Co-op Energy - Exit fees dispute

bob6000bob

Hi all,

Just to share with you my on-going negative experience with Co-op Energy. We were on their "Co-op Fix for Longer Feb 2018 v2" tariff, which was coming to an end (at the end of February).

I didn't want to stay with Co-op but I carefully waited until within 49 days of the end of that fixed contract before making a change. In fact on 8th January, I received an e-mail from Co-op "Your tariff ends next month" inviting me to choose another Co-op tariff. My e-mail inbox shows that on 12th January I got the "Good news! Your energy switch is now in progress!"e-mail from the MSE Cheao Energy Club, so I am pretty comfortable that we started the switch process after the 10th of January (which I think was the 49 day limit).

We have moved to The Green Energy Network, who have picked up our supply and billing with seemingly no issues. My final meter readings, shared on the same day with both old and new suppliers, were taken on 1st February.

Co-op ceased to be our supplier on 4th February and I was chasing them for 2 months, until 5th April, to get them to release the amounts which I had overpaid due to monthly Direct Debit. They repeatedly claimed that GEN had not yet formally logged my opening meter readings, even after the point when GEN confirmed that they they had done this.

I was furious to see that, in calculating my final re-payment, Co-op had then charged me £60 in exit fees (£30 per fuel), despite the fact that I had not instigated the move until we were within the last 49 days of our fixed plan with them. :mad:

This saga is on-going, I responded immediately to Co-op letting them know that this was not acceptable and that Ofgem's rules sate that customers must not be charged exit feed if they leave during the the "switching window" of 49 calendar days before a fixed-term contract ends (thanks again MSE :money:).

I will try and remember to come back and share my final outcome but for prospective customers of Co-Op Energy my message would be - Look Elsewhere!

Bob

P.s. Co-op ended up holding quite a lot of our money after they raised my monthly DD from the amount which we initially agreed. I did call them and have the value dropped a bit from their initial, laughable, proposal but they were really against me setting it to where I thought it should be. Their "system" for predicting energy use seemed to be absolutely awful at recognising that our energy use in the warmer months of the year would be lower than during the colder months.