Iresa Limited - New Energy Company?

c_smith

Iresa have blocked my switch to Bulb Energy. The reason they gave is because after my latest bill the electricity side of my account is about £10 in debit. But the gas is nearly £50 in credit, so overall my account is nearly £40 in credit, AND my next direct debit of nearly £130 is due in 3 days. Not happy!!

FullForce

c_smith wrote: »

Iresa have blocked my switch to Bulb Energy. The reason they gave is because after my latest bill the electricity side of my account is about £10 in debit. But the gas is nearly £50 in credit, so overall my account is nearly £40 in credit, AND my next direct debit of nearly £130 is due in 3 days. Not happy!!

Don't worry, I'm sure Ofgem will sort you out now they are allegedly on the case.

gardner1

richardc1983 wrote: »

Dear oh dear you don't seem to be getting it.

What exactly do you think I do when I call or Twitter them. Talk about the weather?

They are clueless to know what is what and why this is happening. As it is generally fine on one of the accounts.

Their estimated reading is approx 20 quid out of the actual reading so I am not sure why they stopped accepting them after September.

Put your readings in on last day of month

FullForce

richardc1983 wrote: »

Dear oh dear you don't seem to be getting it.

What exactly do you think I do when I call or Twitter them. Talk about the weather?

They are clueless to know what is what and why this is happening. As it is generally fine on one of the accounts.

Their estimated reading is approx 20 quid out of the actual reading so I am not sure why they stopped accepting them after September.

Dear oh dear I would suggest it is you who doesn't seem to be getting it.

You claim Iresa are clueless to know why this is happening, yet I have explained it to you. I have only done this be reiterating what Iresa tell all their customers in their communications.

In the circumstances, I don't think there is any helping you further, sorry.
Hopefully Breeze Energy can expain it to you in a way you are able to comprehend.
But your issues are not the result of anything any supplier does.

If the estimated reading used is only about £20 out from the actual reading, then I struggle to understand how you believe you are £200 in credit.

richardc1983

FullForce wrote: »

Dear oh dear I would suggest it is you who doesn't seem to be getting it.

You claim Iresa are clueless to know why this is happening, yet I have explained it to you. I have only donme thgis be reiterating what Iresa tell all their customers in their communications.

In the circumstances, I don't think there is any helping you further, sorry.
Hopefully Breeze Energy can expain it to you in a way you are able to comprehend.
But your issues are not the result of anything any supplier does.

If the estimated reading used is only about £20 out from the actual reading, then I struggle to understand how you believe you are £200 in credit.

I am massively in credit because my direct debit is too high? My readings are submitted on the day or day after the email comes out. So it's sent in good time.

But since you don't seem to be getting it and don't seem to think the problem is specific to iresa even though I had no issues with cheaper budget suppliers then you either work for them or are getting some back hander from them.

In response to your claim that my issues are not related to what the supplier does then who fault is it as I'm struggling to understand why still the issue is not resolved when all I did is submit a reading online which doesn't track.

System

richardc1983 wrote: »

The email from iresa states "it's time to submit your meter readings" I've never seen a mention of the date it should be done. I'm paying 140 per month yet my bill is approx 80 a month. So you can see over a year how much you build up especially on the summer

Suppliers tend to have their own billing systems. For example, I am with Zog for gas and it bills up to the last day of the month. I have had electricity from Bulb and they bill monthly on the day that they took over the supply: in my case that was the 5th. Once you have worked out the supplier's billing system, then it is possible to get a bill based on actual rather than estimated readings.

That said, the rollout of Project NEXUS last year seems to have had some unintended consequences. The Annual Quantity figure for gas consumption used to be updated once a year. Now it is updated each time that a customer provides an actual meter reading; HOWEVER, these readings have to be validated by the data collectors first. One supplier posted recently that it uses Morrison Data Services and this validation process can take 28 days. Another, Bulb, has posted that the validation of gas readings takes 1 to 2 days. As I said above, I provide my gas supplier with a meter reading on the last day of each month and I get an e-mailed statement based on this reading about a week later.

brewerdave

richardc1983 wrote: »

The email from iresa states "it's time to submit your meter readings" I've never seen a mention of the date it should be done. I'm paying 140 per month yet my bill is approx 80 a month. So you can see over a year how much you build up especially on the summer

Does your elec. reading appear on the site as " customer own read" ,then an end of month read shown as "estimated by supplier" ?
That is what has been happening with my account since October - the bill is based on their final estimate BUT it has not been more than £2 out (~ 15kwh)
Or does you reading NEVER appear ??:(

System

c_smith wrote: »

Iresa have blocked my switch to Bulb Energy. The reason they gave is because after my latest bill the electricity side of my account is about £10 in debit. But the gas is nearly £50 in credit, so overall my account is nearly £40 in credit, AND my next direct debit of nearly £130 is due in 3 days. Not happy!!

I may be wrong but I am guessing that what is going on here does not involve a human being in the decision-making process. This supplier has, in the past, had problems with its proprietorial/bespoke software being configured for what it understood were the Regulations, only to find that the actual Regulations were different. I am talking about Iresa's use of fixed calorific values for gas in 2017. They have not been the only small supplier to get this wrong.

As far the blocking of transfers is concerned, Standard Licence Conditions state:

Domestic Customer transfer blocking

14.4 The licensee may ask or allow the Relevant Gas Shipper to prevent a Proposed Supplier Transfer in relation to a Domestic Customer at a Domestic Premises at which the licensee is the Relevant Gas Supplier in any of the following circumstances:

(a) subject to paragraphs 14.5 and 14.7, if at the time the request is made Outstanding Charges are due to the licensee from that Domestic Customer

Unfortunately, this particular SLC is in my view poorly written as Ofgem has amplified, in part, what it actually meant by outstanding charges in a letter dated Jul 16:

Quote: These ‘debt objections’ may occur only where a supplier has notified the customer in writing about an outstanding charge on the account and the charge has then remained unpaid for at least 28 days by the time of the attempted switch. Unquote

It could also be argued that the cancellation of a DD mandate by a customer could be construed as outstanding charges and lead to a blocked transfer.

All that said, the above would be academic if the consumer had the facility to make either an online payment or call CS within a reasonable amount of time to resolve the matter.

richardc1983

brewerdave wrote: »

Does your elec. reading appear on the site as " customer own read" ,then an end of month read shown as "estimated by supplier" ?
That is what has been happening with my account since October - the bill is based on their final estimate BUT it has not been more than £2 out (~ 15kwh)
Or does you reading NEVER appear ??:(

They never appear on one account.

If there's a date they need to be done on they need to say this in the email when it comes out.

brewerdave

richardc1983 wrote: »

They never appear on one account.

If there's a date they need to be done on they need to say this in the email when it comes out.

...so different to my situation I suspect that these meter reading issues have arisen because of their poorly executed changes to their systems in late October.