Abusive Utility Companies... Where to go to avoid them?

willowgirl

I'm trying to find a utilities company I can trust. I used to be with British Gas but had problems and then switched to EDF which was very much out of the frying pan and into the fire!

EDF have been appalingly dreadful, to an extent I cannot put into words. I'm really looking to remove abusive relationships from my life so I would love to hear about people who have had good experiences with utility companies. If I can save some money too that would be great (I'm based in South Leeds) but really I just want a company that won't rip me off and is capable of doing basic billing etc.

Does anyone have any recommendations?

On the up side, I was once in an appaling relationship with a company called Pipex who used to actually ring me up, tell me they were ripping me off, and then try to sell me a new contract with them. The whole thing was really bizzare!!! Eventually it got to the point where they changed ownership yet again, lost all my account details, and then cut ME off!

They did me a huge favour because I then switched to Plus.net who are fabulous and look after their customers. :j

I now have all my phone and internet stuff exclusively through plus.net and can very much recommend them to anyone else trying to escape an abusive relationship.

Sadly they don't do gas or electricity yet but basically I want to find the plus.net of gas and electric companies, not the talk talk so to speak.

Please help with suggestions and anecdotes!

Plushchris

A vote for Ovo from me, not had to deal with them much (which is a good sign in itself) but when I have they have been pretty good, certainly seem more customer focused than any of the big suppliers.

jalexa

willowgirl wrote: »

EDF have been appalingly dreadful, to an extent I cannot put into words.

I was going to ask you for an example, then I read again what you had said.

There are many forum reports of Edf "dysfunctional" customer service (including mine), and few reports of improving service (including mine). Your "Subject" however is "abusive utility companies" (but which you cannot put into words).:(

My experience is that currently when Edf deign to answer the phone in less than 15 minutes, actually the customer service advisers are personable and patient and (in relation to a current rash of DD review errors) happy to reinstate the previous payment.

And for recent switchers who are prepared to play a longer game, a money saving deal. Which was something you wanted?

chris1973

Strange, i've been with several different utilities companies over the years and i've never found them abusive, at least not in the conventional sense of the word.

To be honest i've never had much dealing with them or had the need to rant down the phone at them, although in some properties i've been on pre-payment others i've been on credit meters but have paid in quarterly payments by cheque for the usage. Perhaps i'm just lucky, but I can't remember when I last needed to contact them, my opinion may change of course when / if I do, but years have gone by and other than informing them of a change of occupier each time that I move into a new property, that has been my only {written} contact with them, and in each case its all gone ok. *Touch Wood*

Here is my own experience of utility companies.....

I've never bothered with DD payments as I move around a lot, in both cases I log my meter readings monthly, and in respect of credit meters, I supply them with a meter reading in a TIMELY manner every quarter and don't ever allow them to estimate bills, so in respect of both Credit and Pre-Payment I only pay for what I use, and don't have the worry / hassle of any DD payment being changed, or it not covering the usage or getting to much in credit.

Perhaps this is the key to a happy relationship with a utility company?, i.e supply them with accurate meter readings, pay on time and take responsibility for your own usage by monitoring what you are using and budget accordingly.

By taking your own regular meter readings it helps you to track your own usage so, if you are paying £30 a month by DD and you find that you have used £45 in a month by your own meter readings, (and it is likely to continue) then common sense says ring the utility company at the earliest opportunity and increase the DD there and then, rather than wait six months for the Utility company to do it for you, and then pay 6 months worth of the DD unpayment 'debt' as a catch up.

With the recent price hikes across several utility companies, virtually everybody on DD should now be arranging to increase their existing DD payments by a similar amount in order to cover and track any forthcoming price increase, (unless you are already overpaying your usage significantly or have built up a large amount of credit).

For anybody whose DD payments are currently just about covering their usage, then they will need to increase the DD payments prior to the increased prices, in order to map the difference and cover it.

The same with moving into a new property, especially if its rented, take a meter reading when YOU ARRIVE, not 7 days later or 3 months on, better still take a time - date stamped photo of it, if you choose not to cover yourself with the basics then its your own fault, nobody elses. It takes two minutes. Equally, notifying the utility companies of the change of occupier should be one of the first letters you write, even before your housewarming invitations go out. Needless to say, similar reading advice applies when you move out and lock the door for the last time!.

I'm sorry if this is stating the obvious to some, but you'd be surprised how many people will just wait for the Utility companies to do these things for them and often by then there is a back payment due to cover any accrued debit difference from a period of underpayment or they pay somebody elses bill / debt, and usally this is when arguing the toss with the company begins as to where liabilities fall, and if I didn't read of it actually happening here, I wouldn't feel the need to write the advice now!.

To be fair i've seen genuine cases here where utility companies have made errors and are at fault, but i've also seen far more where two minutes every few weeks to take a reading and budget your own usage would save so much grief, as would suppling timely readings to their ultility companies to avoid several bills with 'E' on the readings and then a backdated bill and the inevitable forum rant in relation to 15 months of underpayments from under estimations, which of course when you read such instances here it is never the fault of the householder.......enough said.

Taking meter readings should be a practice which everybody with a meter should be doing. So if you see a huge spike in your usage, you can trace it at the earliest opportunity (and increase any DD NOW! if its expected), the same if you suspect a faulty meter, you can see roughly when it went faulty and report it before it becomes expensive and you have to fight with the utility company to prove how far back the errors occured and how much you have overpayed. You can also use this to make sure that the company have correctly applied the recent & accurate non estimated reading which you sent them to your actual bill when it arrives

willowgirl

Just to clarify a bit, I didn't mean verbally abusive, but more an abusive relationship. For example the people at Pipex weren't verbally abusive as such but openly admitted they were ripping me off. EDF seem to have some problems with their comms systems anyway because whenever I have tried to speak to them on the phone it's just been like "I'm sorry I can't hear you?", "Can you spell that out?" etc

I can't prove of course that the EDF billing problems aren't just due to massive extreme incompetence but my belief is that it is just fraudulent behavior. (Actually I even have some minor evidence of this)

I havn't gone into the EDF thing as it's massively negative and I'm still embroiled in it, but I'm just looking to escape somewhere I feel safer. I'm more looking to hear about more positive options than to dwell on what EDF are up to.

Hope you can understand where I'm coming from.

willowgirl

Plushchris wrote: »

A vote for Ovo from me, not had to deal with them much (which is a good sign in itself) but when I have they have been pretty good, certainly seem more customer focused than any of the big suppliers.

THANKYOU!

As they are a newer company I might be a little nervous about switching to them. I notice that problems with billing etc, seem to happen more over time than initially.
I shall keep them in mind as a possibility tho!

jalexa

willowgirl wrote: »

Hope you can understand where I'm coming from.

In relation to energy utilities, I have experience of most and cannot say I could recommend any one of them. Even the one that self-trumpets the best customer service.

In relation to OVO, they failed (twice) to respond to my pre-sales emails.

That is why I am content with the (current) differentiation of Edf offering the most cost effective tariffs.

Funnily enough I concur with you about Plusnet. My previous ISP was BTinternet (dire customer service). Plusnet is a BT company. Doesn't make sense unless the message is Sheffield good, Mumbai not good. If I am allowed to say that.

Premier_2

willowgirl wrote: »

I'm trying to find a utilities company I can trust. I used to be with British Gas but had problems and then switched to EDF which was very much out of the frying pan and into the fire!

EDF have been appalingly dreadful, to an extent I cannot put into words. I'm really looking to remove abusive relationships from my life so I would love to hear about people who have had good experiences with utility companies. If I can save some money too that would be great (I'm based in South Leeds) but really I just want a company that won't rip me off and is capable of doing basic billing etc.

Does anyone have any recommendations?

On the up side, I was once in an appaling relationship with a company called Pipex who used to actually ring me up, tell me they were ripping me off, and then try to sell me a new contract with them. The whole thing was really bizzare!!! Eventually it got to the point where they changed ownership yet again, lost all my account details, and then cut ME off!

They did me a huge favour because I then switched to Plus.net who are fabulous and look after their customers. :j

I now have all my phone and internet stuff exclusively through plus.net and can very much recommend them to anyone else trying to escape an abusive relationship.

Sadly they don't do gas or electricity yet but basically I want to find the plus.net of gas and electric companies, not the talk talk so to speak.

Please help with suggestions and anecdotes!

I'm not sure how you define being 'ripped off', but all the tariffs are openly displayed on the comparison sites as well as usually on the suppliers own website (although some can be quite complicated). The supplier will only charge you in accordance with the tariff, and there are complaints procedures in place ultimately ending with the independent ombudsman if things do go wrong.

So I suggest you consult a comparison site to see who offers you the best deal monetary wise. Most comparison sites also give a customer service rating if you wish to consider this as an important factor too. Use 2 or 3 comparison sites to ensure you are getting consistent results you are happy with.

HappyMJ

willowgirl wrote: »

Does anyone have any recommendations?

Yes cancel the lot of them. Get off the national grid and make your own electricity. Use free firewood for heating and cooking and candles for light. Battery operated TV's and so on.

All utility companies are the same.. They are all out to make a few quid from you. I have been with many companies over time and the service is bad everywhere. I'm with Npower now and the service is poor but they have some very good rates so I'll put up with them.

backfoot

On service, I regret that I can't recommend any, even though I have used most.

Worst by far, personally has been EDF followed by NPower.

I also judge my views on what I read here and in the wider media.

To that extent, I would like to comment on how badly NPower treated customers regarding the gas sculpting issue. Such a company who treated customers with disdain in the face of overhwelming evidence, does not deserve to win business, as trust was irredeemably damaged. I have chosen to permanently boycott them irrespective of price issues. (that's quite a step for me).

Finally, when it comes to trust, I would also single out NPower and Eon as failing in that regard. I believe their policies of deferred discounts and final bill discount disallowance, respectively, are designed to catch customers out.

As a result,I would also issue a financial health warning regarding these two companies.

chris1973

@Willowgirl - you mention in your opening post references to some companies who have given a poor level of service or have 'ripped' you off

Surely for both clarity and fairness, you should also be giving the instances as to what the poor level of service was and how exactly you were ripped off on each occasion?. Its not much use just rolling the end credits before we know the story.

Can you pls explain in more detail or better still give the links to the forum posts where you've raised any of these instances as a topic?