Add your feedback on energy supplier Flow

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  • stef73
    stef73 Posts: 545
    First Anniversary Combo Breaker First Post
    Forumite
    Wywth wrote: »
    Great idea. Move to a more reassuringly expensive supplier, and leave flow paying their early exit fees. :cool:

    What early exit fees? .
  • Wywth
    Wywth Posts: 5,079 Forumite
    stef73 wrote: »
    What early exit fees? .
    ...
    Prices exclude VAT which will be added at the applicable rate. Prices are fixed to 31 August 2014. If you cancel this agreement - for example, by changing supplier and leaving Flow - before that date, then we’ll need to apply an early exit fee of £30 for electricity and £30 for gas (unless you’re moving home, in which case you won’t be charged an early exit fee). These payments will be taken before any other amounts that you might owe us.
    ...
    http://www.flowenergy.uk.com/quotes-tariffs/price-plan-thames ;)
  • momist
    momist Posts: 89
    First Post First Anniversary Combo Breaker
    Forumite
    I moved to Flow Energy at the end of May, and so far have had no difficulties with them. My two phone calls to them were answered, once immediately and once after about 20 seconds on hold, by intelligent and helpful clearly spoken people.

    I have also been approached to be considered for their CHP boiler scheme, where they will supply a replacement boiler and take a share of the resulting FiT payments to pay for it over time. If this goes through, I will be very pleased, but note that not all systems are suitable (you must have an old style stored hot water cylinder and no existing solar water heating). I am hoping that this will reduce my gas consumption, if I ever get it. I am waiting now to hear if they will come to survey my heating system.

    - - -

    The company I am leaving, nPower, has not performed so well. They took their regular DD this month (as well as last) and at about the same time they sent me an email saying that they have cancelled my DD payment scheme and will be billing me quarterly from now on! :(:eek:

    I have had a "final" billing notification for the electricity account, but not yet for the gas. This showed them owing me over £300, but with no mention of paying any back. And only today (18th July!) I received an email entitled "Sorry you'd like to leave us" and containing the following gem:

    Sorry you’re leaving us


    We’re really sorry that you’re leaving us.

    We’ve now confirmed that your electricity will transfer to your new supplier on 30th May 2013 so we’ll carry on supplying you until then.

    They’ll probably ask you to read your meter(s) and they’ll pass the reading(s) to us. We’ll use the reading(s) to work out your final bill or statement and we’ll send this to you within about 30 days of closing the account.
    Please don’t cancel your Direct Debit at your bank just yet. We’ll collect your final payment (or refund any credit due to you) on the date shown on your final bill or statement.

    [End Quote]

    I have had a "final" billing notification for the electricity account as I said above, and this did not mention any refund, AND they say they have cancelled the direct debit. Anyway I might owe them some money for the gas for all I know, as I still haven't had a "final bill or statement" for that.

    I hope this gets sorted out soon, but I don't expect so. nPower seem to be so inefficient.
  • momist wrote: »
    I moved to Flow Energy at the end of May, and so far have had no difficulties with them. My two phone calls to them were answered, once immediately and once after about 20 seconds on hold, by intelligent and helpful clearly spoken people.

    I have also been approached to be considered for their CHP boiler scheme, where they will supply a replacement boiler and take a share of the resulting FiT payments to pay for it over time. If this goes through, I will be very pleased,
    but note that not all systems are suitable (you must have an old style stored hot water cylinder and no existing solar water heating). I am hoping that this will reduce my gas consumption, if I ever get it. I am waiting now to hear if they will come to survey my heating system.

    - - -

    The company I am leaving, nPower, has not performed so well. They took their regular DD this month (as well as last) and at about the same time they sent me an email saying that they have cancelled my DD payment scheme and will be billing me quarterly from now on! :(:eek:

    I have had a "final" billing notification for the electricity account, but not yet for the gas. This showed them owing me over £300, but with no mention of paying any back. And only today (18th July!) I received an email entitled "Sorry you'd like to leave us" and containing the following gem:

    Sorry you’re leaving us


    We’re really sorry that you’re leaving us.

    We’ve now confirmed that your electricity will transfer to your new supplier on 30th May 2013 so we’ll carry on supplying you until then.

    They’ll probably ask you to read your meter(s) and they’ll pass the reading(s) to us. We’ll use the reading(s) to work out your final bill or statement and we’ll send this to you within about 30 days of closing the account.
    Please don’t cancel your Direct Debit at your bank just yet. We’ll collect your final payment (or refund any credit due to you) on the date shown on your final bill or statement.

    [End Quote]

    I have had a "final" billing notification for the electricity account as I said above, and this did not mention any refund, AND they say they have cancelled the direct debit. Anyway I might owe them some money for the gas for all I know, as I still haven't had a "final bill or statement" for that.

    I hope this gets sorted out soon, but I don't expect so. nPower seem to be so inefficient.


    They are making it sound like you are the chosen one :). The holding company behind flow was set up specifically to sell the boiler to as many members of the public as possible, in conjunction with signing up to their fixed deal for a certain amount of years. The boiler should have been on the market now but has experienced yet another delay.
  • I requested a switch from npower to Flow Energy a few months ago because I was really unhappy with npower. Flow Energy was very efficient up to the date of the switch, and then everything went quite. I phoned them asking why they had not set up the direct debit. The person I spoke to said the computer was down so there followed a mild argument with the person next to her about bringing up my details as they did not want to help a colleague. She informed me that the direct debit would be set up for early August, my actual switch date was for the 6th June. There is no sign of the direct debit being set up. I eventually got a final bill and refund from npower. This bill, it claimed, was for an actual reading on the 6th June (I had supplied both companies with a reading for this date) but the readings on the bill were higher than I had reached when the bill was sent in late July! I am expecting Flow Energy not to set up the direct debit in which case I will just be transferring what I would have paid by direct debit into a savings account as I do not want to end up in debt. All in all not too fond of npower or Flow Energy, but where do you go from here?
  • I_M
    I_M Posts: 1 Newbie
    I first signed up with Flow to move my electricity to them in April. Although you get the automated emails showing things appear to be happening, these is not a lot going on behind the scenes. After sending several emails and attempting to call them several times and getting no responses to emails I finally gave up in mid July and cancelled the transfer. I now find that they have just taken a payment from my bank account 3 weeks after cancelling, despite the fact they never got anywhere near transferring the electricity. Their phone line is never answered by a person, despite hanging on for over 30 minutes (at least it is an 0800 number).
    They are a complete waste of time and I would recommend staying well clear. The tariff is a bit cheaper but the few £s saved are not worth the hassle of trying to communicate with a company that does not appear to want to be unreachable.
  • I_M wrote: »
    I first signed up with Flow to move my electricity to them in April. Although you get the automated emails showing things appear to be happening, these is not a lot going on behind the scenes. After sending several emails and attempting to call them several times and getting no responses to emails I finally gave up in mid July and cancelled the transfer. I now find that they have just taken a payment from my bank account 3 weeks after cancelling, despite the fact they never got anywhere near transferring the electricity. Their phone line is never answered by a person, despite hanging on for over 30 minutes (at least it is an 0800 number).
    They are a complete waste of time and I would recommend staying well clear. The tariff is a bit cheaper but the few £s saved are not worth the hassle of trying to communicate with a company that does not appear to want to be unreachable.

    Couldn't agree more - I have had a similar experience. I switched from Npower to Flow on 12 June, so Npower billed me to the 28th! When trying to rectify this (3 phone calls so far) Npower blame Flow for a lack of communication....and Flow blame Npower. I would advise anyone to think very carefully before transferring their electricity supply to Flow. To say their entire set-up is amateurish would be an understatement.
    They still do not have a functioning website, they don't reply to emails and getting through to a knowledgeable operator is pot-luck. Their standard response to any problem you may have is "well, we're a new company and we've been very busy"...which is not acceptable.
    For the few pounds you may save over a 12 month period it's just not worth it, and I shall be switching back to one of the big 6 suppliers at the earliest opportunity.
  • Wywth
    Wywth Posts: 5,079 Forumite
    edited 20 August 2013 at 8:47PM
    Looks like Flow Energy stopped providing energy to new applicants with effect from 08-Aug-2013
    This doesn't affect existing customers, but it does mean we're not currently taking on any new customers - sorry, for the time being, to everyone who wants to join Flow....
    http://www.flowenergy.uk.com/quotes-tariffs/our-gas-and-electricity-tariff

    Well done to the 50,000 that that did get on supply with Flow. Lets hope Flow are back in the market supplying new applicants again soon :)
    (the article says they hope to start takiing on customers again from April 2014)
  • Very very disappointing experience all round. I decided to move to Flow after the end of my Go Fix 11 contract with nPower. After an online application a switchover date of late May was agreed quickly with Flow and I received confirmation right on time. Good so far!

    However, nPower failed to pick up that I was leaving them (it's not my job to tell them) and despite multiple telephone calls confirming that I had left them (which they agreed with) continued to take direct debits from me for the next two months and failed to issue a closing statement. In the end I cancelled my direct debit and insisted on speaking to Complaints who were able to sort the matter right away and I have (at last) received a cheque. Loads of wasted time and frustration.

    Flow Energy are, if anything worse. Despite telling me that they would start direct debits at the end of May they have still not set up a DD mandate and I have yet to pay anything. On top of that they apparently generated a statement in June without bothering to ask me for a meter reading and have used a grossly overestimated reading. I only discovered the existence of this statement when I logged into my account and had a hunt around. I have lost count of how many times I have called Flow.

    The Flow Energy website is a joke and what is so unprofessional is that they have kept it live even though it's almost completely non functional and contains incorrect information. E.g. go to 'Meter Readings" and it states that my meter does not have registers!

    I cannot possibly recommend Flow Energy at its present level of performance, but at least I have a confirmed fixed price contract with them at a good rate and at the end of the day they will have to accept what my meter records as determining what I pay.

    My overall opinion is that it is no good price comparison websites (and politicians) banging on about the self-evident benefits of switching when the companies involved (and the central database?) are so grossly incompetent and inefficient.
  • devondiver
    devondiver Posts: 299
    First Anniversary Name Dropper First Post Combo Breaker
    Forumite
    edited 3 September 2013 at 11:44AM
    For further info on Flowenergy see here:
    http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=4573565&highlight=flowenergy

    There are others threads found by a quick search.

    I totally confer that Flowenergy is a total shambles. I shall be raising an official complaint to them and the Energy Ombudsman and seeking full redress for time wasted and costs incurred in being on Scottish Power's standard rate since May. I could have switched to a better deal with a 'proper' energy company.
    I'd rather be a disappointed optimist than a self-satisfied pessimist
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