I give up! First Utility win!

samba

I recently decided to move my gas and electricity to First Utility on their smart tariff. Everything went well until the day my meter was scheduled to be installed. The engineer never called in advance as promised, and by 5pm on the day of the installation I deduced that he wasn't coming. On calling FU, I was immediately bounced over to Onstream who told me that he had got his van stuck in the snow on his first call that morning, so couldn't make it and couldn't explain why no-one had bothered to call me to let me know... (incidentally there was no snow in my area at that time)

I called FU again to rearrange my meter installation, but they said I had to arrange it Onstream myself, which I did. Unfortunately, I had taken my last day of holiday to wait for the original meter installation, but Onstream kindly rearranged it for an evening the following week. Again they didn't turn up, but this time without any reason. I told FU and asked for the statutary £20 compensation, but was told that compensation was only due if I had to take time off work, which is complete nonsense. Anyway I rearranged again with Onstream, only to get a phone call a day before the engineer was due to tell me that it was the wrong sort of engineer, as they call centre staff were not all aware of what smart meters were. And anyway, they had only rearranged my gas meter installation and there was no record on a electric meter install. The nice lady rearranged the installation for a Saturday morning, and assured me a smart meter trained engineer would turn up to change both meters...

At 8.30am on Saturday morning the engineer turned up and immediately informed me that he could only do the electric meter as the gas one was in a semi-concealed box, and the meter needed to be installed upright. I asked if he could change the box, and he said he could fit an overbox (like my neightbours have for their gas meter), but didn't have one in the van, and couldn't get one till the next week. However, he assured me he would return the following Saturday to do the gas meter...

When I spoke to the engineer mid-week about the gas meter, he said he had the overbox and was ready to change the meter as agreed, but the job had been cancelled off the system and he needed authorisation from FU to go ahead. I told him good luck getting that and true to form, despite several calls from both myself and the engineer no decision regarding the overbox was forthcoming from FU, meaning that the engineer could not attend at the agreed time...

So now I am giving up. After a month of struggle and many frustrating calls to FU, I only have an electric meter and no idea if and when my gas meter will be changed. Onstream have tried to help, but their call centre staff are not up to speed on smart meter installations, and FU resolutely refuse to contact the smart metering team at Onstream on my behalf and insist I do it myself.

minnie123

I was thinking about switching to them - think I have changed my mind now

Fire_Fox

Don't telephone send a recorded delivery letter. All these organisations have policies whereby you get £20 (or whatever) for each wasted day, and you will get it if you formally negotiate with the complaints department.

samba

minnie123 wrote: »

I was thinking about switching to them - think I have changed my mind now

Well I'm glad my expereince has had at least one positive result.

I'm still waiting for FU to contact me regarding installing my gas meter... I'm not holding my breath. In fact I am now seriously considering switching away from them.

kjsmith7

Hello Bear in mind that the 'smart' functionality of the electricity meter most likely won't work if you move supplier, best to check first with the supplier of choice. They'd still be able to manually read it, but it's likely that it won't "read itself".

samba

kjsmith7 wrote: »

Hello Bear in mind that the 'smart' functionality of the electricity meter most likely won't work if you move supplier, best to check first with the supplier of choice. They'd still be able to manually read it, but it's likely that it won't "read itself".

Yes I'm aware that I will lose the smart functionality, but tbh it's been a nightmare since I signed up to FU and I am now concerned that t&c's allow for them dip into their customers' bank accounts any time they please, and they insist you pay whatever value they put on an invoice even if you dispute it. If you do dispute the invoice and they agree they have overcharged you, then you get a credit on your FU account. So if they send me a bill for £10,000 I have no choice but to pay it or face admin and interest charges, and then I can only expect it to be credited back to me at best. That's according to their t&c's at least - in practice I would hope this never happens, but they seem to have problems producing bills for many people at the moment and if they can't get enough money coming in each month they won't be able to meet their outgoings.

MGSteve

To be fair, for some reason they didn't take payment from me last month and haven't charged me any charges etc.. Just can just ring them up and speak to their credit control department if you have any queries. I did and I suspect they did something which caused the payment not to be taken, even though I didn't ask them to do this!

They did seem to be more than willing not to take a complete payment if you were having troubles though. I was querying the bill where they had corrected the estimated readings to the actual readings. It was all correct in the end, just bloody confusing!