Glide Utilities Daylight Robbery

caryn_2

My son signed a tenancy agreement along with 4 other students for his second year at university in private rented accomodation. Their tenancy agreement was signed on 1st July, but they did not move in to the premises until 1st August, when they signed for the keys.


Glide Utilities were the utility company the previous tennants used. My son is switching both gas and electricity to Scottish Power (due to transfer on 8th September), but was forced to sign for a temporary supply with Glide until that time, in order to start the transfer process off. Glide told him that if he would not sign for a years contract with them, he would be placed on a flexi contract (no alternative!) which was going to be 20% higher than their normal charges. For example, a day electricity unit is 19p and the standing charge 79p per day !!!!


On the 1st August, when he moved in, he took meter readings and photographed the meters, which he then provided the key letting agency with and also Glide Utilities. Glade have refused to accept that my son was not living at the property until August, even though the letting agency have confirmed he wasn't and are insisting that he is responsible from 1st July. The previous tennat did not provide closing meter readings, neither did the key letting agency, the last reading Glide have is an estimate back in April.


They have billed my son for the period 1st July - 3oth September, at a sum of £221, which is nowhere near his actual usage for August (we have kept a record of the readings and calculated his usage at 4 gas units and 141 electricity, which even at those ridiculously inflated rates comes to £51.95). They are refusing to give any details of how this calculation is based, no meter readings etc but are requesting payment in full.


1. Can they force him to pay from 1st July to 30th September?


2. Can they charge these ridiculous prices?


3. Can they refuse to give details of how this estimate is calculated?


4.This is daylight robbery - help, what do we do


Thank you

Nada666

As they specially focus on students they know perfectly well that this is a scam.

Simply communicate in writing the readings. They have to bill the actual reads. The previous tenants' usage is their problem.

It takes four to six weeks to switch supplier but if the supply switches 8 Sep then that is the period to which they can bill. As far as I know they cannot bill a domestic supply on a monthly basis.

Unfortunately the higher price for deemed contracts/standard tariffs is universal.

And he is liable for the standing charges from start of the tenancy (1 July). But not the estimated read.

caryn_2

Thanks for the reply Nada.


I am going to insist that they provide the basis for their high estimate in writing as you suggest and then refuse to pay a penny more than the actual usage, plus standing charge from 1st July to switch over day.


A lesson learned here for me too and I thought I knew what I was doing when it came to utility bills / switching suppliers. Seems they are legally entitled to do what they've done, albeit morally wrong in my opinion.


Any students reading this - MAKE SURE YOU START YOUR SWITCH OVER THE DAY YOU SIGN YOUR TENANCY AGREEMENT - don't wait until you move in, it will cost you! Oh, and avoid Glide Utilities at all costs, learn to manage your own bills from day one.

Fruit_and_Nut_Case

I had never heard of Glide before so I had a look at their website. They appear to specialise in multi-occupancy accommodation, with the facility to send separate split bills to each resident.

This sounds like a good idea in principle (ignoring the high cost) but I suspect that if one sharer did a runner, Glide would still make the remainder responsible for the whole bill. Anyone familiar with the T&Cs and/or the legal position?

Just found this...

If your housemate doesn't pay then we will chase your housemate, not you, for their outstanding share of the bills.
However when your account is closed (for example if you move house), then we may use any tenants' deposit against any tenants' debt on the account.

So your deposit (deposit?!?!) is at risk.

caryn_2

Indeed. Sounds good in theory.


I would strongly advise anyone intending signing a contract with these people to look into their charges in detail before they commit.

Glide

Hi Caryn,


We’re really sorry that your son has experienced problems with our service. In response to your post, we’d just like to explain how we work so you have a better understanding of what we do – and we’ll do what we can to ensure that this issue is resolved for your son and his housemates.


Firstly, we don’t bill on usage, we bill on payment plan so we estimate what the property uses on an annual basis. We break this down and bill a fixed monthly amount, so regardless of whether they are in the property or not – they will have to pay the same rate each month. However, at the end of the year, we issue our customers with a refund for what they haven’t used. This is where we differ from other providers as we won’t issue a surprise over-usage bill at the end of the year.


We are a company that was set up by students for students, so we aim to be fair and clear about the way our service works as we understand that students don’t want the hassle of juggling utility bills.


If you could please get your son to give us a call on 0333 666 5555 so we can take his details and look into his account – we will try and get this sorted for him and his housemates as soon as possible.


Once again, we apologise for this problem and hope to have this sorted for you as soon as possible.

Andy_WSM

Glide wrote: »

If you could please get your son to give us a call on 0333 666 5555 so we can take his details and look into his account – we will try and get this sorted for him and his housemates as soon as possible.


Once again, we apologise for this problem and hope to have this sorted for you as soon as possible.

That's all very nice and helpful, but for the information of those that read the forum it would be lovely to see the outcome of this. People will then be able to decide if Glide treat their customers fairly. At the moment the thread is somewhat against you, so it would be in your best interest to update this too - unless of course you do screw the students over, then it's probably better you don't.

Glide

Glide would like to make it clear that we have responded to Caryn's post and we intend to do what we can to ensure that this issue is resolved.
We always do our best to keep our customers happy and we make sure that we are always honest and clear about the way we work.

Glide

Hi Andy,


Due to our data protection policy, we will not be able to disclose any information on how this case is resolved, however, should Caryn wish to share this afterwards then that is entirely up to her.


As we said before, we will do our very best to fix this problem as we are an open and honest company and we take issues like this very seriously.

matelodave

What data protection issues are involved here - there are no names mentioned nor addresses so it's a principle involved no personal info is being divulged.


Data Protection is just another lame excuse, like Health & Safety for trying to abdicate responsibility.

Taiko

Amazes me how many companies try and hide behind data protection and don't actually understand data protection!