Customer Service?

modsandmockers

Two months ago, on my advice, my daughter switched from Co-opEnergy to FirstUtility. FU is 15% cheaper and offers monthly ‘real’ billing as standard.

Today, the Co-opEnergy account shows that their final bill was generated yesterday and that it has been ‘archived’. In order to view the bill my daughter has to request a ‘copy’ of the archived bill, but the link which is provided leads to an endless list of FAQs (none of which answers the question, nor offers to supply a copy of the bill).

In the meantime FirstUtility, despite having been provided with meter readings on the due dates, have generated no bills and have failed to take any payments.

Why are these clowns allowed to stay in business?

modsandmockers

Here's the text of an email from First Utility -

"I have taken a look into your account and done a manual calculation for the period between the 20th of October, 2015 and the 2nd of November, 2015. As this calculation is only an estimate I cannot guarentee that this will be the actual amount which is on your bill.

It can take up to three months for us to produce your bill, if you have not received a bill by the 20th of January, 2015 please do not hesitate to contact our Customer Service team on 01926 320 700 and one of our advisors will be happy to answer any queeries you have"

When I found out about FU's 'real monthly billing' option, I thought "what a delightfully old-fashioned idea" but, in practice, it appears to be as random as any other energy company's billing practices.

I wonder what was the purpose of the manual bill calculation, and why the email didn't include the answer. From the spelling mistakes, at least I know that the email was (probably) not computer-generated!

Cardew

modsandmockers wrote: »

From the spelling mistakes, at least I know that the email was (probably) not computer-generated!

Their computers are useless at everything else, so having spelling mistakes would be in keeping.

Shrimply

I can't help, but wanted to give you some faith that once you should have little issue with First:Utility once you get your first bill. Although you could try to email them again, different agents seem to come up with different solutions, some which work better than others.

I have just left FU, was originally on a fixed direct debit and switched to a variable one after a couple of months. I got a bill every month a couple of days after submitting readings and they were always right. They missed taking a payment once, the first time I was due them money after switching to variable, but that months readings were estimated (and wrong) because I was away, so it may have had something to do with them then getting correct readings which were covered by the amount still on the account

I've just had my final bill from them (almost within the 6 week period) which is also for the correct amount.

Edit - Looking back it did indeed take them 2 months to get the first bill produced. But as i say, after that, no issues.