ISupplyEnergy left me in the dark

I have been with energy provider iSupplyEnergy since 2014, always making sure I would be on a fixed tariff. Since December 2016 I have

had constant problems

or a decrease, takes effect at the plan’s renewal date.

Your discount is currently set at 59.5pc. You would need to claim for three consecutive years for your no-claims discount to decrease to zero. AXA PPP healthcare has provided you with details of a dedicated contact to discuss your cover.

In our discussion you said you would not make a claim under £1,000. I asked you what your excess was and you said it was £100. I suggested you looked into increasing your excess and/ or investigated other options with the insurer.

It turned out that with a £500 excess the premium you would pay would become £5,850 (or £14,446 without no-claims discount). with the tariff I was supposed to be on. I was quite ill with pneumonia during the month when my contract expired.

With a few emails, iSupplyEnergy put me on iFix18, which was to expire in August 2018. This was confirmed in an email.

On Aug 21 2017 a document stated I was on iVariable,

A £1,000 excess would take it down to £4,966 (£12,262).

Clearly the way this new policy has been structured makes it potentially much less favourable to you than the one you had before.

You say health insurance seems to be a licence to print money. which I did not want as it is more expensive.

Meanwhile, as of June 30 2017, iSupplyEnergy has been taken over by a state-owned Swedish company, Vattenfall. DAPHNE INCE, WILTS

Three days after the episode in August 2017 it was confirmed that you were on

had not been notified about.

The chargeback request was refused. Acting on advice we then completed a Section 75 claim with our credit card provider, which was also turned down eventually. TH, SCOTLAND

You used your credit card to purchase two tickets at a cost of £812 in all. You were not alerted to the seat numbers at the point of purchase. The website you bought through did not, at the time, show that the section was only accessible by stairs, although the venue’s website did.

You quickly realised that there was a problem as your wife cannot manage stairs. You liked the idea that it was a charity event but the cost was more than you had iFix after all. Yet on April 6 2018 you were told you were on iVariable, the more expensive option, and had been since December 2016.

There had also been issues over the monthly direct debit, which in the winter of 2017 had been increased for two months to £92. After you complained this was reduced to £82, and after further pressing from you, to £50 in September 2017. In March, however, it increased to £75. You questioned the rise and were told this was due to increased wholesale prices. You felt that, as you were on iFix, this shouldn’t happen.

Fed up, you wrote to me. When you originally sent an account message advising iSupplyEnergy to select the 18-month tariff for your renewal, this note was not read soon enough. The renewal was not processed in time so the company had to invoke its “error renewal process”. This meant your account went on to the variable-rate tariff with the unit rate and standing charges being adjusted manually to fit in with the fixed rate. Over time some of these adjustments were

thought it was. Your wife contacted Nationwide later that day asking it to block the transaction but, as she had authorised the payment, this wasn’t possible.

Nationwide said a Section 75 claim would not be successful as there had been no misrepresentation or breach of contract. You had not gone directly to the supplier (nor the official ticket seller). The rules are very complicated.

This is yet another example of how Section 75 – considered by some to be a catch-all safety net for those paying by credit card and meeting various other criteria – is not everything it is sometimes thought to be.

Nationwide, however, recognised that there was applied incorrectly. Some had been corrected but not all and iSupplyEnergy has now reduced your bill by £89.89.

The firm said: “We would like to apologise to Miss Ince for her experience with iSupplyEnergy. We identified that the tariff on her account was not correct and we fixed this.” You were also paid compensation of £200 in recognition of the poor level of service.

Following a further query from me regarding the wholesale prices, iSupplyEnergy confirmed: “Having to adjust rates manually is not a common event and in these very rare occasions, we keep a customer on our variable rate and then apply regular credits to their account, to replicate the prices they should have been paying.”

Giving iSupplyEnergy another chance, you agreed to a three-year contract with no cancellation charges if the account is badly handled in the future. You have also been assured the direct debit will be reduced if it is found you are paying too much. You say if only iSupplyEnergy had explained everything clearly to begin with, it would not have been necessary to come to me.

a small delay in its providing you with its final decision and so offered £75 in recognition of this. It says that it sympathises with your position.

You then took the matter to the Financial Ombudsman Service, and it initially found against you. It said you received the tickets matching the description you had been given and it didn’t think you had cause for a successful claim under Section 75. You are now appealing this decision.