Shell Energy and the Ombudsham

Yarborough

I terminated a contract for broadband services from Shell Energy, within, as I thought, the cooling-off period. Shortly thereafter I received a demand from Shell Energy for £164 for early termination charges. Since supply of the service had never actually commenced, and being very frustrated at the poor quality of assistance from Shell Energy I felt entirely justified in declining to pay this amount, stating my reasons in considerable detail.
This situation continued for several months, with various threats including sending round debt collectors and damaging my credit record, until finally Shell Energy asserted that they had reached the point where I had the option of receiving a "deadlock letter" and putting the case before the Telecoms Ombudsman.
I was delighted with this option. I am not in the habit of refusing to pay bills and I was very happy for the case to be decided by an independent body.
I duly presented my case to the ombudsman, along with various supporting documents. Shell Energy did the same.
The Final Decision of the Investigating Officer was entirely in my favour - Shell Energy were instructed to cancel out my alleged debt by various "good will" payments and to write me a letter of apology.
A couple of weeks later I was very surprised to find in my inbox the usual demand for £164 from Shell Energy. I logged into the Ombudsman website with the intention of asking them to remind Shell Energy that the matter had been settled in my favour and was very surprised to find a new statement from a "Senior Investigating Officer".
This statement rather brazenly commences by stating that the dispute had been raised again by Shell Energy after the Final Decision had been issued and although "this is outside of our standard process" the case had to be reviewed  by an SIO. The second "Final Decision" was largely in favour of Shell Energy - they were to cancel out £40 of the alleged debt and send me a letter of apology.
The existence of a new "Final Decision" on the website was never communicated to me, thus I was oblivious to the 14 days I was given to accept the decision, meaning that the situation reverted to the status quo ante, hence the renewal of demands for £164 from Shell Energy.

The handling of this dispute by the ombudsman was not even-handed - there was no option to "raise the dispute again" available to me if I was not satisfied with the outcome, nor was it transparent with respect to the subsequent dialogue between the ombudsman and Shell Energy.

The Telecomms Ombudsman is supposed to be "independent, fair and impartial". It is none of these. Why does Ofcom allow this?

bris

Ombudsman's decisions can't be appealed but it can be reviewed.

The review is a lot more legally technical and doesn't review the case, it reviews the legal process and whether the Ombudsman's decision was flawed. This includes new evidence and whether they believe specific evidence wasn't taken into consideration.

Bottom line is their legal team have gone to a great deal of expense to overturn this case. It wasn't really about you it was about setting a precedent.

The Ombudsman was on your side, they had no say in the final outcome.

Sandtree

bris said:

Ombudsman's decisions can't be appealed but it can be reviewed.

https://www.ombudsman-services.org/how-it-works/process 

Do I have to accept your decision?

You can appeal our decision but only if a mistake has been made, or you have new information for us to take into account

Seems the Ombudsman Service can be appealed and ultimately they are simply an alternative dispute resolution service rather than being fully empowered like the Financial Ombudsman. That said, even the FOS is slightly smoke and mirrors as their initial decision is made by an adjudicator or investigator and so people are surprised when the financial institute then appeals and requests it gets escalated to an ombudsman - their decisions are binding but dont set precedent 

biscan25

Wow, I'm with Shell Energy for my elec/gas and this behaviour is shocking to say the least,
As a relatively new player I thought they'd have at least some regard for their reputation and show some goodwill. Quite the opposite it seems!

deannagone

I doubt anyone reading this will sign up with Shell Energy.