Add your feedback on energy supplier Green Star Energy

lamanva

I have had poor service from Green Star. In these circumstances is there anyway i can leave them with out paying the penalty?

Feeling_opressed

Reported death of customer to them via web site and then emailed asking for change of account to his wife with copy of death certificate and request for change of account to DD from as his account had been frozen. Result? Dunning letter to a DEAD PERSON threatening consequences from unpaid DD; bill recalculated back 270 days at HIGHER TARIFF and made out to a DEAD PERSON resulting in £50 more to pay than is due under the fixed tariff agreed; took 2 long calls to customer service even to get the account holder name changed, still waiting for the bill to be calculated properly and the DD to be changed as requested. NB there is no facility on their web site to change account for DD, customer services are 2 weeks behind reading emails. Only switch to these people (who are Hudson Energy) if nothing can possibly change and you don't want to switch banks during your contract period!

System

lamanva wrote: »

I have had poor service from Green Star. In these circumstances is there anyway i can leave them with out paying the penalty?

Yes, switch to a supplier that will credit you your exit fees when your transfer is complete.
Or raise a complaint in writing which gives to a reserved right to escalate it to The Energy Ombudsman. Given the time that The Energy Ombudsman takes, I would probably look to switch and ditch.

spurtime

I can't believe you recommended Green Star Energy. This company is an absolute joke!!

I had a smart meter installed while with OVO, but swapped from economy 7 to a single tariff prior to joining GSE. Seeing as GSE do not support smart meters (unbelievable!!) I have to take readings myself. Since my last official reading they have jumped to the main numbers and I can’t resubmit the true readings!!

They also keep cancelling my bills, which makes me wonder if they are really using this as an excuse to bill me more. I have a healthy credit in my account but I’m expecting that to be wiped out by these crooks!! :mad:

Mikes_Saving

If you contact Hudson Energy UK HQ (and be assertive) they can put you through to the Green Star Energy complaints resolution team and you stand at least half a chance of getting something done. One of my previous postings has the contact details I think.
Good luck!

Mikes_Saving

JohnnyBGoode:
Yes there is. I pressed them to return me to my previous supplier under the erroneous transfer rules. This returned me to that supplier 'as if I had never left'. Its not ideal, but it does get you out of the Groundhog Day that is Green Star's catatonic customer service department.
Talk to your previous supplier too. Mine was Eon and they were excellent at explaining the options that Green Star had and helping me to see through their incompetence/deceit (difficult to believe they're that incompetent, so perhaps they're doing it deliberately?).
If you can't get one of their call centre script readers to put you through (they seem determined not to) try ringing Hudson Energy UK HQ (contact details in one of my previous posts) they put me through to the complaints team straight away from where I eventually forced some action.
I stopped my direct debits as they were unable to demonstrate to me how much power I'd used or how they'd arrived at my bill. That seemed to focus their attention a little.
I'm now back at Eon (it took about 2 months from the point when GSE said they'd do it for the second time - they didn't action it the first time and I only knew because I was talking to Eon) and my stress levels are slowly reducing to normal!

Mikes_Saving

trickytree1963 wrote: »

Always invoke the Direct Debit Guarantee with your Bank when this stuff happens. You get the money back and don't have to hope that the Energy Company refund you "in 10 days"

Good advice - I did exactly this with GSE, who were blissfully ignorant of their responsibilities under the DD guarantee. I insisted that, because they couldn't demonstrate how they had calculated my bill, they had effectively guessed the amount they had taken and had done so without my consent. It resulted in a refund of all monies I'd paid them (after about a week) and precipitated them to a) talk to me, and b) return my account to Eon.

Inverchaolain

After an enormous amount of frustration and hassle over billing which ultimately required the intervention of the Energy Ombudsman to rectify I managed to leave Green Star on the 20th Dec. At this point you would think my worries were over, but nooooo.......

It has taken until the 28th Feb (10 weeks) to get a final bill from them despite their T&Cs stating up to 6 weeks. During this period Green Star refused to acknowledge that my new supplier had passed them the initial readings to allow a bill to be generated. My new supplier had to contact Green Star on a number of occasions to point out their error. Even on my call with Green Star on the 28th the customer service agent was denying that the info to prepare a bill was available and only when I refused to accept this was correct did she take the trouble to look into it and came back after 20 mins on hold to state that a bill would be issued within the hour.

I have posted a number of times about Green Star and would repeat that at the first sign of trouble raise a complaint with them and once the 8 week resolution period has finished raise the issue with the Energy Ombudsman. Over the 8 months I was with Green Star I have seen a change in their handling of complaints and not for the better. Forget what is stated on your bill and in their T&Cs it is now impossible to get a customer service agent to escalate your issue and submitting a complaint by email will probably not get a response. I was unable to raise a complaint regarding the time and difficulty I was experiencing in getting a final bill as Green Star deemed this a topic which could not be complained about. I raised this with the Energy Ombudsman and was told that Green Star cannot refuse to accept a complaint and if they do so the customer should ask for a deadlock letter. At this point the Energy Ombudsman will take the customers complaint, even if they refuse to issue a deadlock letter, and consider Green Star to have waived their 8 week resolution period.

If you are unlucky enough to be a customer of Green Star I sympathize with you. If you are considering joining Green Star please reconsider as you are about to enter a world of grief.

System

Inverchaolain wrote: »

After an enormous amount of frustration and hassle over billing which ultimately required the intervention of the Energy Ombudsman to rectify I managed to leave Green Star on the 20th Dec. At this point you would think my worries were over, but nooooo.......

It has taken until the 28th Feb (10 weeks) to get a final bill from them despite their T&Cs stating up to 6 weeks. During this period Green Star refused to acknowledge that my new supplier had passed them the initial readings to allow a bill to be generated. My new supplier had to contact Green Star on a number of occasions to point out their error. Even on my call with Green Star on the 28th the customer service agent was denying that the info to prepare a bill was available and only when I refused to accept this was correct did she take the trouble to look into it and came back after 20 mins on hold to state that a bill would be issued within the hour.

I have posted a number of times about Green Star and would repeat that at the first sign of trouble raise a complaint with them and once the 8 week resolution period has finished raise the issue with the Energy Ombudsman. Over the 8 months I was with Green Star I have seen a change in their handling of complaints and not for the better. Forget what is stated on your bill and in their T&Cs it is now impossible to get a customer service agent to escalate your issue and submitting a complaint by email will probably not get a response. I was unable to raise a complaint regarding the time and difficulty I was experiencing in getting a final bill as Green Star deemed this a topic which could not be complained about. I raised this with the Energy Ombudsman and was told that Green Star cannot refuse to accept a complaint and if they do so the customer should ask for a deadlock letter. At this point the Energy Ombudsman will take the customers complaint, even if they refuse to issue a deadlock letter, and consider Green Star to have waived their 8 week resolution period.

If you are unlucky enough to be a customer of Green Star I sympathize with you. If you are considering joining Green Star please reconsider as you are about to enter a world of grief.

Your experience is becoming all too common. The actual Licence Condition requires suppliers to use their 'reasonable efforts' to raise a Final Bill within 6 weeks. Contract lawyers make £Ms arguing about what constitutes 'reasonable efforts/endeavours' in Courts around the land. I suspect that the problem for Ofgem is that this particular Licence Condition comes under the umbrella of EU Law.

Like you, I was faced with a similar situation last year. On Day 42 after the transfer, I got the gaining supplier to e-mail me confirmation that a verified meter reading had been produced along with the date that it had been passed to the losing supplier. I put all this information into a written complaint and I received a Final Bill within the hour of the complaint being sent.

duckydd

My husband received a letter from MyGreenStarEnergy Saying 'Thank you for choosing Welcome to to Green Star Energy as a new Customer'.
He has not changed the energy supply, which is in my name anyway and he never uses the Internet so does not fill in any forms etc. Plus they have used his name abbreviated, which he never does.
I have rung my supplier and explained that my energy account is not being transferred to another supplier, they said that this has been happening a lot lately.
I have also rung MyGreenStarEnegy, which took a 36 minute call, and made sure that I cancelled the so called account that they have set up and stated that I am not happy about the way this has been done.
They had no explanation , just said that my husband must have seen a broker or done it on the internet,untrue.
I fell that this sort of this is disgusting.
Anyone else had this happen to them?