Desperate for help please

Miss.Twizz

Hoping someone can please please help me! I made a BIG mistake and joined IRESA Energy nearly a year ago (side note, please if you're reading this, NEVER go near this awful company. Their feedback on FB, Twitter etc is beyond appalling)! Anyway, several months back, they randomly stopped accepting the gas readings I was submitting and (over)estimating my read instead! I submit gas and electric readings at the same time, my electric readings appear on my bills as submitted by customer, yet my gas readings are ignored and I get estimates on the bill instead. I am entering them correctly, it's pretty foolproof and they were accepting and using my submitted readings until a few months ago.

I can't get any of response from them, they've built up quite a large overestimate, despite me trying multiple ways to get them to correct the "estimates". All have been ignored and they've now taken two EXTRA payments this month and last month from my bank account IN ADDITION to the monthly direct Debit. They've taken about £130 in Feb and another £130ish in March!! They sent emails to pre warn me that they would take two payments in one month because "the account was in debit" BUT this is based on false readings! And they did this well after several attempts of mine to get them to correct their "estimate" with the readings I've continually been providing! They've ignored all communication attempts and just taken money.

To cut a very long story short(ish), I've sent multiple support tickets, all ignored. Tried calling but never get answered. Opened a case on resolver.com about a month ago and have been updating it (with photographs of my meter showing the correct readings) still no response whatsoever from IRESA to any of my attempts to contact them to resolve. I am going to switch energy companies, however if IRESA take another direct debit, they will have a lot of my money that I don't owe them!!

I'm so worried about getting my money back from them because I've been ignored by them for months so they're most definitely not going to respond to refund requests, especially as they they've calculated I owe it to themselves based on their entirely fictitious and inaccurate estimates. Facebook is full of people saying they can get monthly back from them and how much of a struggle it will is because they simply need ignore everybody! :sad:

If I cancel the direct debit now to stop them taking yet more money I don't have owe, will I have problems? Can they make a mess of my credit profile etc?

I just don't know what to do? Thank you for reading.

Alter_ego

Have you written an official complaint. Head the letter "Complaint"

System

OP - Ofgem is now advising Iresa customers with issues such as yours to contact Citizens Advice. Citizens Advice has an Extra Help Unit that has links to Iresa!!!8217;s Executive Team.

Read Post 2022:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5477354

Miss.Twizz

Accidental duplicate post:embarasse

Miss.Twizz

Yes I have Alter ego, everything has been completely ignored

Thanks Hengus, I'll look into it this now! Sounds worrying :eek:

Thank you!

poppellerant

As an ex-customer, I truly sympathise with you. If you are persistent on the phone and wait long enough, they will answer your call. However there has been the odd occasion where my call has been conveniently dropped during busy periods.

If you do send them a letter, send it recorded and include as much information as possible. In your case, meter readings and dates they were taken. Possible even a picture of your meters showing serial numbers and readings.

Good luck.

molerat

Complain, wait 8 weeks whilst bugging them a few times, submit ombudsman complaint, sorted in a few weeks. Worked for me twice now.

brianposter

I am puzzled as to why the advice is not "Work out what you really owe and ask your bank to refund the excess direct debits."
That would appear to be simpler and more reliable.

donerkebab

Again raise a complaint via their support ticket and mirror on Twitter so you have proof of start of complaint to Ombudsman. Ensure you mark do not close as they tend to close even though not fully resolved.

By all means threaten to stop the DD but then it gets messy if you actually go into arrears.