Co-operative Energy reviews: Give your feedback

Consumerist

antonytinkler wrote: »

. . . To my utter shock my monthly bill was increasing from £82.17 to a whopping £157.00 an increase of £74.83 per month to cover my -£468.52 debit.

Well, er . . . £157 pm would pay off a debt of £468 in about 3 months then there will be more to cover your consumption over that 3 months.

Is the statement accurate? Have you been consuming more than you have been paying for? Is it just a billing error? - they're very good at those.

If the bill is accurate then when does your contract end? If it's in 3 months then pay the higher DD then move to another supplier.

kingstreet

kingstreet wrote: »

Got my written confirmation soon after this and my November bill correctly showed the changeover so I was correctly billed from the right date.

Amazingly they still haven't managed to do anything to upset me!

In the process of switching to Online Feb 17.

Thought it was going well, but this morning noticed a £60 exit charge levied on the account. The website still says existing fixed customers changing products aren't charged the exit fees, so we'll see.

First rumble of unease here.

ennaeeL

Moved to new place that has prepay economy 7, (electric only - no gas).
Did the comparison here but when trying the switch option on the co-op web site was told would have to call them.
I did so and the price quoted was more expensivie that my current supplier.
Day, economy 7 and standing charge by just over a penny each.
Here the comparison was: day 1.5p less, economy 7 same price and standing charge 4p less (would have saved at least £60 a year).

Guess the data here is inaccurate (but had same results on other sites) or co-op are quoting more when you call than they advertise to the comparison sites (which I reckon is the case). Anyway it would have cost much more that my current supplier.

I will be staying away from the co-op.

Consumerist

kingstreet wrote: »

. . . but this morning noticed a £60 exit charge levied on the account. The website still says existing fixed customers changing products aren't charged the exit fees, so we'll see..

I think it may be Co-op Energy policy to apply an exit charge if you switch tariff and then refund it only if you complain.

Must be part of their "open and honest in everything we do" policy.

kingstreet

As mentioned, they didn't charge it on a previous switch, but as you suggest it has now been removed due to my query.

Not good either way...

ParkerLewis

I have just manged to move away from coop energy after one of the most horrendous experiences imaginable. Their customer service is truly dreadful and hampered by an even worse computer system which appears to stall every attempt by a customer to sort out an issue. It's not even possible to leave a correct meter reading on their inadequate website if the computer for some reason 'believes' it is wrong due to previous errors. I have lost count of the number of times I rang them in an attempt to sort things out, but only a letter to the ombudsman could resolve my plight. Only three years ago Coop were so good, such a shame this company is now so dreadful.

mst007

Ok I thought Npower was bad, but Cooperative Energy surpassed them with sheer incompetence, online systems that didn`t work, and truly dreadful customer service. I joined Sept 14, paying £109 a month by DD for dual fuel. As most of you know, their online system and billing platform fell over in approx Feb/March 15, resulting in them cancelling my DD. I hadn`t noticed for 3 months until they contacted me with a bill which I had to manually request via phone call as it was immediately "archived" within my online account. The bill was hilarious, it included a starting balance of minus £175 as of the date I joined them. Erm, how! This didn`t appear again on future bills, but I received no apology. i put it down to their billing platform being goosed. I paid by card over the fone for the missing 3 DD payments and restarted the DD. In August I decided to leave when GB Energy started advertising bigtime. My first attempt to leave was stopped by Cooperative Energy, I was informed by letter that I owed them £240.51 and they "objected" to the switch. Are they allowed to do this? I was not contacted to clear the £240.51 prior to the letter. I paid this off over the fone via card. Then cancelled my DD with them, knowing that i would have 3-4 weeks usage to pay for at some point in the future until the switch, which I had to restart from scratch with GB energy. A month later the switch happened (Oct 15). GB energy have been superb btw! Anyway, Feb 16 I get an email from Cooperative Energy saying I owe them another £391.23 after final readings. !!!!!!! After hours and hours of looking through all my bills trying to make sense of it, I have realised that Coop have *not* credited my account with the first 6 DD payments when I joined, they must have been lost when they upgraded their billing platform. However, I called them a few days ago, they say these 6 payments are indeed marked on their system as being paid and that i still owe them £391.23. I said the 6 payments don`t appear as credits on *any* of my bills, and they chap said no sometimes they don`t. Any ideas how to proceed? I`m being taken for a mug...

Consumerist

mst007 wrote: »

. . . I said the 6 payments don`t appear as credits on *any* of my bills, and they chap said no sometimes they don`t. Any ideas how to proceed? I`m being taken for a mug...

Firstly, send them a written complaint. You could try lodging your complaint through <Resolver> or else by Recorded Delivery post.

Any payment made to the account must obviously be entered on your statement as a credit. There is no other way for the statement to be accurate.

Go through all your statements to get some idea of what your balance ought to be. If you do not download your statements regularly (a big mistake with Co-op Energy) then you can request an archived statement online. You may or may not get what you ask for without having to ask again (and again).

mst007

Thanks Consumerist, have all statements barring one, which I`ve requested from the "archive". Will follow your advice, cheers for taking the time to reply.

Scotty1963

When I was trying to switch out energy company I contacted the Co-Op who I was with to get an up to date statement and was shocked to find I owed them over £500. When I asked them how this had happened they said that the Direct Debit was only set at £53 per month (half of what we would normally be paying out per month). They offered no explanation as to why or why they had not contacted us as the debt got bigger. I have contacted their customer services as they still did not rectify the DD and they have now told me it has gone up to over £700!!! They have given me a good will gesture of £50 but I now cannot switch suppliers. Who is responsible? Them for an incorrect DD or me for not checking my DD through the bank account?? Feeling very frustrated. Thinking of going to the ombudsman as still no explanation!!!