London Electricity : Read reviews and compare prices at Ciao.co.uk

Author's product rating:

Advantages:	No standing charges .
Disadvantages:	Didn't action my requirements to my satisfaction .

Recommend to potential buyers:

Full review

I would like to offer my thoughts and experiences with this particular gas and electricity reseller, based in London and as such called London Electricity. Since the deregulation of the gas and electricity market a few years back, anyone (well – not exactly everyone!) can supply you with gas and electricity via the existing pipes and cables that enter your property.

I don’t normally entertain doorstep callers, as I get them far too often in my current town centre location – thankfully will be moving before Christmas 2003 to somewhere less urban, but recently in May I was called upon by a representative from London Electricity.

To be fair I was interested in the dual-fuel type scheme he was plugging, and the fact that it offered a discount on both fuels by paying through direct-debit, and also the fact that there were no standing charges, you just paid for the fuel used.

I duly completed the forms with the rep’ from the company, and then waited, and waited. I was told to expect the whole thing to be completed in 4 weeks; they would cancel my existing supplies with N-Power, and set up my new direct debits.

After 10 days I’d not had any confirmation of my new accounts, and by this time I’d decided perhaps I should just stay with my existing supplier. I tried to cancel but was told more than 14 days had passed from when I signed, (which I dispute) so that I had to continue with the new supplies from L.E.

I could not prove that 14 days had not passed since I had stupidly misplaced the paperwork I had signed so I carried on with L.E, completing the direct debit forms and so on.

Now I’m a busy man, and to be honest did not realise the best part of 3 months had passed until I received a bill recently from L.E.

It was a first bill for the past 3 months – asking for immediate payment, as I had not completed any direct debit paperwork!! Further to this, where was my gas bill!

Well it transpires (I will be paying closer attention in future, not that I am doing this again) that my gas supply has stayed with N-Power all along and London never had any instruction to move my gas supply!

So straight away I decided to send a payment to London, and I was on the phone to N-Power to bring my electricity supply back to them, so I could qualify for the 7% discount when taking both fuels from them.

All in all my experiences have not been good with London Electricity – I was offered what I thought was a fair deal, only to change my mind, which created a very bad image of this company.

I know people have slated N-Power in the past, but for me I know they will not mess up and I’m sorry to them for thinking of changing in the first place!

In terms of what London offer, basically it does sound good to offer no standing charges, but in respect of this they do charge more per unit of power used, so it may work out better or worse for you depending on your usage. I have not really had time to decide whether it was better or not for me due to the poor service in the transfer process so cannot comment fully here!

Furthermore, advice to all, do not entertain those annoying doorstep callers, just say in future the property is rented and you don’t pay the power bills, or something like that, If you really do want to consider a different supply – try www.uswitch.co.uk which may help you much better than any ill-informed doorstep caller.

Cheers,

Alflavor, for Ciao UK, Sept’02.