Forum Topic

Look After My Bills Nightmare.

To save people the agony of having to deal with a future nightmare  with Look After My Bills and Utility Point please read their horrendous reviews on Trustpilot.                                  This is an email I received from Trustpilot this week.                                                People are reading your review!Hi Neil Milkins,You recently wrote a review on Trustpilot and it looks like people find it helpful.117 people have already read your review.                                                                                                       LOOK AFTER MY BILLS SHAMBLES.It is now 12 weeks since Look After My Bills without my knowledge or permission changed my energy provider from S.S.E. to Utility Point. Jacqueline Loughman promised me 9 weeks ago that they would resolve the matter within 14 days. A week ago their senior complaints manager Daniel promised me he would phone me on (29-12-20) and have the matter resolved. No phone call and no answer to my emails to him. In the meantime I am going to have a sky high electric and gas bill when this matter is resolved. It is near impossible to get a reply from them once you have emailed and phoned them and it is totally impossible to phone Utility Point as ALL their phone lines have been cut off. I have been on the phone and emailing 19 hours in total trying to sort this mess out. Anyone thinking of going with Look After My Bills or Utility Point please check their horrendous reviews on Trustpilot.

Neil Milkins ● 1577d14 Comments

No Mark. You are not reading my posts carefully. In essence Utility Point AFTER I had cancelled, erroneously took over my energy supply which took me about 14 weeks to rectify. As you say the process of unpicking this proved to be time-consuming and complex.In the meantime until SSE take over my supply again we will have had free gas and electric 4 about 4 months which Utility Point will have to pay for. Even this does not compensate for the nonsense we have had to go through sorting this out.

Neil Milkins ● 1566d

So in essence you signed up with a switching service, changed your mind shortly after but they had already implemented the switch and then the process of unpicking this proved to be time-consuming and complex?

Mark Evans ● 1566d

Hi Mark. And a further email that I received from U.P. yesterday.                                                Good morning Mr MilkinsThanks for your call today. As discussed we have begun the process to send your energy supply back to your previous supplier via an Erroneous Transfer. This will mean that you would not be charged by Utility Point for any energy usage and it will be as if you have never left your previous supplier. You would need to speak with them directly about how they will charge you for this time period.Your account was opened with readings supplied from the industry, these were:E - 28306G - 749There have been no further readings supplied to us since then. I hope this resolves your query, however, should you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.Warmest regards, JamesUtility Point Ltd

Neil Milkins ● 1567d

Hi Mark, i signed up to LAMB in early October but cancelled within a day or 2 and well within the time limit. LAMB acknowledged the legal cancellation yet I was without my knowledge signed to Utility Point. At the start each blamed each other but as stated earlier U.P. phones were only connected again last Friday. After a song and a dance I was connected to an agent who after about half hour got back and admitted it was their fault and confirmed this in an email to me yesterday.Part of the email from U.P. states as already mentioned:  We initially attempted to cancel the registration of your Gas and Electricity supply, but unfortunately the supply did transfer over to us.To resolve the matter, we have agreed to return your supply back to your previous supplier.

Neil Milkins ● 1567d

Utility Point don't do the transfer - they have no authority to. It would have been done by Look After My Bills who presumably you signed a contract with to allow them to switch providers to - that is the point of the service they provide.It seems odd that nobody but you noticed they had disconnected their phones for three months but perhaps that is indicative of how few people deal with these problems by phone these days.I'm trying to unpick exactly what happened here. Is it that you were switched to Utility Point by Look After My Bills, then you read a report that Utility Point Business no longer had a licence and tried to unwind the switch yourself?

Mark Evans ● 1567d

Hi Mark. All I can say is that if you phoned Utility Point for the past 2-3 months you would have found that ALL lines had been disconnected. Only this week have they been reconnected and it was only this week when I eventually had them admit that they were in the wrong and had made an erroneous transfer of energy from SSE to themselves. (See email from them to me yesterday:  Good afternoon,We initially attempted to cancel the registration of your Gas and Electricity supply, but unfortunately the supply did transfer over to us.To resolve the matter, we have agreed to return your supply back to your previous supplier.What happens next?Any monies collected whilst with us will be returned by electronic transfer into the bank account details we hold.This will be refunded on or within 5-10 working days (not including bank holidays). If there is a delay, we will endeavour to refund you in the shortest time frame possible outside of these timescales.Your previous supplier should be in touch to advise you of the date you will be returning to them, however, if you haven't heard from them within the next seven days, please contact them directly.Any questions?If you have any questions or queries regarding the above, please do not hesitate to contact our Members Relationship Specialist Team on 03455 577 878 (local rate) and they will be happy to help.Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.Warmest RegardsKesnaOperations Team)                                                                                                                                                      Utility Point live-chat is now unreachable and emails are still being ignored by them unless you wish to sign up with them.

Neil Milkins ● 1567d

No they are different companies. They may have the same ownership and be based in the same office. The company you are referring to seems to be their operation for business customers.You say that 'apparently' Utilty Point stopped communicating with customers for a sustained period. I can find no reference to this in their feedback which is surprising if what you say is true.

Mark Evans ● 1567d

Hi Mark. I believe that they are the same company. And they are in serious difficulty. It has taken me more than 3 months to get the following from them:                              Good afternoon, We initially attempted to cancel the registration of your Gas and Electricity supply, but unfortunately the supply did transfer over to us. To resolve the matter, we have agreed to return your supply back to your previous supplier. What happens next? Any monies collected whilst with us will be returned by electronic transfer into the bank account details we hold. This will be refunded on or within 5-10 working days (not including bank holidays). If there is a delay, we will endeavour to refund you in the shortest time frame possible outside of these timescales. Your previous supplier should be in touch to advise you of the date you will be returning to them, however, if you haven't heard from them within the next seven days, please contact them directly. Any questions? If you have any questions or queries regarding the above, please do not hesitate to contact our Members Relationship Specialist Team on 03455 577 878 (local rate) and they will be happy to help. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused. Warmest Regards KesnaOperations Team.                                        Apparently last year U.P. lost £ 8 million. They disconnected all their phone lines for weeks, their live-chat has been cut off and they will not respond to emails.

Neil Milkins ● 1567d

That's a different company to the one that does my bills. The Utility Point (not Business Energy) still has a licence.

Mark Evans ● 1567d

6.  The Authority hereby gives notice that, unless the Authority otherwise directs, the Licence will be revoked with effect from 4 January 2021.David HallDuly authorised on behalf of the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority

Neil Milkins ● 1567d

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications-and-updates/utility-point-business-energy-limited-notice-revocation-electricity-supply-licence                                                                                                      Copy and paste the link. According to OFGEM revoked their licence on 4-1-21.

Neil Milkins ● 1567d

Utility Point are still my supplier. There is nothing on the Ofgem web site or any news source about their licence being suspended. According to the Ofgem web site there is no outstanding investigation against them.

Mark Evans ● 1567d

IMPORTANT UPDATE. UTILITY POINT HAVE HAD THEIR SUPPLY LICENCES REVOKED BY OFGEM?                                                                                                                                                                                          After spending nearly 4 months trying to get to the bottom  of how Look After My Bills illegally changed my energy supplier from SSE to Utility Point, today has come a breakthrough. I had to deal with the matter myself after Look After My Bills who claimed to have started an investigation into the matter 65 days ago refused to respond to my last dozen or so phone calls or my last 8 emails. Today someone posted the following on trusted website Trustpilot regarding Utility Point and Look After My Bills.                                                                                                                                  "I just got a quote from LAMB and it suggested I change to a company called Utility Point.According to Trustpilot, this company are under investigation regarding giving customers incentives for positive reviews.The OFGEM website says they have revoked their supply licences with effect from 4 January 2021.LAMB...you say you work with suppliers who value their customers and are committed to improving their customer service.“Don’t worry, if a supplier has terrible customer service we won’t switch you to them even if they want to pay us!”I think you need to have an urgent review of some of the companies you are recommending.I won’t be using LAMB."

Neil Milkins ● 1568d

Can you be more specific what the issue is with Utility Point? I use a different switching service and they have put me with them. I have had no problem and their tariffs are very cheap.Which, a safer guide that the user recommendation sites, ranks them as pretty average on customer service etc.I don't understand how you are going to end up with higher energy bills = isn't the whole point of these switching services that you are always on a good deal?

Mark Evans ● 1568d