Bulb Energy - bogus reviews on TrustPilot?

System

Personally, I look for consistency. There is one particular supplier under Ofgem investigation at the moment where the reviews/comments on Trustpilot; Facebook and on this site are providing consistent feedback. This feedback is backed up by the supplier!!!8217;s position at the bottom of the Citizens Advice Complaints Table.

PixelPound

Are any reviews honest? Many people will post positive experience even though they have had no problems or need to contact customer service, others will post bad reviews if anything goes wrong whether or not customer service could sort it out quickly or not.

Was buying something online and a review said something along the lines of - "bought item it broke within days, contacted seller who refunded me after I sent it back. Avoid". Go figure.

FullForce

nic_c wrote: »

Are any reviews honest? ....

Certainly not from spammers, which Bulb Energy seems to readily recruit to this site.
(Fortunately the offending spammy post once again attempting to promote Bulb Energy that bumped this old thread has now been removed )

beardiedog

FullForce wrote: »

Certainly not from spammers, which Bulb Energy seems to readily recruit to this site.
(Fortunately the offending spammy post once again attempting to promote Bulb Energy that bumped this old thread has now been removed )

I'm in the middle of a switch to Bulb from Iresa/Octopus and, yes, I used a referral code from the referral thread. Who would pass up the chance to 'earn' £50?

However, I'm probably being niaive, but I wouldn't dream of posting my code on any forum. I shall use it to refer my brother if it's cheapest for him when his fix ends with E.on and if any of my family would like to take advantage of it at some point.

I think Bulb should limit the number of referrals per code to 2 or 3 then it might reduce the number of spam posts etc.

PixelPound

beardiedog wrote: »

I'm in the middle of a switch to Bulb from Iresa/Octopus and, yes, I used a referral code from the referral thread. Who would pass up the chance to 'earn' £50?

However, I'm probably being niaive, but I wouldn't dream of posting my code on any forum. I shall use it to refer my brother if it's cheapest for him when his fix ends with E.on and if any of my family would like to take advantage of it at some point.

I think Bulb should limit the number of referrals per code to 2 or 3 then it might reduce the number of spam posts etc.

There is a referrals board here, if you decide to indulge. There is no need to limit it, as its another form of advertising. Unfortunately some people think if you simply join a board, do one post saying "bulb are great, use my code to get yourself £50" and then disappear again into the ether, that referrals will flood in. Those who are ingenious enough to spend some effort promoting it may actually get enough success to end up paying little for their energy, just like there are those putting up youtube videos etc and earning enough from it to not need a "normal job"

beardiedog

nic_c wrote: »

There is a referrals board here, if you decide to indulge. There is no need to limit it, as its another form of advertising. Unfortunately some people think if you simply join a board, do one post saying "bulb are great, use my code to get yourself £50" and then disappear again into the ether, that referrals will flood in. Those who are ingenious enough to spend some effort promoting it may actually get enough success to end up paying little for their energy, just like there are those putting up youtube videos etc and earning enough from it to not need a "normal job"

Thanks, yes I know about the referrals thread that's where I got a code from. I just used the one from the latest post at the time

clareallan

I have just posted a review on Trustpilot about the very negative experience I have had with Bulb. I'm giving up on them, and now looking elsewhere.

I joined Bulb in April, giving them my direct debit details when I set up the account. They did not take a DD payment for some time, presumably because I had credit on the account from their £50 joining offer.

In August I suddenly received a pretty intimidating email from them, saying that I "still" had not provided my DD details, and asking me to do so immediately, as my account was in arrears. (It was, for the first time, as I had just submitted a reading, which showed that I was now £26 in arrears). I immediately went online, entered my DD details again, set up a monthly payment and also asked them to take the outstanding £26 straightaway. (I received a message saying that this payment would be taken in the next few days. Apparently, it was not). I also emailed customer services to tell them what had happened, and that I found the tone of their email pretty unnecessary and intimidating, given that it was the first time they had contacted me about the issue.

A couple of weeks later, I received another email saying that I had closed my account (I hadn't), and asking me to pay off the £26 (which I already had done).

I emailed them again. And communicated with three different people who did not appear to be in communication with each other. This was extremely frustrating. They told me my account had not been closed and that the email had been sent in error. I said that I wanted to make a complaint because of the repeated problems I had had with them, and then received an email apologising for the email saying my account was closing and that while "There were previously payment related issues on your account, however, we have discussed these with you and found a solution." This is just absolute nonsense. There were never any issues re paying. They had my DD details, but for some reason they didn't take a payment. I don't know why. There are, in fact now two DDs for Bulb on my account. It is really very poor customer service to respond to a complaint without bothering to check the facts of what has happened.

While administrative problems are bound to occur from time to time with any account, what really concerns me about Bulb is that they have repeatedly failed to pay proper attention to the issue and investigate it thoroughly. Apart from anything else, I find this highly discourteous, when it has caused me a huge amount of stress and taken up a great deal of my time.

I came to Bulb because I thought they were a different sort of energy company, whose ideals I respected. My experience with them has actually been the worst (by some margin) that I have had with any utility company.

The best thing about Bulb, in my view, is that you are not under contract and therefore able to leave.

(I would add re the reams of positive reviews on Trustpilot, that while I don't doubt that they are sincere, it is the only review the large majority of people have posted, and everyone includes their referral code, in the hope of earning fifty pounds when somebody uses it to sign up. This is a very clever marketing ploy, which has resulted in huge word-of-mouth sign ups for Bulb, but sadly their customer service does not appear able to deliver.)

[Deleted User]

@Tamms
Please remove the referral link as it is against forum policy to post them here. Go to the special Referral board and add the link to the Bulb topic in there.

Southend1

I never bother much with the positive reviews. I look at the negative ones as a guide to the "worst case scenario" to see if anything rings major alarm bells

MalMonroe

Following Martin's glowing reports about bulb, I switched to them in January of this year. The monthly direct debit was lower than I'd been paying and I was thrilled. However, bulb's prices keep going up and then they said that my monthly direct debit wasn't enough for my usage and should be increased. Not just increased but doubled! I couldn't afford to double the payments but now I'm paying exactly what I was giving my old supplier, only now I'm also in debt because although they were eager to 'guestimate' my usage, now they say I use more and the payments were too low all along. It's all a big con and I'm sorry I ever took Martin's advice. I feel so let down. As soon as I can clear the debit balance I'm off. And I won't take any notice of anything Martin says ever again. I also missed out on the £50 for swapping to them because of some technicality that wasn't ever really explained to me. I'd love to get £50 every time someone I referred switched to them but I could not, in all conscience, recommend them to anyone. Or risk losing friends because I had. Rubbish. In my opinion. And this is a true review and it's not on trustpilot or any other review site.