First Utility

Staga16

I have put my details into a number of price comparison sites and they all tell me that it provides the best saving of about £580 compared to the nearest rival Scottish power at £508. I am just a little wary of switching to First Utility because they are new, they seem to have a lower user ratings and most uncomfortable of all I am told that they remove your meters in order to install their own which feeds reading and data back automatically. I am worried that if I switch to them, I may not be able to switch back if they hike the prices.

Anyone got any experience of them? Am I concerning myself needlessly?

MFSaver

I highly recommend not using First Utility. Their customer service are atrocious and if you ever choose to leave them, they will take ages to settle your account.

HappyMJ

Look at the fine print. You will see a duel fuel discount that is quite large (£264) paid after you have paid them for 12 months. You have to pay them an extra £22 a month for 12 month before you see your £264 back. Miss a payment or leave and you lose all your £22 a month payments that you have paid so far.

MillicentBystander

Look even closer and it becomes apparent this crazy discount is only payable when your total dual fuel energy comes to £600/year. Terrible small print IMO. Low users be aware. Be very aware.

born2bongo

Last year they simply didn't bill us for a couple of months until our £270 savings were used up. That was in the agreement we had with them.

This year they delayed until after the normal direct debit date and told us they were taking our normal payment (but later this month) and giving us our £270 back by cheque (eventually). Not what we agreed with them

They told us a load of lies about a customer survey that said that's how everyone wanted to be paid. We asked them why we hadn't been survey and they said it was because we had chosen not to have junk email from them.

Yeah, right, who wouldn't want to wait longer and then have a trip to the bank to pay it in. Course we'd rather do that than have it returned electronically to the account they took it from, or just not have our bill taken for a couple of months.

Makes you wonder how much money they can make on this and still cover the cost of the printing and posting. Or is it just that our tariff is inconvenient for them and they want to get rid of us

Personally I don't think they've any intention of sending us our money and I'm writing to the regulator.

Steer well clear of them.

hippey

Stay away from this firm! Terrible customer service if something goes wrong.