UK energy suppliers’ customer service: a tragedy (and a farce) in three acts | Money
On a dark winter night, what could be more gripping than my latest energy company tragedy, guaranteed to send tingles down your spine?
Act I
The scene is Stafford where K.M.The elderly mother lives alone in a social home equipped with a smart prepayment meter. She was persuaded to switch to British Gas with the promise of “preferential rates”, after which the meter stopped working.
Because she can no longer control her credit or her consumption, her electricity supply keeps cutting off. And since there is no gas supply in the house, it has no heating. She can’t pay on the app because it informs her that her account is locked.
“She gets different advice every time she calls,” says KM. An agent wants the retiree to climb a ladder to photograph the meter number already entered in her registers (she recently returned from a hospital stay).
Another tells him to use his old recharge card from his old provider. She does so, after investing more money. Unsurprisingly, this has no effect and she now risks getting the money back from a supplier with whom she no longer has an account.
Eighteen days after the change, she can’t check what she paid for and she can’t get warm.
The conscience of British Gas is always touched by a title. She admits an unexplained “delay” in transferring her account left her without heat three times during a freezing week.
She also admits to a lack of customer service when she complained. He now puts her on a credit meter, fixes the app problem, and pays her goodwill for the “inconvenience.”
Act II
In Glasgow, R.W. spent seven years telling his supplier that there was a problem with his invoices.
Since a new meter was installed in 2018 they have been huge. So huge that he found himself with a four-digit debit for several years, because his ever-increasing direct debits could not keep up. To no avail, he sent photos of his meter first to Bulb and then, when it collapsed, to Octopus Energy.
Both agreed that there was something wrong, but because they couldn’t figure out what was going on, they continued to help themselves to RW’s money and RW continued to go into debt.
It was when he tried to change suppliers this year that the new company spotted the problem: his meter readings had been recorded in cubic feet rather than cubic metres, meaning he was potentially charged more than three times what they should have been.
Octopus promised to fix the problem, but the only contact RW received in the weeks that followed was about even bigger bills.
“I feel financially at the mercy of a company that really doesn’t care about me,” he laments.
Enter Guardian Money and Octopus springs into action.
He explains that the change from imperial to metric meter in 2018 was not recorded in the energy database, so his bills continued to be calculated in cubic feet. This has now been corrected and RW’s account has been reviewed and backdated.
The result? He was found to have overpaid more than £8,000. He has since been repaid this sum, plus interest calculated at 8% and compensation worth 10%, making a total of just under £12,000.
Act III
We’re in Dorset where a teenage schoolgirl is under threat of having her credit rating destroyed by Ovo. The utility company decided she owed him £20.
The fact that the charges relate to a rental property that his family left a year ago and cover a period after their move does not interest Ovo. Her debt collectors inform her that she risks legal action if she does not pay.
This plot is eerily similar to my previous drama in which Ovo charged a teenager for a supply at an address he had long since left.
Ovo doesn’t talk to the girl’s mother, GSwho was the account holder during the rental due to GDPR. It doesn’t seem strange that GS has an Ovo account paid for the family’s current home, which was opened when they moved.
“How did our society get to the point where big corporations can threaten children over debts that don’t belong to them? she asks. Ovo blames tracing agents, who match debts with creditors, who somehow obtained the student’s contact details and compared them to a debt accrued between rentals.
She has now canceled the debt, deleted her contact details and sent a box of White Company lotions as a sign of contrition.
We accept letters but cannot respond individually. Email us at consumer.champions@theguardian.com or write to Consumer Champions, Money, the Guardian, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Please include a daytime telephone number. Submission and publication of all letters is subject to our terms and conditions.
