First Utility - Any users or reviews

NonGeographicalMan

digp wrote: »

EDF online v5 seems to be good, no?

If you only use electricity and live in one of the few areas that EDF Online v5 is still on offer then its a very good deal indeed. Plus its also one of the few single fuel switches where you can earn £30 rather than only £15 at https://www.topcashback.co.uk That's why I have just switched my mum over to it as she only uses electricity.

The only thing to watch is that although there are no penalties for leaving EDF Energy their terms and conditions allows them to cancel the tariff and dump you off on to one of their other tariffs without telling you and by only posting a notice on their website. And they do seem to have done this a couple of years ago with one of their previous online tariffs.

A further point to note is that until last Saturday only Energylinx were aware that EDF Envergy Online V5 was now available as a single fuel tariff but due to emails I sent that day Uswitch, SaveonYourBills and WhichSwitch have now all added it to their calculation engines (along with Ovo Energy in Which Switch's case) and only Energyhelpline have still not updated their site to offer it for single fuel electricity customers.

So EDF Energy might withdraw it any time soon if they get too many single fuel electricity applications....................

MGSteve

Well this is an interesting thread!

I signed up with FU in April and switched over in May. Got the smart meters installed last week (hurrah!).

However, just noticed that the standing rate for Gas has gone up from the 4.96p/day I have in front of me on their price list that they sent out with their welcome letter to a whopping 32.5p/d.

I'm now awaiting a call back from them regarding this. I'm sure they're not allowed to increase their fees by getting on for 700%! Even my first bill was at 32.5p/d and not 4.96.

I moved to them even though a tariff with nPower was cheaper (and I was even with nPower at the time!) and combined it should have saved me around £600 a year anyway. Following on from one of the posts on here, I shall keep a careful eye on what they come back with as the calculated usage for the last few months before the meters went in. I have the closing readings for both gas and electric and near enough the actual readings when the services were moved as well.

I'm prepared to pay a bit more a year for the smart meters because of the ability to monitor your usage, both of gas and electric. However, at the moment paying £90 a month for both does make it feel just as expensive as before! Hopefully its because the estimated reads were completely wrong.

Out of interest though, how do you stand when you sign up for a service from a company and the rates you pay are nothing like what you signed up to? Surely they have a limit that they can change your rates by, they can't just increase them by 700% because they've got you onboard now?

MGSteve

Thanks for that - you may want to remove his contact details from the post though, not sure he'd like them posted around the 'net!

MGSteve

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

32p per Kw for the first 900 Kw/h is a truly extortionate rate. Its only 11p per Kw for the first 900 Kw with EDF Energy Onlive v5 and then goes does down to under 9p per Kw

No, the standing charge is 32p/d, the p/kwh is 2.92 (which is cheaper than when i signed up, but the huge increase in the standing charge more than wipes out the £3 a month I save through the drop in kw/h price.

Premier_2

MGSteve wrote: »

...Out of interest though, how do you stand when you sign up for a service from a company and the rates you pay are nothing like what you signed up to? Surely they have a limit that they can change your rates by, they can't just increase them by 700% because they've got you onboard now?

According to their own terms and conditions, Sec 2.2 specifies that they are allowed to revise prices, but that they should use 'reasonable endeavours' to provide you with 10 days written notice of such change, especially if to your significant disadvantage.

Sec 15.1.b then gives details on how you can terminate the contract by arranging for another supplier to take over the supply. This condition is time limited.

The terms & conditions also give appropriate contact details i.e. email address & telephone number on the first page.

MGSteve

Yup, I had noticed that, I wasn't even aware the prices had changed anyway, they certainly did not communicate that fact, nor any change of T&Cs to me.

Besides the fact its a bit underhand of them to advertise one price to get customers onboard by appearing cheap on the comparasion website and then promptly put the prices up a few weeks later. I wondered why they had dropped off the site!

Well, Gas is now more expensive than it would have been under Scottish Power (who I was with), electricity, thankfully, appears to be as they said in their price list, which isn't the same as what's shown on their website (its more expensive on their site).

If I get anywhere with them, I'll update the thread anyway.

Not_So_Naff

Hi MGSteve

I am trying ascertain how my experience compares with others with respect to the First:Utility Energy Usage Charts, yours and other F:U Customers views would be most welcome.

In my case just about every other day there is a glitch with the system with data being unavailable for a day or even up to three days before coming back on line. The Gas Usage Chart was the worst offender failing to materialise for a couple of weeks after the Electricity Usage Chart became functional.
Currently the Gas data has not been available for more than a week although the Electricity data flow has improved.
As this long break is spanning the end of the month it is particularly galling.

Customer Service has improved markedly of late but they seem powerless to spur the Technical Department into reacting to consumer concerns.
The selling point regarding allowing customers to tune their usage by having a the data needed to hand is woefully off track.

Like you I have witnessed changes to Tariffs and T & Cs without notification. In fairness it has not all been bad news, the Smart Meters were originally going to cost me money for the installation but were fitted FOC [subject to 24 months F:U Billing of course].

With half hourly readings there should, by my reckoning, be 1,440 readings in a 30 day month. Importing the data, for November, into an Excel Spreadsheet from the Electricity Usage Chart Grid View only shows readings amounting to 1395 rows. Of the five columns available 3 could be encapsulated in a header. Do they really need to tell you 1395 times that your Account = X, Register ID = Y and Serial Number = Z?

Add to this the fact that, on a 'lucky' day, I read the freshly updated Usage Charts at a few minutes past midnight, and the Gas Usage for the day just beginning was ##.## cubic metres [##.## being the expected usage for a full day]. At this point I begin to get really concerned as to where F:U are heading.

Thus far the F:U experience is certainly something to be missed.

NonGeographicalMan

Not_So_Naff wrote: »

With half hourly readings there should, by my reckoning, be 1,440 readings in a 30 day month. Importing the data, for November, into an Excel Spreadsheet from the Electricity Usage Chart Grid View only shows readings amounting to 1395 rows. Of the five columns available 3 could be encapsulated in a header. Do they really need to tell you 1395 times that your Account = X, Register ID = Y and Serial Number = Z?

Add to this the fact that, on a 'lucky' day, I read the freshly updated Usage Charts at a few minutes past midnight, and the Gas Usage for the day just beginning was ##.## cubic metres [##.## being the expected usage for a full day]. At this point I begin to get really concerned as to where F:U are heading..

Useful data about First Utilty Not So Naff, especially bearing in mind that the meters that I want to have enabled for FU's remote meter reading service live in a locked basement store room I do not have any access to with only a two bar signal on O2 at the entrance door to it and no signal at all on any of the other networks.

Anyhow at the moment FU have withdrawn their smart meter tariff in this area so the issue of whether it is worth going for this product no longer arises for the time being in my case.

Not_So_Naff

I forgot to add that F:U's Smart Direct Tariff is only available in the Midlands and East Midlands at present outside that area they are offering the iSave Tariff whitch gives the ability for Customers to record their own readings. Not that it would help in your case NonGeographicalMan, in fact it may well be to your advantage in that in the future more Energy Suppliers will be offering SM and there is nothing like choice to provide better results.

It angered me that F:U avoided my request to be allowed to record my own readings on line for the duration of the several months waiting period to get the SM installed and up and running. Especially since they obviously have the system set up to record Customer Readings.
Perhaps they are struggling financially and need to 'borrow' customers cash to function?

The sad thing is that the problems are only with the Department that deals with the Data Collection and Display on line. I really do hope they can get their act together by the new year and so save me switching again. Clearly F:U is built around the Technology it is using and status wise IT will probably be on par with the Financial arm of the business. Individuals within the Customer Service Department appear prepared to act on the Consumers behalf but fail to elicit effective results. The Technical Department appears to be shielded by channeling contact via Customer Services. Isolation from Customers may make for a quiet life but it will not make problems go away.

The phrase 'biting off more than they can chew' springs to mind and I certainly will be looking to change unless they improve the service they are providing. Yes it will hurt to bear the cost of the installation but posts, of a similar nature to this, will take their toll and if they go under they will have only their IT 'Wizards' to blame.

I sincerely hope that I will be able to return to this thread with a more F:U friendly report.

Doc_N

I've read enough here to put me off signing up. That, plus the fact that two emails I sent to them more than two weeks ago haven't been answered. If they don't bother to reply to potential new customers, what hope have their actual customers got?

Also, this extract from their T&C bothers me:

If, once the AMR meter has been successfully installed, we are required to re-visit your premises to reposition it or install any additional equipment to it in order to re-establish the connection or signal to the meter, you will bear the reasonable costs of this work.

So - any problems with your meter connection are down to you! Not a risk I'd want to take - sounds expensive.