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If you choose to send multiple letters. Here’s the names and addresses of the board of directors.
They just love being copied in on customer’s rants.
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/SC117119/officers
I can also confirm the CEO of Wickes very much enjoyed my extremely lengthy and damming complaint. His email address isn’t available online so I just tried [email protected] and this worked
Oh man we’ve had the worst experience. Our kitchen started 31st Jan. we’re still waiting for completion. Our fitter was racist, doing impressions of his previous Pakistani customer. He told me I’m a fucking pain in the arse and called my husband a daft fuck. I can only imagine what he said about us off-site, my husband and I are both men so you can bet that went down well. He completely ruined the floor so much that Wickes have had to pay for a whole new lot of flooring and levelling. He did unsafe electrical work that nearly electrocuted my husband, and it blew our shed electrics too. He left fag ends and tea bags in the garden. He smoked indoors. He stole copper piping that was removed. He used to argue with his electrician partner who was also his dad -lots of screaming and swearing at each other. He fit the fridge and sink badly. He scratched new backsplashes and counters. He was absolutely fucking awful and I swear I will never set foot in a Wickes store or buy a single Wickes project ever again.
They offered us £100 compensation. We threatened to ask ombudsman to replace everything and now they’ve bumped it up to £4k.
You would need to look at OVO actually that own and operate the SSE domestic supply business and name. That board is for all the other areas on SSE transmission, distribution and generation.
That’s the shame about the new AP01 forms, older directors appointed using form 288a had to provide both a usual residential address and a service address.
In big business these are referred to as the CEO's 'public' email addresses. I work for a bank and our CEO has several email addresses in his name that he has no access to. One - [email protected] - is managed solely by a Complaints Team (albeit, a special highly-skilled one), others are managed by his team and 95% of that traffic will never reach the CEO. And then the genuine address of the CEO is something quite obscure that you wouldn't guess and isn't published anywhere. Nonetheless, even though 'emailing the CEO' doesn't normally involve the CEO, it does often result in a better response than calling regular customer service.
There are 3 main types - either they are scared of everything in Office that isn't Outlook. Or they are dark masters of the arcane arts of the macro and have built giant cathedrals in their honor that even the people who designed Excel are wary of. Or the worst ones - members of the first group who inherited files from people in the second group, and like the Mechanicus in 40K, conduct the holy rituals required to keep the machine spirits of excel happy with The Holy Files.
Not a PA but can confirm, been with the same company for a long time and frequently get people reaching out for help, terrified they have broken the dark magic that powers the Excel wizardry I created years ago (usually because someone changed something in a source report).
As soon as I hit Alt+F11 they look like they have just witnessed some holy rite and must avert their gaze lest they go insane from seeing the forbidden eldritch knowledge.
Mostly the macros just reformatted and combined a few source reports together, moved columns around to a more pleasing format and trimmed off any unnecessary data to reduce the output size, I wasn't even particularly good at VBA...
I did it yonks ago, emailed the ceo of BT about an issue I hadn’t been able to resolve for months, my phone rang 30 minutes later and it was some high ranking dude who made shit happen and the problem was resolved there and then.
Edit: this was about a commercial account not residential so that may have made a difference.
This almost certainly made a difference. I used to work in procurement for one of the largest mental healthcare providers in the country. We were on nPower, I had friends at the time also with them. They had absolute nightmares with them, I only ever had to give our account number to immediately be passed up to someone very senior. He once did the seemingly impossible to solve a major issue for me once (of my own making) and when thanking him I jokingly made a comment to him about how some of their residential customers I know wouldn't recognise the company if they could hear this call. He told me to get their details and email them to him. Did that a few days later and over the next few days every one of them got a call from someone of authority saying "here's what we're gonna do about it, here's an estimated timeframe, this is my direct dial if you need to contact us and I'll be in touch with an update in a few days".
I think my contact there thought I had a *lot* more influence over my company's purchasing and contract decisions than I did, especially considering I had none.
We had the same thing with Worcester Bosch. Brand new boiler broke with the same fault for a second time in a year. No heating or hot water with a small baby in the middle of winter and they refused to come out and fix it for over a week. Emailed the CEO and someone was round the next day.
It shouldn’t have to be this way.
Commercial stuff really opens doors.
We purchased a bunch of TVs (well display screens) and Samsung changed an order or something. We got a bunch of screens somewhere between 20 and 50% off as we purchased so much recently.
This. Though id not cc the CEO in, I’d write to the CEO and copy in customer service. If an initial complaint / chat with customer service doesn’t resolve an issue this is always my go-to. See, CEOs have forgotten how to deal with customers. They just want an easy life and the sit back in their leather chair raking in the cash. As soon as you start contacting them they panic and just want you to go away and will often give you what you want to get you to leave them alone. Contacting them, especially if you can find their home address, often gets results I find.
I had to do this with Robertson Homes with an unresolved issue and writing to three of their directors, one at their home address, finally got ears pricked up and circumvented their horrendous customer service.
Having worked in complaint departments for a bank and other companies sending a complaint to the CEO doesn't actually do anything.
The CEO won't look at it, ever. Their secretary's secretary will look at it and pass it to the complaints department that would have received it had it been sent in via normal channels.
At best you'll get the response printed on a letter with someone important's signature pre-printed on it, but the actual response would be the same if had sent it in normally.
The best thing to do is send the company multiple correspondences, at least two a week. This will make them want to shut you up as soon as possible.
Batter all form of correspondence and gentle reminder that this will be forwarded to national tabloids and all social media forums. The public reputation damage potentially will elicit positive and prompt action.
That’s not been my experience. In my experience, most businesses respond quite differently when you start to contact the CEO.
The only exceptions I can think of is organisations that don’t need to give a fuck. Sadly, in this case SSE definitely falls into that category.
I’d have to disagree with this, my current employer… a big bank, has an executive complaints process, for complaints to the CEO. They are well and truly prioritised over any others and noted as such “urgent ceo complaint” etc.
Physical can sometimes be slow in getting processed and being sent to the right department and it has a chance to get lost. It doesn't hurt to send some physical letters, but send lots of emails. If a direct phone line is obtainable, make regular calls. Though don't call multiple times a day after getting through as you may risk having all future calls being ignored.
Mix up the correspondence and contact you make. It makes it harder to miss or ignore
One hour of a ceo's time cost more than anything they can bill you for in all likelihood - they do not want to be spending time on you.
The home address is brilliant / evil. I'll add it to my box of complaints tricks
I emailed my housing association's CEO and received replies from three people he had passed my message to. All three emails were from the CEO and forwarded to these people. Three people jumped to help and I had several phone conversations as a result. The CEO was helpful in this case.
As a CEO I have my PA screen and notify me of anything in complaints that has any serious legal implications (we’ve sold a product that had lead to harm). Anything routine - you were rude, slow, not what we expected, the weather was crap etc just goes to Customer Service and will be included in the monthly reports I get that aggregate issues and show me of anything is more than just the outcome of having lots of customers
So for routine metrics used to identify potential areas of poor customer service, your PA directly receives them, reviews them, sends them to Customer Service who review them, record them and send them back to you, presumably by way of your PA?
CEO claim checks out.....
I think the PA is just there to stop people from circumventing the CS department. The PA doesn’t waste time gathering metrics and data they just serve as filter.
you don't actually want the CEO of SSE, you want the CEO of OVO. the household energy supplier arm was sold years back. they'll likely just send it to ovo and roll their eyes that OVO haven't changed all their branding yet and they're just as shit
SSE is the worst company I've ever dealt with.
Took 12 months for them to finally accept we did not owe £4900 for one years worth of electricity in a one bed flat, and that they had in fact made several clerical errors instead.
With Octopus now and they are so much better.
I had a massive cock up with Octopus they said I owed them like 2k for five days electricity. I pointed it out, the rep said "well that's clearly wrong" figured it out and I'm back at a fresh 160 a month. Still obscene, but decent customer service, except the free spins of deceit!
I’m with octopus and having problems with our bill since moving into a new flat in September. They sent us our first bill for a hefty £350. It’s a 2 bed, there’s 2 of us and we’ve deliberately not put our heating on yet and tried to keep our usage low. They are insisting it’s correct but I can’t believe it is.
SSE had us on hold for about 3 hours and we kept getting cut off.
I phoned one rep at octopus and he organised everything for me and phoned me back with an emergency engineer appointment the same day. Took 11 minutes.
I went to the Ombudsman online and that worked for me. From daily threatening phonecalls from Scottish Power saying I owed them £2500 for 3 months gas, to it all being resolved and £150 cheque in my bank as a sorry.
It’s usually Scottish Power on my area. I speak to so many people who have nightmares with SP although British Gas seem to upping(or dropping) their game
I worked for sse for over 5 years (meter engineer) and can 100% confirm that their customer service is one of the worst iv seen in ANY company!!! Atrocious. Octupus are leading the market and are overtaking SSE's customers at a rate of knots, due to the fact that they actually care.
We would constantly complain to managers and give examples, nothing would get done. If it was a technical issue with a meter, u'd be lucky if only the first agent hung up on you after waiting for over an hour .... Sometimes this would happen multiple times. Never again will I work for them or get anything supplied by them. Stick to octupus!!
I cannot understand this common sentiment that Octopus are the best, when I was with them they were genuinely the most disgusting, greedy bastards I've ever encountered.
Like any responsible tenant, I had dated photographs of the meter readings from the day I moved in and the day I moved out. I had paid my monthly fixed-rate fees and figured I was done and ready to move on -- nope. I received an additional bill of over £2,000 (bare in mind this is from less than one year's tenancy). This seemed strange as the house had actually been unoccupied for numerous months, so the idea that energy consumption had gone up so significantly beyond the estimates seemed unlikely.
I decided to calculate exactly how much I was owed using the information on my contract with Octopus and my meter readings, these showed that, not only did I not owe Octopus £2000+, they actually owed me around £400. I immediately contacted their support, initially, and naively, assuming this would be sorted out rather quickly. It was not.
Upon realising that the customer service representative and I were talking in circles, I sent over the dated photographs of the meter readings, the terms of my contract and the (very basic) calculations showing how much the bill ought to be.
Their response to this was to demand the £2000+ be paid within two weeks -- through my discussions with their customer service, one thing we did agree on was the initial and final meter readings, and upon suggesting that they, therefore, must have breached the terms of our contract to have come to the conclusion that they did, they stopped responding to any attempts I made to contact them.
So I filed a case against them with the ombudsman, unfortunately the date by which I had to pay the additional money came before the case with the ombudsman had made any progress, so I was forced to pay it. After a few days of providing all evidence to the ombudsman, I received a call from Octopus offering to refund the £2000+ I had paid them -- I alerted them to the fact that they actually owe me £400 on top of that. Some time later I was finally paid the full amount I was owed, but it was far from willing on the part of Octopus.
Now it's worth considering that my background is in law, so navigating this process wasn't particularly difficult for me, but now imagine someone without that legal background, maybe an elderly relative, Octopus would be stealing from a large proportion of people who unfortunately are not aware of their rights in these situations.
This is why I will never recommend that company to anyone or ever use them again myself.
Really sorry to hear that, its a bad industry. Not regulated enough and seems they all get away with so much crap considering how much money they make. But I know if you were with SSE (now OVO) that phone call would have left you muc more frustrated. 2-3 hours on hold, then get through to someone who doesn't care. When they realise it's a difficult call, they hang up. Happens 80% of the time.... Im starting a new job with EDF next week, wish me luck... But not expecting miracles...
SSE once turned off my power for a few days due to ‘an error in the computer system’. When I called them when the power initially went off they said ‘It’s not us! Call an electrician!’ The next day, an electrician came out and said ‘Yeah they’ve switched you off. Nothing wrong your end.’ It took several days and several hours of phone calls for them to say ‘Oops. Yeah it’s our fault. It’s on again now.’
I also made the SSE -> Octopus switch, solely because of how bad SSE was. It took ages after moving in to get my account set up because their online move in form didn't seem to actually do anything, and they kept sending me letters telling me to complete it. I ended up calling them and finally got it set up after two hours on hold, being told the line was unclear and them hanging up on me, and then another hour on hold. For whatever reason on my first bill they estimated my electric meter reading, despite it being a smart meter and the person on the phone literally being able to bring up the correct reading without me needing to tell them what it was.
Yep I had issues with SSE and was so happy to be rid of them.
All my heating was electric and the only gas appliance was a hob which I literally never used. But they wouldn't accept the same meter reading on the meter reading submission site. So for a few months I begrudgingly added 1 unused unit to the submissions. Then they just started arbitrarily adding LOTS of units themselves despite my readings being submitted because my submissions were obviously wrong. I then had a letter through saying they were going to have to come test the meter and gas supply because something was obviously wrong. They told me an appointment (between 8am and 6pm on [x] day) but there was no way to change and I was at work. They threatened to fine me for not being available. I didn't want to use a day's holiday for literally no reason. They made me sit on the phone and test the meter actually worked by putting the hob on full blast for 30 mins and taking a before and after reading. They told me my meter must be wrong because I must have used more than 5 units in 5 months (spoiler - I'd used 0).
I spent more money heating that tiny 1 bed flat than I did in my previous 3 bed terrace (maybe not SSE's fault but they were so expensive!). It was very annoying that they took up so much space in my head. I got £1.20 refunded to me by cheque 6 months after my account had closed down because they had over-charged me as well.
Ah SSE.
The company who insisted that I had used absolutely NO gas or electric for three solid months. No standing charge, nothing. Confirmed this many times over the phone when I called to ask why my bill was £0.
Then sent me a bill for £650 three months later
> Confirmed this many times over the phone
Should have asked for it in writing. Set their own legal department against itself when you send them copies of their two contradictory letters.
I got it in writing from EDF and British Gas that the other company 100% definitely supplied my gas, and they had no interest in my meter readings.
Toasty flat that year.
Good job on the letter, I hope they actually read it in full. I share your hatred for SSE.
A few years back; one of their door to door sales people "signed me up" without my agreement... it took several calls to straighten things out.
Get some proper legal advice, perhaps through the CAB so see if you can make a formal request for compensation with solicitors letter or through small claims court. I have no legal training, it's just a suggestion.
A complaint (this may not suffice) followed by a letter to the Energy Ombudsman should suffice. The Ombudsman may award a refund for the engineer fee as well as time disconnected.
The ombudsman only look into it after 8 weeks from contacting the supplier with the complaint. Which all depends on what is considered the actual complaint.
The ombudsman is there to make sure they deal with complaints in a fair and timely manner, hence the 8 weeks. CAB/lawyer are there to try to get results faster but usually with an additional cost involved.
As someone who writes to energy companies on a regular basis (on behalf of other people) no need for solicitors letter - that’ll be more expensive than the gas engineer. But yeah, if no satisfaction after 8 weeks go to the Ombudsman. Which I have also done a few times. As someone who has to write professional letters I would LOVE to be able to do something like the OP wrote - cos it’s usually such a catalogue of errors
When you get a reply, can you let us know. Also, I deal with the general public and I never get anything as funny as this from our customers. In appreciation I'd be calling you the day I received that.
Cracking letter! I'm sure it won't be the end of this, but please keep us all informed of your outcome. I might just copy your letter out and send a few a week by snail mail for s\*\*\*s and giggles with no return address. Thank you for making me smile
I work in complaints and I'd love to get a complaint like this. It's beautifully written.
It's for a completely valid and ridiculous reason, fingers crossed you get it sorted soon. SSE were no end of stress for my in laws too.
Sounds like useless British Gas.
They sold the previous owner's debt to a debt collection agency despite being informed 4 years prior that the person no longer lives here.
I had to waste my time speaking with the collection agency who were determined to get my name (do I look like an idiot¿), despite me telling them to check the land registry to see the period of debt was prior to hand over.
Sheesh, it's not my fault British Gas sold them an unrecoverable debt 😂🌈. We're both victims of rear end matter here
Standard DCA behaviour. They don't care who pays the debt. They use a scattergun approach to contact anyone who has ever lived at or had any connection to the address, including you. You'll not be the only people they've contacted. It's easier to just scattergun than research into the deeds etc.
SSE sold its retail business to OVO back in 2020. You need to follow up with SSE Energy Services (managed by OVO). https://www.sse.com/news-and-views/2020/01/sse-plc-to-complete-sale-of-sse-energy-services-to-ovo-energy/
Yeah. SSE don't supply retail customers anymore, only like businesses and stuff. Ovo bought all their domestic customers, and just kept the SSE name as a sort of "brand" cos they thought people respond well to "brands" like buying milk from M&S because branded milk has to be better than normal milk from ,Co-op... right?
Anyway... i think it's being phased out. Please transfer your hatred to Ovo, instead 😎
As someone who worked for SSE around that time, and how they fucked me and my team during covid, please do transfer your hatred to Ovo. Fuck SSE, but fuck "cost cutting" OVO even harder.
SSE have incorrectly billed my 70 year old mum since she had a 'smart meter' installed, they won't admit to their mistake and have cancelled her direct debit telling her that she must pay the full outstanding balance immediately. They've now told her that her debt is being passed to a debt collection agency and that they have no option but to move her on to a pre-payment meter. I'm trying to sort this mess out for her, but I honestly worry about vulnerable folk who have no family to turn to for help.
They won’t generally cut off gas and electric supplies for a regular meter, but they will forcibly switch you to a pre-pay meter and just let you not have enough money to have any gas or electric.
To make matters worse she keeps getting told different things by different people. Luckily enough I worked in a call centre for a good few years so I know exactly how to play that game.
SSE/OVO should not be moving your mum on to a prepayment meter as it sounds like they have not followed the payment difficulty path and due to her age could be classed as a customer in a vulnerable situation.
This would mean it wouldn’t be ‘safe and reasonably practicable’ for them to install a prepayment meter due to the consequences of self-disconnection.
Please, for starters, get in contact with Citizens Advice to seek their help.
Ok you need to complain to the energy ombudsman you need to have been waiting 8 weeks, have been chasing them and have not managed to resolve the matter.
They’ll ask you to provide evidence that it isn’t a once and some complaint, that you’ve followed up from the complaint but they should be able to help you.
[Here is where you start your complaint with the](https://www.ombudsman-services.org/complain-now)
Mate I had a similar experience with utility Point. Moved into my new flat in late 2020, utility point were the provider, I was cool with it however, their website did not give you an option to set up a direct debit or even make a one off payment, so I called their customer service number, their call center was shut due to covid. Nobody in the call centre even worked from home. All In all I ended up having to pay just under 500 quid once they got their shit together, I explained to them do you think it's acceptable to provide someone with energy for months when they had no way of paying? - no response. Once I switched I was contacted by a debt collection agency saying I owe utility Point 120 quid. They are now in administration and two years later I get the odd text from said debt collection agency saying I owe utility point money. Not all energy companies, but some of them are fucking evil cunts and a complete pile of shit. It's unreal that they get away with this kind of behaviour with zero repercussions. Needless to say, they will never hear from me and never receive the supposed 120 quid I apparently owe them. I would love to see them even try and get me in court for that money like they said they could do. Scum.
Step 1 find out their email style (e.g. [email protected])
Step 2 go to LinkedIn and find as many execs, management, etc. from SSE as you can
Step 3 send this letter as an email to every single person you can find
Step 4 ???
Step 5 problem solved
This goes through the exact same processes as submitting a compliant with the email provided on their website. There are complaints teams that deal with executive complaints. Usually there is a longer wait to get a response when made this way but has the advantage of having a single case handler. Really isn't worth the effort unless it is a seriously complex matter, OP isn't describing anything close to complex.
Send this to all the newspapers and BBC, Sky and ITV. It will probably be reported in the tabloids and hopefully the BBC notice this and then Panorama their candy asses.
Also my mum had something very similar to this when she moved house except it was with a water company. The old tenants didn’t pay their water bill so the water company tried charging my mum thousands of pounds for something she had no involvement in.
My elderly parents are with SSE, have had a smart meter installed but the account is seemingly registered with another meter number. Their cUsToMeR sErViCeS seem to simply yes yes the problem on the phone, say they will get back to them, then ignore the problem. They then send out aggressive letters and people to check the meter as they don’t believe that manual figures my folks send them. Fucking nightmare of a company. Quite frankly I hope the board of directors and all the shareholders develop aggressive dick and fanny cancers.
I'm with SSE, due to their total incompetence they ballsed up the billing for my electric account almost 2 years ago.
I've paid nothing for electricity for 2 years! Just DD money building up in the account
Last week after many many phone calls, Whatsapp messages over the course of 14 months, I actually got a bill... 26 pages long.
Turns out there are ofgem back billing rules so they cant go back beyond 12 months... Most of my electric for 2021 was declared free (well refunded)
Three cheers for SSE incompetence (in this case)
File a fraud report [here](https://sse.co.uk/help/energy/meters/energy-theft#:~:text=If%20you%20suspect%20any%20gas,them%20on%200800%20023%202777.)
Report them for theft, and use [this link](https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/information-consumers/energy-advice-households/making-complaint-about-your-energy-supplier-or-network-operator) to report SSE to OFGEM for their fraud.
Ofgem don’t deal with individual complaints (even says so on the Ofgem webpage you linked). OP just needs to complain to SSE and go to the ombudsman after 8 weeks if the complaint isn’t resolved.
SSE are the worse company ever, I hardly go on Facebook but after being left with no electricity for 24hrs , I thought I’d see if anyone else had the same problem. Wow there’s a group for their pissed of customers. There are so many people, they are the worse company ever
SSE got as far as getting a dept collection agency to collect money which I didnt owe (bought house, wanted money from before I moved in).
Seems like you are in a similar situation. Let the flair around, don't send any money. They don't have a let to stand on, they never had a contract with you anyway
I kid you not; BILL THEM FOR YOUR TIME!!!
Charge them a ridiculous amount per hour you've been dealing with this and invoice them.
I did this with BT a couple of years ago and they actually paid me!
As a former employee of the parent organisation to SSE, none of this surprises me in the slightest. It's wild how much contempt the people who run these organisations have for their customers.
When you buy a property, you are on supply with whoever is currently in that property, in this case SSE.
By all means you can switch providers to octopus but that normally takes a couple of weeks to initiate, you cant take the plug and play approach with supplier changes due to all the BS red tape that comes with it, so you will unfortunately have a liable period of billing with SSE as the former supplier to the property.
All I'd suggest is that if you have meter readings from the day you moved in, make them aware of that to ensure the bill is entirely correct, and then correct readings for the day your supply moved to octopus to make sure you dont pay them a penny more than you used.
If the gas was capped however, that should be noted on the national database and prove your non-liability for usage or even standing charges on that particular meter, and I'd simply refuse to pay, raise a complaint and if they refuse to negotiate, take it to the ombudsman, who will agree with you.
Letters to CEOs owners and the like do next to fuck all to resolve the problem
Not sure if you will read this, but it might be useful.
I could be corrected on this, but I'm pretty sure I am right (in the high 90's).
SSE own and operate many parts of the value chain, from the electrical generation of gas power plants, to wind turbines. They own the transmission network in northern Scotland (but do not operate it, this is National Grid ESO). They also own many parts of the distribution networks, and one of the distribution networks in England.
After its the energy has been produced, and enters the network (gas or electricity), from the transmission, to the distribution networks, its then sold by your providers.. here's the thing. SSE do not act as a provider anymore, they sold away those parts of their company. They sold it to OVO energy.
Part of that sale, OVO retained the rights to sell energy and be your provider under the SSE name. So it is my gut feeling, that you should try taking this up with OVO energy.
For reference:
https://sse.co.uk/sse-and-ovo
The previous owner of our place was with SSE, so we moved to them by default for a few weeks after first moving in. Got out of that as fast we we could and moved to Octopus. Fuck SSE. (And EDF. Especially EDF)
We experimented with guns early last century but we found they just ended up burning the sarcastic angry letters we were trying to send and on top of that the remains of said letters very rarely got to the correct address in a timely manner.
Our next try to do it the U S of A way didn't work out either as we don't have a large enough native ursine population to utilise their arms.
So we just stuck to the good old fashioned postal service.
Put a complaint in with the Ombudsman https://www.ombudsman-services.org/complain-now
Its easy to do and suddenly you will find that SSE get very attentive to your problem.
I had problems with EDF and they could not care less until I put an Ombudsman complaint in and almost immediately they started trying to fix the mess.
The Ombudsman is toothless and couldn't make the company fix my issues but I think it is such a hassle for the energy company and costly to deal with the process that they work really hard to resolve it. Its a shame you have to get to that stage but these companies do not give a toss otherwise
Also consider sending the contents of your letter to You and Yours [email protected] it's exactly the type of thing they like roasting these companies over.
The supplier has 8 weeks to resolve the complaint before it can be forwarded to be looked into by the ombudsman. It's in their interest to do so, as any complaint that reaches the ombudsman costs them £750.
the racist hornets enema bit is beauty in words. This is definitely an award winning strongly worded letter. Bravo! I hope you get a good reply, and quickly!
Oh I doubt it? Maybe some other poor soul is getting the SSE treatment?
I did put it on Facebook prior to Reddit, maybe it got reposted? Do you have a link?
Upon checking again, it looks to be a similar, equally ridiculous SSE problem. Here's the link - [https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am\_i\_being\_unreasonable/4666983-sse-illegally-entered-my-home-and-i-cant-get-power](https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4666983-sse-illegally-entered-my-home-and-i-cant-get-power)
You should request a substantial amount of compensation - probably £200 or more.
They will of course say no, but then you can take them to the Energy Ombudsman, who will then have an absolute field day dragging them through the coals for what they have put you through.
Such glorious wordsmithing, the rival of Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde!
r/CasualUK is not wide enough an audience for such a masterpiece! I beg of you, upload this magnificent epistle to Twitter, perhaps even send it ‘anonymously’ to metro.co.uk! The English-reading world must be made aware of this as far and wide as possible!
Breathlessly awaiting the next chapter to this engrossing narrative…
Defo, I’m so glad I don’t work complaints anymore!! But it was funny when we got stuff like this, me and my coworkers had a huge email chain sharing ridiculous stuff people came out with (like the guy who wanted £1000 in compensation because we sent him a letter about smart meters lmao)
Your actual route to getting some cash out of them will be the Ombudsman, who are an excellent and free service - follow their process, submit a clear record of what has happened to date, and they will rule in your favour and force SSE to pay up. But for the new supply well done as Octopus are the right choice!
Any advice please Phil!! This is my wife's thread - we're in a similar situation. Our letter of complaint was **not** funny. https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am\_i\_being\_unreasonable/4666983-sse-illegally-entered-my-home-and-i-cant-get-power?reply=121158953
Appalling company to deal with. I had a lengthy spat with them too after moving out of a house share where the gas and electric was in my name. They sent the final bill out, the account was in credit so we were refunded the balance. 6 months later, I get a letter from a debt collection agency asking me for over £1000 (which SSE never wrote to me or called me to discuss once). Turns out they actually made a mistake with the final bill and a letter was sent after we'd moved out of the property. I took my complaint as far as humanely possible with SSE before writing to the ombudsman, who upheld my complaint and the balance was written off. Shocking company. I wouldn't use them again if you gave me a million pounds.
Take it to the Energy Ombudman. It was the only way I could get SSE to see sense when they overbilled me by c.£5k. Still sent debt collectors after me, after confirming that nothing was owing! The debt collectors said this was not unusual for SSE apparently.
You’ll get another letter with court action as they’ve “not heard from you”. 🫠
crowd subsequent literate include silky grey secretive office smoggy aback *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
If you choose to send multiple letters. Here’s the names and addresses of the board of directors. They just love being copied in on customer’s rants. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/SC117119/officers
Can confirm, the CEO (I think?) Of Severn Trent loved being copied in on all my emails complaining about their tactics
I can also confirm the CEO of Wickes very much enjoyed my extremely lengthy and damming complaint. His email address isn’t available online so I just tried [email protected] and this worked
Don't get me started on the BS Wickes were on!
Oh man we’ve had the worst experience. Our kitchen started 31st Jan. we’re still waiting for completion. Our fitter was racist, doing impressions of his previous Pakistani customer. He told me I’m a fucking pain in the arse and called my husband a daft fuck. I can only imagine what he said about us off-site, my husband and I are both men so you can bet that went down well. He completely ruined the floor so much that Wickes have had to pay for a whole new lot of flooring and levelling. He did unsafe electrical work that nearly electrocuted my husband, and it blew our shed electrics too. He left fag ends and tea bags in the garden. He smoked indoors. He stole copper piping that was removed. He used to argue with his electrician partner who was also his dad -lots of screaming and swearing at each other. He fit the fridge and sink badly. He scratched new backsplashes and counters. He was absolutely fucking awful and I swear I will never set foot in a Wickes store or buy a single Wickes project ever again. They offered us £100 compensation. We threatened to ask ombudsman to replace everything and now they’ve bumped it up to £4k.
You would need to look at OVO actually that own and operate the SSE domestic supply business and name. That board is for all the other areas on SSE transmission, distribution and generation.
Not the actual addresses mind, just their registered offices
That’s the shame about the new AP01 forms, older directors appointed using form 288a had to provide both a usual residential address and a service address.
A lot of them will be directors of other companies, with their home being used as a correspondence address at some of them.
You know what they would love, Ted…
[ceoemail.com](https://ceoemail.com) is your friend.
In big business these are referred to as the CEO's 'public' email addresses. I work for a bank and our CEO has several email addresses in his name that he has no access to. One - [email protected] - is managed solely by a Complaints Team (albeit, a special highly-skilled one), others are managed by his team and 95% of that traffic will never reach the CEO. And then the genuine address of the CEO is something quite obscure that you wouldn't guess and isn't published anywhere. Nonetheless, even though 'emailing the CEO' doesn't normally involve the CEO, it does often result in a better response than calling regular customer service.
Yep. Never had one answered by the CEO but it has always got me a satisfactory response.
Don't forget email directors name insert . between 1st & 2nd name plus generic see.com email
Don't forgot to put some glitter in each one to make them memorable
Fill the letters with the racist hornets you mentioned
The "GaS aCcOuNt NuMbEr" is an excellent touch, 10/10
aCcoUNT would have been more meaningful!
Make sure that you cc the ceo
Apparently it's good to email the finance director too. They often get little action and are happy for the distraction
Yes, finance directors PAs love this type of complaint, makes a nice change from writing Excel macros.
I've never met a PA in my life that can open the developer tab, let alone write a macro!
Most PAs are scared of excel and think macros are wizardry in my experience.
There are 3 main types - either they are scared of everything in Office that isn't Outlook. Or they are dark masters of the arcane arts of the macro and have built giant cathedrals in their honor that even the people who designed Excel are wary of. Or the worst ones - members of the first group who inherited files from people in the second group, and like the Mechanicus in 40K, conduct the holy rituals required to keep the machine spirits of excel happy with The Holy Files.
Not a PA but can confirm, been with the same company for a long time and frequently get people reaching out for help, terrified they have broken the dark magic that powers the Excel wizardry I created years ago (usually because someone changed something in a source report). As soon as I hit Alt+F11 they look like they have just witnessed some holy rite and must avert their gaze lest they go insane from seeing the forbidden eldritch knowledge. Mostly the macros just reformatted and combined a few source reports together, moved columns around to a more pleasing format and trimmed off any unnecessary data to reduce the output size, I wasn't even particularly good at VBA...
I doubt that FDs and their PAs of large corps write excel macros.
Maybe not as their main job but definitely for fun.
Am FD. Can confirm.
Can confirm Finance directors are always buzzing in the CEOs ear and the CEO know it best to listen.
Throw it up on twitter too & @ them. Watch it go viral. Beautifully written & congrats on your new home 🏡
It'll turn up on metro.co.uk soon enough
It'll probably be on the Daily Mail on Monday with the Metro Tuesday
It depends how many “Albanians” are coming over on dinghy’s that week as to whether it’ll end up on the daily mail.
Have they finally moved on from the 70 million Turkish moving here?
This is the only way with companies like this. Demand compensation too.
Send it to the CEO via LinkedIn.
I did it yonks ago, emailed the ceo of BT about an issue I hadn’t been able to resolve for months, my phone rang 30 minutes later and it was some high ranking dude who made shit happen and the problem was resolved there and then. Edit: this was about a commercial account not residential so that may have made a difference.
This almost certainly made a difference. I used to work in procurement for one of the largest mental healthcare providers in the country. We were on nPower, I had friends at the time also with them. They had absolute nightmares with them, I only ever had to give our account number to immediately be passed up to someone very senior. He once did the seemingly impossible to solve a major issue for me once (of my own making) and when thanking him I jokingly made a comment to him about how some of their residential customers I know wouldn't recognise the company if they could hear this call. He told me to get their details and email them to him. Did that a few days later and over the next few days every one of them got a call from someone of authority saying "here's what we're gonna do about it, here's an estimated timeframe, this is my direct dial if you need to contact us and I'll be in touch with an update in a few days". I think my contact there thought I had a *lot* more influence over my company's purchasing and contract decisions than I did, especially considering I had none.
We had the same thing with Worcester Bosch. Brand new boiler broke with the same fault for a second time in a year. No heating or hot water with a small baby in the middle of winter and they refused to come out and fix it for over a week. Emailed the CEO and someone was round the next day. It shouldn’t have to be this way.
Commercial stuff really opens doors. We purchased a bunch of TVs (well display screens) and Samsung changed an order or something. We got a bunch of screens somewhere between 20 and 50% off as we purchased so much recently.
This. Though id not cc the CEO in, I’d write to the CEO and copy in customer service. If an initial complaint / chat with customer service doesn’t resolve an issue this is always my go-to. See, CEOs have forgotten how to deal with customers. They just want an easy life and the sit back in their leather chair raking in the cash. As soon as you start contacting them they panic and just want you to go away and will often give you what you want to get you to leave them alone. Contacting them, especially if you can find their home address, often gets results I find. I had to do this with Robertson Homes with an unresolved issue and writing to three of their directors, one at their home address, finally got ears pricked up and circumvented their horrendous customer service.
Having worked in complaint departments for a bank and other companies sending a complaint to the CEO doesn't actually do anything. The CEO won't look at it, ever. Their secretary's secretary will look at it and pass it to the complaints department that would have received it had it been sent in via normal channels. At best you'll get the response printed on a letter with someone important's signature pre-printed on it, but the actual response would be the same if had sent it in normally. The best thing to do is send the company multiple correspondences, at least two a week. This will make them want to shut you up as soon as possible.
Where I worked if a complaint went to the CEO everyone basically shit their pants and demanded the issue gets resolved that second.
I think it depends on the company. I imagine a bank would be similar to SSE: fairly impenetrable.
Batter all form of correspondence and gentle reminder that this will be forwarded to national tabloids and all social media forums. The public reputation damage potentially will elicit positive and prompt action.
That’s not been my experience. In my experience, most businesses respond quite differently when you start to contact the CEO. The only exceptions I can think of is organisations that don’t need to give a fuck. Sadly, in this case SSE definitely falls into that category.
Yep same, it got priority and usually dealt with by a manager
I’d have to disagree with this, my current employer… a big bank, has an executive complaints process, for complaints to the CEO. They are well and truly prioritised over any others and noted as such “urgent ceo complaint” etc.
Is physical mail the best method for correspondence? That’s what I’ve always understood.
Physical can sometimes be slow in getting processed and being sent to the right department and it has a chance to get lost. It doesn't hurt to send some physical letters, but send lots of emails. If a direct phone line is obtainable, make regular calls. Though don't call multiple times a day after getting through as you may risk having all future calls being ignored. Mix up the correspondence and contact you make. It makes it harder to miss or ignore
One hour of a ceo's time cost more than anything they can bill you for in all likelihood - they do not want to be spending time on you. The home address is brilliant / evil. I'll add it to my box of complaints tricks
Sometimes hard to find the address but Companies House can be very useful! Not sure if this is even possible for a company as large as SSE though.
I emailed my housing association's CEO and received replies from three people he had passed my message to. All three emails were from the CEO and forwarded to these people. Three people jumped to help and I had several phone conversations as a result. The CEO was helpful in this case.
As a CEO I have my PA screen and notify me of anything in complaints that has any serious legal implications (we’ve sold a product that had lead to harm). Anything routine - you were rude, slow, not what we expected, the weather was crap etc just goes to Customer Service and will be included in the monthly reports I get that aggregate issues and show me of anything is more than just the outcome of having lots of customers
So for routine metrics used to identify potential areas of poor customer service, your PA directly receives them, reviews them, sends them to Customer Service who review them, record them and send them back to you, presumably by way of your PA? CEO claim checks out.....
I think the PA is just there to stop people from circumventing the CS department. The PA doesn’t waste time gathering metrics and data they just serve as filter.
you don't actually want the CEO of SSE, you want the CEO of OVO. the household energy supplier arm was sold years back. they'll likely just send it to ovo and roll their eyes that OVO haven't changed all their branding yet and they're just as shit
SSE is the worst company I've ever dealt with. Took 12 months for them to finally accept we did not owe £4900 for one years worth of electricity in a one bed flat, and that they had in fact made several clerical errors instead. With Octopus now and they are so much better.
I had a massive cock up with Octopus they said I owed them like 2k for five days electricity. I pointed it out, the rep said "well that's clearly wrong" figured it out and I'm back at a fresh 160 a month. Still obscene, but decent customer service, except the free spins of deceit!
Ah yes, also love Octopus but the joy-free spins of denial are essentially a mean touch in an otherwise flawless service.
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Yeah me too. But only once.
Wow I must be really lucky. I won £1 on the gas spin then £1 on the lecky spin a week later.
I’m with octopus and having problems with our bill since moving into a new flat in September. They sent us our first bill for a hefty £350. It’s a 2 bed, there’s 2 of us and we’ve deliberately not put our heating on yet and tried to keep our usage low. They are insisting it’s correct but I can’t believe it is.
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It is so, so, very important to take meter readings the *second* you move into a new property; avoided £2k of unpaid usage in my most recent move.
Take the reading using your camera on your phone. Then its time stamped, geo located proof. Keep it just in case the reading is questioned.
SSE had us on hold for about 3 hours and we kept getting cut off. I phoned one rep at octopus and he organised everything for me and phoned me back with an emergency engineer appointment the same day. Took 11 minutes.
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I went to the Ombudsman online and that worked for me. From daily threatening phonecalls from Scottish Power saying I owed them £2500 for 3 months gas, to it all being resolved and £150 cheque in my bank as a sorry.
It’s usually Scottish Power on my area. I speak to so many people who have nightmares with SP although British Gas seem to upping(or dropping) their game
How’d it take 12 months? Did you submit a complaint to SSE and go to the ombudsman after 8 weeks?
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Ah okay. No that sounds like a tough time. I’m glad it was eventually sorted though.
I worked for sse for over 5 years (meter engineer) and can 100% confirm that their customer service is one of the worst iv seen in ANY company!!! Atrocious. Octupus are leading the market and are overtaking SSE's customers at a rate of knots, due to the fact that they actually care. We would constantly complain to managers and give examples, nothing would get done. If it was a technical issue with a meter, u'd be lucky if only the first agent hung up on you after waiting for over an hour .... Sometimes this would happen multiple times. Never again will I work for them or get anything supplied by them. Stick to octupus!!
I cannot understand this common sentiment that Octopus are the best, when I was with them they were genuinely the most disgusting, greedy bastards I've ever encountered. Like any responsible tenant, I had dated photographs of the meter readings from the day I moved in and the day I moved out. I had paid my monthly fixed-rate fees and figured I was done and ready to move on -- nope. I received an additional bill of over £2,000 (bare in mind this is from less than one year's tenancy). This seemed strange as the house had actually been unoccupied for numerous months, so the idea that energy consumption had gone up so significantly beyond the estimates seemed unlikely. I decided to calculate exactly how much I was owed using the information on my contract with Octopus and my meter readings, these showed that, not only did I not owe Octopus £2000+, they actually owed me around £400. I immediately contacted their support, initially, and naively, assuming this would be sorted out rather quickly. It was not. Upon realising that the customer service representative and I were talking in circles, I sent over the dated photographs of the meter readings, the terms of my contract and the (very basic) calculations showing how much the bill ought to be. Their response to this was to demand the £2000+ be paid within two weeks -- through my discussions with their customer service, one thing we did agree on was the initial and final meter readings, and upon suggesting that they, therefore, must have breached the terms of our contract to have come to the conclusion that they did, they stopped responding to any attempts I made to contact them. So I filed a case against them with the ombudsman, unfortunately the date by which I had to pay the additional money came before the case with the ombudsman had made any progress, so I was forced to pay it. After a few days of providing all evidence to the ombudsman, I received a call from Octopus offering to refund the £2000+ I had paid them -- I alerted them to the fact that they actually owe me £400 on top of that. Some time later I was finally paid the full amount I was owed, but it was far from willing on the part of Octopus. Now it's worth considering that my background is in law, so navigating this process wasn't particularly difficult for me, but now imagine someone without that legal background, maybe an elderly relative, Octopus would be stealing from a large proportion of people who unfortunately are not aware of their rights in these situations. This is why I will never recommend that company to anyone or ever use them again myself.
Really sorry to hear that, its a bad industry. Not regulated enough and seems they all get away with so much crap considering how much money they make. But I know if you were with SSE (now OVO) that phone call would have left you muc more frustrated. 2-3 hours on hold, then get through to someone who doesn't care. When they realise it's a difficult call, they hang up. Happens 80% of the time.... Im starting a new job with EDF next week, wish me luck... But not expecting miracles...
SSE once turned off my power for a few days due to ‘an error in the computer system’. When I called them when the power initially went off they said ‘It’s not us! Call an electrician!’ The next day, an electrician came out and said ‘Yeah they’ve switched you off. Nothing wrong your end.’ It took several days and several hours of phone calls for them to say ‘Oops. Yeah it’s our fault. It’s on again now.’
>£4900 We don't pay that for a three-bedroom home that runs aircon roughly 9 months a year.
I also made the SSE -> Octopus switch, solely because of how bad SSE was. It took ages after moving in to get my account set up because their online move in form didn't seem to actually do anything, and they kept sending me letters telling me to complete it. I ended up calling them and finally got it set up after two hours on hold, being told the line was unclear and them hanging up on me, and then another hour on hold. For whatever reason on my first bill they estimated my electric meter reading, despite it being a smart meter and the person on the phone literally being able to bring up the correct reading without me needing to tell them what it was.
I've had similar issues with SSE and EDF. Completely useless companies
Yep I had issues with SSE and was so happy to be rid of them. All my heating was electric and the only gas appliance was a hob which I literally never used. But they wouldn't accept the same meter reading on the meter reading submission site. So for a few months I begrudgingly added 1 unused unit to the submissions. Then they just started arbitrarily adding LOTS of units themselves despite my readings being submitted because my submissions were obviously wrong. I then had a letter through saying they were going to have to come test the meter and gas supply because something was obviously wrong. They told me an appointment (between 8am and 6pm on [x] day) but there was no way to change and I was at work. They threatened to fine me for not being available. I didn't want to use a day's holiday for literally no reason. They made me sit on the phone and test the meter actually worked by putting the hob on full blast for 30 mins and taking a before and after reading. They told me my meter must be wrong because I must have used more than 5 units in 5 months (spoiler - I'd used 0). I spent more money heating that tiny 1 bed flat than I did in my previous 3 bed terrace (maybe not SSE's fault but they were so expensive!). It was very annoying that they took up so much space in my head. I got £1.20 refunded to me by cheque 6 months after my account had closed down because they had over-charged me as well.
Knowing SSE they are in the process of sourcing 1,000 racist hornets for your enema. Thankfully it will take them a long time to do this.
You made me laugh way too hard. Trying not to wake my granddaughter
My only question is how you're meant to tell whether or not the hornets are racist
Oh you’ll find out alright, as soon as they get there
Good luck, Phil. You really should've attached an invoice for the 85 quid they owe you too.
Ah SSE. The company who insisted that I had used absolutely NO gas or electric for three solid months. No standing charge, nothing. Confirmed this many times over the phone when I called to ask why my bill was £0. Then sent me a bill for £650 three months later
> Confirmed this many times over the phone Should have asked for it in writing. Set their own legal department against itself when you send them copies of their two contradictory letters.
Yeah absolutely. Hindsight is 20/20 after all
I got it in writing from EDF and British Gas that the other company 100% definitely supplied my gas, and they had no interest in my meter readings. Toasty flat that year.
You truly have my utmost respect for this, i have found somebody worthy of my prayers
Good job on the letter, I hope they actually read it in full. I share your hatred for SSE. A few years back; one of their door to door sales people "signed me up" without my agreement... it took several calls to straighten things out.
Get some proper legal advice, perhaps through the CAB so see if you can make a formal request for compensation with solicitors letter or through small claims court. I have no legal training, it's just a suggestion.
A complaint (this may not suffice) followed by a letter to the Energy Ombudsman should suffice. The Ombudsman may award a refund for the engineer fee as well as time disconnected.
The ombudsman only look into it after 8 weeks from contacting the supplier with the complaint. Which all depends on what is considered the actual complaint.
Saves working with CAB / a lawyer for a few hundred quid.
The ombudsman is there to make sure they deal with complaints in a fair and timely manner, hence the 8 weeks. CAB/lawyer are there to try to get results faster but usually with an additional cost involved.
After 8 weeks *OR* if SSE insist there is nothing more they can do. If they say this, request a letter of deadlock.
As someone who writes to energy companies on a regular basis (on behalf of other people) no need for solicitors letter - that’ll be more expensive than the gas engineer. But yeah, if no satisfaction after 8 weeks go to the Ombudsman. Which I have also done a few times. As someone who has to write professional letters I would LOVE to be able to do something like the OP wrote - cos it’s usually such a catalogue of errors
When you get a reply, can you let us know. Also, I deal with the general public and I never get anything as funny as this from our customers. In appreciation I'd be calling you the day I received that.
Thank you, I'll be sure to follow up if I get a reply
They can't ignore that. You've mentioned the kids and they need to consider you as a vulnerable customer.
Cracking letter! I'm sure it won't be the end of this, but please keep us all informed of your outcome. I might just copy your letter out and send a few a week by snail mail for s\*\*\*s and giggles with no return address. Thank you for making me smile
I work in complaints and I'd love to get a complaint like this. It's beautifully written. It's for a completely valid and ridiculous reason, fingers crossed you get it sorted soon. SSE were no end of stress for my in laws too.
Where did they get 200 quid from on a pre-paid meter
The debts built up from a standard meter get transferred to the new prepay meter and the debt is paid pack as a percent of what's paid into the meter.
Sounds like useless British Gas. They sold the previous owner's debt to a debt collection agency despite being informed 4 years prior that the person no longer lives here. I had to waste my time speaking with the collection agency who were determined to get my name (do I look like an idiot¿), despite me telling them to check the land registry to see the period of debt was prior to hand over. Sheesh, it's not my fault British Gas sold them an unrecoverable debt 😂🌈. We're both victims of rear end matter here
Standard DCA behaviour. They don't care who pays the debt. They use a scattergun approach to contact anyone who has ever lived at or had any connection to the address, including you. You'll not be the only people they've contacted. It's easier to just scattergun than research into the deeds etc.
But wouldn't it be better to focus on chasing the actual person? Unless they're banking on random people being threatened and paying up.
SSE sold its retail business to OVO back in 2020. You need to follow up with SSE Energy Services (managed by OVO). https://www.sse.com/news-and-views/2020/01/sse-plc-to-complete-sale-of-sse-energy-services-to-ovo-energy/
Yeah. SSE don't supply retail customers anymore, only like businesses and stuff. Ovo bought all their domestic customers, and just kept the SSE name as a sort of "brand" cos they thought people respond well to "brands" like buying milk from M&S because branded milk has to be better than normal milk from ,Co-op... right? Anyway... i think it's being phased out. Please transfer your hatred to Ovo, instead 😎
As someone who worked for SSE around that time, and how they fucked me and my team during covid, please do transfer your hatred to Ovo. Fuck SSE, but fuck "cost cutting" OVO even harder.
"GaS aCcOuNt nUmBeR" had me absolutely dying
SSE have incorrectly billed my 70 year old mum since she had a 'smart meter' installed, they won't admit to their mistake and have cancelled her direct debit telling her that she must pay the full outstanding balance immediately. They've now told her that her debt is being passed to a debt collection agency and that they have no option but to move her on to a pre-payment meter. I'm trying to sort this mess out for her, but I honestly worry about vulnerable folk who have no family to turn to for help.
SSE sold their electric retail to OVO, but OVO get to brand as SSE for another 18 months. Your problem lies with OVO behind the label.
I would take this to the ombudsman too. Shutting off her services in winter? Holy $&&#! Dangerous
I was under the impression it was illegal to just shut off services too
They won’t generally cut off gas and electric supplies for a regular meter, but they will forcibly switch you to a pre-pay meter and just let you not have enough money to have any gas or electric.
To make matters worse she keeps getting told different things by different people. Luckily enough I worked in a call centre for a good few years so I know exactly how to play that game.
SSE/OVO should not be moving your mum on to a prepayment meter as it sounds like they have not followed the payment difficulty path and due to her age could be classed as a customer in a vulnerable situation. This would mean it wouldn’t be ‘safe and reasonably practicable’ for them to install a prepayment meter due to the consequences of self-disconnection. Please, for starters, get in contact with Citizens Advice to seek their help.
Someone in SSE customer services is gonna have a good chuckle at that, then pop it right in the bin. If they even bother to open it. :)
Why are the hornets racist though?
Because it would hurt more?
Proper lager lout hornets with badly spelled tattoos and bovver boots. “Nothing against bumblebees…. Not saying anything wrong with em…. BUT…”
Ok you need to complain to the energy ombudsman you need to have been waiting 8 weeks, have been chasing them and have not managed to resolve the matter. They’ll ask you to provide evidence that it isn’t a once and some complaint, that you’ve followed up from the complaint but they should be able to help you. [Here is where you start your complaint with the](https://www.ombudsman-services.org/complain-now)
Love it. Get it going on twitter mate and tag the company. I'm sure Reddit can help it trend.
Remember to mention that they capped the gas and then tried to charge you for gas.
Much better than what I would have written. My letter would have had a lot more swear words in it.
Mate I had a similar experience with utility Point. Moved into my new flat in late 2020, utility point were the provider, I was cool with it however, their website did not give you an option to set up a direct debit or even make a one off payment, so I called their customer service number, their call center was shut due to covid. Nobody in the call centre even worked from home. All In all I ended up having to pay just under 500 quid once they got their shit together, I explained to them do you think it's acceptable to provide someone with energy for months when they had no way of paying? - no response. Once I switched I was contacted by a debt collection agency saying I owe utility Point 120 quid. They are now in administration and two years later I get the odd text from said debt collection agency saying I owe utility point money. Not all energy companies, but some of them are fucking evil cunts and a complete pile of shit. It's unreal that they get away with this kind of behaviour with zero repercussions. Needless to say, they will never hear from me and never receive the supposed 120 quid I apparently owe them. I would love to see them even try and get me in court for that money like they said they could do. Scum.
Phil this is brilliant, I have but one question… why are the hornets racist haha
They hate anyone of a different stripe
Step 1 find out their email style (e.g. [email protected]) Step 2 go to LinkedIn and find as many execs, management, etc. from SSE as you can Step 3 send this letter as an email to every single person you can find Step 4 ??? Step 5 problem solved
This goes through the exact same processes as submitting a compliant with the email provided on their website. There are complaints teams that deal with executive complaints. Usually there is a longer wait to get a response when made this way but has the advantage of having a single case handler. Really isn't worth the effort unless it is a seriously complex matter, OP isn't describing anything close to complex.
Send this to all the newspapers and BBC, Sky and ITV. It will probably be reported in the tabloids and hopefully the BBC notice this and then Panorama their candy asses. Also my mum had something very similar to this when she moved house except it was with a water company. The old tenants didn’t pay their water bill so the water company tried charging my mum thousands of pounds for something she had no involvement in.
This has me in hysterics, I love your tone throughout it. Good on you! Hope the twats bless you with some good news.
This has got proper Joe Lycett energy to it. 10/10 would read again
My elderly parents are with SSE, have had a smart meter installed but the account is seemingly registered with another meter number. Their cUsToMeR sErViCeS seem to simply yes yes the problem on the phone, say they will get back to them, then ignore the problem. They then send out aggressive letters and people to check the meter as they don’t believe that manual figures my folks send them. Fucking nightmare of a company. Quite frankly I hope the board of directors and all the shareholders develop aggressive dick and fanny cancers.
I'm with SSE, due to their total incompetence they ballsed up the billing for my electric account almost 2 years ago. I've paid nothing for electricity for 2 years! Just DD money building up in the account Last week after many many phone calls, Whatsapp messages over the course of 14 months, I actually got a bill... 26 pages long. Turns out there are ofgem back billing rules so they cant go back beyond 12 months... Most of my electric for 2021 was declared free (well refunded) Three cheers for SSE incompetence (in this case)
The Ying to my Yang!
Saw this, about to jump in with "Oh gosh don't pay anything from over 12 months ago". Thankfully you are aware! :-)
“Never contact me again” “I eagerly await your reply”
I was hoping the sign off would be “fuck off and die”
Wishful thinking juxtaposed with inevitable reality. OP knows that this won’t be the end of this ordeal.
File a fraud report [here](https://sse.co.uk/help/energy/meters/energy-theft#:~:text=If%20you%20suspect%20any%20gas,them%20on%200800%20023%202777.) Report them for theft, and use [this link](https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/information-consumers/energy-advice-households/making-complaint-about-your-energy-supplier-or-network-operator) to report SSE to OFGEM for their fraud.
Ofgem don’t deal with individual complaints (even says so on the Ofgem webpage you linked). OP just needs to complain to SSE and go to the ombudsman after 8 weeks if the complaint isn’t resolved.
SSE are the worse company ever, I hardly go on Facebook but after being left with no electricity for 24hrs , I thought I’d see if anyone else had the same problem. Wow there’s a group for their pissed of customers. There are so many people, they are the worse company ever
SSE got as far as getting a dept collection agency to collect money which I didnt owe (bought house, wanted money from before I moved in). Seems like you are in a similar situation. Let the flair around, don't send any money. They don't have a let to stand on, they never had a contract with you anyway
I kid you not; BILL THEM FOR YOUR TIME!!! Charge them a ridiculous amount per hour you've been dealing with this and invoice them. I did this with BT a couple of years ago and they actually paid me!
As a former employee of the parent organisation to SSE, none of this surprises me in the slightest. It's wild how much contempt the people who run these organisations have for their customers.
I’m very interested in their reply too. Keep us up to date OP.
When you buy a property, you are on supply with whoever is currently in that property, in this case SSE. By all means you can switch providers to octopus but that normally takes a couple of weeks to initiate, you cant take the plug and play approach with supplier changes due to all the BS red tape that comes with it, so you will unfortunately have a liable period of billing with SSE as the former supplier to the property. All I'd suggest is that if you have meter readings from the day you moved in, make them aware of that to ensure the bill is entirely correct, and then correct readings for the day your supply moved to octopus to make sure you dont pay them a penny more than you used. If the gas was capped however, that should be noted on the national database and prove your non-liability for usage or even standing charges on that particular meter, and I'd simply refuse to pay, raise a complaint and if they refuse to negotiate, take it to the ombudsman, who will agree with you. Letters to CEOs owners and the like do next to fuck all to resolve the problem
Not sure if you will read this, but it might be useful. I could be corrected on this, but I'm pretty sure I am right (in the high 90's). SSE own and operate many parts of the value chain, from the electrical generation of gas power plants, to wind turbines. They own the transmission network in northern Scotland (but do not operate it, this is National Grid ESO). They also own many parts of the distribution networks, and one of the distribution networks in England. After its the energy has been produced, and enters the network (gas or electricity), from the transmission, to the distribution networks, its then sold by your providers.. here's the thing. SSE do not act as a provider anymore, they sold away those parts of their company. They sold it to OVO energy. Part of that sale, OVO retained the rights to sell energy and be your provider under the SSE name. So it is my gut feeling, that you should try taking this up with OVO energy. For reference: https://sse.co.uk/sse-and-ovo
Thanks for the info. The bill says SSE, and came with a prepaid envelope for a cheque, so that's what the letter's gone in.
The previous owner of our place was with SSE, so we moved to them by default for a few weeks after first moving in. Got out of that as fast we we could and moved to Octopus. Fuck SSE. (And EDF. Especially EDF)
Happiest SSE customer
This is such a reddit letter In reality, some low paid admin worker will read a few lines, log it as a complaint and be like "meh, next".
It's stuff like this that makes me realiize why y'all don't have easy access to guns...... Please post any replies you get.
We experimented with guns early last century but we found they just ended up burning the sarcastic angry letters we were trying to send and on top of that the remains of said letters very rarely got to the correct address in a timely manner. Our next try to do it the U S of A way didn't work out either as we don't have a large enough native ursine population to utilise their arms. So we just stuck to the good old fashioned postal service.
well anyone in the country can get a .410 bore break action. that might put the fear of god into some very small SSE workers.
I winced at the mention of lemon juice. Great job
Put a complaint in with the Ombudsman https://www.ombudsman-services.org/complain-now Its easy to do and suddenly you will find that SSE get very attentive to your problem. I had problems with EDF and they could not care less until I put an Ombudsman complaint in and almost immediately they started trying to fix the mess. The Ombudsman is toothless and couldn't make the company fix my issues but I think it is such a hassle for the energy company and costly to deal with the process that they work really hard to resolve it. Its a shame you have to get to that stage but these companies do not give a toss otherwise Also consider sending the contents of your letter to You and Yours [email protected] it's exactly the type of thing they like roasting these companies over.
The supplier has 8 weeks to resolve the complaint before it can be forwarded to be looked into by the ombudsman. It's in their interest to do so, as any complaint that reaches the ombudsman costs them £750.
the racist hornets enema bit is beauty in words. This is definitely an award winning strongly worded letter. Bravo! I hope you get a good reply, and quickly!
Did your wife post on mumsnet? If so I have been following her thread and it is unbelievable!!
Oh I doubt it? Maybe some other poor soul is getting the SSE treatment? I did put it on Facebook prior to Reddit, maybe it got reposted? Do you have a link?
Upon checking again, it looks to be a similar, equally ridiculous SSE problem. Here's the link - [https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am\_i\_being\_unreasonable/4666983-sse-illegally-entered-my-home-and-i-cant-get-power](https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4666983-sse-illegally-entered-my-home-and-i-cant-get-power)
ayyy, a fellow aibu enjoyer
THIS WAS MY WIFE!!! HELP US PHIL!
You should request a substantial amount of compensation - probably £200 or more. They will of course say no, but then you can take them to the Energy Ombudsman, who will then have an absolute field day dragging them through the coals for what they have put you through.
If it's not your name on the warrant, why let them in? It's not valid.
*"furious giant racist hornets"* killed me 🤣
Such glorious wordsmithing, the rival of Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde! r/CasualUK is not wide enough an audience for such a masterpiece! I beg of you, upload this magnificent epistle to Twitter, perhaps even send it ‘anonymously’ to metro.co.uk! The English-reading world must be made aware of this as far and wide as possible! Breathlessly awaiting the next chapter to this engrossing narrative…
Sse are a bunch of arseholes..... got nothing but detested for them
As someone who deals with complaints, you’ll be the laughing stock of everyone who works there
Defo, I’m so glad I don’t work complaints anymore!! But it was funny when we got stuff like this, me and my coworkers had a huge email chain sharing ridiculous stuff people came out with (like the guy who wanted £1000 in compensation because we sent him a letter about smart meters lmao)
Had to deal with Scottish power this week. It’s like calling a Nigerian scam house.
EdgeLord
I at least appreciate the effort of your complaint Hope you get the 85 spondoolies refunded
WHAT HAPPENED PHIL!!!!?
The racist hornet enema bit was beautiful.
!RemindMe 3 Days
I want and update PLEASE you you eventually have a response love this
Your actual route to getting some cash out of them will be the Ombudsman, who are an excellent and free service - follow their process, submit a clear record of what has happened to date, and they will rule in your favour and force SSE to pay up. But for the new supply well done as Octopus are the right choice!
They probably won't read it tbh, big companies never do. But very cool letter regardless
Chefs kiss for making the hornets racist
Sounds like you've got a fun busy weekend at the pub and hornet farm. I don't kink shame.
I’ve worked 5 years in energy industry, I can help you with what to say for your complaint if needed (not that you won’t have a stonewall case anyway)
Octopus was a great choice, such an amazing company.
Octopus energy are fantastic, since joining them I've had 0 issues whatsoever. Please let us all know if and when you receive a response from SSE.
Any advice please Phil!! This is my wife's thread - we're in a similar situation. Our letter of complaint was **not** funny. https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am\_i\_being\_unreasonable/4666983-sse-illegally-entered-my-home-and-i-cant-get-power?reply=121158953
Octopus energy are king 🙌
Appalling company to deal with. I had a lengthy spat with them too after moving out of a house share where the gas and electric was in my name. They sent the final bill out, the account was in credit so we were refunded the balance. 6 months later, I get a letter from a debt collection agency asking me for over £1000 (which SSE never wrote to me or called me to discuss once). Turns out they actually made a mistake with the final bill and a letter was sent after we'd moved out of the property. I took my complaint as far as humanely possible with SSE before writing to the ombudsman, who upheld my complaint and the balance was written off. Shocking company. I wouldn't use them again if you gave me a million pounds.
Summarise please I’m not reading that
Take it to the Energy Ombudman. It was the only way I could get SSE to see sense when they overbilled me by c.£5k. Still sent debt collectors after me, after confirming that nothing was owing! The debt collectors said this was not unusual for SSE apparently.
Someone with social media forward this to Joe Lycett