People's Energy warning: nightmare getting credit balance refunded or any customer service at all

logorrhoea · 8 April 2021 at 2:19PM

Just wanted to let anyone who's thinking of joining People's Energy know what a nightmare I've had getting a credit balance refunded after leaving them.

In short:

arranged for account closure as of 25 Jan, as moved to temp accommodation where I couldn't take PE with me
emailed 2 Feb about credit balance on account; auto-acknowledgement received but heard nothing
I sent a chaser message on 23 Feb
Still no response by 17 Mar. Had to resort to inconvenience of Live Chat on web instead, which took ages.
Finally got them to agree to issue a final bill and refund my money.
1 April: receive email from them saying I owe them the amount of money they actually owe me. I emailed back using the address they say to use, pointing this out.
8 April: no response to my email; instead I get a threatening follow-up email saying if I don't pay them soon they will refer me to debt collectors. Tried calling – again, really inconvenient to have to do this during the working day but their customer service emails just disappear into a black hole. No answer.
On checking bank statements, turns out PE refunded me double what they owed me, hence me then owing them a similar amount now. But of course they're much quicker to chase up for payment than to refund.

Sad thing is, I recently moved to a house where I was in a position to choose energy suppliers again. However, despite them coming out as one of the cheapest options for me, I actively decided not to go with them because of how poor their customer service is – non-existent, practically – and how they sat on a credit balance and made it so inconvenient to get it back. I have no doubt they'd still be sitting on that credit balance if I hadn't chased.