Energy Alert with First Utility

sorgeyboy

Please be aware that although First Utility were offering the best deal, their customer dealings are abysmal. They never answer the phone (0845 number) and all e mails are system answered with a meaningless number to quote if you are ever lucky enough to get a proper response. They took the direct debit out of my account two days early without informing me , thus putting me in the red with my bank. In addition it took an age to provide my previous supplier with the final gas reading so they could refund me the outstanding amount. Stay clear of this bunch of cowboys, i am swapping again, not looking forward to dealing with them.

Wywth

sorgeyboy wrote: »

Please be aware that although First Utility were offering the best deal, their customer dealings are abysmal. They never answer the phone (0845 number) and all e mails are system answered with a meaningless number to quote if you are ever lucky enough to get a proper response. They took the direct debit out of my account two days early without informing me , thus putting me in the red with my bank. In addition it took an age to provide my previous supplier with the final gas reading so they could refund me the outstanding amount. Stay clear of this bunch of cowboys, i am swapping again, not looking forward to dealing with them.

I don't know how much you are prepared to pay extra, but as a money saving site I would suggest staying with the cheapest supplier

Collecting a DD early is not permitted under the rules of the scheme, so you can ask your bank for an immediate refund, and you can also ask for consequential damages (i.e. bank charges incurred as a direct consequence) but the bank may not refund these immediately, but wait until the originator pays the bank these consequential losses which should be within a couple of weeks - so probably quicker than the time the bank charges will actually be applied to your account by the bank

macman

FU are notorious for billing issues and poor CS, they were the lowest rated of all the small suppliers in a recent CA survey.

Wywth

There isn't a gas & electricity supplier that has not received bad feedback on this and other sites that I know of

Hence, as this is a moneysaving site, I would always suggest going with the cheapest.

Billing issues are always a great source of moneysaving, if the amount is under or late billed
As I said, customers are fully protected via their bank for any incorrect DD deductions
(if an originator was abusing the DD scheme to the extent one is sometimes led to believe, they would be kicked off the DD scheme by their sponsor )

macman

I would agree. But FU are unique among the small fry in appearing to have all the same service issues as the Big 6.
Their complaints level is up with EDF and co-way above any of the other independents.

Wywth

I'm sure there's at least another small supplier that has huge complaints ... but we can't mention them here

Spark are a small supplier that often get poor feedback on CS as well.

I could go on...