Add your feedback on energy supplier Iresa

grumpycrab

Coming up to 12 months for me. Thinking of a move away to somebody with a bit of Customer Service, e.g. Tonik. Wouldn't expect an easy departure though...

footyguy

Methusela wrote: »

I have been with IRESA for almost a year and for the first 9 months, having set my Direct Debit much too low, they failed to produce any bills, in spite of my providing monthly meter readings. They blamed this on the lack of contract start readings, saying they were waiting for these from the previous supplier. When I finally contacted that previous supplier I was informed that it was IRESA's responsibility to provide THEM with the start readings and that they had not done so, even though I had provided them to both companies.
The end result was that by month ten IRESA notified me of a significant increase in my Direct Debit; but that alone was not enough and they have now sent me an email saying they intend to take an additional mid-month Direct Debit payment for the full amount outstanding so as to clear the previous underpayment. I thought this would contravene the Direct Debit regulations but my bank tells me that is not the case and it is perfectly legitimate. In all the years of my using many different companies I have never known any other provider to use such tactics.
I am now guessing they have done this with a large number of customers because when I phoned this morning to complain I was number 121 in the queue. I tried again several times but was well above 100th in the queue on every occasion.
It leads me to wonder if IRESA is about to go the way of the late GB Energy and so are trying to recover every penny they can before they go bust.

Welcome back after almost 2 years in the abyss, and thank you for gracing us with your presence for a whole 6 minutes on this rare occassion :cool:

I'm sorry, but I struggle to understand your post in almost every aspect.

When you initially joined Iresa, they would have asked YOU for your meter readings. Did you provide them?
It is Iresa's responsibility to pass these to your old supplier for their billing purposes. Have you received a final bill from the previous supplier? If so, did it use the meter readings you provided Iresa when you joined them?
(If you ddin't provide the meter readings to Iresa, or Iresa did not use them, are the final meter redaings from the old supplier the start readings used by Iresa?)

Do you agree you owe Iresa more money than you have given them for the time and energyu they have been your supplier? If so, youy need to bring your account back into credit (as you agreed you would when you joined them)

If you have used more energy in the last 10 months than you expected you would, the original anticipated annual consumption figure your used when you elected to switch to Iresa was wrong ... and that could mean the you are not on the cheapest tariff for you.
Check using a comparison site using a more accurate assumption of your anticipated annual consumption.

You say you have noty had any bill since joining them 10 months ago? Well that is a surprise. Almost everyone else here seems to get a monthly bill (with a hiccup in Oct, resulting in a 2 month bill for Oct & Nov 2017). What have you been doing about having no bill/statement for 10 months???

Try calling other times. You will see I called them last week and was no2 in the queue. I called them yesterday and was 50+, but that number reduced by approximately 1 per minute. You get a frequent update as to where you are in the queue. If you are in the queue, why come out? You will only go to the back of the queue if you do and then re-dial.
Iresa are paying for the call; just hang on until you get an answer.

Why are you trying to call them anyway? You only need to call them if you think there is an error made by them. If so, as I posted yesterday, they will resolve it when you are on the phone.
I do not see how any of that brings you to the conclusion they will go the same way as GB Energy? Did GB Energy act like this just before they were taken over by the Co-Op?
What I do remember with GB, was when they were taken over by the Co-Op, the Co-op maintained agreements previously committed to by GB, and mainatined customer blances. So what if you are right anyway????

In summary, your post creates many more questions than it answers, sorry.

So Good luck!

footyguy

grumpycrab wrote: »

Coming up to 12 months for me. Thinking of a move away to somebody with a bit of Customer Service, e.g. Tonik. Wouldn't expect an easy departure though...

Have you tried an established supplier like British Gas?
Why do you not expect an easy departure? It is the responsibility of the new supplier to manage any switch, so any difficulties, contact them.

(The only legitimate reason a supplier can object to you leaving them is where you owe money which remains unpaid for at least 28 days after demand. That will never occur with Iresa it seems, as you agree to keep your account in credit whilst they supply you, and as soon as the account is seen to go into debit, Iresa seems to have plans in place to bring your account back into credit)

Farway

grumpycrab wrote: »

Coming up to 12 months for me. Thinking of a move away to somebody with a bit of Customer Service, e.g. Tonik. Wouldn't expect an easy departure though...

Same here, but as I never have ever needed customer service, in over 50 years, including the Nationalised years, lack of it does not overly concern me

However I may jump ship to a longer fixed tariff, otherwise Iresa would continue to suit me fine. Not expecting any hassle in leaving, why should there be?

System

footyguy wrote: »

Have you tried an established supplier like British Gas?
Why do you not expect an easy departure? It is the responsibility of the new supplier to manage any switch, so any difficulties, contact them.

(The only legitimate reason a supplier can object to you leaving them is where you owe money which remains unpaid for at least 28 days after demand. That will never occur with Iresa it seems, as you agree to keep your account in credit whilst they supply you, and as soon as the account is seen to go into debit, Iresa seems to have plans in place to bring your account back into credit)

What exactly are the responsibilities of the new supplier when it confirms, in writing, that validated transfer meter readings have been provided to the losing supplier when the losing supplier argues that it cannot raise a Final Bill because it hasn’t received said readings? The only thing that the gaining supplier can do is re-send the readings.

Boxman

Still no further response from Iresa (or the Ombudsman for that matter) over the matter of returning my credit balance from 5th October. I'm sending them a reminder on the open ticket every three or four days but as always they just ignoring it.


By way of contrast this afternoon I e-mailed OVO my current supplier over a minor billing confusion and got a phone call from them 10 minutes later in which we amiably got it sorted. Excellent service!

webbit

very difficult to contact, gave me 5 days notice of 20% increase in DD which i rang them to get them to alter yet they said it could not be done for 3 months (well i did it and canncelled my dd), contract ended now so moved to another company

webbit

just moved to ovo from Ireasa hopefully better customer service

trickytree1963

With all the one off DD stories are Iresa trying to do a cash grab due to a poor financial situation or did they mislead in setting up DD's to gain customers as most customers look at DD figure rather than kWh and annual usage?

System

trickytree1963 wrote: »

With all the one off DD stories are Iresa trying to do a cash grab due to a poor financial situation or did they mislead in setting up DD's to gain customers as most customers look at DD figure rather than kWh and annual usage?

Who knows? It would intestering to know how much they have paid The EO and customers for poor service over the past year?