Pure Planet reviews: add your feedback

elljay234

Hi Nataly, it's good you (Pure Planet) are making progress but the point is you sent the correct meter readings to the previous supplier, but used random numbers for your own bill so both you and I have to go through months of extra hassle to get you to correct the readings to the ones you know were correct in the first place!!  Have you investigated what went wrong and corrected it for future customers?

PurePlanet

Hi @elljay234

The energy industry is highly regulated — and rightly so — to protect consumers, suppliers and other industry bodies. One of those processes is what happens to your opening meter reading, whenever you switch energy suppliers.

As soon as we receive your opening reading we send it away to a go through an independent validation process. Your readings are checked against your previous readings, then sent back to us and on to your old supplier. Both suppliers have to use the validated readings provided, so you won't pay for the same energy usage twice. This validation process can take up to 6 weeks from the date you come on supply with your chosen energy supplier.

Sometimes, opening readings fail the validation process. In this case, the validation process will estimate a reading, then send that back to us and on to your old supplier.

Both suppliers have to use this reading, by the terms of our energy licence. If it’s outside a certain tolerance, we can raise a ‘reading dispute’ and ask for it to be changed to the reading you supplied. That’s one of the reasons we ask for a photo of your meter with your reading - it helps in the case of a reading dispute. It sounds like the team have raised disputes to get both of your readings corrected. 

Hope that helps explain the process! 

Nataly @PurePlanet

elljay234

Thanks, it does help explain, but it doesn't stack up with what happened when I switched.  I took photos (which I agree is a good idea!) and sent them just to you at Pure Planet.  The previous supplier then used those readings to calculate the correct final bill.  You (Pure Planet) then used completely random readings which match nothing at all to generate "opening estimates" which is that is taking two plus months to correct.  How did you supply correct readings to the previous supplier yet use random numbers for your own opening readings?  It looks like something went wrong somewhere at Pure Planet.  Have you looked into why you used incorrect readings yet supplied correct readings to the previous supplier so the same error doesn't happen again?

PurePlanet

Hey @elljay234

As this is the MSE forum I don't have the details of your account, but generally speaking when you switch suppliers it takes up to 6 weeks to receive your final bill. The same readings should be used by both suppliers - we'd only ever use the validated readings returned to us from the independent validation process for your opening statement. 
It sounds like estimated readings were returned to us from the validation process, which we're then obligated to use. 

The reading dispute process is in place in case the estimated readings returned to us are largely different from your own readings, so I'm glad to hear the process is resolving this for you. 

Nataly @PurePlanet

elljay234

Hi Nataly, thanks for the reply, but it doesn't make sense.  Why would Pure Planet use estimated readings but Scottish Power use the actual readings I supplied to you?  The leccy reading was way higher than the actual reading so it looked like you owed me a refund - that's how silly the readings were!!

Happy to PM you my details if you want to look into what went wrong.

PurePlanet

Hey @elljay234

I think that'd be something you'd need to query with Scottish Power directly, as they'll have access to their information and billing for the account, as well as access to whether you were billed before or after receiving the validated readings. 

Our Member Services team would also be happy to look into this further from our end, though it sounds like from the ongoing reading dispute that's already happened! To contact them, select 'get help and support' > 'ask a question' in your account. 

Thanks, 
Nataly @PurePlanet  

elljay234

Ok, I'm going to stop banging my head against the Pure Planet brick wall now... 

slamdunkdafunk

Like elljay234 and others, I have been banging my head against the Pure Planet brick wall. Like elljay234, I moved from Scottish Power to Pure Planet and I have spent countless hours trying to learn what has gone wrong and putting things right. My final Scottish Power bill and early Pure Planet bills had correct gas readings but massively over estimated electric readings. I managed to learn from Scottish Power that this was due to Ofgem not using my actual final electricity readings....because Scottish Power use telephones. I got nowhere with Pure Planet on this issue because their chatbot was unable to answer any of my questions, there is a three day delay in them answering email and they refuse to take telephone calls. It's not due to Covid-19, they just don't use telephones. It has taken over two months to get statements from Pure Planet that finally show the correct readings. The initial mistake was not their fault but their email delay and refusal to use telephones has resulted in me spending a ridiculous amount of time and effort trying to understand the problem then push them to fix it through email delay. I am still in favour of clean energy suppliers but there have to some who communicate more quickly.

nickcc

I can understand your frustration but surely you were aware that Pure Planet were a Website based supplier only before you signed up ?

PurePlanet

slamdunkdafunk said:

The initial mistake was not their fault but their email delay and refusal to use telephones has resulted in me spending a ridiculous amount of time and effort trying to understand the problem then push them to fix it through email delay. I am still in favour of clean energy suppliers but there have to some who communicate more quickly.

@slamdunkdafunk
Good to hear the issue wasn't the fault of PP. 
I'm unsure what the exact issue was, but it sounds a reading dispute.

As soon as we receive your opening readings, we send them for verification to an independent body regulated by Ofgem. They either verify the readings, or produce estimates which they then send back to us and your old supplier. 

We have to use these to open your account and your old supplier has to use as your closing reading - ensuring you only pay for energy you've used once. 

If we raise a dispute to get these corrected, this process can take up to twelve weeks. We'll suspend your statements during this time, but continue to take your monthly Direct Debit so that once the dispute is resolved and we have your up to date usage, you won't have accumulated a large debt. 

Our service is digital - we don't have call centres.

If you have any questions,  you can tap 'Get help and support' in our app or from your account at https://purepla.net. You can also drop into the Community to get answers from other Members.

We try to be as accessible as possible, and we appreciate that this format won't suit every one.

Being 100% digital allows us to be more efficient and save money - savings we pass on to you.

But, your feedback is appreciated!
And good to hear that the dispute has been sorted. 

Marc @ Pure Planet