Shocking! The woman who saw her electricity bill go from £492 to £17,354
As complaints about Green Star flood in daily...
RETIRED school teacher Barbara Turner lives alone in a one-bedroom bungalow. Her electricity bills are usually no more than £500 a year.
So you can imagine her surprise when she was sent a letter by power supplier Green Star Energy claiming that her electricity bill for the next 12 months would be £17,354.
The firm had estimated she’d use around 54 times the average amount of electricity consumed by a typical customer.
Barbara, an 85-year-old widow, says she was shell-shocked by the letter, as she mainly uses gas for heating and cooking. What’s more, Green Star was no longer her supplier, as she had recently switched to a new firm.
Last week, Money Mail revealed that we had sent energy watchdog Ofgem a dossier of complaints from readers who said they had been let down by Green Star Energy.
Customers told us that they were unable to get an accurate bill, had been chased for money they didn’t owe, refused refunds when they were in credit and routinely ignored when they tried to complain.
And, since then, letters and emails have continued to flood in. In total, we have received more than 100 complaints, with more arriving in our inbox each day. Green Star’s rating for customer service has also plummeted since our article last week.
Citizens Advice now ranks the firm 31 out of 33 suppliers and gives it a 2.1 star rating. Previously, it ranked 26 out of 32.
Barbara had moved to Green Star in July last year because it offered the cheapest deal.
But, when she looked to see if it was still the best deal this year, she discovered that she could save £289 a year by switching to another energy minnow, Together.
Around three weeks after she switched, Green Star wrote to her with her annual gas and electricity summary for the past year. It said she had used 3,229 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity between August 2017 and 2018, at a cost of around £492.
The letter continued: ‘Based on your current tariff and expected usage, your personal electricity projection for the next 12 months is £17,354’ — an extra £16,862.
It said her estimated annual consumption of electricity was 103,223 kilowatt hours (kWh). This is around 54 times the typical usage for a customer such as Barbara, who is classified as a ‘low user’ because she lives alone in a small property.
According to Ofgem, a lower dual fuel customer will typically consume 1,900 kWh of electricity a year.
Even a high user, such as a family living in a four-bedroom property, only uses an average of 4,600 kWh of electricity a year, according to its figures.
Barbara says: ‘I couldn’t believe my eyes when I opened the letter. I did see the funny side, particularly as I had just switched to another supplier.
‘But I imagine some people would have been shaken by it. I know that it would have terrified my sister, for example.’
She adds: ‘It was odd that the letter they sent me was dated August 26, but I didn’t receive it until the middle of September.’
When Barbara called Green Star to query the letter, she says that no one could give her an explanation and they ‘just laughed’.
Mark Todd, of the comparison site Energyhelpline, says anyone receiving ‘outrageously high’ bills should not panic, but call their provider straight away.
He says: ‘My heart goes out to this lady. An outrageously high bill such as this can be really worrying for people to receive and knock their confidence in their provider.
‘The firm clearly needs to work on its systems.’
Green Star Energy supplies around 300,000 households. In January, it was appointed by Ofgem to take on 10,000 Future Energy customers after the firm collapsed.
Just last month, Green Star was ordered by Ofgem to pay nearly £680,000 in compensation for mis-selling and failing to provide customers with annual statements.
Citizens Advice warned last week that a number of new, smaller suppliers were failing customers with poor service. It called on the energy regulator to tighten its rules on who can supply energy to households.
A spokesman for Green Star Energy says: ‘While Mrs Turner’s expected usage for the coming year did show as £17,354, this was based on two sets of readings that she provided, causing a calculation usage of 40,000 units in a short period of time — hence the exaggerated amount.
‘Mrs Turner’s account is now closed, with no outstanding bills due. We regret any upset Mrs Turner has experienced due to this. We’ve personally apologised and have sent flowers.
‘Our top priority now is to address any outstanding matters directly with our customers, as quickly as possible.
‘We want to thank our customers for bearing with us.’
Of the complaints Money Mail has sent Green Star, it says it has so far resolved 61.
A spokesman for Ofgem says it will look at the experiences raised by Green Star customers as part of its wider investigation into how suppliers deal with customer complaints.