They made me so ****ING angry today.
I'm going to make them pay me back for some losses - is there any way I can make it extremely annoying for them before I leave them for another (probably equally annoying) firm?
Get hold of the CEO via email.
Name and shame as a starter for 10?
You're unlikely to make a dent in them given you're one person and they're a huge company.
Turn everything off
It's So Energy who have been fine until today when they disconnected the electricity in the kitchen and told me it wasn't their fault and said I'd have to fix it myself.
Yes it's going to make sod all difference to them I imagine but might make me feel a little better.
Emailing the CEO is an option though I guess she has a pretty advanced spam filter.
If they have a freepost address I could post them a hippo, except I don't own a hippo.
Just found their head office is only a few miles away...
Cancel your direct debit and pay for what you consume every month/quarter.
They rely on you being in (often significant) credit to continue.
You'll loose your tiny 'discount' for not paying them huge sums every month, but my arguement is why should you be penalised for refusing to bankroll thier agenda by being in credit, and giving them arbitary access to your bank account to raid as they deem fit?
they disconnected the electricity in the kitchen
Hold up... what now? that sounds like an issue with your internal wiring. They can't physicaly disconnect your kitchen, it's not possible, they can only disconnect the whole building after a lot of non-payment of actual usage.
Just the kitchen but the rest of the house was fine?!
Edit beaten to it.
You had an engineer on site? If so was it actually the energy company or someone from ukpower networks or whoever manages connections to the grid.
Hey mattyfez, do you work for So Energy?!
They installed a smart meter but failed to connect the neutral from the kitchen fusebox back to the Henley block.
Yes I may just claim back what they owe me but I'll be leaving them anyway.
Fitting a smart meter perhaps?
Hey mattyfez, do you work for So Energy?!
God no, lol
They installed a smart meter but failed to connect the neutral from the kitchen fusebox back to the Henley block.
So the smart meter instalation person dropped a bollock, and it needs another engineer visit to rectify and a few quid compensation... would that be a more accurate summary?
Well if it’s true they’ve left the neutral out you’ve got an extremely dangerous live cable just floating around with a high potential of death if someone touches it so you could mention that to them!
You could also cut the seal on the meter and unscrew the cover, smart meters apparently have an anti tamper switch under there that sends a signal back and you’ll get loads of engineers turn up like an episode of the professionals to check you’re not linking the meter through, they could then sort the original problem for you (probably don’t do this)
This one could be fun.
I'll put kettle on.
I’ll put kettle on.
Make a cuppa for @eckinspain, his kettle won’t be working 😉
I’ll put kettle on.
Make sure you take it into the living room first.
Well if it’s true they’ve left the neutral out you’ve got an extremely dangerous live cable just floating around with a high potential of death if someone touches it so you could mention that to them!
That's the neutral return from the kitchen isn't it. Yikes.
Raise a complaint? That's always the best way. If Ofgem have to get involved they automatically have to pay a fine.
Raise a complaint? That’s always the best way. If Ofgem have to get involved they automatically have to pay a fine.
Not sure if it is a HSE concern, if it's a private dwelling but on the other hand it's a company that has done it so it is a work related issue. They have a helpline who can direct you if not them.
HSE could annoy them to a substantial level if it is their remit
It was certainly pretty dangerous for my electrician who had to come and fix it.
If it's fixed now change suppliers and raise a complaint if you want and move on, all you are doing is winding yourself up and getting stressed, yeah the installer (who probably has nothing to do with the supplier other than being contracted by them) messed up. You're only messing with your own head up no body else's.
You could just move on as life is too short.
If my current experience with our water company is anything to go by, raising a formal complaint and being persistent when you don’t get answers does seem to annoy them. Having said that it is principally the customer service team who get the flack from both the customer and the managers of their engineers. Not accepting their first offer of compensation straight away (because I don’t believe they have addressed the issues rather than because of the money offered) also seems to have sent the whole team in a spin- having spent a month trying to get a sensible response.
You could just move on as life is too short.
My reason for persisting is to hopefully ensure others are not put in the same position, so in the OP’s case I would certainly pursue it.
I'll keep ignoring those emails I'm getting from SoEnergy about getting a smart meter installed then 😂
Is it really the energy company that fitted the smart meter themselves? I assumed it was all sub-contracted out. Mine was certainly done by an entirely separate company.
If my current experience with our water company is anything to go by, raising a formal complaint and being persistent when you don’t get answers does seem to annoy them.
I left Octopus in Oct 21 and then in August last year got a £200 bill from them. This was for gas, despite gas and electricity being paid for from the same direct debit and close readings being sent for both. I complained saying they didn't provide proper evidence for the bill and that it should never have taken 10 months to issue it.
I chased them between Aug and Dec only to find out that they closed the complaint, blaming me for not contacting them (I emailed them 12 times). They offered me £100 credit and payment plan for the balance which I refused. Eventually, after I kept insisting it goes to Ofgem, they gave up and said they would close it and zero the balance.
Here is the good bit though, when they sent me the invoice to show they had zeroed the balance, it showed the £100 credit applied, i.e. my account was £100 in credit. I emailed asking for it to be paid into my account, and they did. out. So from their incompetence, I actually ended up £100 better off!
Deleted
If your only goal is annoying your energy company then I can guarantee you will end up more annoyed than them.
If you set a realistic goal, such as havingyour electrician paid for an compensation for your time, then it becomes a worthwhile activity.
It is highly likely that your energy company did not fit the meter, it was fitted for them by a contractor. The contracter made a mistake, and absolutely should have been contacted to resolve it. Exactly what did you ask your energy company to do when you called them? And were you a d*ck about it? Both are key wehn it comes to getting problems resolved...
dooosuk
Free Member
I’ll keep ignoring those emails I’m getting from SoEnergy about getting a smart meter installed then
Seeing how the energy companies are abusing the system of remote switching people to prepay if they have smart meters, I'll be doing the same on principle!
raising a formal complaint and being persistent when you don’t get answers does seem to annoy them.
You may think that but it really doesn’t.
This one should be filed under storm in a teacup.
A formal complaint to the NECEIC regarding incompetent workmanship. One fewer contractor for the energy company to employ.
Yes I am likely to get more annoyed than them!
What did I expect from them? Honestly I thought they would call the contractor and ask him to pop back and fix it. I don't think that's unreasonable - he had only left 5 minutes previously, he couldn't have gone far. It was their claim that it wasn't anything to do with them because the smart meter was working that really annoyed me. The electricity worked before the engineer arrived but not afterwards. I guess that's circumstantial evidence but I would have thought there was a high probability that the engineer caused it and that it would be cheaper for them in the long run to fix it that way.
Was chatting to the guy who installed our smart meter last week. They have a phone App for the installation process which involves him taking dozens of photos of every part of the swap out so there is proof that everything is back in place etc. The company was SMS (Smart Meter Services).
I was actually pretty impressed, he swapped out a load of bits on the consumer board (in addition to the meter) as they weren't approved by SMS - so I got new Henley Blocks and a new Isolation switch. He did offer to change all the tails to the be the same colour but I told him not to bother as the rest of the house is still Red and Black, so a new tails won't make any difference.
He did remark that my seals were a bit unusual and I explained I'd cut off all the original ones to rewire the main board and just resealed it with ones I'd bought from Ebay. He just laughed!
Storm in a teacup? They left a neutral return hanging next to fusebox!
The sub-contractor needs reporting to NECIEC or whoever their accrediting body is , and the company should be reported to OFGEM for their lack of response.
So Energy list their smart meter installation partners as AES and Morrison Data Services, so I'd be contacting the appropriate one of them.
Did you get a load of pictures of the installation?
Storm in a teacup? They left a neutral return hanging next to fusebox!
Whoosh 😀
Oh, am I being dense (again)? 🙂
Be amazed if anything happens other than offering you services from one of their approved contractors...
It was certainly pretty dangerous for my electrician who had to come and fix it.
Doesn't sound any worse than any other faulty consumer unit, of which electricians must deal with all the time.
It's not ideal, but then if you're swapping out millions of meters across the country you're going to have the odd cock up first time round.
He did remark that my seals were a bit unusual and I explained I’d cut off all the original ones to rewire the main board and just resealed it with ones I’d bought from Ebay. He just laughed
same as any sparky I've had work on my gaff has done with the main fuse. - why would you risk working live for the sake of a tiny wire seal......
He did remark that my seals were a bit unusual
I explained I’d cut off all the original ones to rewire the main board and just resealed it with ones I’d bought from Ebay. He just laughed
Hang on, so you were also rewiring some parts of the board? You had spare parts, oddball seals, different colours and he then did a bigger job than expected / normal?
Seems a real cock up - but maybe more going on than normal?
Cancel your direct debit and pay for what you consume every month/quarter.
They rely on you being in (often significant) credit to continue.You’ll loose your tiny ‘discount’ for not paying them huge sums every month, but my arguement is why should you be penalised for refusing to bankroll thier agenda by being in credit, and giving them arbitary access to your bank account to raid as they deem fit?
Absolutely this.
Also take away permission for them to contact you, or only by post or email etc. I had to put in a written complaint years ago to tell them to **** right off. I don't want to be talking to an energy company every bloody week. You can get more revenge by paying infrequently. I tend to wait until they're just about to take it to court and send in the heavies before issuing full payment. May as well be in my account right? Also, you need to make them do some extra work as karma for charging you more for not being on a direct debit.
Hang on, so you were also rewiring some parts of the board? You had spare parts, oddball seals, different colours and he then did a bigger job than expected / normal?
Seems a real cock up – but maybe more going on than normal?
Not really, my fuse board is original to the house when electricity was first introduced, so lead mains feed with paper insulation and old style red and black tails and a really crappy earth which sort of attaches to the lead feed, but not very well.
The Henley blocks are original but apparently that style is no longer preferred (he wasn't sure if that was just his company's policy or the DNO's), so he swapped those out for some newer ones - these separate out L and N rather than stacking one on top of the other.
His company also has a policy to only use devices on tails where the screw bites into the tail rather than pushes a clamp against the tail, so he also swapped out the isolation switch I'd added (which had previously been signed off by Building Control). I'll just use that somewhere else, probably when I next mess about in the Workshop and re-wire that.
Functionally, no difference whatsoever and the house, like most older houses, is still a mix of red/black and blue/brown wiring. As part of adding the new meter, we have new tails between the main fuse and meter, which are now Brown and Blue, but the rest of the tails are still Red / Black. No big deal really.
When I added in the workshop, I split the tails and added in an extra consumer unit, so the workshop was separate to the main consumer unit. I also added in a proper isolation switch as the house didn't have one and I tidied up the existing tails a bit (hence cutting the seals on the master fuse and isolating it all whilst I messed about with it). That all then got signed off by BC with the Workshop electrics about 10 years ago. IIRC I needed a main isolation switch to pass.
The chap doing the work and his company seemed uber professional, he was concerned about space for the new gas meter and called out his supervisor to advice etc rather than just bodging it. Took him much longer than expected and the next job after me that day was bumped as a result. However, very tidy solder work etc on the new gas meter.
That was another thing, the previous gas meter installation didn't meet current installation specs, as it had used flexible pipes, all now solid soldered.
Regs / practices / standards change all the time and so older houses will never all be up to spec.
