Energy Ombudsman Reviews 

The whole process was so simple. After sending copies of all correspondence sent to Scottish Power outlining their disgusting service, having no replies whatsoever, after sending letters to their complaints dept, followed by a letter to the Managing Director, followed by a letter sent to the CEO. The Ombudsman handled everything perfectly without me having to contact them again. The result was a written apology from Scottish Power, plus compensation. I cannot recommend the Ombudsman enough. If you have a problem with an energy company, then contact the Ombudsman. They are very professional at what they do, and the service is first class. It's amazing how you suddenly get results once they get involved. I think that I would have eventually ended up in court if they hadn't stepped in.

EDF billed a small two-up two-down house for nearly £4,000 when £96.94 was owed, then passed it to debt collectors without checking who owed it. They admitted that in writing. I took it to the Energy Ombudsman.

The decision upheld my complaint about EDF's debt recovery, which I accept. The rest of the decision didn't hold together.

It got the date I bought the property wrong by a full year. On that timeline EDF would have referred the debt to collectors before I owned the house, which is impossible. That error went to the heart of the case.

It found the meter readings were not at fault, while accepting the opening reading had been changed from 10,907 to 109. That one change is what created the false debt.

It found customer service was not at fault, while EDF's handling of my complaint was first reviewed by the same person I was complaining about.

I asked for a review. The Coach's reply accepted the original decision had the wrong dates, that EDF could have investigated further, and that the readings should have been checked before the debt went to collectors. It still changed nothing. When I asked for a final review, I was told there was no significant error of fact, despite those dates having already been accepted as wrong.

Written questions I sent went unanswered while the deadline to accept kept running. It took my MP getting involved to get any response at all.

The award was £150 and an apology, for being chased for nearly £4,000 I never owed.

If you use the Energy Ombudsman, check every date and fact in the decision. Once it's made, getting them to correct it is close to impossible.

We contacted the ombudsman after many stressful calls/letters from Corona Energy, Nicola guided us through the process and relieved the pressure for us, she spoke common sense and resolved the situation for us. I would give more than five stars if I could.
Honestly this service is essential as the energy companies just don't listen, but trust me they listen to the Ombudsman!
Keep up the good/essential work.

I had a very complex issue that proved quite difficult to untangle, and I truly regret not raising the matter sooner. However, thanks to the incredible help and persistence of my case handler, Amy Hucker-Roberts, everything was sorted out.

Amy went completely above and beyond, showing remarkable patience and dedication. She put a tremendous amount of effort and time into resolving my case, and I honestly appreciate every minute she spent on it.

Outstanding customer service and a special thank you to Amy for all her hard work. Highly recommended!

Very poor service and not fit for purpose. EDF energy failed to refund credit balance and empty promises for months. The ombudsman resolution is the same that they will do it and still nothing. No one really reviewed or takes any action on all the evidence provided. Back to square one chasing and banging heads with EDF energy for a refund.

They read my complaint , weighed the facts after the energy company gave me horrible time hurting my credit score wrongly .

Not only the complain was upheld . They ordered the company to issue an apology . I felt respected as a human , not just a consumer

I approached the Energy Ombudsman because I was unable to resolve my complaint with EDF and genuinely expected an independent organisation to consider the situation fairly from the consumer’s perspective.

Unfortunately, I was extremely disappointed with the outcome.

EDF had failed to issue regular bills, which contributed to an outstanding balance accumulating. I accepted from the beginning that I was responsible for the energy I had used. My complaint was about how this situation was handled and, in particular, how an affordable repayment arrangement could be established given our circumstances.

We explained our financial situation in detail and provided evidence. We explained that £31.11 per month was not affordable for us and that £5 per month was what we could realistically sustain at that time.

However, rather than requiring EDF to work with the information already provided and find a practical solution, the outcome essentially accepted EDF’s position that we should go through a third-party organisation before a lower repayment arrangement could even be considered.

What I found particularly disappointing was that the fact EDF’s failure to issue regular bills contributed to the situation did not appear to result in EDF taking greater responsibility for finding a practical solution.

I understand that an Ombudsman cannot automatically agree with every consumer. However, I came to the Ombudsman because I needed an independent assessment of whether EDF’s approach was fair and reasonable. After the review and appeal, the original decision was maintained.

I am now going to settle the outstanding balance in full simply because I want to close this matter and move forward.

My experience has nevertheless left me feeling that, when a consumer is already under financial pressure, there is very little practical protection or support when the supplier’s own billing failure has contributed to the problem.

This has been an extremely stressful experience, and I am disappointed that I did not feel the independent resolution process provided the practical outcome I was hoping for.

The ombudsman has done a great job of looking after OVO energies interests. 13 months of stress, 13 months of being repeatedly ignored, 13 months of phone calls emails, 13 months of broken promises, 13 months to replace a faulty meter, yet OVO get off with paying £200 compensation. What a waste of time.

Find them to be biased towards my energy company even though they claim not to be. Now on my third case handler in a short time. Complained about a few things but even that was very difficult because when you phone it recognises your number and puts you through to your case handler. In my case mine had left the organisation so I wasn't getting through to anyone. I had to use my house phone then tell the person who answered that I wanted to complain. Don't assume these people will sort things out, it's not a well run organisation.

Extremely disappointed with my experience with the Energy Ombudsman.

As a small business, I approached the Ombudsman believing it would provide an independent and fair way to resolve a dispute with a much larger energy company.

I provided clear and independent evidence that my business had vacated the property, together with evidence that another company subsequently moved in and occupied the premises. Despite this, my complaint was not upheld.

The charges being disputed were based on estimated bills rather than actual meter readings, yet these charges were accepted despite the evidence regarding the change of occupancy.

I do not feel the evidence I provided was given the weight or scrutiny it deserved, and I do not believe the fundamental issue of who was actually responsible for the energy consumption during the disputed period was properly addressed.

As a result of this outcome, my small business is now left facing the prospect of having to defend potential court action brought by a much larger company. This is extremely concerning and creates a significant imbalance between a small business and a large organisation with substantially greater financial and legal resources.

I had hoped the Ombudsman process would provide a fair and accessible way of resolving this dispute without leaving a small business in this position. Unfortunately, my experience has left me with very little confidence in the process, and I would not recommend it to another small business facing a similar dispute.

Excellent service with communication throughout the process updating me at every step. Phoned me to explain the decision and what happens next before uploading it onto my account. Laura couldn't have helped more excellent service and communication throughout.

Who I spoke to Andrew was really helpful and made everything really clear

Don’t answer phone .dont return calls despite recorded messages saying they will respond in 2 days.Denied receiving 2 letters sent at different times.could give no explanation The decision reached was incomprehensible and I eventually gave up .they are a waste of public money.plus they do not have a complaints system ,you have to complain to the person you complain about! A joke organisation

The case handler and subsequent ombudsman coach did not review the facts of the case fully. I appealed and had the appeal upheld on 1 issue, however the decision contained many assumptions and factual errors and the remedies were unclear. When I challenged this I was told nothing I said would change any outcome and I had to accept or decline within the deadline. I was unable to make an informed decision due to the errors and vague remedies. I was not given any explanation as to why the factual errors could not be reviewed, or any explanation of the remedy proposed. I put in writing another challenge which was ignored until the deadline had passed. The EO gives no incentive for the so called energy companies to abide by any rules as the EO does not investigate fully or hold them to account. Some parts of my complaint were ignored entirely and not even addressed. This complaint was regarding an energy supplier falsely reporting on my credit file. I will now have to proceed to ICO and possibly to court. This is my only experience with the EO. They were unhelpful and the communication is very poor. Assumptions and errors were made by the coach in the decision and he subsequently refused to rectify or clarify these. I have made a formal complaint, not that it will achieve anything as the case has been closed. The whole experience has me feeling that the EO is there for the benefit of the energy companies rather than the consumers.

the honest straight forward language and approach
felt could trust this person to try
thank you

They don't think that octopus energy making a demand for money (£100) and threatening with a debt collection agency when sufficient funds are avalible (£300) in the account is in any way wrong.
Additionally they have completely confused the ombudsman by including a seperate account that has nothing to do with this case and is illegal under GDRP Regulations by divulging information completly unnecessary.
They never check or question the validity of the evidence provided so any nonsense can be submitted by the defendant.
They failed to read or understand my email trail of the whole episode when the defendant had broken the email trail multiple times
They swallowed octopus lies about specific requests for information.
In all a total waste of everyone's time.
Don't bother contacting the ombudsman because they dont reply to the answer phone message, they don't ring back even when they say they have, I've had no missed calls.
Even if they had contacted me when they say they had it was out of time for their decision cut off time because they're so late.
What's more the accept or reject button at the end of there process has no different effect what so ever. Case closed

Post note.
So you accept you made a mistake but won't do anything about it.
I will take this up separately.
Shame you could nt review the information presented.
Your review indicates they did nothing wrong, then you had a second chance and still didn't see it, im going to contact my MP to see if they can raise questions on the suitability of having an ombudsman at all.
You just need to review the evidence and question it's relevance if you are not sure.
Match the address to which the complaint relates to. Make note of the law and use common sense as to if it is relevant to the case.
Nor can we rely on you to make phone contact after leaving messages and before the ultimate deadline.

Thanks for the reply it appears to be a standard template used in many other replyies to keep your browie points up.
It means nothing if you can't do the right thing in the first place.

Difficult to navigate the website to start a complaint for a business.
Difficult to navigate their app.

Very good customer liaison once you get assigned a customer services person.

8 weeks is a long time to wait to make a complaint on top of the months you have been trying to sort the problem out yourself.

No company is worried about the Ombubsman, probably because it is so hard to make a complaint, they think you will give up

This stage as I call and talk with a person. She heard my all the complaint and all my points which I wanted to explain. I m fully satisfied and got a motivation and hope my case will resolve satisfactory.

It was very difficult to put together more than a year of emails and phone calls and errors in meter changes etc. The representative was very helpful throughout, and no complaints at all. But Scottish Power can't fix the problem, and kept adding extensions where nothing happened, only to finally admit they couldn't solve the problem. So, I think the ombudsman needs to review the problems with Smart metering in Scotland following the ending of the RTS system, as there is not much point going through the process if there is no fix. Scottish Power don't even accept that I have a 3 read meter, and that wasn't part of the resolution as impossible to see how they couldn't know. My system always had 3 readings.

The process was not as daunting as I imagined, from filling in the online form to the initial phone call informing me of what would happen with my complaint to British Gas. As it was, all it took was a phone call from the Ombudsman to British Gas, which led to BG admitting they were wrong and refunding my money, along with a compensation payment.