Who do you complain to about Ombudsman Services?

[Deleted User]

So yes, i find the response very unprofessional. and i find the suggestion of the £100 "gesture of goodwill" in reponse to a fantasy story baffling.

The Energy Ombudsman Service (EOS) is not there to penalise suppliers or to ensure regulatory compliance. If it suspects that a supplier is in breach of its Standard Licence Conditions it can only make a report to the Regulator - Ofgem.  You can also make a report to Ofgem which will just be acknowledged and passed on to its Intelligence Unit.

Your complaint has been upheld and you have been awarded a top-percentile amount of compensation. The term ‘goodwill’ is used as the industry norm. ( I suspect on the advice of lawyers)

If EOS had carried out a detailed review and commented in a lengthy report on every aspect of your complaint and awarded you £100 would you be satisfied: I sense not.

As I pointed out earlier, you have the right to complain about the EOS process through its internal complaints’ procedure. If you disagree with the outcome of this review, you can escalate your complaint to EOS’ Independent Assessor. This process will take about 3 months. 

EssexHebridean

“Goodwill gesture” is standard supplier speak for compensation. 

ariarnia

PenryP said:
I dont feel a "gestures of goodwill" are at all professional.  A gesture of goodwill is not an achnowledgement of wrongdoing, it's throwing money at a customer in the hope they will go away without fixing the issue, it is not at all decent when there is a problem to be addressed.

As an outcome, I would like EDF to manage my account according to the product terms, appologise for cutting short the quarterly period and taking money when they shouldn't have based on guestimated readings, (for the second time)  i also suggested compensation "to say sorry" on par with the previous occasion -  here's the wording i used in my requested remedy.

i think these are your 2 main issues. 

they have been instructed to provide an apology (which will probably be a copy paste of the apology you received last time. that will probably include an acknolwedgement of wrongdoing. so you should be happy with that at least. 

as you have been told by several people. the job of the ombudsman (any ombudsman) is not to address supplier issues so they dont happen again. its to deal with the individual complaint. so that means correcting your account so you are not out of pocket and compensating you for the mistake via a gesture of good will. in summery 

 EDF should acknowledge and apologise, as they did on the prior occasion. they will. 

  EDF should apply a £50 credit to my account “to say sorry” as they did on the prior occasion. even better. they will apply £100 credit. 

  EDF should be encouraged to investigate to ensure this does not occur again. the ombudsman cannot order that. 

  EDF should be encouraged to manage my account in accordance with the published product terms. the ombudsman cannot order that. 

 
that is the difference between an ombudsman and a industry regulator. 

I was stuck with EDF after i was moved to them, the for months no suppliers would accept a switch. since July i've been stuck in these 2 OS cases, hopefully once this one has concluded i can find someone who will take on my account as i've heard a few are taking new customers now!

you do not have to wait for an ombusdmsn case to be sorted before switching supplier. and you could switch supplier now or mid complaint. several (all the big ones i think) are now accepting new customers. tho sometimes you have to phone them and can't switch online. there arent any better deals tho. its all standard variable. 

Spoonie_Turtle

If you join the Tentacled One (Octopus) you can get an extra £50 credit on top with a referral code.

EssexHebridean

EDF are apparently doing some quite extensive investigation of their customer service teams at the moment - it may well be that they will be willing to be frank with you about this at some stage. 

70sbudgie

In addition to others' commemts above, the ombudsman service has also said that it is sending a report to OFGEM. So although they have no remit to make the supplier sort out its processes, it seems to believe that in this case they should, so they are reporting the situaion to the regulator, who can force suppliers to change (or issue punitive fines). 

I do consider bringing your concerns to our service for the second time is highlighting the issues EDF Energy is having and we certainly don’t take this lightly, including reporting our findings to Ofgem the regulator.

OFGEM won't do this without undertaking their own investigation and the letter goes on to explain how OFGEM treats complaints / reports.

Mobtr

EssexHebridean said:

EDF are apparently doing some quite extensive investigation of their customer service teams at the moment - it may well be that they will be willing to be frank with you about this at some stage. 

In what way & why?

EssexHebridean

Mobtr said:

EssexHebridean said:

EDF are apparently doing some quite extensive investigation of their customer service teams at the moment - it may well be that they will be willing to be frank with you about this at some stage. 

In what way & why?

Lots of issues of customers being told that things would happen (in my case, an electricity switch in) but then not actually being actioned- my main issue was a customer service agent who put a note on my file (the first thing future agents see) stating that there was a switch in in progress - further agents then saw that note and assumed it was happening but did check that it had been actioned, and indeed, the original agent hadn’t done anything about it apart from put the headline note in place. I had a fairly lengthy conversation with a senior CS manager last week who was remarkably frank and open about the fact that they know they have problems, and are working hard to sort them out. I was actually impressed - something I never thought I would say about EDF! 

PenryP

hi, I ended up phoning Ombudsman Services, I spoke to a lovely lady on the phone when i called, after a short chat about the case, she not only recomended i appeal the decision, but she olso offered to draft my appeal over the phone and submit it on my behalf if i wanted ! The original investigative officer also got in touch, and the case has now been classified as being "appealed" and assigned to a different investigative agent to review. I might see a reviewed decision in about a week !  Thank you to those who posted in this thread, especially the folks that know the remit of the Ombudsman !, i've learnt alot, and have a much lower expectation of what OS can do than before.  If OS can't tell EDF to adhere to their terms, and Ofgem just log a -1 score for every complaint, and dont adress them, who else is there to complain to about a power company who repeatedly continue to fail to adhere to their product terms ?

Chrysalis

It does seem official compensations via the Ombudsman are low, interesting that £100 is seen as on the upper end.

In my case my official compensation was £150, but my actual compensation was over 10x that amount (depends if bill correction is seen as compensation or not).  However the Ombudsman were only told about the £150.

If the appeal doesnt go well, then you can take it through the courts.  One person on here last year simply informed Octopus they were starting legal process and they caved.