First Utility - Any users or reviews

hippey

Just when I thought I was finished with my First Utility issue I receive a payment demand in the post.

Weird, I pay by direct debit and the payment are upto date, etc etc. When I look at the amount it is strangely enough the same as the gesture of goodwill they sent by cheque! What an absolute joke!

And the letter very kindly states a £5 admin charge is added for non- DD payments!

samba

I think they are getting desperate for cahsflow - after 8 months of not billing me for gas they finally sent a bill for 6 months worth of standing charges. No consumption tho, just an email saying they have to estimate my consumption as I never provided an opening read when my smart meter was installed?! Except rthe big problem I have had with them is that they never installed the smart gas meter and have never once been in contact to explain why.

This company is the worst utility company I have ever come across and I am surprised they have not gone bust yet - the investors behind them must have extremely deep pockets, but I have a feeling they are throwing good money after bad and will lose the lot eventually.

I used to work at an electricity supplier (that went bust in the recession), and near the end they started taking desperate measures like billing all the problem accounts for standing charge in order to maximise their cashflow.

On another note, despite many assurances, they have still not paid the £20 compensation they offered me for a missed appointment back in January. I believe there are further penalties for not paying the compensation in time. Anyone know what they are by chance?

hippey

And today I have a threatening demand for the payment of £25! Apparently they are going to take further action to recover the money.

Yeah! Go on then, take me to court for £25 which you gave me as goodwill (by cheque you sent me!) even though all my bills are paid by direct debit and upto date and see who looks stupid then!

I really hate this firm now I never get demands for payment in the post and I'm not going to start now.

TrustMe

hippey wrote: »

Just when I thought I was finished with my First Utility issue I receive a payment demand in the post.

hippey - I'm afraid my earlier comment about never saying 'finally' has come true for you. I have read on other forums of First Utility doing exactly the same trick with other customers.

Unfortunately, my switch has come to a grinding halt. My Gas has been transferred to EON but my Electricity hasn't. I have just spoken to EON and they tell me that FU will not respond to their industry request for a final meter reading and so they can't proceed, even though my online account with FU now says both accounts are closed. So who am I currently paying for my Electricity!

Either FU are using delaying tactics to try and get out of refunding me for the increase charges back to 1st July - now over £50, or they are showing their total incompetence once again.

samba wrote: »

This company is the worst utility company I have ever come across and I am surprised they have not gone bust yet - the investors behind them must have extremely deep pockets, but I have a feeling they are throwing good money after bad and will lose the lot eventually.

On another note, despite many assurances, they have still not paid the £20 compensation they offered me for a missed appointment back in January. I believe there are further penalties for not paying the compensation in time. Anyone know what they are by chance?

Samba - I agree with your sentiments entirely - I have never dealt with such an appalling company in all my life. They missed an appointment with me earlier this year and refused to pay because they said I wasn't in: I wasn't in - I am physically disabled & housebound.

First Utility are total muppets looking for a fall and anyone thinking of moving to them should read all the online reviews about them, and take the majority consensus and avoid them like the plague.

MONEYPENNY

:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:As i was formerly a Sky customer, and are regrettably a current First Utility customer, I can say without doubt the answer is YES, this company are the bottom of the cesspit when it comes to customer services.
I went from a excellent but not the cheapest utility company called Southern Electric back in November last year to probably save about £100 as it was back then.
Big,BIG mistake .
Since switching I have not been able to receive a correct bill for my gas as they are quoting the wrong serial number, and using the wrong start figure and units for calculation of my use ie : using cu/ft instead of cu/mtrs, thereby nearly tripling my consumption.
And when you point this out to them they start spinning tales about being given incorrect information from the old supplier, this is not how the system works, I have checked this out, they should be referring to Xoserve, Transco and National Grid for these details .

This first came to light in December of this year, and it is proving nigh on impossible to sort out.
I have spent probably days, in total manhours, trying everything :
Formal letters of complaint.
Countless email and telephone calls .
Offering to send them my final bill from Southern Electric, which they will not accept.
Going through the Ombudsman service, which has now gone beyond the 28 days he gave them to sort things out.
Contacting my old supplier to ask for help, which they have done 3 times by calling them up and explaining to them where /why/ what is wrong and how to put it right , but still nothing.

You could make allowances sometimes for a large company to process new information, and give them a few weeks, but this company is tiny and cannot communicate between themselves let alone it's customers or other bodies/agencies .

And would you believe they sent me an email on the 28 of July to tell me that they have put up all their prices from the 1 July .

Electric standing charge per day : was 25p, now 29.46p = 17.84% .
Unit rate per Kw/h : was 8.45p, now 10.218p = 20.92% .
Gas standing charge per day : was 32p, now 56.7p = 77.18% .
Unit rate per K/wh : was 2.755p, now 3.116p = 13.10% .

How can anyone make such a dramatic change to there price structure and apply it retrospectively to boot .

These people are cowboys of the first order , do not deal with them under any circumstances, they haven't a clue about how to run their buisness, nor do they care about customer services, as they will not return your calls, or even acknowledge your contact with them through the post, as they are a "PAPERLESS COMPANY" as they like to say, I think that should be FACELESS to be more accurate .

MONEYPENNY

Cardew wrote: »

I would think the bigger risk from a customer's perspective is the company massively hike their prices if they are in danger of going broke..

So they haven't broken their contract and you are faced with paying very high prices or the penalty for leaving.

Yes they have massively increased their prices, and i do not have a contract with them, so I am praying they go broke , please, please let it be so, and put them all on the dole.

MONEYPENNY

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

That is certainly also the impression I have formed of this company and I am waiting with interest to see when Ovo Energy starts implementing its plans to begin offering smart meters from some time early on in 2010.

Although Ovo Energy is also a new business it looks to me like it is a lot more competently managed than First Utility is............

That can hardly be classed as an achievement by any standards., not deriding Ovo you understand.

MONEYPENNY

samba wrote: »

The following is taken from FUs latest t&cs available on their website…

14. Billing and payment

We will send you one monthly bill covering all services under your contract with us. It will be produced and sent to the billing address provided by you normally within 4 (four) days of the meter read, with the direct debit based on this value and taken typically within 3 (three) days of the invoice being made available..You must pay us by direct debit unless we agree otherwise in writing or you are an existing customer and we have already agreed a different payment method. Where you do not pay us by direct debit we may levy a reasonable monthly administration charge of up to £10 per account per month.
…
Where we fail to collect payment (other than as a result of our own act or omission) we will charge you, and you will be liable for, interest on the sum due 28 (twenty-eight) days after we sent the original bill according to the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (interest) Act 1998.
…
If you reasonably dispute any amount in an invoice you must notify us with full details of the invoice and the reason for your dispute no later than 3 (three) days before the payment is due. You and we shall try to resolve the dispute as soon as reasonably practicable. However, in the meantime you must pay on the due date for payment, the full amount of the invoice. Once the dispute is resolved any amount due by you to us shall be paid within 10 (ten) days and any amount due from us shall be credited to your account within 10 (ten) days. We may, when it is considered reasonable to do so and at our sole discretion, apply a charge to recover any costs we may have incurred in investigating a payment dispute or other query initiated by you including, but not limited to, the provision of duplicate consumption data and documents.

I have a few points:
1. they only give (up to) 3 days notice, but if you dispute the invoice you must give them 3 days notice. So that leaves the customer with no opportunity to dispute the bill under their t&cs.

2. You must pay the bill anyway even if you dispute it, or risk admin and interest charges on your account.

My main issue is that according to their t&c’s, they can use us as an instant interest-free overdraft whenver they want, simply by sending us a huge invoice which we must pay, and which we cannot dispute within the timescales they require. Surely these t&c's are unenforceable under the unfair t&c's in consumer credit act?

I am seriously considering getting out now before I wake up one morning to find they have taken several thousand pounds from my bank account in a desperate attempt to stay afloat.

On a seperate note, we are consumers and not businesses, socan anyone shed any light on whether the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (interest) Act 1998 applies to us?

As regards the level of service I have had from FU - well I still only have the one meter installed, and I have had no bills since the start of the year. I am getting sporadic data for my electricity meter on Google Powermeter, but nothing on FU's website. I have been waiting for over a month for FU to authorise the installation of my gas meter, despite the fact they promised it would only take a few days to sort out.

Once I had instructed the Ombudsman to look into my problems with F.U ( sums up their attitude perfectly) on 19 may, I immediately cancelled my direct debit to them . I have been sending them my gas readings followed by an email letting them know I am quoting cu/mtrs and not cu/ft. I want my discount for providing regular readings.
When my issue is eventually sorted out then I will have proof of my usage at set points and would want my bills calculated using the tariff in force at that date together with any discounts applicable.
Then I will be saying F.U to them and move on.
They were trying to use me as an overdraft facility, but I put a stop to that sharpish.

MONEYPENNY

city_girl wrote: »

I just had to add in my experiences of First Utility - I have rarely reviewed any service to be honest but am so appalled by this company I have been hunting down references to them all over the web and adding my comments!
The cheaper prices IN NO WAY compensate for their complete incompetence.
The staff/managers couldn’t care less. In fact my belief is that the managers actually find it highly amusing to promise you a call back and then simply not do it for the 100th time then avoid your calls completely.
Our primary reason for choosing them was the smart metering. We signed up 1st Jan; they never even showed for the first appointment, no apology, they didn’t even take my complaint seriously.
The guy showed for the next appointment and said we ‘had the wrong meters’ so he couldn’t install the smart meters at all!
He said FU should have asked me which meters I had before signing up with them so I would know if I could have the smart meters. Of course they didn’t. Do not join up if you’re expecting to get smart meters installed as a matter of course – ask them to check your meter type first.
And this was weeks ago and I’ve still not received a call from FU about it!
I’ve not received an electricity bill as yet and have had just one gas bill in 4 months.
I am starting to think that someone set this company up as a joke, hence the acronym of their name FU because that’s what they think of their customers!
Can't wait to leave them...
:mad:

They are certainly beyond words,( that are printable anyway).:mad:

MONEYPENNY

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

All sums taken for services by direct debit for goods that are faulty or never supplied can be put in dispute with your bank and the money must be refunded by the bank. The front line staff at a bank call centre may deny this but if you escalate through their official complaints procedure they will have to refund the payments disputed.

At this point it is up to the merchant to then pursue you directly for any money that it claims it is still owed.

How do you stand for goods supplied using erroneous meter details, which was brought to their attention in the first instance of it being known, and for which they have charged me to the tune of £415.50 which is now held in a suspended account they have.