Bulb Energy Reviews: Give your feedback on the energy supplier

Hi Hazzanet,

Thanks for your post. It's really important to us to get feedback like this and make use of it. So this is very useful for us.

We can actually take direct debits. We prefer debit card payments, but we realise and respect that some people prefer direct debits. If you'd like to set it up with direct debit, just give us a ring and we'll be happy to get that set up for you.

We always aim to be clear, accurate and plain in our communications. In the text that you mentioned however, it looks like we may have oversimplified in our attempts to make the message accessible to those who don't know what an ARUDD flow is.

The scenario we had in mind when describing it was when a payment fails, retries fail and we need to set up a new payment method. The process there is:
Day 0 - attempted payment collection
Day 1 - ARUDD 0 flow received to notify of payment failure
Day 1 - We contact the member to understand why it failed
Day 4 - We retry 3-4 days after payment failure
Day 5 - We are notified that the retry failed
Day 5 - Contact member and set up a new direct debit mandate
Day 11 - Payment is collected against the new mandate

So our total time to resolution can be up to 11 working days, which is over two calendar weeks. Or more if we retry additional times. But as you correctly pointed out, this is to resolution, not notification, as the current text implies. I'll take a look at it asap to make sure it's clearer.

On the flip side, with debit card payments notification of failure and retries are both near instant. The setup of new card takes 15 minutes and allows payments to be taken immediately. And have the added benefit of not resulting in fines by the member's bank for insufficient funds. This is why we believe that debit card payments are better.

Thanks for pointing it out. Genuinely.

Cheers,

Will

You're very welcome. Always happy to go into anything in more detail

Sounds great. We'll be waiting by the phone.

Nice one SwannyP Great to have you with us.

Since you asked so nicely, I'll see what we can do...

We'll do our best

Unfortunately wholesale prices have gone up 24% in the last few months which has forced us to increase our prices. We'll drop them again as soon as wholesale energy allows. I'm sorry that it was so close to joining for you, I know that's especially frustrating.