Grrr - Contact Energy

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floydbloke

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#111398 1-Nov-2012 19:32

[RANT]
Just got a letter from Contact Energy that explains, in a long-winded way, that my dual-energy discount of 40c per day is disappearing. In other words, my bill will go up by approx. $13 per month.

Looking at their customer numbers, they have 443,000 electricity customers and 125,000 gas customers. Can’t tell from those numbers which are retail and which are commercial ,and what sort of discount plans they are on so let’s estimate 25% of the gas customers are affected in this way. (Only retail customers who receive electronic bills and pay on time are negatively impacted.)

That’s $4.5M added to their annual bottom-line without a ‘price increase’ as such. Clever stuff Contact, I expect your shareholders will be very pleased. Might be time for me to take my business elsewhere though.
[/RANT]

Sometimes I use big words I don't always fully understand in an effort to make myself sound more photosynthesis.

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#710586 1-Nov-2012 19:40

The quickest easiest fix is to ring them up tell them they have 2 choices, re-instate the 40c discount or you will change to another power company,

CYaBro

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#710592 1-Nov-2012 20:10

Really??!!
We've only just changed to Contact to get this discount!
They didn't tell us that it was going to disappear in a month.

If it is true then we'll be looking around again for another provider.

Edit: Why is it still on their website if it's going?
http://www.contactenergy.co.nz/web/findoutabout/dual-energy

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

floydbloke

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#710601 1-Nov-2012 20:16

CYaBro: Really??!!
We've only just changed to Contact to get this discount!
They didn't tell us that it was going to disappear in a month.

Yep, it's in bold right here:
Contact Dual Energy

Might work out alright for those who don't get the 22% Online Ontime, but surely there can't be many left of them.

Sometimes I use big words I don't always fully understand in an effort to make myself sound more photosynthesis.

mattRSK

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#710624 1-Nov-2012 20:46

We've just had a price increase with Genesis energy. Noticed about $20-30 increase the last 2 months.

mattRSK

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#710627 1-Nov-2012 20:51

Funnily enough that powerswitch website suggests we switch to Contact.

shadsnz

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#710629 1-Nov-2012 20:54

We rang them about a year ago and said we were going to shift and they took our 10% prompt payment discount up to 22%. We did have to commit to stay with them for 12 months though.

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kingjj

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#710777 2-Nov-2012 00:18

shadsnz: We rang them about a year ago and said we were going to shift and they took our 10% prompt payment discount up to 22%. We did have to commit to stay with them for 12 months though.

As part of this deal did you have to agree to get your bill online and pay electronically before the due date? Sounds like you were given the Online Ontime discount which any residential customer can get from Contact without a contract term.

The 22% Online OnTime prompt payment discount is available for residential properties only. To be eligible for this discount, customers need to register for Online Services, elect to receive their bill online, and pay their bills on time, in full, and online by direct debit or internet banking (excluding credit cards).

gzoneguy

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#713252 6-Nov-2012 23:03

CYaBro: Really??!!
We've only just changed to Contact to get this discount!
They didn't tell us that it was going to disappear in a month.

If it is true then we'll be looking around again for another provider.

Edit: Why is it still on their website if it's going?
http://www.contactenergy.co.nz/web/findoutabout/dual-energy

I also just changed to Contact three months ago to get the discount after their sales guy said I can save $160 a year with the 40cents a day discount. This $160 a year was advertised in their marketing materials and their website. Now that they are discontinuing the discount, the advertising was misleading as I would not be able to save $160 a year as promised in their advertising. I have submitted a formal complaint to the Commerce Commission for them to investigate. If you are not happy and felt misled, please also submit a complaint to the Commerce Commission. http://www.comcom.govt.nz/online-complaint-form/

This discontinuing of the discount was not disclosed to me then and was a material information which will affect my decision to switch to Contact or not. If I knew this then, I would not have switched to Contact. Again, this may be a breach of the Fair Trading Act.

Dratsab

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#713276 6-Nov-2012 23:45

Off topic a bit but things don't seem quite right at Contact at the moment. A couple of months back they charged me over $1000 for 42 days of electricity (had moved house between billing periods) which equates to over 4 months normal billing. Needless to say, I've disputed it and am not paying it but they're definitely not in a hurry to sort things out. Just received an "overdue"notice in the mail today.

Seems like I won't be the only one looking to change, although my reasons are different.

networkn

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#713287 7-Nov-2012 00:48

We got this letter as well. One thing that really got my goat was the wording of the letter, basically making out they were replacing the Dual energy discount with a prompt payment discount when we were getting both all along. We have switched to another provider who gave us $20 discount on our bottles for the next 5 and a few hundred flybuys.

http://www.elgas.co.nz/manukau-north-shore-city-waitakere-papakura-auckland-region-nz-lpg-gas-bottles-cylinders-supply

for those of you interested.

stevenz

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#713596 7-Nov-2012 16:29

Not sure about other companies, but Contact never used to give us 6-monthly price increases, they gave us 6-monthly price "changes". These changes were always in an upwards direction of course.

Changed to Nova, been pretty happy so far.

The official complaint sounds well founded, good luck guys!

@KnightNZ

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Rikkitic

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#2818328 24-Nov-2021 10:23

New post for an old thread. Can anyone offer advice on dealing with/switching from Contact Energy? I live near Hastings on a rural farm. Very old house with old power board inside. For years everything has worked fine. Meter readers come to the house, knock on the door, or phone ahead. Never a problem as someone is almost always here.

Recently I changed the account to my own name. That is all. Nothing else has changed but now I am getting hassled about having the meter read. I keep getting letters (with no possibility for reply) that the meter reader can’t access our meter. This is simply untrue. I am home nearly all the time and I have made a point of being here on and after the (‘approximate’) day the meter is supposed to be read.

It is almost impossible to reach a human at Contact energy. All their communications are one-way. The contact page is limited to Facebook. There seems to be no way to reach them by email. I am not on Facebook and I don’t have a cell phone.

I finally tried to ring their 0800 number as a last resort. As expected, I went into an endless hold queue with exceptionally unpleasant advertising and ‘music’ blaring into my ear and the usual bla bla about the exceptionally high call volume they are receiving at this moment. After an hour or so I gave up.

I am prepared to switch to another provider that knows what customer service is and makes it possible to talk to a human being about service issues. I did a quick search but the consumer site is fixated on cost comparison and that is not what I am looking for. What I want is a small, customer-friendly provider that can be communicated with and responds intelligently to customer issues. Can anyone help me with this?

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

networkn

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#2818331 24-Nov-2021 10:27

Are you calling tel:0800224424 ?

Try this:

0800 22 33 40

That's their complaints line :)

Rikkitic

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#2818333 24-Nov-2021 10:31

networkn:

Are you calling tel:0800224424 ?

Try this:

0800 22 33 40

That's their complaints line :)

Thanks, that wasn't clear to me from their web page. It looked to me like a number for the disputes service, which I'm not ready for yet. I will give it a try and see what happens.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

Mark

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#2818384 24-Nov-2021 12:20

Rikkitic:

I finally tried to ring their 0800 number as a last resort. As expected, I went into an endless hold queue with exceptionally unpleasant advertising and ‘music’ blaring into my ear and the usual bla bla about the exceptionally high call volume they are receiving at this moment. After an hour or so I gave up.

Why did you wait on hold ? Right at the beginning of the call it asks if you want to get them to call you back, just do that, they do call. Not saying they'll be less useless but at least you dont have to listen to the worst hold music in the world and do something more meaningful.

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