Enstroga Incommunicado

spot1034

My contract with Enstroga has come to an end. I had a pretty uneventful year with the exception of the completely unnecessary 'top-up' payment charged to me at the end of the winter as detailed in post #39 of this thread.


I moved a few weeks ago to Yorkshire Energy. All seemed well as I received a 'sorry you're leaving' message from Enstroga within three days of signing up with YE, my direct debit was cancelled and a final bill was produced in due course showing a credit of £110 which they said would be refunded to my account on September 11th.



A week on from that date and the refund has not been paid. A quick look at the more recent posts on Trustpilot reveals that several others who've had no serious issues with Enstroga (despite generally poor reviews) are now in the same position as me and are waiting for refunds. I have made a complaint via Resolver and an acknowledgment was generated straight away but I have yet to receive a proper response.



I shall, of-course, escalate this to the Ombudsman in due course if necessary, but hopefully it won't come to that. There's no real dispute to settle - they have acknowledged they owe me the money and the only problem is that they have failed to cough up on the due date. I suspect they have a cash flow problem at the moment as they must be losing a large number of customers who signed up to the very attractive Dual One tariff this time last year and now have surpluses on their accounts because of the wholly unnecessary top-up payments taken in February and March. Their present offering is uncompetitive so I doubt many people are opting to stay with them.



I will report as and when my refund finally materialises but in the meantime it would be interesting to know if anyone else here is having the same problem.

Heedtheadvice

Spot, as you pointed it out to me on the thread I started regarding reimbursement on this forum and Consumer Rights......


My experience is virtually identical to yours...just tariff start date is different and a couple of quid of reimbursement.


Hope you have claimed the Ofgem Guarantee Standard £30 compensation for late payment! See https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/consumers/household-gas-and-electricity-guide/how-switch-energy-supplier-and-shop-better-deal/compensation-if-there-s-energy-switch-problem

spot1034

Update - I have now received the refund due to me. However I am pursuing them for compensation as the payment was not made on time. Ofgem rules state that a payment of £30 is due if a refund is not made within ten working days of the final bill being issued. Further to this, if the initial compensation is not paid within ten days of this breach, a further payment of £30 is then due.

spot1034

Compensation of £60 for late payment of refund received today.

Rachael1972

I have received a bill from Enstroga for £3,200 and an email letting me know they will be taking a payment of £665 from my account in 5 days time to bring my account up to date. I have rung to query these incredible figures. My online account has shown I have £320 of credit as at April 2020 but today I now owe over £600. 

Having talked to few operators at their end I have heard that I have been on a tariff that they stopped in October 2018 and the huge bill is their recalculation of my account based on removing that old tariff. I have also been told that they send an annual electricity consumption bill to let customer know their usage - hence the £3,200 bill. When we looked at that in more detail it is in fact a summary of my entire usage from 2017 and not an annual 'letting me know what we use' bill.

Having now been passed to customer complaints Aygul tells me that the credit amount shown on my bills was incorrect. She also tells me that the tariff I was on is no longer in use - which I knew and their customer service email from the time that tariff ends tells me not to worry they will make sure I am on their best variable rate (I know I should have changed by now and I am furious with myself). 
The bill in January 2020 was based on actual readings and showed me with a credit of over £362.09 add to that my direct debit payments I would have over £900. But they now state I owe over £650. 

The explanations I have had are saying they have made a mistake on the tariff they have been charging me and this is correcting that situation from the last 3 years. 

I can't believe it is right that they can make an error and I have a huge bill. I am waiting on a call back from Aygul who is going to look into my account although has a big workload so cannot give me a timescale beyond sending me an email at the end of this week.
I am at a loss as to what to do now. They do say they have cancelled the DD for £600 which they were due to take on 10th Aug but how do I know that?? What should I do?

MWT

They are not able to back-date a correction for their mistake for more than 12 months, so if they are attempting to re-bill you for a period beyond that they are in breach of the 'back-billing' rules.

Send in a complaint to them pointing out their mistake and ask them to correct your bill accordingly or provide you with a 'deadlock' letter and you will take the matter to the Ombudsman...

Rachael1972

MWT said:

They are not able to back-date a correction for their mistake for more than 12 months, so if they are attempting to re-bill you for a period beyond that they are in breach of the 'back-billing' rules.

Send in a complaint to them pointing out their mistake and ask them to correct your bill accordingly or provide you with a 'deadlock' letter and you will take the matter to the Ombudsman...

Enstroga have called to explain that they had missed a billing period between Oct 2018 and April 2019 and hence I owe them £665, they offered to put me through to debt collection. Based on the advice above I was able to use the words above - ask for a bill correction and a deadlock letter and to take situation to Ombudsman. Enstroga rep said that they have 8 weeks to deal with complaint before it goes to Ombudsman or they have to issue a deadlock letter. Rep will talk to her manager and come back to me as the manager deals with Ombudsman. I have a question - can I move supplier while this is going on? I am worried that over the next 8 weeks they will increase my bill....
Or do I have to stay where I am until this is resolved? 
Also is the information correct - they have 8 weeks before a deadlock letter? Thank you so very much for the advice to date as I would have been lost without your response.

Gerry1

They'll probably try to block your transfer, but you might as well try.  If you're not in, you can't win !

In the absence of a deadlock letter, you have to allow eight weeks before you can go to the Ombudsman.

MWT

They do have 8 weeks but if they have reached a decision and are not considering the matter further they should issue the deadlock letter.

It is likely that they will block any switch while you owe then a significant amount of money so unless you want to pay them now and argue about it later you are probably stuck there for the moment.

They do need to settle on one coherent explanation for the amount they claim is owed.

Is it the correction for the wrong tariff as per your first post, or is it a missed billing period?

Either way they seem to be trying to fix a mistake they made more than 12 months ago so the odds are they will be barred by the back-billing rules but clarity on the actual nature of the problem would help.

Rachael1972

The issue is that they are fixing a mistake they made more than 12 months ago - they left me on the wrong tariff, one that does not exist apparently. 
They have offered to write off £590.14 which is £75.82 less than the original amount they claimed I owed.
Since I contacted them I have made my monthly direct debit payment of £75.82 so it now seems they are using that monthly payment to pay down the debt. I have rejected this offer - I hope I was right to do so?
I requested a deadlock letter on 7th August during the telephone call - they record them so I am hoping it was good enough that I requested it verbally and not in writing.
They have made note on my complaint and will be back to me shortly - hoping I am correct to expect the full amount written off and not to that my current monthly payment is to be used to reduce the debt?