Our troubled power companies: Herald readers' feedback

In just two days of asking for reader feedback on the state of the power industry, the Herald has received more than 120 e-mails, 21 faxes, two letters and five phone calls from people complaining about their power retailer.

Most unpopular of a pretty sorry bunch is TransAlta, widely condemned by those wanting to leave it for rivals. Its poor handling of switch requests has led to many readers waiting for months to get their first bill from a new company.

Empower and Energy Online have attracted criticism for the way they go about signing up new customers. Whether by tele-marketing or door-to-door salespeople, readers have complained of being switched over without feeling they ever properly authorised the switch.

Meridian, which was so bad at running its retail base that it stopped accepting new customers for nearly a year, was unpopular for faulty estimation of bills.

Many readers have been disconnected by their power company after a disputed bill. Several who have moved to another company have been threatened with debt collectors if they do not pay bills that they dispute.

Regardless of which company a reader may complain about, one problem appears consistently. The companies do not seem able to answer a phone properly.

Call centre staff are either unwilling or unable to answer direct questions, or provide effective remedies for the range of queries any large retailer should be expected to deal with.

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Helen Jeffery:

An Empower salesman came to our door and sold my partner and my flatmate on the idea of Energy for Education or a charity such as the RSPCA. So they swapped our power from Mercury to Empower, even though my name was on the bill.

We received our final bill from Mercury and then waited and waited for the new bill to arrive. It came on August 8, and it said $279.99 was due on August 15.

I rang Empower and told them we would not be paying the full amount (they made us wait for a bill so they could wait for a payment) and arranged a suitable repayment schedule, or so I thought.

I made a payment in August and decided I liked Mercury's service a lot better, so changed my account back again. We received a final bill from Empower in September and I continued with the payment options as arranged.

We didn't receive a bill in October. I rang them in November to find out how much was owing and was told my account had a zero balance, which I thought was very odd.

On November 23 a letter arrived from a debt collection agency. I had been paying my account as arranged, apart from in November, when Empower told me I no longer owed them money.

Empower told me my account had a zero balance because it was with the debt collection agency. The spokeswoman said she would make a note in her diary and send a printout of her screen showing debits and credits.

I have spent most of this year trying to sort out my power bill but it is far from over. I am still waiting for my new bill from Mercury.

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Siobhan Lyons:

We moved house on September 4 and decided to shift our power account from TransAlta to Mercury. We were told it could take 10 to 12 weeks for a bill to arrive.

We contacted Mercury during the week of November 20 to find out why we had still not received a bill. A representative told us somebody would look into it but we heard nothing.

My partner called customer services last Monday and Tuesday and was told on both occasions that someone would call us back.

Finally on Wednesday a representative told us there had been problems taking over the supply from TransAlta.

Mercury had sat on this for two weeks and had not done anything with the information. The whole process would have to start again and it would be another 10 to 12 weeks before we would get a bill.

This potentially means we could receive a six-month bill in one go. I e-mailed customer services last Wednesday outlining the problem and asked them to contact us immediately.

Needless to say, we are still waiting for a reply.

We have received appalling customer service. They are too disorganised to give us a customer reference number to quote, so every phone call takes five minutes longer while they find our account details.

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Kate Donnelly:

Energy Online rang and spoke to my flatmate while I was at work. He agreed to have them send out information about their rates for me to look at.

This information didn't arrive, but they did switch me over, right away.

The first I knew of it was when I got a final account from Mercury. Energy Online was adamant that my flatmate had given the okay to switch, but he is adamant he said nothing of the kind.

At any rate, the account is in my name and I certainly didn't give them permission.

Several angry phone calls later, including two occasions when they hung up , Energy Online left a very rude message saying we were all but liars. However, our new account would be terminated.

I managed to get a sympathetic ear at Mercury and had the termination with them cancelled.

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Darren J:

I was with Genesis and thankfully still am, but we had an Empower door-to-door salesman come knocking.

My partner answered the door (I was at work) and was told about this "great new deal." She had to sign a form for more information, but was told nothing would happen to our power connection. She specified the power account was not in her name, but the salesman was extremely pushy and did not leave until she signed.

I phoned Empower that evening to tell them what I thought and was promised a call back. I didn't get one so I called again. Eventually the area manager contacted me and gave me his personal assurance he would stop the switch going through the system.

The next thing I knew, I received confirmation from Empower saying we were going to be switched.

I phoned them, told them where to go, and cancelled it. They agreed. I received another confirmation about our switch one week later, and I made another call to head office.

I received a personal assurance that we wouldn't be switched and that the form my partner signed would be destroyed. Another week passed, and Empower sent a letter telling me the switch was complete.

Eventually, Genesis cancelled the transfer and I managed to get written confirmation from both companies that my power supplier had not changed.

* * *

Ken Taylor:

I was convinced by Meridian's joint offer with Sky to switch from TransAlta in September last year. I share a house, and we all thought a saving would be a good idea.

TransAlta quickly confirmed we were no longer their customers. But by March I was sick of the fortnightly calls to Meridian asking for a bill so told them I would give them until 4pm Friday to bill me or I would switch back to TransAlta. Friday came and went, and no bill, so we swapped back and life went on.

So I thought. I started getting bills from TransAlta and only a week later received my first (estimated) bill from Meridian. It was about half what I thought I owed them, but it was a start.

I rang and let them know it should have been more and was assured it would be taken care of. I arranged to make part payments, but a few weeks later got a letter of demand threatening debt collectors if I didn't pay.

Finally I sent a fax threatening action under the Consumer Guarantee Act. They finally got themselves together and computed a final bill.

It took nearly nine months to sort all this out. Whoever the turkeys are who thought up this 'reform' should be taken out the back and given a sound beating with their own legislation.

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Lars Bojsen-Moller:

I moved into a brand-new townhouse on May 6. I rang First Electric before the move and asked them to sort out the power. Mercury supplied the power while the house was being built and the account was under the landlord's name. First Electric assured me they would take care of everything, including contacting Mercury.

The first thing they did was send a letter to my aunt who has the same surname and inform her they were going to switch her. Luckily the letter was addressed to me and I was able to stop them from doing the switch.

They sent me an invoice in late July but it had the wrong meter number on it and was not for my house. I rang them and corrected the number and they assured me it would be fixed. I did not receive any more invoices but received a payment demand notice on October 17 threatening to cut off my power and call in the debt collectors.

I rang them and told them what I thought of their service and heard a whole lot of excuses.

It is now December and I have yet to receive an invoice, some seven months after advising them. If they ever get around to billing me correctly I will take the same amount of time to repay them, or can I refuse point-blank?

* * *

Bob Atford:

We have owned a property at Cook's Beach, Whitianga, for some 20 years and have until recently not worried about our cost of power - until TransAlta decided to charge a set daily rate.

We are now paying a minimum of 111.11c a day in line charges. Our last power bill was $115.98 for 61 days. During this time we have been running a domestic fridge and have visited the house for no more than six days.

When these charges were first introduced I rang the power company. The call centre advised me that they had been inundated with complaints and consumers were changing to another power company. The lady even said she was sick of hearing the complaints and was recommending that the consumer look at changing.

I asked to speak to the marketing manager and was told she would not accept calls from consumers.

The moral of this story is that we are prepared to pay for normal usage but not at the current rates.

Even if I turn all the power off and buy a portable generator we will still be paying for the daily line charge.

* * *

Tracy McCullough:

The nightmare began with a sales rep from Genesis knocking on my door offering me cheaper power than I had with Contact. I decided to sign up with Genesis, who told me they would organise the switch.

I live at No 7 on a subdivided block, with No 7a at the back. The neighbours at 7a also decided to switch from Contact to Genesis.

All I had to do was wait for a bill from Genesis after paying my final bill with Contact. Sounds easy. I have still not received a bill.

After a few months, I phoned Genesis, who told me that they had no record of me having been switched over from Contact and, in fact, had no record of me at all. In the meantime, I decided to stay with Contact. That's where the fun began. Contact could not take me back without the authority of Genesis, who had no record of me. I was in limbo, lost somewhere between two power companies and aware of a ticking power bill accumulating.

I had several exasperating phone calls with both Genesis and Contact. In the meantime, the house at 7a was getting warning letters from Genesis threatening to disconnect their power if they didn't pay. They did a bit of investigating and discovered the ICP number on their bill actually related to my meter.

I cannot believe the stress and time and effort that has gone into trying to sort out this mess. It seems with a large business we're all just numbers and there is no in-house communication. My advice to anyone wanting to switch is, don't. It's not worth the hassle.

* * *

"Ralf"

We had free power for over a year, and so did the previous person in the flat.

It was great. We turned the oven on in winter to really toast the place up and laughed at how fast the spinning ring on the meter used to whiz around.

Saturn must have been the last power company to charge the flat.

Someone moved out, the account was closed but the power stayed on ... All we got from Saturn was a letter to the account holder or power user or something, which said "please phone an 0800 number within 10 days to update details or power supply will be stopped or not guaranteed" or something.

Needless to say, into the bin it went - and that was eight months ago.

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* These letters are abridged.

Herald Online feature:
Overload - our troubled power companies

Have you had a problem with your power company?

E-mail our reporters: Josie Clarke or Chris Daniels