Utility Warehouse - shoddy account management. (edited title)

EssexHebridean

Update.

The reply to the last lot of correspondence above suggested that they had decided regardless of what was said to mess around with our "budget plan" as they insist on calling it - unsurprisingly I fired one back pointing out that not only had that not been requested, their previous email reassured me that it wasn't happening, so a) what was going on and b) why had they still not addressed the points we had made. It then went very quiet. I sent a chase up email in the middle of last week, and again received nothing back until...

On Saturday morning I had a phone call on my mobile from UW, asking to speak with my Husband. Allowing that he has never once emailed, called or written to them on this, and is the second named account holder, as you can imagine I was less than impressed. I made the point that I found their behaviour incredibly misogynistic, and absolutely outdated in this day and age - and also that I was absolutely not willing to discuss matter with them on the phone as we want the (electronic) paper trail in place in case we do have to go through the Ombudsman.

Shortly afterwards I got an email reopening the complaint (which should never have been closed - I do hope they don't think the clock has started ticking afresh from that point) and assuring us of far better service and that they want to resolve the issues - and then going on to offer us precisely the same as had been offered before, namely refund of the manual payment or suspension of the next DD to take account of it - both of which we had already declined. I have responded suggesting that it might be a good plan for the "named individual handling the complaint" to actually read all the correspondence before replying again, and reiterating that they need to address ALL the points we have raised, and address them properly. I've also for the third time given them the option of either doing that, or simply issuing the deadlock letter now. 

I do find myself wondering how they are going to manage the £400 energy grant credits later in the year - allowing that currently their system seems entirely unable to manage additional payments added to an account outside of the direct debit mechanism. I have a sneaking feeling that they will apply the credits, then reduce all the DD's by that amount, thus entirely defeating the object of the whole thing! I have also made the point to them that at a time when cost of living is increasing as it is, particularly in the energy market, and when government help specifically for that area is being given, it is unforgivable that they are actively preventing customers from being able to divert sums to their energy accounts in this way. 

EssexHebridean

So since the above, pretty much nothing. A few more emails contradicting themselves. One sending me an email they'd sent previously as though it was something new, and still, no surprise, the manually paid money does not appear on the account. 

The £25 goodwill credit was noted on the July bill - but they immediately reduced the August Direct Debit by the same amount, so that was precious little help. 

We've now taken the decision to leave them, and have switched (thanks to Mstty and others who gave details of the Green Energy fix). It'll cost us a LOT more for the next few months, but that is our absolute lowest energy use period of the year, so that will help. Past October we are hoping that the worst case scenario is that we'll break even with where we would have been - but regardless it had to be done as staying with a firm who clearly cannot manage the money paid to them by customers with any degree of trustworthiness, and who clearly have NO interest in behaving helpfully or indeed ethically towards their customers is simply not an option. My email to them this morning confirming that we are leaving read as follows:

Please forward the below to the Complaints Escalation Team​​

Further to our email of yesterday, although it should not be considered that our complaint is closed, we have now taken the decision to switch to another provider. The reasons for this are as follows:

1. You have proved beyond question that your customer service and complaints processes are impossible to deal with - probably deliberately. We have no faith that this will change, and therefore have no faith that any issues we may have in the future would be efficiently dealt with.
2. We do not want to remain with a company where we cannot trust that money paid to that company towards our account will not be set aside somewhere that we cannot see it - presumably in the hope that we will forget about it. If you are doing that to us, then you are doing that to others also, and particularly at this time, that is unforgiveable. 
3. Further, we do not want to remain with a company that when challenged about such manual payments not being allocated to the account assures us both over the telephone and in writing that the allocation has in fact been made as happened in November 2021 - this was a lie, and as at time of writing that money is STILL not allocated to the account.
4. It is becoming apparent that either UW does not want to change its systems to ensure that customers find it easier to manage accounts, or that it simply does not know how to - neither fills us with confidence.

Ultimately with the energy crisis escalating daily, we do not want to remain with a supplier who will take people's money, hide it and then lie about hiding it; whose billing and payments systems are incomprehensible and designed to ensure that people cannot clearly see the financial position they are in; and whose online customer account portal is worse than useless.  The switch will cost us more money in the short term at least, but the peace of mind that we will gain knowing that payments to our account will actually be allocated to our account will make up for this. 

The complaint should be seen through, either by fixing the issues complained about for other customers or simply by raising the deadlock letter that has been requested if you already know that there is no intention of fixing those issues. This should not in any way delay us from receiving back the credit owing to us which should also include the £25 goodwill credit issued in the last few days, and the £70.70 manual payment made last year, plus all VAT which has been subtracted from the amount currently showing in credit on the account. 

We will be ensuring that we spread the word as widely as possible about UW's shoddy practices, and the reasons why we have left.

My suspicion is that we will have a further battle on our hands now to get back the money we have paid to them - and particularly the vat element on the account credit. We certainly plan to see the complaint right through - as said in the email - if they have taken our money and hidden it, they are doing it to others also. I was initially fooled by their assertion that it was indeed applied to the account and I was just missing seeing it - it was just a little niggling doubt in the back of my mind that made me check the payments/billing right through, and get MrEH to double check that to confirm that no, it wasn't there. 

My suspicion throughout has been that UW are a pretty shady company - but I thought that was down to what was essentially a "pyramid scheme" business model, rather than directly in the way they handle customer's money. We've not even stayed with them a full year in the end - and frankly I wish I'd followed my gut in the first place and steered well clear. 

EssexHebridean

So - FINALLY after 6 weeks of going round in circles and failing to actually address the complaint that has been made in any constructive way, I now have a deadlock letter. Needless to say they've misrepresented the nature of the part of the complaint about the hidden payment in the letter - no surprise there - also no surprise that they have completely ignored every other part of the complaint as they have done throughout. 

So - that's us off to the Ombudsman - guess I'd better find out how to go about that then! Any tips welcome! 

EssexHebridean

Update - Ombudsman complaint now in - that was one of the simplest processes I've ever encountered. All step-by-stepped and clear. 

webjaved

Good luck and I hope you get back what you are owed. UW comes with conflicting reviews from customers, some good and some damn right bad. I don't even know what to think of them. I'm going to be moving soon and had a quote for Gas & Electricity from them. The previous owner of that property was with EoN. 

EssexHebridean

webjaved said:

Good luck and I hope you get back what you are owed. UW comes with conflicting reviews from customers, some good and some damn right bad. I don't even know what to think of them. I'm going to be moving soon and had a quote for Gas & Electricity from them. The previous owner of that property was with EoN. 

I would absolutely 100% and without question suggest that you avoid UW like the plague. The dubious billling, "interesting" deductions of VAT, poor management of meter readings and the woeful customer service are one thing - their apparent inability to apply a manually made payment to an account really doesn't, to me, bode well for what they will do when it comes to applying the Government assistance to accounts come October. My best guess right now is that they will apply it on, and then reduce people's DD's by the same amount, thus completely negating the entire point of the assistance. 

EssexHebridean

Update. I have now had back our credit outstanding at termination of supply - which is more than I was expecting (£64.xx rather than £4x.xx) but clearly does not include the £70.70 manual payment that was made last year and which became the subject of the complaint. As this manual payment was never either applied to the account OR used to pay towards any electricity it’s a mystery why they didn’t simply pay it back with the account credit - it does however confirm my suspicion that manual payments are simply hived off to a holding account in the hope that the customer will never realise they’ve not been applied where they should be! 

The final bill also comes with no way whatsoever of ascertaining whether the credit returned to us is in fact accurate with regard to the return of the VAT portion that is taken off the DD payments when they are made. In fact I have this thanks to the documentation provided by UW to the Ombudsman - without that though, there would be no way of knowing. (In any other circumstances I’d assume that the average departing customer would not have an Ombudsman complain also running, however the case of UW I’m less certain that this is the case! ) 

EssexHebridean

Oh dear lord - and so it rumbles on. As predicted, UW now appear to have made a hash of our refund. 

First refunded amount received last week - £65.27 (figures above were from memory - I'm actually quite pleased how close I got them!). No idea where they got this amount from but as we had an account balance once the final bill was taken into account of £39.57 this amount seemed a little random. Email sent asking them to please clarify what was going on with the refund as clearly this was not correct. (As above, the amount of the manual payment that they were withholding, on it's own, was £70.70 of course!)
Contact received back confirming that there was another refund being issued - for £39.57...OK, so for some reason they've issued a separate refund for the budget plan closing balance - fair enough, but that still leave us over £5 short on the £70.70.  Email sent querying that.

In reponse to that query I receive this: 

"Thanks for getting in touch. I am truly sorry for any inconvenience and I can understand your frustration.

The bills were based on estimations and so was the credit you received. This is because the reads you sent in were out of range.

To get this sorted, could you please send us a photo of your meter? When taking the photo, please make sure we can clearly see the meter reading and serial number, which is usually next to the bar code.

You can simply reply to this email with your photos attached

I will need the latest electricity read. Once I have this I can send it to our billing team who can revise the amounts and credit you back the appropriate amount.

I’ll be happy to help if you've got any questions. You can reach me by replying to this email, or you can call us."

Words literally fail me. How on earth they think that introducing the confusion of photographs of the meter now, with another full month's use showing, will do anything other than confuse things still further, I cannot even begin to imagine. 

How we have gone from readings being accepted by them, and a bill being issued clearly showing those accepted readings, to them now deciding a month later that the readings were "out of range" goodness knows. Add into the equation that our account balance on the app is now showing threatening messages about us "owing them" £39.57 (yep - you've guessed it - their system can't tell the difference between a credit and a debit balance on a closed account!) and I am even more glad we've got the heck outta there than I was before! 

I can genuinely see this ending up with a second Ombudsman escalation - and there's no decision on the first one yet! 

beanielou

Jeez.Totally dire.

EssexHebridean

They make Scottish Power look efficient!