MSE News: iSupplyEnergy to stop making it difficult for customers to switch

Leyton_Lassie wrote: »

Totally agree adpeace.
I sent this email today....

Good afternoon Mr Cryer

We have recently moved into your constituency and have encountered a problem with our energy supplier(s) that we want to tell you about, because we feel that, as our MP, you can instigate changes to prevent what we have experienced in future.

We purchased our property last year, and in May, asked British Gas to supply us with gas and electricity. For some months, the property was being refurbished and we moved in just a few weeks ago.
As the meters operate with cards, I called British Gas yesterday to find out about the procedure to change the meters into the more convenient, monthly credit payment type, so that we can pay by direct debit. However, British Gas told us we were not their customer! I was confused, as we have never changed our supplier since the outset. They then proceeded to inform me of all the suppliers we’d had since May 2015 when we signed up with British Gas, as listed on the national database - which are as follows:

13th May 2015 - 19th July 2015 British Gas (this is who we signed up with)
20th July 2015 - 3rd October 2015 Utility Energy (we did not request or authorise this change)
4th October 2015 - 28th October 2015 Economy Energy (we did not request or authorise this change)
29th October 2015 - present Ovo Energy (we did not request or authorise this change)

Can we be clear - we did not ever request or authorise a move from British Gas, with whom we originally signed up.

I called British Gas and Ovo Energy to try and establish what had happened, but each referred me to the other. Ovo eventually referred me to Energy Helpline, the comparison company who had processed the last change. However, when I called them, they simply referred me back to Ovo.

In a state of total frustration at being passed from pillar to post, I called Ofgem, who told me that the technical name for what has happened is an “Erroneous Transfer - Customer Charter” and that in view of the fact that someone has changed our supplier so many times in such a short space of time, that it looked as though it was fraudulent, rather than erroneous.

There is clearly a loophole in the system that allows someone to change someone else’s energy supplier without any checks being made, and without the account holder being informed. Had I not called British Gas yesterday regarding an unrelated matter, I would still not know that they were no longer our supplier and that a stranger had changed it.

Furthermore, it seems that there is nothing that can be done to prevent this from happening to us again in the future! Whilst the ‘Erroneous Transfer - Customer Charter’ allows for us to be reinstated with the original supplier (in this case British Gas) if we are patient enough to wait for at least 3 weeks for process to take place, the next day, someone could change our supplier again, without us knowing.

We can find out who processed the transaction (which is how we know that Energy Helpline were responsible last time), but due to the Data Protection Law, we can not know the identity of the fraudulent person behind the request - whether they are an energy company employee, a neighbour or a person within our community, or a stranger just chancing our address. The new energy supplier is not even allowed to give us the name into which our account has been changed - though no doubt it would be a fake name in any case.

It occurred to us that these changes were made by someone looking to profit from an incentive/promotion by the energy company, who may have been offering cash payments for referrals - I suspect this might have even been an Energy Helpline employee. Of course, we are very disappointed that not one of the energy companies verified whether the requests for a change of supplier was genuine. Similarly, that not one of the energy companies with whom I spoke, nor the comparison site that processed each of the changes even had the grace to apologise, or take responsibility!

However, to cut to the chase, we're writing to you to see if there’s anything you can do, as our MP, to make changes so that in future, a third party can not change our (or anyone else’s) energy supplier without the account holder’s consent, as has happened to us repeatedly over the last year or so?
We will be interested to learn your response.

Kind regards