Bulb and Ombudsman

As I mentioned, I had two cases of energy companies with Ombudsman. This is the second one finally sorted.

The other case with So.Energy was about a final bill simply using the wrong meter readings, complicated by the fact that one was an export reading. It was all sorted.

Arguably the Bulb one actually way simpler: 2 years after leaving them, and settling the final bill, they decided, via a new bill, rebelling for my previous usage, that I now owed £7k. The reason this is a "simple" case is that there is an OFGEM rule which bans charging for usage more than a year before the bill. It is a very simple rule.

It is a licence condition, and is also in the terms and conditions (it has to be).

So, a bill, out of the blue, for usage more than 2 years before, is simply not valid. The rule and and terms are simple. So I should have been able to simply point this out to them, and it be the end of the matter.

Which makes no sense really, it sort of says they cannot charge more, but they have charged more.

They even tell the Ombudsman that the back billing rules don't apply, which makes no sense. They told me on Twitter as well that the rule does not apply. This was somewhat stressful to say the least as I thought I was on solid ground here. Oddly they told the ombudsman the new bill was because of new closing readings from the new supplier, which also makes no sense as the new bill had the same closing readings as the previous bills.

So, how did it go with the Ombudsman?

Well, in the end it went well, but it was a hell of a challenge. For a start, it took a long time to get anywhere, as with the other case. I actually ended up making the complaint covering several issues: One was "this latest bill is simply invalid under back billing rules as it all for usage more than a year before", but because Bulb raised this bill I looked back, and spotted they had also previously back billed more than a year, and they had also changed the opening electricity reading to something totally made up, using 09796 not 51485, which is crazy!

The response from the Ombudsman was overly complicated, and hard to understand, instead of simply saying the latest bill is invalid, they go on about a dummy meter exchange and reissuing the bill correctly.

I basically said I could not "accept" the decision if I could not understand the decision or what it could mean financially, and they basically said until I accept the decision they cannot order Bulb to action it, and only then would they know the financial implication.

The other issue is that the response and several exchanges with the ombudsman said things like "So if Bulb revise the bill and there are unforeseen charges it needs to apply backbilling. Backbilling does not apply if you are in credit or the charges have decreased upon billing you accurately."

Obviously the idea that if there are unforeseen charges they would apply back billing was a concern. It seemed to suggest that I would be back billed for unforeseen charges.

At one point I said: "To be 100% crystal clear, accepting this decision cannot result in me owing Bulb any money at this point, as the only money they are currently asking me for is for an invalid backbilled charge two years after leaving, and any additional charges they find are too late and so cannot be backbilled now." and got the reply "Backbilling will apply if there there are unforeseen charges (increased debt)."

I exchanged dozens of messages and finally got to the bottom of it. When they say "backbilling" what they mean is "the OFGEM anti-back billing rule / licence condition". So they mean "...there are unforeseen charges it needs to apply the anti-back billing rule and not back bill you". That is essentially the exact opposite of what was actually said.

Then they suggested there could be some additional charges if the new bill to replace the £14k bill they had raised was lower, but still left me owning money (there had been a £7k credit first, hence balance being £7k now). This turned out to be because she misunderstood how long ago it was and thought some of the (revised) usage was within a year still.

It took a long time to get a clear answer to "So the worst that can happen, from my point of view, is that I still owe nothing. The best is that they owe me some." - at which point I accepted the decision.

What did Bulb do?

They harassed me by calls, emails, and in writing all the time, even after saying they would wait for the outcome of the ombudsman case they then harassed me again. It is ridiculous.

Eventually, on the last day allowed, they issued a new bill, it showed me in credit (by several thousand in fact).

I advised bank details and they sent the £150 compensation they were ordered to. Not the credit balance.

I queried, and they say any credit would be sent once the final bill was raised (which web site said would be 31st May).

I finally said I would advise the Ombudsman that the matter was not resolved unless they confirmed either no additional bill (how could there be) and paid me the balance, or confirmed the extra final bill (which I would then dispute via the Ombudsman). I was not going to wait a month.

To my surprise, and as 10 separate smaller payments all at once, they have sent me the balance.

Technically I think I could argue for more - the re-bill covers the whole period I had service, but there was a period of time in the middle of service where I did not have a bill within 12 months of usage, so they should not now be billing me for that period of time in the middle. But the whole experience of dealing with Bulb and the Ombudsman has been so much hassle, pursuing that extra bit is not worth it (I'm clearly getting old).

Irony?

The irony here is I left Bulb a couple of years ago and had paid in full. I did not realise they had overcharged me, nor by how much. Had they not decided to bill me for an extra £7k, they would have got away with it.

In my defence, until Bulb, I had not had experience of such inept energy companies, and did not expect to have to check every bill in detail to look for such mistakes.

Update: Bulb then later sent a standard email saying they are compensating people an extra 20% of refunded amount, which was a nice bonus. Yes, it arrived!

So.Energy & Ombudsman

It has been hard work, but I finally have a sensible final bill from So.Energy. It was only Electricity that was the issue.

The problem was simple - they did not have correct closing readings. I could not give them correct closing readings as their web form for them wanted import AND export and they had failed to make the meter show me me export dispite asking for many months. However, going to Octopus I got clean opening smart meter readings for both. I also have a new local meter display that logs to MQTT which is nice.

So they estimated my export very low, and they had a correct import reading from smart meter. All they had to do was correct the low export estimate.

So.Energy ignored every attempt to tell them the correct readings! All they had to do was update them. Simple as that!

Then they issued a new closing bill with totally new import reading that was completely made up, and wanted a lot more money from me! To me this only makes sense as fraud. They even lied to the Ombudsman saying the new closing read came from Octopus (well, "old supplier"?). Octopus even sent screen shots of what they reported to So.Energy.

It had to go to the Ombudsman. The process was not that painful, and all on-line and forms and online messages and so on. But was tedious.

1. I make a detailed complaint and upload evidence (bills basically, and copy of email referring me).
2. I then add a message saying how it is odd the complaint is logged as "has smart meter: no", and "referral evidence: not included" when I said it was smart meter and had in fact already uploaded the screen shot of the referral and marked it as such.
3. Time passes and state is "additional checks", but they don't say what they are. Lots of time.
4. Lots of time passes, then the ombudsman ask me to confirm some details, even though exactly as stated in the complaint?
5. So.Energy are told of the complaint, and quickly reply with their proposed remedy - see below
6. Finally, after a month, ombudsman tell so.energy to fix the final readings and give me £40 and an apology.
7. So.energy quickly say they have implemented the decision, they have not as they have not done the export reading correction.
8. Ombudsman say so.energy are trying to dispute export with Octopus and want me to raise with Octopus - why? Octopus have a correct smart meter reading so nothing to dispute! 
9. Over 28 days later (yes, they had to reply in 28 days), after chasing, So.energy implement the decision and apologise.
10. I pay the final bill (I don't wait 5 minutes, let alone 28 days). Settled.

The initial response to complaint from So.energy is weird. This is clear cut, simple, wrong import and export readings, and I provided clear evidence (opening bills from Octopus) of that. You would expect the proposed remedy to be to simply fix that, job done.

But no, they say "The reads we have received is[sic] from the customers old[sic] suppliers. The customers account has now be revised and final bill sent to customer". They fixed the import but did not fix the export, and what is with "old suppliers" - this is about "new suppliers", and the reading was not in fact from the new (or old) supplier anyway. It was just fraudulent, in my view.

I have to wonder how the hell most people cope with this crap. I bet most people just pay up. If this is systematic it is a lot of money - who knows?

But final result - actually sorted - after a lot of time spent on this.

During the whole time So.Energy harassed me by email for payment even though they knew the case was with the Ombudsman. They also seemingly cannot actually read emails - claiming simple plain text emails are "blank".

Complaint started 29th Dec, resolved 23rd March.