Utility Company Rant

How hard can it be:
Meter power
Send bill
Take payment?

Set up an account with British Gas for Cambridge. Complete disaster

Set up an account with Scottish Power for Malmesbury. Complete disaster

Surely being a utility company can’t be much easier? You don’t even need to actually supply what you sell.

Rant over.

Where do I start, let's see...

British Gas version
Meter power Invent a reading so you don't fall foul of Ofgem's guidelines of actual readings per year
Send bill, but add 10,000 to the reading bumping it up by £700
Take payment? Accuse customer of tampering with the meter and refuse offers to come and actually read it

EON version
Meter power but forget that this is a final reading and the customer no longer lives at that address.
Send bill and court threats repeatedly after twice promising over the phone that they had realised their mistake.
Attempt to Take payment via debt company

You have my sympathy, there's probably a massive rant on here somewhere regarding the British Gas one as it took ages for them to see sense.

Try uSwitch, there are usually attractive offers for dual provision. Last two years I was with Flow energy, now with Bulb. Only disadvantage I see is you probably need to reassess the deal annually, but then I think that's becoming more common across the board.

I was never so relieved when shaking off Scottish Power and Scottish Gas.

With Scottish Power, just my first conversation with them decided me to switch (to Ovo who seem competent so far) and the subsequent events have just validated that decision.

SSE are another provider who has been utterly crap. It does make me wonder what the regulator actually does

Having moved house roughly once a year for the last decade, I've encountered more "utility" nightmares than I can be bothered to remember. My particular bugbear is deemed contracts. We are now with Ecotricity for a number of reasons. They are no less incompetent than the others, but I can walk to their head office in 5 minutes, should the need arise for some tête-à-tête discussions... I seem to remember Cambridge Water standing out as a beacon of excellence.

In SW Scotland its Flow Energy or First Utility for total satisfaction and best pricing, SSE / SP / BG are totally avoided, as its seems Flow Energy proving to be the leader in Ayrshire and Dunfries / Galloway anyway.

I've been with First Utility for the past 3 years and have no complaints. I do monthly meter readings which seems to help stop the constant 'upping the price to cover your winter usage' crap I used to get with SSE and BG.

I've been with Bristol Energy for a couple of years: once a month they ask me to read the meter; I read it, then they send a bill. I pay it and the lights don't go out.

OK, I'm picky; I won't accept a direct debit if it is at all possible to avoid it. I could probably get it a few percent cheaper, but it's two thirds or less of what I was paying with Eon and British Gas.

NPower are the worst I've dealt with.

I'd been with them for a while, quarterly bills were always similar and based on actual meter readings and then they sent an estimated bill (based on their own estimated readings) that was about 1/3 the cost of any of the previous ones.

A few days later, before I'd even dealt with it, I got a letter from them saying that my current bill is so low they've concluded that I've tampered with the meter and so they're switching me to a "pay monthly in advance" service and threats of coming to inspect the meter + legal action.

Just how bad do their systems have to be to make an estimate that has no resemblance to any previous bill and then send a warning letter without looking into the circumstances of the bill?

Eventually got it sorted out, with no apology of course, then left them for SSE.

About 5 years later NPower were apparently judged by the regulator to have been misleading customers on pricing for years, as I got a cheque for about £80 as part of the agreed settlement.

Yes - I was very impressed with them when we needed their isolation tap replacing.

Wessex water have been OK too.

I let my wife sort out our utility stuff while I focus on more important household tasks like home brewing etc. Anyhoo after spiraling costs she did the math and we've now been with Utility Warehouse for 4 months and reckon we're saving £60 per month and it's all under one roof. You need to check their website to see how it all works but I can recommend

Vote with your wallet and leave when you can. I change my supplier every year and have found the smaller one's are competitive on price and have better Customer Service's...NPower were basically criminals.

The energy ombudsman is fantastic and dealt with my issue enabling a refund of hundreds of pounds of incorrectly billed usage.

The Government needs to legislate and give OFGEM some bollocks to hammer the fraudulent practices of the big suppliers, with their price fixing cartel like behaviour and the way they bully and treat their customers.

Have you tried calling an NPower call centre?

I vowed never to go back to Britsh Gas after they set up multiple accounts for my address and sent demands for what was effectively duplicated meter readings. Months of phone calls, letters and court summons ensued before they realised what they had done.

I signed up with SSE and have been happy with them since, staying with them after moving house twice. Not the outright cheapest, but still very competitive. During the house moves I got through to the call centre easy enough too.

My parents are with Utility Warehouse and they are happy with the price they pay, they even have a mobile phone with them.

I was charged £150 by Scottish Power yesterday despite having a DD in place for the last three months thats come out as agreed. That will be an interesting phone call tomorrow no doubt

Slightly off topic but we've just had a renewal for our boiler service / call out from BG and we've moved on to Homecare 1 or something like that and as "valued customers" it's now £335!! New customers are paying c £180!! Shopped about and we'll likely end up with SSE as they come in at £190 and for a better package. Joe public get had over all the time..

How hard can it be!!!

British Gas set up a direct debit on 30th Oct then unilaterally cancelled it on 8th Nov. Then sent me a letter asking me how I planned to pay my bill....!!

Scottish Power set up a DD on 26th Sept and are sending me reminders (to the wrong address - even after they told me they corrected it) to pay my bill having never bothered to trouble the DD.

How do these utilities survive?

By ripping off the poor and elderly usually via card meters with extortionate tariffs.