Existing customer? B@#$%r off!

[stoatsngroats]

.....This year I am with Octopus energy who seem ok, but will no doubt have to play silly games at renewal time....

I’ve recently renewed with Octopus, and had zero issues. They accepted my desired payment, and have always been great for customer service. I use email and messenger, and haven’t had to wait long for a reply.

 

[Venod]

Not a renewal problem, but the wife has just had an Hotel California moment regarding her mother, she lived in an OAP bungalow, (local housing association) she has been with Innogy (now Eon I think) for a long time.
She has had to go into care (the MIL not the wife) so the wife contacted them explaining the situation and asking to close the account, they answered saying MIL should contact them to cancel, wife explained MIL has dementia is 97 and is in care so that is not possible, they said a power of attorney would be needed by wife before they could cancel.
I told her to tell them she would be stopping the direct debit payment and any money owed should be refunded and if that wasn't satisfactory to supply the address of the complaints department.
She received the reply that she had words with her boss who had approved the end of contract.
Common sense seems to have gone out the window.

 

[Smokin Joe]

I’ve recently renewed with Octopus, and had zero issues. They accepted my desired payment, and have always been great for customer service. I use email and messenger, and haven’t had to wait long for a reply.

I've been with them since Extra Energy went kaput, the best one so far.

 

[Scotty55]

Not always my experience.

We’ve got Virgin media for phone, broadband and tv for 66.50a month. I looked at what it would be to move up to 350Mbps, but felt 77 was a stretch too far.

Then got an email from Virgin to say cost was going up by 3.50 a month, so I went ahead and moved to the 350Mbps deal, 7 a month being OK.

I then got an email asking me to get in touch as part of the upgrade hadn’t gone through. To cut a long story short, they gave me the full package for 71, not 77, and threw in a free 40Gb SIM card with all calls and texts included, saving me 9 a month.

so all in all, very happy.

 

[clid61]

When I turned 50 I tentaivley replied to an eMail from SAGA who were offering cheap insurance for 50 + . Having never been 50 before I said " go on give us a quote"
It came back triple what I was already paying I declined their offer , only to be told "oh we can match that "
You can Imagine my response regarding competitive rates .
SAGA = Bargepole

 

[Accy cyclist]

It's because the companies know that coming up to renewal most will simply click to renew as they are too lazy to go elsewhere. Simple as.

I'm one of those. I think yes,i could get it cheaper somewhere else maybe,but it'll only be 50 quid which works out at a pound a week and even then i might lose (or spend on something daft and not necessary) that saved 50 quid somewhere else,so why bother.

 

[classic33]

Asked, in shop, by an operations manager why I stayed with a company that had such crap service and support.

Bacon has a bit to answer for.
Were it not for their emergency service contract, I doubt they'd be the number one 5G network in the UK

 

[PaulSB]

I'm one of those. I think yes,i could get it cheaper somewhere else maybe,but it'll only be 50 quid which works out at a pound a week and even then i might lose (or spend on something daft and not necessary) that saved 50 quid somewhere else,so why bother.

This is exactly what all companies rely on. Inertia. I check and change every year on gas, electric, car insurance house insurance. The result is I haven't paid any increase, usually it goes down, in the past five years. At a guess this is worth +/-£1000-1200.

My energy annual energy bill is +/- £350 less than it was around 10 years ago. During this period we've retired and so are around the house 24/7 and using energy rather than being out 10-12 hours a day. I don't know if basic energy costs have reduced in this time but like to think I'm saving a barrel of money.

The one I don't change often is Buildings and Contents. All my bikes are covered this way and it takes a significant amount of research to ensure the cover is adequate. When I'm happy I've got the right cover then if the renewal price is reasonable, say +£20-30 maximum, I don't bother changing. This is only because good bike cover is a deal breaker and the research effort is considerable.

 

[Tail End Charlie]

It happens to me every 18 months with Plusnet. They used to just put the monthly price up without reminding me that the 'special offer' contract price had come to an end. Now they at least remind me that it is going to happen. I get in touch and tell them that the new price is too high so I will be switching to their rival, TalkTalk. Plusnet then inform me that I can take out another 18 month contract at a special offer price...

I've just changed to Plusnet, so far all is good. BT do what you describe and I suspected Plusnet would do the same so I've entered the cut off date in my phone to remind me. Thanks for confirming my suspicions.

 

[Drago]

See, ive had no problem with BT. The price goes up, I ring them, down it comes, usually with zero in the way of need for threats to walk, etc.

 

[Blue Hills]

It happens to me every 18 months with Plusnet. They used to just put the monthly price up without reminding me that the 'special offer' contract price had come to an end. Now they at least remind me that it is going to happen. I get in touch and tell them that the new price is too high so I will be switching to their rival, TalkTalk. Plusnet then inform me that I can take out another 18 month contract at a special offer price...

I think they might be starting to stick on this - my mum got a Plusnet renewal notice recently where they seem to be pre-notifying planned increases for some years ahead. Previous years I have haggled with the threat of going elsewhere, like BT, even though I understand BT and Plusnet are effectively the same bunch.

 

[Blue Hills]

I’ve recently renewed with Octopus, and had zero issues. They accepted my desired payment, and have always been great for customer service. I use email and messenger, and haven’t had to wait long for a reply.

I moved to Octopus a fair while ago from the truly appalling npower. I find them fine - very easy to deal with - don't sponsor cricket.
(npower read my meters backwards for a long time and I was involved in a truly mind boggling correspondence to sort it all out - their initial attempt to resolve their jumble would have given me a truly monstrous bill = 10s of thousands, maybe more. I managed to bluff my way through to a direct conversation with their customer service chief who sat on top of a totally dysfunctional system - after I had my "chat" with her, I got some clearly fake call back from some bloke claiming to be from an entirely independent market researcher who kept insisting that I tell him whether I was a journalist before I answered his fake questions. So I just told him npower was crap and left it at that. It was clear to me that he was some sort of spook trying to figure out whether their laughable saga was going to end up in the press. I had I confess dropped dark hints that it might.

 

[Pale Rider]

In a fine example of inertia, I was with nPower for 20 years, only because that's who the previous owner of this place was with.

I did make a couple of attempts at tariff comparison in that time, but the saving appeared relatively small so didn't bother switching.

Communicating with nPower was a frustrating experience, and I don't think they read my meter for years, despite industry regulations saying it should be read annually or somesuch.

A new mob, whose name I forget, recently took over nPower.

They seem better in respect of meter reading and communication.

 

[Chromatic]

E.ON took them over. They do communicate more and I get an email on the 4th of every month asking me to send in my meter reading.

 

[Moodyman]

The offers for new customers are often loss-making and they make money out of you in subsequent years due to your inertia.

If you understand this and move every year, you can benefit from some of the lowest* insurance premiums in the world.

*The UK is one of the toughest (regulated) and congested markets in the world and so, first year premiums are often below cost to get customers onboard.