Solar energy - Feed-in Tariff payment delays - your experiences?

zeupater

Hi All

In my opinion Malc at E.ON should be held up as an example of what other energy companies should be attempting to provide <fingers in ears because I'm going to shout> - CUSTOMER SERVICE -

Over the years we've seen a number of company representatives appear, promise the earth and then just fade away. Many excuses are used - budget cuts, management changes, workload etc - however, the term 'excuses' is just what they are and therefore the customer service departmental heads of the companies they represented need to either hang their heads in shame for not providing the level of service which they are both responsible for and paid handsome sums to deliver .....

E.ON are not the only energy provider, they're not even the only energy provider with representation on this forum, so the question to ask is why we only ever seem to see Malc from E.ON responding to questions ? .... where are the representatives from Scottish Power, EDF, British Gas, SSE and NPower ? .... they should all be customer focussed organisations and all have huge marketing and service budgets, so heads up guys, pull up your socks and attempt to emulate E.ON's Malc - if you're only 1% as good you'll be a billion times better than you currently are ....

I don't know how many issues are, or have been, resolved as a result of Malc's interventions on these board, but at least there seems to be a genuine intent to help ....

Big thumbs up to Malc then .... now, let's wait for the landslide of other company representatives rushing to defend their reputations .... perhaps we should open a book on who will be the last of the large energy suppliers to appear <thread idea ... wait a minute> ...

Cheers Malc ....
Z

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

zeupater wrote: »

Hi All

In my opinion Malc at E.ON should be held up as an example of what other energy companies should be attempting to provide <fingers in ears because I'm going to shout> - CUSTOMER SERVICE -

Over the years we've seen a number of company representatives appear, promise the earth and then just fade away. Many excuses are used - budget cuts, management changes, workload etc - however, the term 'excuses' is just what they are and therefore the customer service departmental heads of the companies they represented need to either hang their heads in shame for not providing the level of service which they are both responsible for and paid handsome sums to deliver .....

E.ON are not the only energy provider, they're not even the only energy provider with representation on this forum, so the question to ask is why we only ever seem to see Malc from E.ON responding to questions ? .... where are the representatives from Scottish Power, EDF, British Gas, SSE and NPower ? .... they should all be customer focussed organisations and all have huge marketing and service budgets, so heads up guys, pull up your socks and attempt to emulate E.ON's Malc - if you're only 1% as good you'll be a billion times better than you currently are ....

I don't know how many issues are, or have been, resolved as a result of Malc's interventions on these board, but at least there seems to be a genuine intent to help ....

Big thumbs up to Malc then .... now, let's wait for the landslide of other company representatives rushing to defend their reputations .... perhaps we should open a book on who will be the last of the large energy suppliers to appear <thread idea ... wait a minute> ...

Cheers Malc ....
Z

Thanks so much for the positive feedback zeupater. It really is appreciated. It's not just me, though. Don't forget about Helena and Amy too. We're all committed to helping as much as we can with anything to do with E.ON.

Thanks again. You've made our day.

Malc

ASavvyBuyer

No delays with EDF; sent reading on 1st May, payment in account today 4th May !

IrishWasherWoman

What shall we do? We moved into a house with solar panels at the end of Jan 2015 and later realised the sellers' and our solicitors hadn't thought about transfering ownership of the panels and associated rights. We tried to do this ourselves and SSE told us to continue keeping in touch with them with our meter readings, but we couldn't be registered as the owners until the previous owners de-registered. They assured us that all the money from generation from the date we moved in would be forwarded to us as soon as the reg. process was complete. The prev. owners for some reason have ever since failed to reply to communications from us, our solicitors and their solicitors. Therefore, it took a whole year for SSE to be allowed to write them out of the picture. We thought we'd at last get a whole year's money - but NO! We have cont. to send meter readings, and patiently waited for the end of April to pass, thinking that they'd begin at the end of Jan '16 to count us as the owners, and pay out after 3 months. Well it's mid-May now and still not a penny. To say we're cheesed off is a massive understatement. We are going to write a complaint and if nec. escalate it to the ombudsman, but all this takes months aswell. I haven't got an exact figure that they owe us, but for 1+1/4 yrs. it must be worthwhile. Had this been banked I think we'd have had a nice bit of interest on it by now. We're really missing out, and feel powerless.
Has anyone else ever had satisfactory service from SSE?
(By the way, there were other problems after we moved and our/their solicitors never sorted them out either, so I contacted RESOLVER who Martin hails as marvelous, and I received an acknowledgement but then nothing more! I contacted them again to see how they were proceeding, but never ever got any further reply! Is it me?!)

EricMears

IrishWasherWoman wrote: »

What shall we do? We moved into a house with solar panels at the end of Jan 2015 and later realised the sellers' and our solicitors hadn't thought about transfering ownership of the panels and associated rights. We tried to do this ourselves and SSE told us to continue keeping in touch with them with our meter readings, but we couldn't be registered as the owners until the previous owners de-registered. They assured us that all the money from generation from the date we moved in would be forwarded to us as soon as the reg. process was complete. The prev. owners for some reason have ever since failed to reply to communications from us, our solicitors and their solicitors. Therefore, it took a whole year for SSE to be allowed to write them out of the picture. We thought we'd at last get a whole year's money - but NO! We have cont. to send meter readings, and patiently waited for the end of April to pass, thinking that they'd begin at the end of Jan '16 to count us as the owners, and pay out after 3 months. Well it's mid-May now and still not a penny. To say we're cheesed off is a massive understatement. We are going to write a complaint and if nec. escalate it to the ombudsman, but all this takes months aswell. I haven't got an exact figure that they owe us, but for 1+1/4 yrs. it must be worthwhile. Had this been banked I think we'd have had a nice bit of interest on it by now. We're really missing out, and feel powerless.
Has anyone else ever had satisfactory service from SSE?
(By the way, there were other problems after we moved and our/their solicitors never sorted them out either, so I contacted RESOLVER who Martin hails as marvelous, and I received an acknowledgement but then nothing more! I contacted them again to see how they were proceeding, but never ever got any further reply! Is it me?!)

Hate to support SSE but in this instance I don't think they're to blame.

Both sets of solicitors ought to have made enquiries and advised seller to sign the contract over to buyer. Unless & until that was done, SSE would be obliged to pay any FIT due to their registered customer.

But not sure that taking readings and sending them to SSE was a good idea - unless of course SSE had given a written undertaking that any payments calculated would be credited to the new account holder (eventually !). Without such an assurance, the old owner would continue to receive payments and is very unlikely to take any action that would stop that.

ispookie666

The above mentioned problems are going to crop up more frequently.

Scottish power takes 15 days for the FIT credit - I understand they are one of the slowest. Waiting patiently for the FIT payment, reading submitted on 30th April

IrishWasherWoman

SSE's FIT Bureau payments delayed by 15 months plus:
Well, things are looking up! Escalated our complaint to SSE's Head of Customer Services, with the promise that the ombudsman would be contacted if we didn't get our due. Hey presto, they got back to us that day to acknowledge the problem, and again a few days later to give a date for a decision to be made by. Then in less than a week, we've been promised all the money from the 15months+ that we've been waiting, and once we've received that, they'll discuss compensation. Yippee!
Does anyone know if there's an industry standard for comp.? Don't want to be fobbed off with some paltry sum after all this we've been through, but don't want to waste time fighting for something we'd never get. Any ideas/knowledge?

legoman62

Put my FITs reading in to E.ON on Sat evening 14th...in my bank today:j

3 working days. Well done E.ON!:T

Now if they could introduce a tariff with no standing charges:think:

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

Glad all went well with your FIT readings legoman62. Thanks for posting about this.

Nothing to report on any new tariffs I'm afraid. As you know, all our current products have daily standing charges. If anything changes, details will appear on our website and the independent comparison sites first.

Thanks again for posting legoman62 and have a good day.

Malc

zeupater

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc wrote: »

... Nothing to report on any new tariffs I'm afraid. As you know, all our current products have daily standing charges. If anything changes, details will appear on our website and the independent comparison sites first ...

I'm with legoman62 on this ....

We all know that the Ofgem requirement for 'simplification' of tariffs resulted in dropping tiered offerings, but that's really down to the industry allocating more intellectually gifted employees to 'solve' the perceived 'stupid customer' problem than the public body idiots at Ofgem. What was the underlying reasoning behind this industry position? ... well, maintenance of margins in a reducing consumption market is the most reasonable candidate.... running an 'improvement' project with private sector 'clever' professionals on one side vs public sector career minded 'intellectual lightweights' on the other - is it really baffling why Ofgem still don't understand that the industry won and the consumer lost ? ...

Anyway, as all here should appreciate, although there's a requirement for daily standing charges in order to 'simplify' comparison so that we, 'the dumb consumers', don't get con-fuddled between cubic 'thingamajigs', tiered break-points and 'killer-whats?' there's absolutely no requirement for the charge to be set at anything above zero, so it shouldn't be ....

Advertising apples at £1/kg, petrol at £1/litre or newspapers at £1/each we immediately know the offer, we look, we compare, we buy - that's simple ..... Electricity - £0.xx/kW +£0.yy/day, - £za/year reduction if account managed on line, -£zb reduction for paperless billing, -zc% (max £zd) reduction is dual fuel, but this depends on where you live - if elsewhere, which in extreme cases could even be on the other side of the street!, £xx & £yy changes ... there is no ability to immediately know the offer, let alone the overall price we'll be paying, furthermore, the complexity is deliberately designed to prevent headline pricing and therefore restrict consumer comparison and choice - this is not simple - however, through placing industry obfuscation aside, it could be as easy as advertising a national tariff for Electricity at £0.16/kW ....

It's about time that Ofgem woke up and started to earn their pennies, as it stands they're just a waste of skin ...

HTH
Z