I wanted to bring your attention to the Trustpilot reviews for the small gas and electricity supplier Extra Energy. I am a dissatisfied customer of theirs and it seems that there are hundreds more who have taken the time to share their views. Its score from 189 reviews is 0.3 out of 10. I’ve never seen such a low score. It seems impervious to customer complaints. MT, by email
If you do an energy price comparison with the likes of ComparetheMarket, uSwitch or, ideally, the Guardian’s service, you will see a series of little-known companies in the top 10 cheapest places – including Extra Energy.
The business model for startups is simple: offer the cheapest price on the market for a short period and grab the switching business. The problem is you have to be able to cope with the demand – and it seems that, after a long spell at the top of the tables, Extra Energy couldn’t. We’ve seen several similar complaints detailing poor customer service, so asked what was going on.
Ben Jones, head of operations at Extra Energy, has apologised to all the affected customers.
“It’s true that we had some problems last year and some of that flowed through into the beginning of this year, but we’ve worked tirelessly to bring in the measures needed to fix these problems, including moving to new offices and recruiting over 200 additional staff.” He went on to say these issues were “problems of the past”.
We are not so sure. We’d be inclined to switch to one of the other energy firms vying for your business.
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