Add your feedback on energy supplier Extra Energy

molerat

I was lucky that my DD was pretty much spot on so with a little adjustment of my final reading (around 15 kWh IIRC) I left them 3 months ago with 19p in credit. I am not going to lose any sleep over it.

regis598

I received my final bill, 113 days after terminating my contract with them and have it in writing that the credit would be transferred to my bank account on or around 26/12/2015. That means 29/12/2015 at the earliest due to Christmas.


Time will tell, but the county court will be open for business on that day.

tim_n

regis598 wrote: »

I received my final bill, 113 days after terminating my contract with them and have it in writing that the credit would be transferred to my bank account on or around 26/12/2015. That means 29/12/2015 at the earliest due to Christmas.

Time will tell, but the county court will be open for business on that day.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/team-blog/2013/05/13/paying-upfront-what-happens-when-an-energy-firm-goes-bust/

I'm not worried, I don't have money in credit

https://companycheck.co.uk/company/08053154/EXTRA-ENERGY-SUPPLY-LIMITED/summary

And based on my own and others experience in this forum, if they're not billing and people being able to legally take back credit that they've not been billed for the last 12 months isn't a recipe for success.

Hopefully the German backing company they're attached to will step in soon and sort out the mess before it gets messier.

Hern

Inflatable_Armadillo wrote: »

Anyway, I won't be messing about if it doesn't, letter before action followed by County Court and then Warrant of Execution if required. They have no reason to be withholding MY money and as I actually have a final bill, I can proved none payment, so it should breeze through CC.

as well as:

regis598 wrote: »

I received my final bill, 113 days after terminating my contract with them and have it in writing that the credit would be transferred to my bank account on or around 26/12/2015. That means 29/12/2015 at the earliest due to Christmas. Time will tell, but the county court will be open for business on that day.

Rogue energy companies like ExtraEnergy and others of their ilk take comfort from the fact that consumers don't know how to sue, only how to threaten. By now the County Court system ought to be positively stuffed full of pending hearings in regard to the serial abuses suffered by energy customers. But they aren't. That's because there's nothing in Law about holding an energy company to account for its misconduct.

As both these posts refer to civil action, it would be interesting to know what specific legal grounds -- grounds acceptable to a County Court for its consideration -- are under consideration here. There must be dozens, if not 100s, of justifiably disgruntled posts from MSErs about how they'll be off to court soon to ensure their energy supplier gets its just desserts. . . but I'm unaware of a single post which says:

* This is the court action I instituted against my supplier and:

* This is the outcome of the court hearing.

tim_n wrote: »

Hopefully the German backing company they're attached to will step in soon and sort out the mess before it gets messier.

Though there's some novelty in hoping that one day, soon, in Germany, the owners of ExtraEnergy will, er, do. . . something about their UK operation, such wishful thinking seems ill-founded.

Germany is a 5-second email transit away or an instantaneous managerial conference call. Germany is not a far-distant country where messages between senior management there and junior management here take years to get through.

Fact is, the company as a whole is very well aware of the mess it has created here by setting out from the start to make quick profits from a manifestly under-resourced business start-up (that being the only way quick profits can ever be made from start-ups.)

All those connected in any way with the management of the German company will have been aware of the consequences of those actions here in the UK for a lonnnng, lonnng time . . . and very clearly, they couldn't care less. Rake in the money, folks, and don't worry about compliance with the Standard Licence Conditions of the Gas & Electricity Supply Licence and Gas and Electricity Consumer Complaints Handling Standards Regulations 2008. After all: who's going to take us to court? A customer?

As to how-to-make-a-fortune-out-of-energy-customers-who-don't-know-any-better-than-to-sign-up, ExtraEnergy's visionary practice was explained on here as long ago as April 23 2014 in this post. It's still worth a read, all this time after:

rogcal wrote: »

During the course of this evening's conversation, I asked how often they review the amount they take each month and was told every 6 months which led me to ask "could I ask for a refund of any credit every month" to which the answer was "no".

It appears you can only request a return of monies credited to your energy account once a year and then it will only be the balance of any money held in your account over the sum of £70.

So, in effect if you have a credit balance of over £70 at the end of the year they will return monies over that amount and keep the £70 as a rollover credit.

I then put it to the Ops Support Manager that the entire customer base of ExtraEnergy could potentially have £70 permanently credited to their account and not have it returned until account closure. She confirmed that this was technically correct.

So, it looks as though part of ExtraEnergy's business model is based on keeping hold of £70 x the customer base ad infinitum. Not bad at all when you consider that customers are in effect providing an interest free loan that could potentially be in region of several million pounds!

I'm off to another energy supplier as soon as I can and paying the exit fee will be a small price to pay to escape from Extra Energy.

I feel sorry for the staff at ExtraEnergy (bet they're on zero hour contracts). How long I wonder before the company folds and the poor souls are back on the dole queue!

The mess -- as far as a consumer expecting fair play and fair treatment is concerned -- that is ExtraEnergy has been there from the start. It actually can't get any messier.

As with other businesses in this sector, the ultimate blame lies entirely with the regulator for not revoking their operating licenses on grounds of serial breach. Fines mean nothing at all.

ianG

Thanks @Hern for that summary. I am sure that is correct and the parent company don't give a hoot about their UK off-shoot and customers.

We read of how NPower has been fined severely for exactly the same behaviour as EE, yet why is there no action from the regulators as they must know full well of this operation's underhand practices.

Thankfully, I have left and am pretty certain that I owe them some sum of money. I had all the usual threatening letters and ended up sending postal and email letters to every address I could find. I also sent a copy to a nation newspaper but they did not take it up. The outcome was the nasty letters stopped, they phoned me a few times and 'promised' to sort out the final bill etc and I would hear from them within 2 weeks. this was back in Oct sometime and not a peep out of them since. I did successfully take a mobile phone supplier to court over unpaid cash-back, it was fairly straightforward and I did get a positive result.

It looks like the energy sector, now privitised, has instead of each company competing to offer good service and price, we now have a race to the bottom to a level just above the threshold to have your licence revoked.

regis598

Going by their "normal" way of doing things, I doubt that they would bother to contest CC claims.

Hern

ianG wrote: »

It looks like the energy sector, now privatized, has instead of each company competing to offer good service and price, we now have a race to the bottom to a level just above the threshold to have your licence revoked.

Spot on. In the run-up to privatization, the public was repeatedly -- repeatedly -- assured that what was to be created was a regulated sector because the provision of energy to UK families was anything but an ordinary service. You certainly couldn't let rogue operators get their hands on the control of vital gas and electricity supplies; ye gods, there could even be a risk of some (sic) customers being held to ransom by the unscrupulous!

So-oo . .. a regulated market. A regulated business sector. No worries, folks, and no prospect of any outfit staying in business if it doesn't abide by the terms of its operating licence, gosh golly no!

Well, we all know what happened thereafter: privatisation yes, regulation, no.

It's difficult to know who to be more irritated by, the energy fat cats with their deliberate screwing of whatever they can from anyone wherever they might be (and apologising after) or the succession of Regulators whose closeness to the sector they're supposed to police has been apparent for far too long.

But perhaps when they're next all at lunch together (the regulatory staff on time paid for by the UK taxpayer, the energy mandarins on expenses chargeable back to UK customers in gas & electricity tariffs), perhaps when they're next all at lunch together they'll just have the house wine instead.

Which, really, is about all a UK consumer / UK energy customer can actually hope for nowadays.

Catslovelycats

£70 rollover??
Er not in my case.
I renewed with them for another 12 months and they've kept my £500+ credit balance. Mind you, they changed my DD to a good amount to reflect my huge balance.

Moneyer

Having transferred away from Extra Energy at the end of September (due to dreadful customer service and their flat refusal to refund an excessive credit balance while I remained a customer) I've finally received my final bill and refund (slightly over £400).

The strategy which "worked" for me was (i) make a formal demand for a bill and refund, clearly phrased as a complaint so as to start the clock running for a subsequent Ombudsman complaint and specifying a deadline of an exact date on which I would go to the Ombudsman, then (ii) repeatedly email Ben Jones (email address helpfully provided by people on here) with threats of the Ombudsman, writing to the Independent (who have recently covered complaints about Extra Energy) and legal action - all of which I would have gone through with if necessary.

The "executive" customer service agent who eventually called me to sort it out seemed to say that they "usually aim to issue a final bill in 6-8 weeks but it sometimes takes longer". I'd be interested to know if anyone out there has received a final bill from them within 8 weeks without chasing for it. My understanding is that they are legally required to do it WITHIN 6 weeks, in which case I guess they are openly admitting that they don't even attempt to meet their legal obligations.

As others have said, they are a complete shambles of a company, and if the regulators have any teeth at all they should have been shut down by now.

Thanks to all on here who have made helpful suggestions, best of luck to everyone else trying to get money out of them. And if anybody has found this thread and is still thinking of switching TO them, just don't do it….

Inflatable_Armadillo

Great posts @Hern!

To answer you questions in relation to civil action in CC, in my case I will contest that they are unlawfully and unreasonably withholding monies owed without any cause or justification to do so. In my case, because I do have a final account that THEY have prepared, and I agree with, there is no dispute about the sum! As such, they agree by definition that they owe me this money, I totally agree and are not disputing the sum owed, so what on gods green earth, if they did turn up to contest, what are they going to say to the judge?

So, it will be interesting to see, firstly, whether they pay up on time on the 23rd December, if not, will they pay up when a letter before action lands, papers filled etc, or will they let it go all the way to CC, will they contest & what will they actually contest non-payment on!

I will let you all know!