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

EricMears

Maybe slightly OT but can't resist chance to make everyone here jealous :j:j:j

My last claim was on 15th February; next is therefore due 15th May.

In the post this morning, a BACS advice from Scottish power announcing that I got paid yesterday (and indeed online bank statement confirms I did). I make that something like minus five weeks 'delay'.

What of course will have happened is that SP received my 31st March intermediate reading (clearly labelled "This is NOT a claim") and have either accidentally paid it or decided to move my quarterly reading dates but not yet got round to telling me. I'm happy to forgive a little sloppiness in the correspondence department when the finance department are so on the ball.

Doc_N

Pretty clear message emerging here, then:


Scottish Power value their customers and treat them fairly.

E.on have nothing but contempt for their customers and treat them like idiots.

Since the same attitudes (set from director level) will apply across the board, and not just for FIT payments, it's pretty clear where you should buy your energy from (assuming more or less equal pricing) if you want a company that takes customer service seriously.

EricMears

Doc_N wrote: »

Pretty clear message emerging here, then:

Scottish Power value their customers and treat them fairly.

E.on have nothing but contempt for their customers and treat them like idiots.

Since the same attitudes (set from director level) will apply across the board, and not just for FIT payments, it's pretty clear where you should buy your energy from (assuming more or less equal pricing) if you want a company that takes customer service seriously.

Have to say that I picked SP on price grounds after receiving a stupid letter fron nPower (see below). Not only were the the cheapest providers I could find, they were also offering a fairly good 'Quidco cashback'. Reasonably happy with their 'ordinary' service so chose them for FIT payments too.

The nPower thing was just plain stupid ! I migrated to them from eON (again via Quidco) and signed a 12 month contract. Amazed to receive a letter from them starting "as you know our price guarantee has just ended . . . " after well less than a year. Needless to say I knew no such thing and am not at all keen on receiving patronising letters but did realise that I couldn't possibly be bound to a 12m contract after they'd changed prices.

The_Green_Hornet

Doc_N wrote: »

Pretty clear message emerging here, then:


Scottish Power value their customers and treat them fairly.

E.on have nothing but contempt for their customers and treat them like idiots.

Since the same attitudes (set from director level) will apply across the board, and not just for FIT payments, it's pretty clear where you should buy your energy from (assuming more or less equal pricing) if you want a company that takes customer service seriously.

Personally, I have found the customer service from most energy suppliers to be the same, or similar, so I tend to buy from whoever is the cheapest for my usage profile.

As for FIT payments, whether I receive them within 2 weeks or 2 months the amount will be the same whichever energy provider I choose so unless you are impatient I don't think it really matters.

the sun is shining.

Doc_N

The_Green_Hornet wrote: »

As for FIT payments, whether I receive them within 2 weeks or 2 months the amount will be the same whichever energy provider I choose so unless you are impatient I don't think it really matters.

Your relaxed approach must endear you to rip-off businesses.

I suspect most people would rather have the money (£1600 pa in many cases) in their account earning interest than earning interest for energy companies.

The_Green_Hornet

Doc_N wrote: »

Your relaxed approach must endear you to rip-off businesses.

I suspect most people would rather have the money (£1600 pa in many cases) in their account earning interest than earning interest for energy companies.

No, as I said previously, I use the energy provider that is cheapest for my energy profile and I swap suppliers regularly so it is not really a problem.

However, if you are not happy with E.ON, and you can't abide the loss of a few pennies in lost interest each quarter, then why don't you move to a different energy provider?

Staying with them and then keep on moaning about how they treat you just seems plain crazy to me.

margin

The_Green_Hornet wrote: »

However, if you are not happy with E.ON, and you can't abide the loss of a few pennies in lost interest each quarter, then why don't you move to a different energy provider?

But perhaps not unreasonable to bewail lost interest on a moneysaving website ? There must also be the question of where these delays will end.:o

The_Green_Hornet

margin wrote: »

But perhaps not unreasonable to bewail lost interest on a moneysaving website ? There must also be the question of where these delays will end.:o

Similarly it is not unreasonable to give advice to someone on a moneysaving website to move to another provider so that they will be better off?

In the case of E.ON, it is clear that they believe the delays will end once they have implemented an automated system. If people can't wait for that to happen, and are unhappy about how they are being treated, then they should simply switch provider.

Doc_N

The_Green_Hornet wrote: »

Similarly it is not unreasonable to give advice to someone on a moneysaving website to move to another provider so that they will be better off?

In the case of E.ON, it is clear that they believe the delays will end once they have implemented an automated system. If people can't wait for that to happen, and are unhappy about how they are being treated, then they should simply switch provider.

Or maybe e.on are just having to give way because they realise that continuing to extend the payment delay will end up costing them more in lost customers than they gain in cashflow?

Yes, you can switch provider - but it's also entirely possible to influence the behaviour of a company like e.on by other means (and I don't just mean this forum).

If you're happy to accept a situation in which your FIT payments are delayed to profit somebody else, that's fine. Most of us aren't quite such pushovers.

I agree with you that e.on will improve (which is why I'm not at present moving from them, even though e.on isn't my energy supplier). But it's only pressure from its customers that brought that about - and again, not just in this forum.

zeupater

Hi

The issue which is being missed is that over 1.3% of UK households now have pv and the installed base is growing weekly .... the energy providers can not simply ignore this and need to encourage those with pv to be their customers .... if you were to consider that the 'big 6' energy providers have the market shared roughly evenly between them then it's a pretty good bet that they all would like to improve their own current market penetration by 6.5% ((5/1)x1.3%) .... looks like SP have worked this out for themselves and have left the competition in the starting blocks for a while ....

HTH
Z