Really awful service from Bulb

WillPS

Has anyone else noticed the quality of Customer Service from Bulb has absolutely nosedived?

I moved my gas supply to Octopus back in March. Bulb failed to issue a bill within 6 weeks, so I complained... I've subsequently been issued with 4 bills, none of which have had an accurate closing meter reading and closing date. I still have had none of the £300+ account credit refunded, leave alone the £60 mandatory compensation I should now have had automatically awarded for failure to generate a final bill and failure to refund credit.

With every subsequent email I seemingly get a different irrelevant copy/pasted spiel - one about meter reading lengths being 5 digits rather than 4 (they're not, my gas meter has only ever had 4 digits)... I've even been sent a complaint reply email with a placeholder intact - "Thanks for taking the time to get in touch with us about your [DESCRIPTION] complaint."

Replies seem to come late at night which makes me wonder if they've outsourced their complaints handling overseas? Either way it's far and away the worst service I've had from any utility provider... and I've really had some in my time!

MattMattMattUK

WillPS said:

Has anyone else noticed the quality of Customer Service from Bulb has absolutely nosedived?

I moved my gas supply to Octopus back in March. Bulb failed to issue a bill within 6 weeks, so I complained... I've subsequently been issued with 4 bills, none of which have had an accurate closing meter reading and closing date. I still have had none of the £300+ account credit refunded, leave alone the £60 mandatory compensation I should now have had automatically awarded for failure to generate a final bill and failure to refund credit.

With every subsequent email I seemingly get a different irrelevant copy/pasted spiel - one about meter reading lengths being 5 digits rather than 4 (they're not, my gas meter has only ever had 4 digits)... I've even been sent a complaint reply email with a placeholder intact - "Thanks for taking the time to get in touch with us about your [DESCRIPTION] complaint."

Replies seem to come late at night which makes me wonder if they've outsourced their complaints handling overseas? Either way it's far and away the worst service I've had from any utility provider... and I've really had some in my time!

Bulb are in special administration, costing the taxpayer £3-4 billion. I suspect that there will have been fairly substantial staff cutbacks to try to minimise any future costs. As they are in administration the switching compensation does not apply. Under the circumstances it is hardly surprising that there are issues with customer service, although I understand it is not ideal.

You will have to wait it out, they will get there in the end, the choice you have to to wind yourself up about it, or not, I would suggest the latter.

WillPS

MattMattMattUK said:
 As they are in administration the switching compensation does not apply. 

Source please.

I'm not wound up about it, just remarking that the quality of service is very poor. Administration or no they still have an obligation to properly service their customers in line with their license.

WillPS

Just to follow up on this I have now agreed £50 compensation on top of the two £30 mandatory switching compensation payments - so the advice from @MattMattMattUK that they somehow do not apply is incorrect.

MWT

WillPS said:

MattMattMattUK said:
 As they are in administration the switching compensation does not apply. 

Source please.

I'm not wound up about it, just remarking that the quality of service is very poor. Administration or no they still have an obligation to properly service their customers in line with their license.

They still retain their supply licence so they are still obliged to follow the rules, including the compensation...

Screwdriva

May I ask if you believe any steps could/ should be taken to avoid this? I have just switched to Octopus and am now concerned. 

WillPS

MWT said:

WillPS said:

MattMattMattUK said:
 As they are in administration the switching compensation does not apply. 

Source please.

I'm not wound up about it, just remarking that the quality of service is very poor. Administration or no they still have an obligation to properly service their customers in line with their license.

They still retain their supply licence so they are still obliged to follow the rules, including the compensation...

I agree, and clearly it's true.

Screwdriva said:

May I ask if you believe any steps could/ should be taken to avoid this? I have just switched to Octopus and am now concerned. 

I don't know, but I think the issues were caused because I switched electricity 5 months before I switched gas. Diarise 6 weeks + 1 day from your switch date and start chasing for final bill, then diarise 2 weeks from then for failure to refund account credit.

Email support was useless (offshore) but Twitter support was better so I would go down that route.

WillPS

As a little update on this case, Bulb reneged on their earlier commitment to provide the compensation agreed, so the case ended up going to the Ombudsman.

Bulb replied with a different (lower) offer for settlement and incorrectly stated a correct final bill had been sent.

I declined the offer (obviously) and then Bulb sent another bill which was less wrong but still definitely provably wrong (this was their 9th version of a 'final' bill!).

In September the Ombudsman found that not only should Bulb be sending me the compensation originally agreed, they actually owe me another 2 GSS payments relating to nonpayment of previous GSS payments.

Bulb have so far not acknowledged the decision, they have until Friday to implement the resolution.

Surprised by quite how pathetic their response to all this has been. Are they deliberately dragging out complaints as far as they possibly can?