SSE/OVO Not paying £66 energy support to pre payment meter customers

Spoonie_Turtle

Incidentally from comments made on another board in the past, it seems Royal Mail do not prioritise letters when they're either swamped and/or catching up after strike action.  (The only letters they prioritise are Special Delivery, but that's to only make sure they get delivered, not to any time frame - and you can be pretty confident these vouchers are not being sent by Special Delivery.)

So while the strikes no doubt are not the only factor, they will certainly be affecting any vouchers that have been sent out.

ebe12

MattMattMattUK said:

Unfortunately it is a waiting game, they will get there in the end, but calling them incessantly will not help the situation. Send an email rather than calling them, if the deadline for the receipt of the voucher passes again respond on the same email thread.

The customer service departments of energy providers are absolutely swamped at the moment, many of the calls are entirely pointless, many more of them are mostly pointless and a few of them are calls than genuinely need to be made, but they are getting lost in all the others. Calling again and again is unlikely to help, nor is it likely to expedite things at the moment.

In terms of delivery they may have aimed to dispatch all by the 11th, but that doesn't mean they have to. There have been strikes every week this month and there are significant backlogs in the Royal Mail system. From a work perspective 2nd class packages have taken 4-8 working days this month (they should take two), I imagine there are similar delays in letters and in bulk dispatches such as the vouchers they could be even greater. There will also be a small amount that are lost in transit, that will get resolved further down the line.

I do not think you can upload a screenshot yet because you do not have enough of a posting history, if you can it shows as click icon to the right of the Bold and Italic symbols. 

The problem is they do not respond to emails . Currently 5 working days on from my email complaint - no response at all. 
I have since found a Facebook group with over 2k members, large majority in the same situation, no vouchers have arrived. So I do not believe postal strikes are a reason for this I think there is a much larger issue. 
If they have been delayed in sending the vouchers out , then that is fair enough but why not let customers know ? Particularly the vulnerable ones . The problem is there is absolutely no information , when you do speak to someone they know nothing . 

ebe12

ariarnia said:

i agree with matt. its probably a combination of things. this being the first month there issuing the voutchers. the huge number they need to issue and process all at the same time. and probably having to confirm who there going to with the government for the payment so having to keep track. and lots of people have probably been contacting them with questions or problems so the customer service script probably isnt covering everything. i would give them the benifit of the doubt for the first one and hope everything gets more organised before the hole thing ends in a few months. just ready for whatever new scheme the government cooks up for us

Unfortunately I think the problem is a bigger issue than that. As mentioned to someone else , if they have struggled to get vouchers out by the time they were expected then the very least they could do was let people know . Have this information readily available for thier customer service operatives to pass onto people , even an automated message would have been better than nothing . This is really not an acceptable way to treat people especially at a time when many are severely impacted by the rising costs of energy . 

ariarnia

5 days to respond to a complaint really isnt very long. even before all this was happening i'd say 5 days was a good quick response so 10 working days wouldn't be unreasonably slow.  

i agree it would be great if the cs team could tell you if yours has been issued or not but were talking about a new type of voutcher thats only temporary so there system wasn't set up to track these and its not likely there going to redesign the system for something thats only lasting a few months. someone will know if and when it was issued but that doesn't mean its on part of the system that the cs team on the phone can see when there looking at your account.

like i said. i get your frustration. i honestly really do. but i dont think chasing them again and again can help get you your voutchers any sooner. all its really doing is wasting your time and making you more frustrated. even with your complaint. the 8 weeks they have before it goes to the ombusdman means its almost certainly going to have arrived or been reissued before then. 

[Deleted User]

Why do you think calling a customer service agent will make the post arrive quicker?

You appear to have decided, based on a self-selecting small group of people that have problems, that there is some sort of hidden scam about the vouchers, or that supplier just doesn't fancy sending them out, or I don't know what.  Any suggestion that it might not be a nefarious scheme, and you respond with "I don't think so" or "I think it's bigger than that" - no evidence, just an assertion.

Supplier customer service centres are staffed and organised to deal with 'normal' levels of customer contact.  Are you really surprised that they are finding it difficult to answer quick enough when tens of thousands of customers are calling and emailing with irrelevant questions that the agents couldn't even solve if you got through? 

ariarnia

people are frustrated and worried and its normal that they want to do something but sometimes the only thing you really can do is put a note in your diary to follow up next week and try to forget about it for a few days. at least thats what i would suggest people do. it sucks and in an ideal world it would be on time. and if the november voutcher is also delayed then i'd be raising a stink and watching the calendar until i could escalate with an expectation of at least an apology and gesture of good will. but for now with everything thats going on there just really isnt anything helpful that anyone can do but log it and wait.