Add your feedback on energy supplier Shell Energy (formerly First Utility)

condoghost

Online account is great. Inputing meter readings online is great. No issues there at all. Every month a monthly bill without fail. August 2012 through to October 2013. Everythin hunky-dorrie. Then the bills stopped (but not the direct debits). Slowly but surely it became clear the direct debits were more than adequate to cover the usage, but still no bills. Online enquiries sent. Emails sent. Nothing back from them except for those automated responses "We're busy right now etc etc will get back to you within etc etc".

Anyways, :mad: not to worry. I still had gas/electricity, and they were still taking my money regular as clockwork :beer:

I find a statement posted online dated 5th July 2014 for the period 22 May 2014 – 21 June 2014. This made little to no-sense at all. With a Personal Projection of £1617 per year and payments received already totaling £1790.18, first:utility were simply banking my money and not answering any of the emails / website enquiries I'd sent to them.

The answer for me was taking action to switch when CEC advised me to-do. With estimated savings of £116 per year + £30 cashback + now a whopping refund credit from first:utility of £1055.06 direct into my bank account on 9th December, it's a win-:money:-win for me for sure!

The irony is that first:utility telephoned me a couple of weeks after initiating the switch to apologise for the lousy customer service having not answered outstanding enquiries until now with their call. And even then their call to me was to apologise for not having an answer!!!

Such a shame because their service was great until that :eek: year-long-glitch :eek: occured. Now all I have to do is work out them figures are correct :A

:xmastree::xmassign: :easter::EasterBun

sheldonb14

We went with First Utility as they came out cheapest, what a mistake that turned out to be! I originally opted for monthly set payments as with my previous supplier. This never happened despite numerous attempts at getting this set up; they just took (and still take) what they deem to be the total monthy amount each month.

I've now been with them 18 months and have never once had an accurate gas bill. Each month they email asking for a reading, which I immiediately provide. A few days later I get an estimated bill which is wildly out from the reading provided (of course it's VERY overestimated). As a consequence I'm now around £800 in credit despite many calls, and many many more attempted calls, (they are rather adverse to answering the phone or responding to emails from existing customers) it's unresolved, as is my monthly payment amount.

I'm just waiting for my fixed period to be over so that I can switch without a "fine" and then battle to get all my credit balance back from them.

My advice is to avoid them at all costs. First Utility seem to invest zero in customer service, have no means or intention to rectify things when problems occur and generally treat customers with utter contempt.

eira

Some two/ three years ago I swiched to First Utility.There followed weeks of varying bills,no response to meter readings and virtually no sense from customer services.Went to the ombudsman and cancelled. First Utility tried to charge a cancellation fee but backed down and cancelled the fee. They sent an e mail to confirm it.
Moved to another supplier and put it down to experience. Over a year letter I got a demand for the cancellation fee.I rang customer services who claimed they had no record of my account and no debt. Suggestion was that this was a scam email which,as requested, I duly forwarded to their fraud department

Months later I got a debt collectors letter demanding the money. Gave said debt collectors the story. They referred it back to First Utility last August. Having got nowhere again with FU I contacted the Ombudsman at the beginning of December. Yesterday was the first contact between the ombudsman and FU. So they don't even seem to be responding to the ombudsman

Maybe some people do well but for incompetence and poor service FU take a prize.Dreadful company Avoid

Lillyloo_74

Terrible company - AVOID!

I moved into a house supplied by First Utility and decided to stay with them. However it took over 3 months to sent initial Bill which I paid and set up a DD.
To cut a long story short, the DD was never taken out despite numerous calls with very long wait times (50 mins on some occasions) each time told it would be sorted for following month which it never was. In the end I set up a standing order to pay each month.
I then start to receive demand letters for different amounts each time, every few days these arrived. I called everytime then it turns out they deny all knowledge of me paying by SO so not credited to my acc.
I was passed from dept to dept speaking to idiots who didn't have a clue what was happening. I sent in copies of bank statement to prove payments. Emails not responded to. This was 4 weeks ago. I've provided meter readings but my bills are never adjusted accordingly and the demand for arrears are based on estimated readings by them, clearly at a higher rate than initial agreed price.
Then, this week I receive a call from Hydron a debt collecting agency, to who I explain situation and they state they will deal with it and call me back. 2 days later a debt collector turns up at my house for a warrant of entry!!!
I called Hydron and am told the case is closed with them due to multiple discrepancies and the debt collectors visit was an error!
Despite that, I still receive texts from Hydron requesting I call them to discuss acc.
I have sent in 2 complaints to FU and both times, the complaints team state they will pass to credit control. So far no response. Surprise surprise!

To conclude I have taken it to Ofgem, cancelled standing order and applied to switch suppliers.

Please please do not give this company your business, you will regret it.

Emmahyatt

Okay so, we moved into a rented property, the company we rented through had already given first utility our name so we had an account number for them waiting for us when we moved all we had to do was phone to set up DD which I did and the operator agreed what I set up would be sufficient, nobody at this time told me what tariff we were on. Me being too young and not understanding energy company's didn't realise there was different tariffs. We have now been with them for 18 months and have just recieved our first bill with an outstanding amount of 1k, so obviously we were straight on the phone, it turns out that we had an online account that they set up for us so we should of checked on that, however we never knew about this or recieved a username and password for. They were no help what so ever, when we ended the call we realised that the address on our bill was incorrect and stated that we lived in a different town so this is where our bills have been going to a different address, I think it's a fluke we actually recieved this one bill. One operator told us that we were set up for email billing even though we had recieved no bills via email, then they said no your not your on paper billing and this incurs a £2 charge for every bill they send but there is none of these charges on our account which is proof enough that they haven't sent any bills. They have never informed us that the debit was becoming high and that we should adjust the DD. It's only while discussing all of these issues with them they have then finally informed us that we could of changed to a cheaper tariff which would of brought the yearly cost from £2400 to £1200. I believe they should of informed us of this long ago. Do I have a case?

tony541

Hi, I've been with FU for nearly two years and find their accout aministration terrible. One never knows what ones credit or debit liability is with them because they are always late with their bills and it is impossible to get a conclusion. My girlfriend also with them has been very stressed by them too.
My contract with them finishes in a few months so will be leaving them, but who to...they all seem bad but never as bad as Futility. Why does ofgen, or whoever, sort these energy companies out once and for all. None of them seen fit for purpose and should not have a licence. But, hold on, aren't all these companies owned by the banking empire. That's ok then, they can do what they like, can't they?!!

I've just be alerted to their new fixed deals and note that even though gas prices are very low their fixed rate for the next 3 years is going to be higher than todays fees.
I think they want to lock people into these higher rates now because the greedy energy companies know they will have to reduce their charges soon just like the petrol and oils companies have had too. Just my tuppence worth.

(Electricity) p/kWh 13.63 now., price with new 3 yrs contract 15.5
(Gas) p/kWh 4.32 4.35

Dwarfer2609

FU were useless whilst #i was there - including five times they attempted to set up my direct debit on someone else's account - different sort code and account number but that didn't seem to bother them - in fact they didn't seem to understand that it mattered.

Have now left and have been waiting the final bill for three months. They've issued a bill, but again they don't seem to understand that the standing charge should stop the day I left nor that they are meant to use the final meter readings to create the bill. Rather they ignored the readings and chosen to estimate that I used more in the last month I was with them than i the previous year!

In reality they owe me money, but are currently threatening legal action over the money the imagine I owe them - Bring it on FU, I'll love to here you explain it to the judge!

tony541

Dwarfer... I will probably be in the same boat when I leave. I wonder who owns firstutility, it would be interesting to see if the owners are just as shoddy in their other businesses.
Can, I ask if Futility have exit chargess. I may leave earlier than my contract which ends in April but will hang on a bit cos prices will surely be coming down soon as has the prices at the petrol pumps.
ps just found out the exit charge on a fixed contract is £30 per fuel

matelodave

Futility have a £30 per fuel exit charge (unless your contract say different). I'll probably be leaving them in April when my current fix ends.

I've thought of jumping ship a bit earlier but it would only save me about £14 by the time I've paid my £30 (I'm electricity only) so I'm hanging on to see whether the prices fall a bit between now and then.

At present I reckon 12-18 months is the longest to fix for although I might try for an exit fee free tariff next time to give myself a bit more flexibility.

tony541

I've been reading wilkipaedia and found the following...
In January 2012 the company appointed the former last Minute .com CEO Ian McCaig as its new CEO.

Further down in the lastmin article it says this...''Lastminute.com's customer service is also heavily criticised for inaccuracy and provision of incorrect data''

I wonder What Mr McCaig is doing about FU's woeful administration and complaints!