Add your feedback on energy supplier Sainsbury’s Energy

StarshipUK

I moved with MSE back in February\March. I am still waiting for Sainsburys Energy to send my opening Meter Readings to old supplier (Scottish Power) so they will close my own account and refund the outstanding balance. Just contacted Sainsburys Energy and told will take up to 5 days before they reply and the phone helpdesk is closed.....

MSE_Dan_L

StarshipUK wrote: »

I moved with MSE back in February\March. I am still waiting for Sainsburys Energy to send my opening Meter Readings to old supplier (Scottish Power) so they will close my own account and refund the outstanding balance. Just contacted Sainsburys Energy and told will take up to 5 days before they reply and the phone helpdesk is closed.....

Hi StarshipUK

I believe there have been a few industry issues with meter reads related to Scottish Power. However if you drop an email through to msecollectiveswitch@sainsburysenergy.com someone should be able to look at this for you (in less than 5 days!).

Stato71

I transferred my Gas and Electricity from EDF to Sainsburys via the MSE energy club back in March and the Electricity account is still not fully transferred.

Sainsburys customer services have been working on the issue for 6 or 7 weeks, "waiting for the National Database to be updated".

They are citing the new 2 week turn around, the demand for the tariff offered on the MSE energy club and 4GS who apparently manage the national database as reasons for the delay.

EDF confirmed my account was closed with them in March.

What frustrates me at the moment is the black box which seems to be the National Database. EDF confirmed that the database shows British Gas (the underlying supplier via Sainsbury's Energy) as the supplier, but Sainsburys say there are still details missing from the database making it impossible for them to enter my opening meter reading.

Is there a way to complain directly to 4GS regarding energy switch over issues? Updating a database isn't THAT difficult regardless of how many changes they need to make.

[Deleted User]

Stato71 wrote: »

EDF confirmed that the database shows British Gas (the underlying supplier via Sainsbury's Energy) as the supplier, but Sainsburys say there are still details missing from the database making it impossible for them to enter my opening meter reading.

The Sainsbury helpline advisers are a hostage to fortune.

Using your online logon and contact us sent them a written inquiry and copy what you send them to a text file you have created on your desktop. The web page will respond with an id number log that to the text file along with the date. Customer services will contact you by phone but refuse this and say to wish to be contacted by email. Regardless you need to ask them for the complaint number which begins with the number 8.Their email will give you a date in which to respond if you miss it then the complaint will automatically close.

This is an issue for Centrica who own British Gas. You need to ask Centrica to detail exactly what the problem is and then progress it on that basis. If you write to third parties about this you will need to describe details.

Sainsbury will keep sending you emails and if you are not satisfied then you must say so in a reply. Keep this up for 56 calendar days and then raise a complaint with the Energy ombudsman. They will need the complaint number and copies of all correspondence. British Gas are selective in what information the give they Ombudsman as the case file.

1trainer1

I moved to Sainsbury's Energy from British Gas this month and it has been smooth sailing so am surprised at all the problems everyone is having.

Got a letter from British Gas to say sorry your leaving and welcome from Sainsbury with all my details correct and asking me to register online to submit my gas and electric details or they will go of what BG gave them.

15 minutes online registering and submitting the details and I get an email confirmation to say thanks all updated.

Will wait and see but so far so good and yes I switched over from MSE switch

sniggings

1trainer1 wrote: »

I moved to Sainsbury's Energy from British Gas this month and it has been smooth sailing so am surprised at all the problems everyone is having.

They have to get some correct, so not sure why it would surprise you.

Remember too British Gas is Sainsury's energy, so that's quite an easy move for them to make.

JohnM5206

I have had a successful move to Sainsburys Energy which was effective 18 March 2015. Meter readings agreed very quickly with them.
Current reading submitted about 18 June, no problem and the website updated the account balance instantly.
My bill arrived today detailing all the charges and payments by direct debit....all good.
The information box also said I could save £166 per year by moving Gas Tariff to Price Promise June 2016 and that I was on the cheapest Electricity Tariff. I phoned to investigate and to make this change only to be told that Dual Fuel in Sainburyland means both fuels on THE SAME TARIFF. The net result of that is a saving on Gas of £166 but Electricity will be £140 more so net reduction is £26. A large chunk of misleading advertising I think!!

intalex

In my switch from First Utility to Sainsbury's, I had submitted both gas and electricity actual open reads around the transfer date (well within the reading submission window), and only the electricity one was accepted with the gas one ignored in favour of an estimate.

Sainsbury's claim the "industry database" decided to calculate and use an estimate over the actual reading, and that they had no control over enforcing the actual reading. They tried to re-submit the actual reading on my request but this time First Utility rejected it as it was within some acceptable industry tolerance of the estimate that was used.

My guess around the presence of such a tolerance is for utility companies to not get into a scrap over billable units below the tolerance level. Normally I wouldn't care who gets to bill me a few units here and there as long as I'm billed only once.

However, with this situation I happened to move flats soon after the switch and my close read when I moved out was even lower than the estimate open read that Sainsbury's had used during the switch, which their systems simply would not be able to handle in terms of generating a final bill (negative consumption).

So what they have done is to use the estimate open read that was used during the switch, and added to it the actual consumption (based on actual transfer/open and close reads I provided) to estimate my close read and generate my final bill, so they have billed me my full consumption for the time I was with them.

They have made it my problem (or bad luck) that I was effectively double-charged and over-charged by First Utility on the basis of an incorrect estimate read being used during the transfer.

The excess charge is only ~£10, but just can't believe or accept that such a loophole exists which puts the customer out of pocket. I'm also highly sceptical about Sainsbury's disowning the problem, even more so after reading the feedback on here.

I guess the bottom line questions are for my situation are:-
1. Does this industry database have a mind of its own where it would reject actual readings in favour of its own estimates?
2. Does the industry process allow refusal of re-instating the actual reading if the estimate is clearly proven to be incorrect and causing an over-charge, even if it's within a published tolerance?

Thanks for reading, and for any comments/answers.

_Kismet

Since the "Welcome to Sainsbury's Energy" letter dated 13 February 2015, I can report that the situation has finally been resolved as of 27 June 2015.

It only took them 4.5 months.

A £40 compensation/goodwill gesture was credited my SE account.

I think that most who've been through a similar ordeal would agree with me that we would have preferred it that they had just got it right in the first place. In the many switches and energy companies I've had experience of, this switch to British Gas' "Sainsbury's Energy" has been the the only one to be so traumatic.

Best wishes and good luck to anyone who is still in switch-limbo or having other problems with a switch.

StarshipUK

MSE_Dan_L wrote: »

Hi StarshipUK

I believe there have been a few industry issues with meter reads related to Scottish Power. However if you drop an email through to [EMAIL="msecollectiveswitch@sainsburysenergy.com"]msecollectiveswitch@sainsburysenergy.com[/EMAIL] someone should be able to look at this for you (in less than 5 days!).

Thank you for this. SE did get back to me quite quickly but was just told what I already knew:
"These details were also passed to your old supplier who should've closed your account by now. You're free to pass the information over to them, as it's important that they use the same readings to close your account to ensure you're not being billed twice for the same period or overcharged."

After getting no further with either company I have now sent details to the Energy Ombudsman who are investigating this. It seems like it could be a long slow process before this is resolved, but I am glad the Energy Industry is so regulated and has a Ombudsman Service and wish that other companies and industries also had this kind of service available.