How are you supposed to talk to your energy provider? They seem to be hiding!

[DreamingOfSoftWhiteSand]

We've been trying to get hold of Scottish Power for weeks. We are over £1,000 in credit and would like to reduce our direct debit. We have tried ringing them but the message says they are too busy and to try later. We tried the app and after the bot says an agent will join, they don't. We tried Twitter but nobody replied.

I understand from my brother that it's the same with another energy supplier. How are people supposed to manage their household budgets if the companies they are paying most of their monthly expenditures to, won't talk to them?

Can you amend your payment online?

I'm with Eon and can do this on my account online.

Only by a few pounds. Which means our DD is still 2.5x what we are actually using.

I'm in exactly the same position! £1400 in credit (which is great) but no way to reduce. Absolutely ridiculous.

And yet they tell you that if you need to contact them, they are there to help. I'm fuming...

Cancel it with your bank.

Try sending them an email.

Done - we got an automated email saying the unit rate we pay will now go up. But there is still no way to talk to anyone!

We tried - it ended up lost somewhere I think - or at least they are taking a loooooong time to get back to us.

I don't know what's going on but it seems to be happening with a few companies.
The company I'm with you can only text/watsap. You're lucky if you get a reply before a week to your question and the answer will have nothing to do with what you ask.
I decided to switch and have over £260 on my meters (I'm prepay)
I can not get them to reply to me about a refund. They're completely ignoring me I'm livid.

Before I opened this thread
I knew it was Scottish Power the OP was talking about.🤣🤣
Good Luck you'll definitely need it trying to get any result from SP.

PM via Twitter worked with BG, but took several messages

I've spent two weeks trying to get hold of eon to lower my dd. I'm £500 in credit and it will only allow me to "lower" my dd online to higher than I am actually paying (cause of the £66 gov payment apparently not counting when calculating a dd 🤷🏼‍♀️).

They literally about five mins ago sent a text saying they are aware I'm still waiting, and with a code to send if my query is still unresolved. So I have done that, now time to see how long it takes them to reply...

I'm finding this with my bank, insurance companies and HMRC, basically it is policy now to make it nearly impossible to make contact about anything important. It feels as if we are in a failed state.

I don't think people are supposed to manage their household budgets. I think if they wanted people to be able to do that it would be really easy to manage. It's not incompetence by the people in power - that's an oxymoron. It's on purpose.

They must have seen my post here - they've replied now

Yes i'm finding this all the time too. I've actually just gone back to using a high street insurance provider and its a bit more expensive but my god, the difference it makes when you can sit opposite a human and talk about your insurance needs is brilliant. 😀.

HMRC i've actually taken to writing letters too now. Bizarrely, that gets a quick response.

I'm totally totally done with robots now though - it was great in the beginning but after Covid it just went to shit. I agree with OP they are hiding from us.

And don't even get me started on companies that tell you something but you can't respond to their email or text because it's not allowed - in other words, they've told you, and thats how it is!

Whatever I can do in person from now on I'm going too.