So I deal with a lot of people complaining about the poor services they've been receiving from energy companies in my two work roles.
The typical complaints are those concerning companies miss-billing because of faulty meter readings or simply because of admin-errors on the part of the company.
Honestly in one case British Gas sent this guy several different bills over the course of a year for various amounts, covering various periods, some of which overlapped, and all of which were based on entirely fictitious estimated readings. He'd already paid based on the actual readings. But this didn't stop British Gas harassing him for £4000, which they sent to a debt collectors even though he didn't owe them the money.
NB this particular guy (among others) had come to his MP for help because he'd ALREADY been to the Ombudsman to complain about all of the above, and bascically British Gas managed to get the Ombudsman to shut down the complaint on a technicality, and then just carried on where they'd left off with the fictitious billing!
It's more common than you might think...
This kind of thing has been in the news recently, and this is newsworthy as there were > 100K complaints to the Energy Ombudsman in the last reporting year, and that's a staggering amount of customers who are not satisfied with the complaints procedures of their energy companies...
But Ombudsmen are useless...
This is what people don't realise....
While Ombudsmen are there to regulate whatever sector we're talking about, energy in this case, they have very little power to actually instigate reforms and make companies change.
In one, two, a thousand cases of say back billing, they may well rule that energy companies have to pay back the money, and they will, but they just move on to the next victims and back-bill them.
Ombudsmen have no power to force Energy companies to improve their complaints resolution processes.
And TBH hardly anyone is complaining about their complaints resolution processes anyway. In fact if you read the large print (most Ombudsmen are VERY keen to tell you what they CAN'T do).
If one wants Ombudsmen to have more teeth then that takes policy change, politicians have to agree to give Ombudsmen more powers.
Even Ministers writing to Ombudsmen will have no effect...
There have been so many cases of back billing, the ESNZ chair has even written to OFGEM to basically tell them to buck up...
And they've basically responded by saying they have 'robust procedures in place' to deal with complaints.
Final thoughts...
If we're going to pay for Ombudsmen to regulate, we may as well give them the power to regulate, or just get rid of them and save us a whole load of money.
I don't think it matters whether you're left of right, in their current iteration Ombudsmen are a total waste of money!