Author's product rating:
| Advantages: |
No standing charges . |
| Disadvantages: |
Didn't action my requirements to my satisfaction . |
| Recommend to potential buyers: |
no |
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.
| More Reviews |
London Electricity - my nightmare!
Review of London Electricity by
jamesbf
Advantages: Only one - Good discounts
Disadvantages: VERY poor customer service, rude staff
...as my electricity provider and London Electricity (or London Energy as they are now called) as my gas company.
Things went well with the electicity side of things and I received a welcome letter from Scottish Power as a new customer and then started to receive regular bills from them. If only things were as good as that on the gas front!
I bought my house in October 2002 and by February 2003 hadn't had a bill or even heard from London Electricity, ... ...day) present!
At first London denied I was their customer.I then got in contact with my Gas transporter company who confirmed to me that London did supply my Gas. After some tooing and frowing London agreed I was their customer and set up my account with them. I then asked them to send me a bill for the five months I had been in the house. Sure enough I received a bill a week later, not from London but from SWEB! When I phoned both companies to ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful |
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very helpful

13.09.2003
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Power to Green people
Review of London Electricity by
LBoy
Advantages: Green tariff, good customer services
Disadvantages: Not the cheapest
‘London Electricity’ (LE) sounds very British; actually it has been part of the French energy group Electricité de France (EDF) since 1998. The LE Group itself owns SWEB (South West Electricity) and has a stake in Virgin Energy; together they now offer gas and electricity supplies nationwide. LE prices are not the cheapest in the country but the quality of their service is probably above average. For example, they have freephone numbers for customer ... ...quickly by their customer service. Since the privatisation of LE in 1990 I have remained their customer.
Recently LE has introduced its Green Tariff for electricity, which I signed up without hesitation. The Green Tariff would help the environment in two ways. Firstly, the premium over the standard prices (0.4p per unit) is collected into a fund called Green Energy Fund. LE will also contribute into the Fund by matching the same amount collected ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful |
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very helpful

31.01.2002
(02.02.2002)
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The lights are on but no-one's home...
Review of London Electricity by
Cazz
Advantages: no problems once this major hitch was sorted
Disadvantages: a case of left hand, right hand, no communication!
...the very nice man at London Electricity ‘we’ll fit an ordinary meter!’ The appointment was duly made and kept, a new meter fitted, and we were advised that a direct debit payment, based on our previous usage, would be applied the following month.
Well it wasn’t, so maybe they meant the month after as it might take time for the paperwork to be done… but several months later they still hadn’t taken any money out. ... ...a key meter! When they wouldn’t believe me they sent someone round to look, it was like stepping into a sitcom as he seemed to believe I was hiding it somewhere! I told him he would need a warrant if he wanted to get the floorboards up, but I duly let him search in every corner and cupboard for the non-existent key meter, whilst he refused to glance at the shiny new billing meter because ‘that’s not supposed to be there…’
...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful |
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very helpful

23.04.2001
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The Great London Scam!
Review of London Electricity by
mrsxopher
Advantages: I don't know...they aren't the cheapest
Disadvantages: They need to keep an eye on their sales staff!
...letters it said, 'Welcome To London Electric!' I WAS TEED! I immediately called of course, and explained and had it all stopped. The worst part of it is though, that even though they dropped me (hey I'm American, I threatened a LAWSUIT, of course they didn't give me trouble), they did NOT ask for details of this woman NOR assure me that they were sending someone to the area to STOP HER! They didn't even agree to double checking all the new listings ... ...info. as WHERE I was calling from, and that the lady had JUST left less than five minutes ago, SURELY her own company could track her and pull her off the job THAT day...for some TRAINING at the very least. She FLAT OUT LIED TO ME! I am not in any way exaggerating this story. Well, this is no way for a company to run themselves. It is totally unethical, and illegal. I would have been alright if I had assurance that she was a shifty person and the ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful |
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very helpful

05.09.2004
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Not sure about London Energy (EDF)
Review of London Electricity by
Rob099
Advantages: Seems to be very cheap
Disadvantages: Initial change of supplier problems
London Energy is now Electricite de France.
I changed from BGas Energy a while ago and had some awful problems when changing - EDF would not accept the change from BGas Electricity for some reason and BGas Electric kept my money for ages until the thing was resolved.
That got sorted and I signed up for customer readings which supposedly saves me some money because they don't have to send a meter reader - strange thing is every time I do send a ... ...reader within days to check it - so how is that saving money?
The meter reader told me that EDF do this for every customer reading sent via internet - he also explained why EDF are so cheap - you have to pay by direct debit and they only take a small amount of money each month - this makes it seem cheap but in reality the actual cost of the gas and electric is mounting up - you get to a point where you are effectively in big debt to them despite ...
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helpful

29.06.2006
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