MSE News: Co-op faces customer backlash following bungled system upgrade

unwina

I wonder if anyone else has managed to check their bills to make sure that Coop are doing them correctly as well as even getting bills.

Just in case not i recommend you do although the gas one will be quite difficult as they don't seem to be recording the calorific value or volume figures for each reading period.

I too joined in mar and battled to get a bill. The crux of my initial problem was that I supplied different meter readings to the coop to that of my previous company and they eventually estimated them. This seemed to cause confusion and put a stop on any bills being generated.

That fixed, my first bill eventually arrived 2 months late with a number of issues on it not least that it recorded no use of gas. All the meter reading were estimated despite me having given the readings for both gas and electric where I was able to. Eventually the system decided I had used nearly 2000 units more than i actually had and prevented me from entering any gas readings from then.

The 1st bill had the correct stuff for electric so no worries there but the gas was in a right mess. I had supplied reading by either ringing or via twitter but it had simply ignored them and knew better. So it had all the units used wrong but no matter as its calculations were zero for all but the last one. So i got onto twitter and asked them to look into it. Nice people on twitter too it away and got billing to correct it, well at least as far as they were concerned they corrected it.

Brilliant within two weeks I had a new corrected bill, I was on holiday at the time so I stated it looked okay but I could see a couple of discrepancies especially on the "explaining your gas statement" section. It was wrong but I said i would fully check it and let them know.

Sadly I never got back to the bill other issues took over and i was busy helping family with a bereavement.

I still tried to enter the readings on time though, (someone had told me the dicky estimator on my gas bill was fixed but just in case supply readings 5/6 days before end of month to override the estimator.) To no avail however so I gave one to a polite twitter agent who said she would have it entered and I did one on the 24th Sep but it failed again.

Imagine my surprise today when a new bill came in the email for the latest period, sadly imagine my disappointment to see that yet again the gas was wrong again. That bill estimator is a law unto its own. I wonder how many people are checking their bills or worse can even understand them to check anyway.

I got on the blower straight away and apparently its now been passed to the billing team but please allow 14-21 days for them as they have a bit of a backlog! at the moment.

modsandmockers

unwina wrote: »

I wonder if anyone else has managed to check their bills to make sure that Coop are doing them correctly as well as even getting bills. I wonder how many people actually are checking their bills or worse can even understand them to check anyway

I think you have identified the biggest current problem in the retail energy industry's Customer Experience. The message we get from sites like MSE is 'your problems can be solved simply by switching'. Not True! More problems would be solved if the energy suppliers simply accepted the need to provide regular accurate bills. I also think that monthly payment schemes should be abolished - most people are capable of understanding that energy bills are higher in winter than in summer, but they struggle to understand why a 'fixed' monthly payment plan frequently leads to more problems rather than fewer.

chris_h78

I am now finally seeing the back of Co-operative Energy. I switched to Sainsburys Energy in March....just as the system switch at Co-op was being installed. The switch went through fine, and my account with Sainsburys is ticking along nicely. However....after a good few weeks I noticed my final bill with Co-op had not been produced and my most recent bill was from December. Then I read the article on MSE. *sigh*.

Timeline of events:
12/3/15 - Switched supplier.
Early June - Sent email to co-op requesting final bill.
16/7/15 - Sent another email requesting final bill.
18/8/15 - received reply from Co-op advising the meter readings had not been received from new supplier ( I suspect this was actually a problem with new Co-op system) and to contact my new supplier to obtain my readings at the time of switch, which I did straight away.
21/8/15 received response from Sainsburys with requested information and forwarded onto Co-op.
9/9/15 received automated email from Co-op asking to resubmit my query to an email address for urgent queries, as mine still had not been resolved.
15/9/15 Received response from Co-op advising "I have requested that our Industry Queries team look into this as a priority as there is some information on your account that is preventing me from issuing your final bill."
26/9/15 Received further email from Co-op advising "Your account has been passed over to our specialist Billing team as an error has been encountered while trying to generate your bill."
And finally........6/10/15 Received my final bill! Yey!!!!!! Online account up to date and showing correct information AND Co-op owe me an unexpected £200! (Which will be paid within 14 days.....hopefully!)

Clearly there are STILL major problems with Co-op's new system, and looks like a lot of bills have to be issued with help from a lot of human input!

Eric_Disley

I think it's important when dealing with Coop Energy to make a short, written complaint, setting out: what the problem is; how you want it resolved; and a deadline for doing so. Do this as soon as a problem arises. Send it recorded delivery so that you've got proof they received it.

Once the complaint's been sent, the 8-week clock starts ticking. After 8 weeks you can refer the complaint to OfGem. Once the complaint reaches OfGem, you stand a chance of getting it resolved.

Don't waste any time waiting for Coop energy to resolve your problem. "It'll be fixed in the next few weeks" - it never is. "Someone will call you back" - they never do. All you'll get is months and months of phone calls, emails, lies and broken promises. And you'll be probably no nearer getting your problem resolved.

modsandmockers

chris_h78 wrote: »

Online account up to date and showing correct information AND Co-op owe me an unexpected £200! (Which will be paid within 14 days.....hopefully!)

The questions that always occur to me in this kind of situation is "how and why did you allow your account to build up a credit of £200 in the supplier's favour, especially at the end of winter?" And "why did the calculation come as a total surprise 6-7 months later?" In what other area of your life would you allow yourself to become so unaware of your financial situation? Hopefully you are now taking regular meter readings and submitting them to Sainsbury's. Hopefully you are keeping a detailed history of your readings, and checking each quarterly bill carefully against the prices which apply to the tariff which you selected when you switched to Sainsbury's. Your monthly DD payment is simply one-twelfth of a 'guesstimate' as to what your annual energy costs might be. It's the quarterly bills which tell you the truth!

Mehitabel9860

modsandmockers wrote: »

The questions that always occur to me in this kind of situation is "how and why did you allow your account to build up a credit of £200 in the supplier's favour, especially at the end of winter?" And "why did the calculation come as a total surprise 6-7 months later?" In what other area of your life would you allow yourself to become so unaware of your financial situation? Hopefully you are now taking regular meter readings and submitting them to Sainsbury's. Hopefully you are keeping a detailed history of your readings, and checking each quarterly bill carefully against the prices which apply to the tariff which you selected when you switched to Sainsbury's. Your monthly DD payment is simply one-twelfth of a 'guesstimate' as to what your annual energy costs might be. It's the quarterly bills which tell you the truth!

What quarterly bills? from account set up in January, first "statement" online seen in May - no payments taken, took till July for Co Op to notice; it just got worse after that. Regular meter readings sent in, estimated usage shown on bills. Now back with a proper company!

peter.collins443

Hi sorry for the delay... Last Friday I had a phone call from the ombudsman team.. they have informed me their findings about my issues with co op energy ... its a big yippee at the moment as my issues on the whole have been upheld .... Now waiting for the co op to accept the findings... this may take a further 28 days

peter.collins443

:A:)

NotGivingIn

In August started updating my tariff (chose to renew as best price at that time) and got confirmation e-mail accepting change when current tariff finished 30 Sept. No updated letters confirming, and fobbed off when queried in Sept. Now have received letter stating new tariff - but it is the wrong one, they have put me on the highest tariff. Customer services is a joke - they cannot fix the problem at all, says I need to speak to sales! Sales lines are constantly engaged, and 'overflow' team take your details but call back will be up to 7 working days later. Have told them that letter took 7 days to get here, so another 7 days will put me beyond the 'cooling off' period and unacceptable. Have given them 2 days, then if no word I will cancel the direct debit so they cannot get any more money out of me until they fix it and only charge the tariff I agreed. I will not put up with their nonsense - only thing they have right is offering a freephone number so that doesn't cost me asnything while on hold for 45 minutes.

modsandmockers

I applied to switch to FirstUtility 15 days ago and they assured me that the switch would be completed 3 days after the 14-day cooling-off period. They sent a welcome pack immediately but, since then, nothing - except a letter from Co-opEnergy expressing their regret at the decision to switch. FU's website tells me that they are still waiting for 'meter details'.

During September, Co-opEnergy produced an accurate bill covering the period since last December, and resumed taking monthly DD payments. They also replied promptly to at least 3 emails. Today, just out of interest, I logged onto Co-opEnergy and, guess what, I can now download a PDF copy of the latest bill.

Fingers crossed that, by switching to FirstUility, I haven't jumped out of the frying pan into the fire!

FOREVER21

NotGivingIn wrote: »

In August started updating my tariff (chose to renew as best price at that time) and got confirmation e-mail accepting change when current tariff finished 30 Sept. No updated letters confirming, and fobbed off when queried in Sept. Now have received letter stating new tariff - but it is the wrong one, they have put me on the highest tariff. Customer services is a joke - they cannot fix the problem at all, says I need to speak to sales! Sales lines are constantly engaged, and 'overflow' team take your details but call back will be up to 7 working days later. Have told them that letter took 7 days to get here, so another 7 days will put me beyond the 'cooling off' period and unacceptable. Have given them 2 days, then if no word I will cancel the direct debit so they cannot get any more money out of me until they fix it and only charge the tariff I agreed. I will not put up with their nonsense - only thing they have right is offering a freephone number so that doesn't cost me asnything while on hold for 45 minutes.

Sorry that you are still having problems with theCo op energy, but why did you sign up with them for a further year?

Had you not been following the threads on this board, yes they might have been cheaper, but no way would I have renewed my contract with them.

I first signed up with them in Sept 2014 and like many others on here have had nothing but problems with them from day one.
Like you they placed me on the wrong tariff it took months to sort out, then unable to input readings, no bill received etc.
I managed to get£100 compensation from them for my trouble, but even that could not tempt me to stay with them.

In Sept of this year I decided to switch. via the CEC to Eon, their rate was better than the co op for me, and it is the best move I made.

Eon kept me informed by e- mail each step of the switch and any calls (I only have made 2 were answered immediately).

True to form the co op have not got around to sending me my final bill and are still holding on to a small credit which I doubt I will ever see.

I would see if you can get out of your situation claiming they have not fulfilled their side of your new contract and look to change supplier.