The EV ‘referee’ that needs to be jolted into action
T.T. writes: Eon Drive installed an Electric Vehicle (EV) wall charger at my house last year but it has never worked. Despite offering a guarantee, Eon has refused to attend my property to investigate or fix the problem. EON told you the problem was ‘voltage fluctuation’ in the electricity supply to your home, so you had it monitored by Energy North West. When this showed nothing was wrong, you contacted Utilities Alternative Dispute Resolution – a sort of licensed ombudsman scheme which referees problems involving EV equipment.
The ADR adjudicator ruled Eon had to fix the charger or remove it within 28 days. This did not happen, and in the end you sold your electric car.
However, Eon has told me it disagrees with ADR and the energy monitor. It insists there was a peak in voltage which meant the charger isolated itself for safety reasons.
Eon failed to challenge the ADR ruling because of ‘an internal oversight’. There was no upfront payment for fitting the charger, so no refund was due, but Eon offered £100 as a goodwill gesture.
You disagreed with Eon’s reasoning. You told me the charger was simply dead, and when Eon personnel arrived to remove it recently, they were unable to switch it on.
But what rapidly became central to this whole dispute was the role of Utilities ADR.
It says: ‘Consumers are not bound by our recommendations or decision unless you choose to accept our decision, in which case it becomes legally binding upon the organisation your complaint is about.’ If this is so, then why did Utilities ADR not enforce its decision, which it made last November?
Utilities ADR and similar schemes are run by Consumer Dispute Resolution Limited (CDRL), which is Government approved and paid by businesses to handle complaints.
But contacting it to ask a question about its enforcement powers was anything but simple.
Its website offered no email address. It bans anyone from visiting its offices in Milton Keynes. And when I first checked, its website warned that its phone system was not monitored ‘due to the current Covid 19 issues’!
I thought I had struck lucky when I saw that CDRL’s website invited the Press to click on a link for contact details. I clicked, and up came the response ‘Oops! That page can’t be found.’ There was a link to ‘ADR Officials’ so I tried that but it didn’t name a single one.
No wonder reviews on Trustpilot rate CDRL as just ‘Bad’.
I finally found a CDRL email address thanks to Trading Standards, and contacted CDRL boss John Facenfield. He admitted that ‘we do not have the powers to take punitive action or enforce the remedy’ against any of the businesses that sign up with CDRL, adding that it was up to consumers to take their own court action.
The Utilities ADR website was not ‘appropriately working’, he added. And he gave me a new email address but when I tried it, back came an automatic message saying: ‘We do not reply on this email address.’
For a consumer-facing organisation, CDRL is the most consumer unfriendly body I’ve ever seen. It is inefficient and while boasting it can direct a business to pay complainants up to £25,000, it cheerfully admits firms can ignore it.
A final word from CDRL told me that businesses that join its schemes covering utilities, retailers, aviation and communication are ‘contractually obligated’ to implement its decisions. What a pity then, that it shows no sign of being willing to enforce those contracts.