Am I asking too much from Shell Energy?

kroggy

Robin9 said:

To me having a meter billing date of my choice comes under a nice to have" it's not a deal breaker. Just wait till you get your state pension every 4 weeks and see how you budget for that

I totally get that, I have had energy companies demand my readings are provided in a 48 hour window, then a bill and direct debit within 7 days.

Shell Energy are more generous in that they send the email about 2 days before the end of the month, I click the link and it goes to a page that bypasses login and just asks for the readings.

Then 9 days later they say the bill is ready to view and they take the payment on or around 24th.  

Many companies I have worked for paid me on different days and Energy companies used to be fine with varying the date of the direct debit.  If I had asked for that I would be fine with them rolling the whole schedule back from a date, but that has not happened here.  I simply want bills to match up with the reads and to provide the reads on the first of the month.

What is the point of them taking a read as below if they are not going to use the readings?

MWT

kroggy said:

I simply want bills to match up with the reads and to provide the reads on the first of the month.

If I have understood correctly, Shell want to bill you on the 7th of the month and request a meter reading which you provide a few days before that, so they estimate the difference and bill you to the 7th each month.

If you gave them the meter reading on the 7th I would imagine there would be no estimation...

I certainly understand your desire to be billed for exact calendar months, but it isn't something willingly offered by most suppliers as they do need to spread the workload over the month and there can be reasons why the exact billing date may have move at times.

Any error in the estimate will be corrected the following month as your estimated closing meter reading becomes the opening reading for the next month.

So to answer your initial question, yes, you are asking too much from Shell.

kroggy

MWT said:

kroggy said:

I simply want bills to match up with the reads and to provide the reads on the first of the month.

If I have understood correctly, Shell want to bill you on the 7th of the month and request a meter reading which you provide a few days before that, so they estimate the difference and bill you to the 7th each month.

If you gave them the meter reading on the 7th I would imagine there would be no estimation...

I certainly understand your desire to be billed for exact calendar months, but it isn't something willingly offered by most suppliers as they do need to spread the workload over the month and there can be reasons why the exact billing date may have move at times.

Any error in the estimate will be corrected the following month as your estimated closing meter reading becomes the opening reading for the next month.

So to answer your initial question, yes, you are asking too much from Shell.

No you have not understood correctly.  I will spell it out again as you seem to have a difficulty grasping was has been said on several occasions above.


Shell Energy want to bill be for 37 days at a time.

I started in my property on the 1st day of the month

I chose monthly billing by Direct Debit.

Shell Energy agreed on the phone on two occasions with two different members of staff to bill for calendar months from the 1st to end of the month.

I provided reads to the end of the month after receiving an email saying "It's time to submit your meter reading" 

Shell Energy produced a bill that ignored these reads despite them being provided promptly

Shell Energy ignored the date provided with these reads

The readings provided ended on the 31st of the month and were provided on the 1st of the month.

Shell Energy added 7 days and estimated the usage.

I will NOT give them the reads on the 7th I will give them the reads on the 1st

If they do not produce a bill to the 31st I will recall the last two direct debits under the direct debit guarantee as they had agreed they would not take direct debits until we had resolved our dispute

If I write to Shell Energy I just get the standard automated response

Then weeks later I get a reply telling me that billing will respond in due course, THAT HAS NOT HAPPENED..

So far the following month they botched it up to make it even more complicated, hence my comment about an auditor being required.

Then they credited all bills and issued two bills, one ran perfectly from the 1st to the 31st, when tariff changed for all.  The other ran from the first to the seventh of the next month.

I am astonished you think I am asking to much, we should not have to accept errors, if a company can't even issue a blooooody bill they do not deserve OFGEM to allow them to play in this market and that will be the next letter I write.

The reputation of a company is based on them doing what they say they are going to to, they said they could do what I asked, not once but twice.

I have dealt with almost every energy company over the years, in the old days we had a thing called service (except Powergen), then came the upstarts and I tried them all, each year I would switch for a better deal, I never had this problem before.

I have had energy companies that could only accommodate variation of dates from 1st to 28th because of their computer.

I have had some who had a pretty bad rep, but they would take a read from end of month and not bill me until the end of the next month and then take a DD two weeks later.

I have had a supplier that gave a tiny window of 48 hours.but they all managed to bill for the reads that were provided and for the dates provided.

I had one supplier that did make a mistake in their billing and after spending 3 hours on their online chat I escalated to a senior manager.  He gave me £280 as compensation which was not expected, he also sorted the issue, again it was their IT system but it was fine after that so clearly a staff issue.

Also Shell Energy is charging me for 37 days of standing charge for each energy. 

So I will wait for the next bill after I give them reads on the 30th June, I have asked them to credit and re-issue the last bill and they have not responded, I am trying to get that done before the next bill.

So If they want they can issue the deadlock letter, pay £350 for the Ombudsman and I will seek my costs in all the letter writing.  I know I can get that back in the small claims Court (money claims online) as I have done it before, nothing heavy but last time I had 24 emails at £10 each, plus the Court Fee returned.  

That company paid up but did not take the costs, so it went to the Judge and I got a CCJ against them which they settled damn quickly!

The thing is I have always believed that all companies screw up from time to time, what matters is how they respond when you bring an issue to their attention. 

It is clear to me from other posts that Shell Energy have bitten off more than they can chew with taking on all these customers of failed suppliers.  That is why they do not respond to emails and also why you can send 4 hours losing the will to live while on hold.

victor2

kroggy said:

....

No you have not understood correctly.  I will spell it out again as you seem to have a difficulty grasping was has been said on several occasions above.


Shell Energy want to bill be for 37 days at a time.
....

Just taking your first line....

You are saying Shell energy want to bill you for 37 days at a time? So if you moved in on the first day of a 30 day month, they would bill you on the 7th of the next month. The next bill would be 37 days after that - on or around the 14th of the next month etc?

Whilst it is their right to bill you as they see fit, after all it is billing after you've used the utilities, that does not make much sense.

Maybe I have misunderstood.

[Deleted User]

Can the OP confirm (or not) whether the 37 day billing only came in on their first billing after moving in and that subsequent bills arrived monthly thereafter (i.e. 30/31 days later plus of course February).  

If Shell is actually charging you 37 days SC for each bill even if the bill is for 30/31 days then of course you need redress for this...but somehow I doubt it.

MWT

kroggy said:

No you have not understood correctly.  I will spell it out again as you seem to have a difficulty grasping was has been said on several occasions above.

Shell Energy want to bill be for 37 days at a time.

One of us is having difficulty grasping what is going on, but I don't think it is me

Shell seem to be trying to align your billing where they want it to be, the 7th of the month, and you are trying to force it to the end of the month.

To do what Shell want to do, they have to bill you for 37 days on the first bill, and then subsequent bills will be on the 7th of each month.

They are not going to bill you for recurring periods of 37 days...

kroggy

MWT said:

kroggy said:

No you have not understood correctly.  I will spell it out again as you seem to have a difficulty grasping was has been said on several occasions above.

Shell Energy want to bill be for 37 days at a time.

One of us is having difficulty grasping what is going on, but I don't think it is me

Shell seem to be trying to align your billing where they want it to be, the 7th of the month, and you are trying to force it to the end of the month.

To do what Shell want to do, they have to bill you for 37 days on the first bill, and then subsequent bills will be on the 7th of each month.

They are not going to bill you for recurring periods of 37 days...

Of course, you know my bills better than me.  I think I have explained it enough times.

Others on here have confirmed that Shell do not bill all customers on the same day, which suggests that no day is particularly important to them.

I moved in on the 1st and they agreed to bill me from 1st to end of month, whether that be 28th or 31st, they said their system could handle it.

When they screwed up I contacted them again by phone and they said they could do it and would do it.

I have no idea what they will do, I can only go by the lived experience I have had with Shell Energy.

If two different staff members say what I am asking for is totally reasonable and promise to do it then of course I will expect them to be good to their word and when they are not I will call them out.

If that means I have to recall the direct debits and refer them to the ombudsman or take them to Court then so be it, but I would much rather they make an effort to do what they said they were going to do.

To have a good reputation that is all they have to do and it is not rocket science.

kroggy

DerwentMailman said:

Can the OP confirm (or not) whether the 37 day billing only came in on their first billing after moving in and that subsequent bills arrived monthly thereafter (i.e. 30/31 days later plus of course February).  

If Shell is actually charging you 37 days SC for each bill even if the bill is for 30/31 days then of course you need redress for this...but somehow I doubt it.

No it was not a first billing issue and yes the world is full of doubt but I think it is an IT issue, I will be in a better place to advise when I give the next reading and get the next bill, but I want to sort this out before that.  So to get their attention I will recall the direct debit if the call on Monday does not go well.  I decided to call them as they currently respond to emails in about 25 days, from other posts it seems this is due to them taking on more than they can chew with all these companies going bust.

If you look at the companies they took over some had huge call centres with hundreds of thousands of customers, so is it any wonder that Shell Energy can't service it's existing customers.  What is obvious is that those with deep pockets can take on as many dead companies as they can so they get money from OFCOM which we pay in our increased Electricity Standing charge.

I wish I could start a business where I could take billions for years and when I screw up the consumer will bail me out while I sell the option I had for Gas through my other company to the highest bidder.

In 2008 they called it too big to fail and made a movie about it.

Shell Energy is a huge business and it must believe it can make money from this, it knows we can't jump ship so it treats us like faeces.

[Deleted User]

Can the OP please confirm how many of their bills have covered 37 days?  Have any of your bills covered the period of a calendar month (i.e. 1st-30/31th inc?).  My billing from Eon Next covers a month in the way that you are seeking because I changed from Bulb to Eon Next on the 1st October 2022.   My CoS (change of supplier) date therefore was the 1st and that was the date that my account was fully opened.  Possibly when you moved to your new home (on the 1st) Shell may have taken time to fully set up your account which is where the 7th comes in.  Who was the previous tenant of the house or were you the first owner of it?  Possibly you have been mis-informed by Shell's CS when you have spoken to them.  Oh and why did you choose Shell in the first place?  Or was Shell the incumbent supplier?

You might find that cancelling your DD will open up another can of worms causing you even more angst long term.  Not sure how your train of logic is going to go down with the ombudsman or the courts if you take your complaints along the path you have described.  

 

kroggy

victor2 said:

kroggy said:

....

No you have not understood correctly.  I will spell it out again as you seem to have a difficulty grasping was has been said on several occasions above.


Shell Energy want to bill be for 37 days at a time.
....

Just taking your first line....

You are saying Shell energy want to bill you for 37 days at a time? So if you moved in on the first day of a 30 day month, they would bill you on the 7th of the next month. The next bill would be 37 days after that - on or around the 14th of the next month etc?

Whilst it is their right to bill you as they see fit, after all it is billing after you've used the utilities, that does not make much sense.

Maybe I have misunderstood.

That is it, but other mistakes were made so they credited everything and started over.  It was agreed they would issue two two month bills, both up to the end of the month.  They did not do that. they issued one bill which needs Price Waterhouse to understand because they did not credit the previous bills with credit notes like any sane company would do but they stuck the whole thing in one bill. 

I have not been able to reconcile the credits because the figures do not match the previous bills, but I have taken them as being honest on that aspect.

They did not produce two bills as promised, but I can read the dates, first line starting on 1st and ending on 31st with C for customer read type.  Next line has 1st as opening read and 7th as closing read date with E as read type, despite me providing the read.  Also they appear to have charged me only for the increased standing charge rates when I would have expected to be charged two rates as this covers a before and after 

I think tomorrow I will try to create a spreadsheet to try and mirror their figures, this is probably the only way I will be able to show them the error on Monday.

The difficulty is that when you highlight the data on the PDF it does not copy and paste in the same horizontal line, so you get a load of figures in lots of vertical strings.