Updated - Independent Energy UK Ltd ... (Independent Energy - Gas)

Member Name: djl

Product:	Independent Energy - Gas
Date:	12/09/00 (943 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: None I have noticed

Disadvantages: They don't seem to understand "cancellation"

I first heard of Independent Energy one evening in February. In an attempt to get rid of the saleswoman I agreed to what I thought at the time was furthur information being sent to me .. this was however not the case. On the doorstep the saleswoman had filled in a form. On this form my partner was named as the person on the bill and I signed the form in my name, which is totally different. We had a dispute over whether or not I would hand over my bank details and she finally agreed that I would not. We waited for the "information" I had requested and heard nothing. That is until about 2 months ago. My partner received a letter through the post informing him that our gas supply would change on such and such date and could he please provide a meter reading. By this point we had decided that since it had taken them over 5 months to contact us, we would not bother changing our gas supply. He called their customer line and asked for this request to be cancelled - they said fine. We thought nothing more until we had a second letter requesting a meter reading, after which he called up again and explained that he had never requested our supply to be changed or signed anything. In response, they mailed us a copy of the "Contract" - this turned out to the be paper I had signed back in February with my signature and his name. He called up again and requested that this be cancelled as surely I should not be able to sign for the gas supply to be changed in his name. Anyway they said find we'll cancel the request. About a week later we received a "sorry you're leaving us" letter from British Gas and a "welcome letter" from Independent Energy - the swines had been round and read our meter and changed us over. We were, needless to say, furious and called up British Gas to switch back and Independent Energy to complain - nothing came of it, we switched back to British Gas (who I must say were extremely helpful) and although we
were still cross we thought nothing of it.
The other week the whole thing started again, only now it's our electric that they want to change over. He has made numerous telephone calls to the company who seem to have adopted a new approach - answer the call and then forward it on to somewhere else, in our case Age Concern (or something similar). Finally when we had the letter from the SWEB the other day saying sorry you're leaving he called up both companies and hopefully this is the end of it.
Independent Energy UK Ltd have caused us and various people living round about us, no end of hassle and have given no apologies in return. Although I have read some of the other opinions and some people are happy with this company - my advice would be to steer well clear unless you definately want to change.

Update:
Well it's now Mar 2001 and the saga is ongoing. In the past 3 months we have had numberous bill payment demands requesting we pay £19.XX for the gas we used whilst they were supplying us. After each bill we contacted the gas company, explaining the situation and each time we were guaranteed by the person on the end of the line that our account would be cleared and not to worry. Then in January we were sent a final demand and threat of legal proceeding from NPower the receivers for the company. Again we were reassured by the person on the end of the line that this was a mistake, the account would be cleared and not to worry. Well the past 2 days post has bought 2 new bills - they now want £40.XX (apparently the previous bills gave us a £20 discount due to the inconvenience caused!) and when my partner called the given number he was basically told we'd have to pay. He spoke to the manager, explained the situation and was told that it wasn't their problem and we'd used the gas so we'd have to pay. The matter is still not resolved and we're currently trying to get some advice on the situation.

Summary: