Add your feedback on energy supplier Extra Energy

dave_dph

Well it's now almost a week and we've heard nothing! EE still haven't produced a bill.

Victor_Delta

dave_dph wrote: »

Well it's now almost a week and we've heard nothing! EE still haven't produced a bill.

They are having to check them all manually to ensure you don't get a huge DD increase. See my post here.

Hern

Whatever the nature of the contractor we employ to provide a service to our household, we look for a co-equal balance of quality of service and value for money. We make no difference between our window cleaner and our energy supplier. They provide the service. We pay the money.

We're currently coming to the end of a fixed term contract with Scottish Power. We've had no problem with them other than a patently bonkers uplift in proposed DD payments which we promptly objected to on the basis that we bank with Barclays and that if we wished to shift our deposit account to a different institution, it would hardly be to that of a mere seller of gas and electricity.

Scottish Power rescinded its proposal, blaming it on computer errors in its billing system.

Prior to going to Scottish Power, we were with Npower. We had no problem with that supplier other than its utter inability to bill on time or even bill accurately. We found it tiresome to have to tell them that we're not idiots. Their CS was excellent but I don't care how chatty / smiley my window cleaner is if our windows are as dirty after his visit as they were before.

Npower apologised, rectified matters, decided to address me in the name of my long-dead father but otherwise just about got things right before we migrated to Scottish Power.

Npower blamed it all on computer errors in its billing system.

Prior to being with Npower we were with EDF. This spectacularly bonkers outfit actually posted us newsletters about some rugby team or other it was financing in some part of the country we've never been to nor ever intend to visit. We can't bear rugby. EDF failed to maintain regular billing or even accuracy of billing. It accordingly proved necessary to explain that not only are we not idiots, we don't like rugby, either. EDF managed to get things straightened out before we left them for Npower.

EDF blamed it all on computer errors in its billing system.

Prior to being with EDF we were with British Gas, an outfit so stunningly incompetent that we finished up reporting it to the then Regulator after we flatly refused to pay a bill dreamt up by its Fiction Rights Department and it threatened us with civil action (which, of course, it wasn't ever going to pursue but instead sold off the alleged debt at 25p in the £ to a bunch of scumbags in Manchester who tried it on once and thereafter went silent after suddenly finding themselves in trouble with the OFT. )

We never did get a satisfactory explanation (nor expected one) from British Gas but at the time, the company attributed everything to computer errors in its billing system.

As will be seen, a certain . . . pattern is evident here: the institutionalised dysfunctionality of all the 386SX computers being run by the nation's leading energy companies using Windows for Workgroups. I appreciate, upgrading to Windows 98 can be expensive and certainly if the hardware is going to be as exotic as a Pentium processor but it has always seemed to me that the profits of the so-called Big 6 are sufficient to finance reasonably reliable hardware and software as well as maybe even a dot matrix printer or two.

Now that we're about to depart Scottish Power -- we make it a point never to stick to the same supplier seeing as all of them are prone to the same computer errors in the billing system -- we were about to give serious consideration to Extra Energy because it makes quite a noise about how its technology is advanced and how its systems are the latest around.

We assume they're on XP, then.

Sadly, this thread appears to indicate that Extra Energy isn't very much different to any other energy supplier -- except, perhaps, that it places greater emphasis on the calibre of its Front Office. Well: good for Extra Energy.

But it's the Back office we're concerned about. The place where all those computer errors in all those billing systems happen again, and again, and again. Back. Not Front.

It would be reassuring to learn that actually, Energy Extra's Back Office isn't that inept. That computer errors in the billing system aren't the stuff of apologies for late billing, mis-billing, non-billing and unexpected invitations to maintain a deposit account with them.

Advice appreciated -- thanks.

PS: Call me nostalgic, but Mrs H and I yearn for the days of dear little Amerada. Never a problem, so never an excuse. But of course, it was always too small, and it was always too good, to survive . . .

XR221

I managed a switch to EE for my parents nearly 10 months ago. They have still not had a single bill for gas and electricity used. I contacted EE at the end of December and was told that there had been issues agreeing final meter readings with the old supplier which had delayed the production of bills when a reading was sent. Despite the fact that the final meter readings had then been agreed their billing department had not been told. The customer service guy stated that he would amend the record and get billing on the case and a bill would be created within 2 weeks. Guess what - still no bill.
If no bill materialises by the 1 year anniversary i'll be working out what's owed myself to ensure that what's been paid by direct debits covers the cost and then cancelling the direct debit - I bet that'll get their attention!:mad:

lisa110rry

I design bespoke cost recovery systems for multi-£m construction projects. I was once told (many years ago by Scottish Power) that I "couldn't possibly properly calculate my energy charges". (I put them straight on that one.)

I feel strongly that the algorithms used to assess future use of energy are fatally flawed and I recommend to everyone that they take meter readings every month - and enter them on the website of their provider - but always do it a couple of days *after* the direct debit is paid.

edward123

lisa110rry wrote: »

........I recommend to everyone that they take meter readings every month - and enter them on the website of their provider - but always do it a couple of days *after* the direct debit is paid.

I've been entering readings at the end of each calendar month. My DD goes out on the 16th. What is the benefit of doing it on the 18th rather than the date I do so presently then?

Hern

Sincere thanks to lisa (whose expertise and commonsense looks to be sorely needed by the idiots responsible for HS2.)

Communication is all in this business and the fact that no assurances have been made on here by the Extra Energy representative about the accuracy (or otherwise) of this company's claim to be technologically competent indicate to me that, er, it isn't.

Gas and electricity suppliers have delighted for years in the arcane language of measurement terms and billing rates that will obviously baffle those not in the industry. Suppliers have counted on that bafflement. Little wonder, then, that the comms of just about every supplier I've heard about vary from hopeless to witless.

We're off to E.ON. The price seems OK to us but, rather more to the point, the E.ON rep on the MSE E.ON thread is prompt, articulate, and helpful.

Thanks, again, to Lisa.

[Deleted User]

Does it really matter which energy company has the best customer service?

No matter which company you go with, all the energy you use comes from the same infrastructure and I can't remember the last time I've ever needed to call customer services. I just submit meter readings and pay the bills and that is all there is to it.

extraenergy

XR221 wrote: »

I managed a switch to EE for my parents nearly 10 months ago. They have still not had a single bill for gas and electricity used. I contacted EE at the end of December and was told that there had been issues agreeing final meter readings with the old supplier which had delayed the production of bills when a reading was sent. Despite the fact that the final meter readings had then been agreed their billing department had not been told. The customer service guy stated that he would amend the record and get billing on the case and a bill would be created within 2 weeks. Guess what - still no bill.
If no bill materialises by the 1 year anniversary i'll be working out what's owed myself to ensure that what's been paid by direct debits covers the cost and then cancelling the direct debit - I bet that'll get their attention!:mad:

Good Morning XR221

I am sorry to hear that a bill has not yet been received. Please email me the account number and your MSE username to [EMAIL="blogresponse@extraenergy.com"]blogresponse@extraenergy.com[/EMAIL] and I will investigate this for you.

Thanks

Grainne

lisa110rry

Regarding taking readings and the timing of same, I used to take a reading at the end of each month; my direct debit was timed to go out on the first of the month. This meant that my "credit" level was higher than it would have been if I had read the meter just after the payment was made. This triggered the energy company to raise my direct debit. For years (as I've mentioned I had a running battle for 13-14 years with Scottish Power over my energy usage) they would advise me they were raising my direct debit and I would ring them up and say that this was wrong. Eventually I got hold of a really spot on Customer Service Representative (to my mind she should have been the CEO) who explained that because I was reading just before a payment it was causing an incorrect perception of my usage. This is why you should read just after a payment.