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

Jadejadey

Hi there,

this is my first post on here as I’m doin this on behalf of my mom.

She has been with first utility since 2015 and has not once recieved any correspondence from them. After my mom recently contacted them, they declared that she was in arrears for over £300. When my mom questions this they said they had sent numerous emails to her stating they needed a reading and that she was on an estimated reading. After much digging it turns out first utility had the wrong email address and they never tried to contact my mom by any other method other than email.

It seems crazy that a company would allow my mom to go into debt all these years and not tell her. She was originally on a fixed term as she switched to them from somewhere else, once the fixed term run out my mom carried on paying them a monthly fee but they claim it wasn’t enough, little did my mom know.

Can anyone suggest a best way forward as they have now taken over £100 in January then she now owes over £400 in the space of 2 weeks even though they have taken £100 odd pound.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

King regards

Jade

System

Jadejadey wrote: »

Hi there,

this is my first post on here as I’m doin this on behalf of my mom.

She has been with first utility since 2015 and has not once recieved any correspondence from them. After my mom recently contacted them, they declared that she was in arrears for over £300. When my mom questions this they said they had sent numerous emails to her stating they needed a reading and that she was on an estimated reading. After much digging it turns out first utility had the wrong email address and they never tried to contact my mom by any other method other than email.

It seems crazy that a company would allow my mom to go into debt all these years and not tell her. She was originally on a fixed term as she switched to them from somewhere else, once the fixed term run out my mom carried on paying them a monthly fee but they claim it wasn’t enough, little did my mom know.

Can anyone suggest a best way forward as they have now taken over £100 in January then she now owes over £400 in the space of 2 weeks even though they have taken £100 odd pound.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

King regards

Jade

Your best bet would be an appointment with an energy adviser at Citizens Advice who can go through through your various options. In the meantime, you need to ensure that you have an up to date bill based on actual meter readings, and check that your Mother is on First Utility’s cheapest tariff.

I am not sure that First Utility can necessarily be held responsible if they did not have an accurate e-mail address but that needs to be checked. Most accounts these days are managed by e-mail to reduce costs.

Citizens Advice has an Extra Help Unit that should be able to negotiate extra time for your Mother to repay what she owes. Don’t try switching away as any transfer may be blocked: if a switch was to go through, then the total amount owed becomes due for payment.

Best of luck.

PS: you should also check that your Mother is on The Priority Services Register:

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/consumers/household-gas-and-electricity-guide/extra-help-energy-services/priority-services-register-people-need

I-LOV-MONEY

If they had the wrong e-mail address, I suppose it could be an unfortunate coincidence that the incorrect address did belong to somebody, who never contacted FU to say they are receiving e-mails they know nothing about.

If it is a completely incorrect address, then surely it would have bounced back and someone at FU should have alerted the accounts department.

LCain-Metcalf

First utility are a nightmare. DONT USE THEM Within two months of switching to them, my bill went up by £40 a month. I was told my energy usage was too high for the monthly amount. After another three months, my account was in credit. I asked about reducing the amount back down again, but was told that the amount I was paying was in line with the 'average' amount of energy I was using. My credit continued to build up, until I changed to Sainsburys on 11th December. I did everything both suppliers asked of me and was sent an email from first utility saying I would get any credit back automatically around 28 days from switch. Still waiting and my first amount from Sainsburys Energy has already been taken. I went into the First Utility website to query this yesterday and got a message on the chat telling me I was over £900 in credit!! If I wanted it back, I would have to apply for it!!?? So I confirmed I wanted it back and got another message saying a cheque would be with me in the next 10 days. Wasn't happy as I am a single parent widow and struggle with bills at the best of times. Having just had a car accident, that £900 is 3/4 of my salary!
However, I decided to live with it- until I got an email this morning telling me I can't have any money back until they have my final bill! That the amount of credit is unknown and it will take at least 14 days to deal with it. First Utility obviously make a fortune out of holding on to peoples credit for as long as possible- and will probably get worse now that interest rates are rising. Has anyone else had this problem and what worked to get them moving!?

Jadejadey

They basically said she needs to pay it as it’s not their fault they have the wrong email address. So she has raised a complaint with them which took being on hold 4 times, a 15 minute phone call with an agent who had someone next to her telling what to say and at the same time being charg d for the call. When my mom said am I being charged she said yes, would you like me o call you back. My mom said yes, took the agent 25 minutes to call back. They just sound like a joke company. Not please at all, and I hope mse take note of this poor customer service. Thanks all for replying :T

System

Jadejadey wrote: »

They basically said she needs to pay it as it’s not their fault they have the wrong email address. So she has raised a complaint with them which took being on hold 4 times, a 15 minute phone call with an agent who had someone next to her telling what to say and at the same time being charg d for the call. When my mom said am I being charged she said yes, would you like me o call you back. My mom said yes, took the agent 25 minutes to call back. They just sound like a joke company. Not please at all, and I hope mse take note of this poor customer service. Thanks all for replying :T

Complaining is fine but I would have done it in writing. You also need to be clear in your complaint about the resolution that you are seeking. A complaint on its own is a cathartic but pointless exercise. My guess is that the supplier will stand firm unless you can produce evidence showing that the correct e-mail address was provided at the time that the contract was taken out.

You then need to decide - after 8 weeks or deadlock - whether to take the matter to The Energy Ombudsman. Before doing so, it is worth thinking through the process. The Energy Ombudsman's Decision is Final and binding on the supplier. You can reject the Decision but as far as the supplier is concerned they can ignore all further correspondence from you in relation to the complaint. If The Energy Ombudsman finds in the supplier's favour then they can use this as support in any legal claim should this become necessary.

While you ponder what - if anything - to do next, might I suggest the investment of £10 along with a Subject Access Request. The supplier might unwittingly provide you with confirmation in copied correspondence that the correct e-mail address was provided when the contract was taken out.

In sum, I know that you are annoyed (I would be as well) but you need to think through how best to resolve this matter which is why I suggested a meeting with a Citizens Advice energy adviser. Before you ask, I have no links to Citizens Advice.

yellowclock

Was with first utility for a year before switching for a cheaper tariff. Never had any problems. They reviewed our usage after 6 months and reduced our direct debit. Switching away was painless. Final bill was generated two weeks after switch date and was perfectly in line with what was expected. Nice app too. Only reason for leaving was we found a better price

Roysyboy

Disappearing Email Bill, etc.

First Utility sent me their first bill, which was wrong. However, the bill was a self-deleting email. I then received a back-dated bill that was different, i.e., unlike the first bill, it did not attempt to overcharge me.

In other words, FIRST UTILITY IS A THOROUGHLY UNSCRUPULOUS COMPANY THAT IS EMPLOYING THE DIRTIEST OF DIRTY TRICKS.

Also, my broadband-speed is less than half of what I was getting with my previous supplier. The router that First Utility supplied me with, causes a deliberate bottleneck.

In other words, FIRST UTILITY IS A THOROUGHLY UNSCRUPULOUS COMPANY THAT IS EMPLOYING THE DIRTIEST OF DIRTY TRICKS.

I demanded to be sent details of the necessary settings that I would need to use my own router instead of the one supplied by First Utility. The company erected obstacles to me doing this.

In other words, FIRST UTILITY IS A THOROUGHLY UNSCRUPULOUS COMPANY THAT IS EMPLOYING THE DIRTIEST OF DIRTY TRICKS.

Lolabeth

I signed up through energy club where it was one of the cheapest at £34 (still showing that price for me there now). I got an email saying some of my details were missing, to click on the link to add them. The link lead to a page asking for my postcode. It then asked for my usage in KwH - that I had already given as part of energy club. When I put this in the cheapest quote was £40/month. There was no easy way to cancel it, and I can't switch it through energy club so now I need to phone them to cancel it, which is a waste of time. The whole reason I was switching now is that my current provider was hard to contact and sending me contradicting information about payments. It's close to Christmas, I can't afford to pay for their mistake and can't reach them, so I thought the easiest thing would be to switch to another provider. Now, here I am again, the week before Christmas, having to phone a company to get out of something that seems as far as I can see to be false advertising. Surely they shouldn't just be able to put one price on the energy club page and then send me an email asking me to register with a completely different quote!

Skeksis

Where do I start with this cowboy company, other than to warn other MSE'ers NOT to engage ANY service from First Utility whatsoever, and tell everybody you know not to either. It's a long story which I will attempt to shorten.

In 2015 I initiated an electricity only switch from Eon to FU at my property. The alarm bells should have rung then, they opened an account and then mysteriously closed it a few days later, opening a differently numbered one instead, assuring me everything would be fine. When I questioned it, they said two different meter numbers were registered at the address (they couldn't even get the supply address correct), funny as it only had an electricity supply and I never had a problem with Eon. The direct debit was set up and monthly payments made until I moved address in 2017, when I discovered they hadn't closed the originally opened account, so it was racking up charges alongside the account I was making payments on!

I tried to resolve the issue through their totally ineffective complaints process without success, as they are now trying to recover the incorrectly billed amount. I am aware of Ofgem's back billing rule so have opened a full complaint with the Energy Ombudsman, with a decision due at the end of this month, nearly two years since I left them. Incidentally I know someone who worked there for 3 months and said it was absolutely abysmal!