been running in Cardiff since September, said Mr Mojico. "We had some budgets there. We pretty much lost all those budgets because of low KPIs [key performance indicators]. So we moved out of Cardiff."
When we asked about Martin's experience, the entrepreneur said: "We did mention to him, obviously, 'Hey man, it's all commission-based.'" WalesOnline put it to Mr Mojico that the law requires employers to guarantee the minimum wage even in commission-based roles. But he confirmed there was no pay without sign-ups, adding: "It's like being a self-employed plumber. If you don't do your job, if you don't do the work, then you don't get paid. Even if you went in that morning, if you didn't check anything or survey anything, then you wouldn't get paid for it. We made that pretty clear, though."
What about the job adverts encouraging people to apply for "permanent" roles with a base salary? Mr Mojico replied: "If there are examples of that, then obviously I would feed it back to the recruitment team." He also said Generation would have given Martin his self-employed contractor "paperwork" after his "observation day".
Asked if he had exploited people, he said: "I was also one of those self-employed contractors before I even had the responsibility of running one of these teams. I appreciate everyone's point of view but we always say to people, 'Hey, look, you don't get paid daily'... Why would you apply to a sales company if you don't believe you can do sales?"
Mr Mojico said he started Generation in Liverpool around 2020 before moving to Cardiff the following year. "We just had pre-allocated marketing budgets in that area. As soon as the budgets drained, then we would go into another operation, or we'd go into another market. We have always just been dictated towards who had the biggest budget."
When we asked Mr Mojico if Generation ever had a network of offices across the UK, he said he only ran one operation at a time and there was only one Generation office at a time. But we later discovered an old Generation South Wales press release that included the line: "Generation and their sister offices across Wales, Liverpool and Manchester are off to the Instagrammable spot that is Bansko in Bulgaria on a team skiing trip".
And what about Kate's visits to northern offices and the Zoom call between eight UK offices? In an email, Mr Mojico replied: "The offices you refer to are not, and were not, run by Generation." He has not responded to a question seeking clarity on Generation's links to other companies.
Mr Mojico did respond to the complaints of false advertising. He emailed us: "All on-boarders that worked for Generation were given a set of points to cover during the on-boarding process. This included drawing specific attention to the fact that most of our contractors worked on a commission-only basis, as is common within the sales industry. The adverts you refer to are the result of an oversight made by recruitment consultants, an oversight we later ensured was corrected."
He also rejected the description of "dystopian" pitch scripts. "All standardised scripting was in line with the good work the clients we represented were undertaking," he said. "Scripts such as these are one of a number of steps that were put in place to ensure accurate information was delivered at all times. The scripts are clearly meant to allow salespeople to convey personality."
Mr Mojico said: "I am well aware that I was fortunate enough to be sent to great school in an affluent area but this does not have anything to do with the people I work with. I am proud that through my company I have been able to offer opportunities to a range of people from a wide variety of backgrounds. Whilst you seek to portray the commission structure as exploitative, we had numerous members of the team who stayed for a long time because they welcomed the opportunity to maximise their earning potential and enjoyed the Generation environment and culture."
He added that Generation "no longer engages salespeople to sell for clients on its behalf". The company now acts "purely on a consultancy basis".
'We condemn the processes and practices highlighted'
A ScottishPower spokesperson told us: “ScottishPower do not and have not contracted directly with Generation South Wales. ScottishPower stopped this type of sales lead generation activity in March 2022; however, we are actively investigating any role Generation South Wales potentially had in this. We condemn the processes and practices highlighted, which bear no resemblance to the standards we expect from anyone working on behalf of ScottishPower.”
And So Energy said: "We have not received a direct complaint on this specific issue. So Energy is not directly contracted with the business or person in question, and [we] do not condone the practices mentioned."
The National Deaf Children’s Society said two organisations that provide the charity with fundraising services have subcontracted work to Generation in the past but neither is still working with the company. “We are committed to ensuring that all of our fundraising is carried out with the utmost respect for both supporters and fundraising representatives," the charity's spokesperson added. “We have robust, sector-leading safeguards in place for current and prospective fundraisers and these are written into our contracts with the agencies we work with... We would strongly encourage any fundraisers who do have concerns to contact us directly.”
HMRC has the power to take enforcement action against employers that fail to pay the minimum wage. When we asked if it would act on the concerns over Generation, a spokesperson for the UK Government said: “Where an individual is working on a genuinely self-employed basis they are not eligible for the minimum wage. The Government is clear that employers cannot simply opt out of paying the national living wage or national minimum wage by defining staff as self-employed. An individual’s entitlement to the minimum wage depends on their employment status. Individuals cannot opt out of the rights they are owed. We cannot comment on individual job contracts.”
And a spokesperson for energy regulator Ofgem said: “There is no general rule prohibiting doorstep sales. However, any information must be accurate, so salespeople cannot say their tariff is the cheapest available if it isn’t. Our enforceable sales and marketing principle requires suppliers to treat customers fairly, no matter how they engage with them. We stand ready to act if we see harmful face-to-face sales tactics.”
If you would like to share your experience of working for Generation or another direct sales company, email us at conor.gogarty@walesonline.co.uk
*These names have been changed.
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