Switched to ISupply Energy - and they've taken £70 UP-FRONT! What are my rights?

GeorgeRob

Wywth wrote: »

As mentioned 5 days ago in post 7, any claim under the DD guarantee should be made direct to your bank, which will result in an immediate refund by your bank.

What are you waiting for? Christmas? I'm sure the supplier will contact you if they think you owe them money after reclaiming it via the bank.

I'm not sure why no one is reading the posts before replying. Thanks for your reply, but if you read my earlier posts you will see i have already claimed back the money via my bank.

I am however still surprised that iSupply have not bothered responding to any of my lines of enquiry on the matter, for over a week now.

muddlemand

Me too: paid two suppliers for the same month, and no reply from iSupply.

I don't mind paying monthly in advance. I do mind paying my old supplier (Southern Electric) for the same electricity because the new one didn't bother to tell them about me switching. When I saw both amounts had gone out, I phoned SE who said they'd heard nothing from iSupply - this was about the 10th of the month and my switch date was the 1st. So I contacted iSupply - and again the next day - and again two days later.

I was happy to contact online, which gives me a record of what I and they say. But after the weekend I phoned, chose to speak to someone, and after quite a wait it went to answerphone, so i left a message with my phone number. Still no reply either online or on the phone, more than a week now.

Meanwhile I've had a final bill from SE saying they owe me - which I presume includes the month for which they haven't been my supplier anyway - but it won't go in till the 27th or later. So I'm £102 down during four weeks.

iSupply had no problem responding to a couple of questions when I first signed up, so maybe they've over-marketed, got swamped, and should have upped their staffing levels or something.

I haven't saved nearly as much switching as I expected, either, expected about £30/month and it is only £11. Still the cheapest though. If the numbers add up correctly without too much hassle, I won't be switching again until the fixed price tariff ends (next summer, by which time it should be looking nice n cheap). If I end up fighting to get money back I'll be causing a stink.

And I did read the T&Cs in detail. I just have again. The General Conditions mention "a booking fee may be payable and in certain instances may be non-refundable. Please check your Product Specific Conditions carefully." In the latter is NO mention of any booking fee refundable or otherwise. At least I haven't landed myself with a month paid that I'll never get back.

So, lousy attitude to customer service but what I'm actually getting isn't a problem YET apart from this tricky month. I hope I never find out how quickly they respond to their emergency helpline.

jrio

I also paid in advance when switching to iSupply this last week, which I was aware of as they had stated it in their email to me. EDF had also wanted the first monthly payment barely a week after switching to them, so it seems quite common, although I reduced that to a week's payment, as it was the end of winter and I still owed a substantial amount to NPower.

What I've also experienced with iSupply is absolutely no customer service. They don't respond to messages from your account on their site; call them and you are in a queue expecting an advisor and are then told to leave your name, account number and phone number for a call back. I'm not expecting a response.

Had I known they operated on this basis, I wouldn't have switched. I've never encountered a company that won't respond to its customers.

muddlemand

jrio wrote: »

What I've also experienced with iSupply is absolutely no customer service. They don't respond to messages from your account on their site; call them and you are in a queue expecting an advisor and are then told to leave your name, account number and phone number for a call back. I'm not expecting a response.

I didn't have this happen in August, but this month that's exactly what I've had. (My start date was 1st Sept.) Before, I was impressed with their patience with a really stupid "kick-self" question, plus I have two electric meters in this house and had a signing-in glitch - no delay in responding, perfectly nice, and the one time I phoned I got through ok (can't remember if it was much of a wait).

It's now 11 days since my first ignored message and I've given up expecting, or chasing, any reply. I do suspect my query prompted them to let my old supplier know I was switching, which I'm sure they hadn't done.

It's simply too much hassle to change again, unless they keep screwing up my money or something, but they'll lose me when my iFix contract is over.

I wonder if the difference Aug/Sept is because I wasn't committed then, or because they've had far too much take-up of their great low rates.

jrio wrote: »

Had I known they operated on this basis, I wouldn't have switched. I've never encountered a company that won't respond to its customers.

Me too!:mad:

muddlemand

muddlemand wrote: »

It's now 11 days since my first ignored message and I've given up expecting, or chasing, any reply. I do suspect my query prompted them to let my old supplier know I was switching, which I'm sure they hadn't done.

A belated update. I had a reply about ten days into October: I'd messaged them on 9th, 10th and 12th September before giving up. They answered all my questions with the interesting one buried among the waffle; my previous supplier was notified on 12th September.

I still think they were swamped because of their good price and were probably using loads of temps to keep up - and didn't keep up - so I'll see how customer service is until the fixed price period ends. Benefit of the doubt, for now. I'll have a chance to find out around December because my first statement shows that my usage is *half* the estimate now that I'm on my sensible own.

Chef1980uk

I'm still waiting for my £136 credit refund with iSupply Energy. They keep saying it takes 28 days to reach my bank. It's now been 3 months!

muddlemand

I did get in touch when I was sure I was safe to reduce my d/d, and had helpful replies - she re-did my suns, made a slightly different suggestion, and waited for my go-ahead then acted on it within a couple of days.

@Chef1980uk, have you been phoning or messaging through the website? I did it all through the site, and was careful to do bullet points etc making it nice and clear, because I always approach any office as if it's staffed by eejits (in most businesses, whether the staff are Einstein or not, they're understaffed and therefore preoccupied so it just helps to simplify everything). In your case it would be worth repeating the whole story from the beginning, a summarised version that's quick to read, but with all the points that matter so no one has to look back at previous correspondence/notes. If you haven't already of course.

Maybe I was lucky with which individual picked up my query, but I got more sense out of iSupply through messaging than by phoning.