Energy companies are never far from drama. Always creating new plots with twists and surprises, they have been gaslighting cowering customers for years. Here are three acts that should keep you on the edge of your seat.
Act I
The scene is Oxford where 90-year-old AB is battling phantoms. Ovo, his supplier, can’t decide whether it has received his monthly electricity payment. After a spate of demands for the £99.62 in question, it concedes, apologetically, that it received his cheque the previous month. Two months later it tells him he owes the £99.62 it has already cashed and adds a £15 late payment fee.
When AB’s next payment is due he makes it over the phone. It comes to £129.19 and he asks for a receipt. Instead, he receives a letter accusing him of defaulting and demanding £129.19 plus a second £15 late payment fee.
AB remonstrates; OVO says it will commence legal action. The card payment is never collected.
Enter the consumer champion. Dealing with Ovo is like wrestling ectoplasm. Its first response blames AB for paying £99.62 by cheque. It claims it was invalid, despite having cashed it. And it says the “cheque” for £129.19 was also invalid, when, in fact, he made that payment by card. Oddly, since it insists AB was at fault, it says it will “write off” the £238 it says has, by now, accrued on the account.
When I query these discrepancies, it claims it never received the £99.62, despite having twice confirmed receipt in writing, and that the £129.19 was only partly settled by cheque, despite a card payment AB says he made.
Back I go again. This time Ovo has a new line. It admits that the second payment was paid by card, but that it left an outstanding balance on the account. And it says it is not writing off the balance despite having told me, in writing, that it is. Instead, it is making a “generous goodwill gesture” for the “inconvenience” caused, although the common theme of its various explanations is that the “inconvenience” was entirely caused by him. By this time, the account is finally sorted, legal action is called off and I think it is all over. But no.
A month later AB pays his latest £140 bill by cheque. This prompts three weeks of demands for £140. OVO tells me delays beyond its control prevented it cashing it, and offers to waive the inevitable £15 late payment fee as a “goodwill gesture”. I need a lie down.
A gas meter mix-up is blamed when an E.ON customer found himself paying a stranger’s bills. Photograph: Paul Melling/Alamy
Act II
Shepperton, Surrey. A routine boiler service reveals that 81-year-old widower DG has been paying for a stranger’s gas since switching to E.ON Next four months previously. A meter mix up is blamed. No one knows who is footing the bill for DG’s consumption, but whoever it is, they are getting a good deal because he only spends three days a week in the home. E.ON is in no hurry to act.
It informs him it could take up to 20 months to get answers because of a long list of similarly transposed meters. It tells me vaguely that his predicament could be caused by “any number of factors” and states, three months after he reported the problem, it is in the “preliminary stages” of its investigation, which it will complete in a “timely manner”. This, the more optimistic customer service agents told DG, could be within just 18 months or even as few as 14.
In the meantime, it asks him to provide regular meter readings to ensure bills are fair. The logic of that eludes me since DG’s meter is measuring someone else’s supply. Progress is made – backwards.
My interference prompts a technician appointment, only no one shows up. DG has to wait five weeks for another slot. No one turns up. One day a technician arrives unsolicited. His intervention leaves DG with no heating or hot water. E.ON says it can’t help because it hadn’t arranged the visit. The problem is eventually resolved a speedy six months after he reported it.
British Gas reneged on its promises to pay back money it owed to a grieving relative. Photograph: Andrew Paterson/Alamy
Act III
Now we’re in Worcester. WL’s father, Walter Turner (assumed name) has sadly died. She wants to claim an eye-popping £1,896 credit accumulated on his British Gas account. She has been trying for nine months.
British Gas acts promptly at first. It sends a cheque addressed to “Mr Estate of Walter Turner”. Unsurprisingly, it can’t be cashed.
Four times WL asks that it be issued in her name, as executor. Four times British Gas promises to do so, and fails.
The happy ending is that the corporate behemoths do empathise with private grief when they’re caught in the media spotlight. The cheque, plus a £75 apology, arrives a week after I enter stage left.
