Airtricity: bad service (rep, admin & call centre). How to complain?

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Fiskar

Registered User
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Heres a story I will share with you on Airtricity that I had hoped not to share and gave them 2 full days to reply and get back to me with an explanation.

In October an Airtricity sales representative with a Motorola scanner and wireless portable called to our door.

We spent over an hour completing and signing electronic forms, providing bank account details, NPRN numbers, meter readings, he even photographed our Bord Gais bill, our bank account number and the meter reading.

We signed up for the 2 year deal and 16% reduction. After all this, we got two emails welcoming us to Airtricity and awaited the "letter".

The "letter" with account number followed in November with our account number indicating "special needs". I rang the customer service and indicated we were not special needs but she asked if we would provide the meter reading as it was not on the system. I was stunned at this given the time and effort taken with the rep but I provided the meter reading. This was supposed to be the call that sorted out the last remaining details.

On Dec 14th I received a Bord Gais bill and needless to say I was stunned. What kind of outfit are Airtricity running?

I rang customer service at 6pm that evening only to be told by the customer service girl that the reference number did not exist or have they any details for account set-up for me. Again given the time and effort with the door to door salesperson I was upset and although the offer to be set-up on the phone was made I indicated it was not good enough service. Then she hung up on me!

I won't be entertaining Airtricity door to door sales persons again, what a waste of time the better switch to Airtricity was for me.

Anyone with a similar experience?

I registered a complaint to 3 different avenues at Airtricity, Should I or can I take this complaint to the energy regulator?

Funny automatic email response from Airtricity was to say that they had a large amount of emails to deal with and would get back to when they had cleared them! Any wonder with service like that!
 
You have had a bad experience with them allright. I switched to them in October but thankfully havn't had any problems so far. Any switching or ordering from Airtricity, O2, UPC etc I just do everything online, avoiding talking to reps.
 
I switched to them very early on - when they started to trade with domestic customers - no issues. However, I bet that the issue here is the guy that you first dealt with. Never - ever - buy anything on your doorstep! These guys are not working directly for airtricity (the following week he had either chucked it in - or was probably selling for eircom - or god knows who/what else). They work 100% on commission - so they will tell you anything. Whilst the 'deal' may have been genuine, he has no incentive to follow up properly afterwards and ensure that the switchover was carried out correctly. Once he has done enough to get the commission, it's on to the next door!

I would wager that this is where things went wrong. Never - ever - entertain doorstep selling. It's in nobodys interest - not even those working door-to-door. It's not a job that is sustainable.
 
My daughter moved house and closed her Airtricity account, although she was paying DD she received a closing bill for over €400 and started to pay it off, she asked them to re-assess it and has now received another closing bill for more again, she gave the meter reading when she left. The bills are impossible to follow. At this stage she does not know if she owes anything and they are pulling figures out of the air, they are just so inefficient.
 
They are the most incompetent company I have ever dealt with.

We switched 3 years ago. Our monthly ESB bills were about €75-80 a month on average. Therefore, we went on budget plan with Airtricity, when they were supposed to be 14% cheaper. It was initially €65 per month, went up to €86 last year and now €120 a month with arrears we've just been landed with of €475! After about a dozen phone calls I told them this was impossible to pay in one lump sum as a) it came as a shock to us and b) I was made redundant. I told them we'd pay €240 off at the end of this month and they assured me they would not take any money out of our account. Went into online banking today and they've cleared our account for the €475, leaving us with NO money until Friday week.

NEVER make the BIG SWITCH.
 
Same as that Mortimer - we were on the budget plan and it was a disaster - we ended up running up arrears of over €1K in the past year! I rang them and agreed to pay this over the coming year by paying off an extra €100 per month and switched from the budget plan to paying the actual amount each month. 2 months later and no payment had been taken and yet I was getting reminders that the amount due was of course increasing. So I rang again - yet again agreed a monthly amount to pay off in addition to the amount used, to clear the arrears by the end of this year. Then I find they take one third of the arrears in one go in the next bill!! Absolutely hopeless crowd!
 
Doesn't help your situation now - but best to submit the readings every time yourself online. You can set up text alert and email alert to remind you to submit them. That way, there can be no possibility of an unreasonable bill hitting you at a later stage.
 
that's what we do now serotoninsid but when you're on the budget plan that doesn't really matter - it takes the same amount each month and it can be 6 months before you find out the monthly debits are way less than the amount used!
 
but surely then the "Budget Plan" monthly payment needs to be increased. This is normally based on a reasonable assessment of average usage, and it would appear that your usage for 2011 was well in excess of this estimate.
 
indeed it was Brendan! I've no issue with that, my issue is that it took so long to find out the budgeted amount was way out, that 3 phone calls later they still haven't implemented what was agreed and that basically the person on the other end of the phone doesn't seem to be able to put in place the payment plan agreed despite all the promises. So now I've no clue how much they will try and take out of my account in the next payment!
 
Cancel the DD with your bank & they will be pretty quick in getting in touch with you!. This may be a bit severe, but at least write to them (register the letter) & let them know your dissatisfaction & your need to increase the monthly payment. Let them know that you will cancel the DD if you don't receive a prompt response. Poor customer service need to be raised with senior management, so copy your letter (or write directly )to the CEO.
 
roker said:
My daughter moved house and closed her Airtricity account, although she was paying DD she received a closing bill for over €400 and started to pay it off, she asked them to re-assess it and has now received another closing bill for more again, she gave the meter reading when she left. The bills are impossible to follow. At this stage she does not know if she owes anything and they are pulling figures out of the air, they are just so inefficient.
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Just to update you on this. They had changed to smart meters during the year which gaves us 2 sets of reading causing discrepancies on the bills. After writing 3 letters to Airtricity to different departments, we did not get any satisfaction, so we wrote to the Energy Regulator, Their response was unbelievable, they could not do anything because we did not write to the Complaints Department. So we have now addressed a 4th letter to the Airtricity Complaints, and we are still receiving threats of legal action. This was not a budget plan, it was meter reading bills.
 
Very heavy handed tactics by Airtricity, they have contacted a debt collector agency who are going to take legal action. So it appears that they do not want to correct the errors, they just want payment. At no time have we said we will not pay, just correcr the errors and produce an account that we can understand. So far the Energy Regulator is a dead loss. Any advice would be welcome
 
Satine my understanding of that is that you submit your reading on day X and the bill is calculated as of day X + a few days - this is why it is down as an estimated reading - they take your reading plus an estimate of the days between this date and the bill date. They actually got my bill amount right this time around so fingers crossed it's all sorted now for us!
 
please do not use airtrisity ,the have a dept collector after me and the have miss informed dept collector says their was no dispute and also said i did not send in final meter reading which i did but have no receit of proff as did it on their site.i have email proff of complaints .the are no niece people and are not cheap and quiet rude
 
Hello,

I must admit I had a dreadful experience with Airticity - unreliable, irregular billing followed by a claim for an unexplainable balance, about four months after I finally left them and had paid them what I was informed was the final balance due on my account.

For the record, I always paid by direct debit, on time and without difficulty .. infact I actually had a credit balance, most months thanks to a regular standing order I had also set up.

Their customer service was a disgrace, failed to respond to emails or phonecalls for days and sometimes nearly weeks etc. and when they did, they were less than convincing.

I now sit here wondering if Greyhound and Airtricity are related companies ... or simply just have the same low level of respect for their customers.

One to avoid I'm afraid.

Regards

Mr Earl.
 
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