Name: Bulb
Rating: 4.11

“Bulb broke our Direct Debit agreement and took too much out and still they won’t refund the amount taken out. Their complaints system does not address the complaint they ignore it, be careful who you give Direct Debit agreements with!”

Helpful Report

Posted 3 years ago

Hi there, Thank you for taking the time to leave us a review. I am sorry to hear about the issues you've had with your direct debit. It sounds like your payments were reviewed and increased. We do this to make sure your payments are covering the average usage on your account. Upon switching to Bulb we outline our payment review process in the terms and conditions which you agree to during the signup process. I would like to follow up on this to see exactly what has happened and how your complaint has been addressed as you should be getting clear and timely responses to this. Please can you email your account details to feedback@bulb.co.uk so we can take a further look? Take care, Katie

Posted 3 years ago

“No complaints resolution and no actions on issues for ages. company Charges for whatever they can think of.”

Helpful Report

Posted 3 years ago

Hi there, Thanks for leaving us a review. I am sorry to hear you have not reached a resolution to your complaint. At Bulb, we aim to provide the best possible service and it sounds like you have not received that. If you could email feedback@bulb.co.uk outlining the issue in more detail then we can take a look for you. Take care, Katie

Posted 3 years ago

“Appalling service from start to finish. Left without a gas supply for 9 weeks. I have a 5-year-old child and was not able to use my cooker, heat my home or wash my daughter with warm water. There was one screw-up after another with bulb, every time a different staff member confirmed that another employee had made a mistake, yet never any resolutions. Even now almost 3 months later I am still trying to get this resolved. Customer service staff even went as far and hanging up on me. Awful customer service. Do not use bulb. I cannot express how bad they are. I never write reviews. This should give you an idea of how bad my experience has been.”

Helpful Report

Posted 3 years ago

Hi there, Thanks for taking the time to leave us a review. I am sorry to hear about the poor experience you have had with us. At Bulb, we aim to provide the best possible service and it sounds like you have not received that. You should not be without gas for as long as 9 weeks and so this needs to be fully investigated. To do this it would be best we raised a complaint on your behalf, this way we can look into if any compensation can be offered. To start this process please can you email your account details across to feedback@bulb.co.uk. One of our team will then pick that up and we can go from there. All the best, Katie

Posted 3 years ago

“I am with Bulb from last 3 years and recently moved to a new property that has a smart meter but no In-Home Display Unit (IHD). Bulb team is not willing to provide a replacement IHD. It's Ok for the customer service if I leave Bulb because of this. Bit strange behaviour as they are ready to let go an old customer (from last 3 years) but not willing to provide replacement IHD (which must cost around £15-£20)”

Helpful Report

Posted 3 years ago

Hi there, Thanks for taking the time to leave us a review. I am sorry we have not been able to send you a new IHD. We can only send out new displays for meters that are compatible. If you have first-generation smart meters or meters that are not connected to the smart network then we wouldn't be able to send out a display as it would not work. Instead, if your meters are sending us smart readings then I would suggest using the usage graphs on the Bulb app as these display similar information to the IHD's and can provide insights into your usage. If you would like me to look at why we can't send a display and set you up for the usage graphs then please email feedback@bulb.co.uk. We can then take a look for you. All the best, Katie

Posted 3 years ago

“Bulb is the energy company equivalent of the door to door conman that robs old ladies. They act nice, get you on board then change their price 5 months in. Then backdate the price change, hit you with a lump sum bill and say pay now so you continue making the monthly payment that’s just trebled. They don’t charge a fee for leaving but you won’t be able to leave until you pay all that money they just robbed off you. If you don’t pay and think “il see you in court bulb!” They will say you don’t want a court hearing and continue on. They’re a criminal company!”

Helpful Report

Posted 3 years ago

Hi there, Thanks for taking the time to leave us a review. I am sorry to hear you have had a poor experience. At Bulb, we aim to provide the best service and it does not sound like you have received that. We have a variable tariff and so our prices change depending on the market price. Recently as wholesale prices have increased we have had to increase our tariff as we cannot absorb these higher costs. It sounds like you are concerned your usage has been incorrectly charged on a higher tariff, I am happy to take a look into this for you. If you could email feedback@bulb.co.uk then we can take a look. Take care, Katie

Posted 3 years ago

“awfull now i owe around £89.00 but this is coming down month on month and will continue to do..this is a e/mail i received from them a few weeks ago.. We tried to call you on but we couldn’t get through to you. We have noticed that debt has been building up on your Bulb account and your current balance is £89.84. This is because the readings we have show that you are using more energy than you are paying for. We would recommend submitting up to date readings through your Bulb account here so we can make sure your account balance is accurate. Based on your account balance we would recommend increasing your monthly payments to £323.40 or making a one-off payment of £341.47 to clear the debt on your account. now the £89.84 i owe is falling month on month but as you see there asking to up payments to a ridiculous amount...my advice to all that has a direct debit is cancel it and pay your monthly bill yourself they cant do anything about it as your paying your bill.. .hmm well i have a smart meter that they read every month and there asking for meter readings from me...all with direct debits cancel them and pay your bill online every month bulb cant do anything about this”

Helpful Report

Posted 3 years ago

Hi Alan, Thanks for taking the time to leave us a review. To help explain the email, at Bulb we take payment in advance. This means your account should always have one month's payment as credit in the account. This would then be used to cover your next statement. This is why we asked for a top-up of £341.47, this would be to clear the outstanding balance and to bring the account into credit for a month. We potentially have also asked for a little extra to act as a buffer over the winter months. The buffer would be there to cover any higher winter bills. If you have switched to pay on receipt of your statement that is fine but if you would like me to check it is all set up correctly please drop us an email at feedback@bulb.co.uk. Thanks, Katie

Posted 3 years ago

“I received a confirmation from Bulb through email and phone call that an emergency appointment had been booked with Siemens. However this was not the case according to Siemens,who had to rebook an emergency appointment. All in all the waiting time was 8 hours 4 hours more than I was originally supposed to.”

Helpful Report

Posted 3 years ago

Hi Tracy, Thanks for taking the time to leave us a review, I am very sorry to hear about this. We aim to provide the best possible service and it does not sound like you received that. I'd like to look into this further to see what happened here and raise a complaint for you. Please could you email feedback@bulb.co.uk and one of the team will get back to you? All the best, Katie

Posted 3 years ago

“Very poor customer service. Increase of 75% without dialogue. Attempts to contact unsuccessful”

Helpful Report

Posted 3 years ago

Hi Tracey, Thanks for taking the time to leave us a review, I'm really sorry to hear that you have had issues with your account We always aim for the highest level of service, and it seems like you haven't experienced that. It sounds like we reviewed the payments on your account. We do this as we head into winter to make sure your payments are coving your usage. Typically bills increase over winter as the weather is colder and so we want to make sure our members don't fall behind. I would be happy to look into this for you and provide a more detailed explanation so please could you email feedback@bulb.co.uk All the best, Katie

Posted 3 years ago

“Energy switch has gone badly wrong and Bulb are almost contactable to resolve. Webchat shutdown or is not available. phone calls go unanswered. emails don't get answered. They are happy however to recommend you up your direct debit to over £1800 to pay for a meter which you don't have.”

Helpful Report

Posted 3 years ago

Hi, Thanks for leaving us a review, I am sorry to hear you've had issues with your switch and payments. We've had a very high level of inflow over the past few days which is slowing our response times. This may be why you have struggled to contact us over the phone or chat. I would like to take a look into this for you so please email feedback@bulb.co.uk and one of the team will get back to you. All the best, Katie

Posted 3 years ago

“Five complaints raised since January none of those addressed by bulb they basically raise the energy bill to havens say £3100 in debt for energy used by one person and want £209 per month knowing 1) the person is on uc they saw evidence 2) the person has mental health condition raised multiple times to them and them ignoring it completely. They claim they have no start reading not true it was provided at time of switch / move here and they want access to bank accounts so they decide if £209 is affordable from UC. Told them it’s degrading and dehumanising but also for person with limited mental capacity to make decisions this feel downright bullying and discrimination and abusive. Still I attach their exact reply to my sending copies of my benefit payments in the fifth round of complaint. It’s to either use their bank account access service or to use what they describe as a 2-3 month process with StepChange who by the way would never award them payment but would advise debt solution and they’d get nothing based on the income they also know about. Note the last paragraph, we can’t lower from £209 because there has to be payment toward the debt. Because money less than £209 doesn’t exist since January 2021 and I complained endlessly that they prevent me from making monthly payments and begged them. But as I’m ill they just treat me with this same template I have multiple copies of it. This is an actual complaint response and resolution. As for why use could be so high on bill when it’s one person I can’t tell and they clearly don’t want to look into. They gave me panic attack today because I had calls on my phone googled number and it came up as bulb. They have the ability to drive me to the point of wanting to end my life just because of them and their careless dehumanising approach, when fighting a disease is hard they literally convince me that it’s pointless. I’m now in dread they show up tomorrow to replace meter. If they do I call my adviser if I’ll be able to to get them back off but I know they won’t back off. Part of me hope they go against the adviser so they get publicly shamed for their discriminative inhumane practices because it feels they do it repeatedly for so long 11 months because I’m vulnerable and they think they get away with anything. Can’t imagine how they can have good reviews. All along they refused to work with me or allow me make payments they kept chanting to contact StepChange who wouldn’t help them and they cite it takes 2-3 months, and to send them reading from years ago, and they didn’t bother as much as to at least allow payment in between or whatever so it’s not like I wasn’t paying they want £209 or nothing. Abusive and discriminative and they shouldn’t be allowed to trade their helpdesk can’t care less about people and their complaint procedure is dealt on helpdesk and is basically nonexistent. To date they also didn’t give deadlock letter which and their constant disappearance and restarting approach of the issue tells me that is how they avoid ofgem and energy ombudsman complaints because ombudsman need 8 week from complaint raised in energy provider and a deadlock letter and they effectively prevent raising ombudsman complaint with their tactics. Ps - couldn’t upload the screenshot I wanted to include, there’s no means to upload it.”

Helpful Report

Posted 3 years ago

Hi there, Thanks for sharing your experience of Bulb. I'm really sorry for the poor experience you've had with us. From what you have said, it sounds like you didn't get the support needed to help manage your debt, so I'm sorry about this. If you wanted to go through Step Change, it can take up to 4 weeks for them to get back to us, but once you've come up with a debt management plan with them, we'd then set your payments at what Step Change suggested. This would be a more manageable solution rather than going through Tully as it's only a 3 month payment relief. I have looked into your account and can see that it looks like the debt has built up because we didn't receive regular readings, and our estimates were too low. Then when we received a reading it caused a high bill. On top of this, your payments weren't covering your usage. But I appreciate this should have been communicated much clearer to you. I can see you have an active complaint open, so I hope my colleague can get this resolved for you. But if there's anything I can help with, please email feedback@bulb.co.uk All the best, Meg

Posted 3 years ago

“Absolutely shocking customer service.”

Helpful Report

Posted 3 years ago

Hi Phil, Thanks for sharing your review of Bulb. I'm really sorry to hear that you've had a bad experience with Bulb. We always aim for the highest level of service, and it seems like you haven't experienced that. I'd be happy to look into the service you received and raise a complaint for you, so please email feedback@bulb.co.uk and one of the team will get back to you. All the best, Megan

Posted 3 years ago

“I had over paid money into my account.......i was owed over £500, when I contacted them to get it back they said i had to wait a month then when i tried again it said i had to wai wait another month....so i did. After waiting 2 months i called to get my money back and they wanted a picture of my meter box before they could do it.......then they tell me there was a problem with the billing! I then owed them money APPARENTLY!! I have NEVER had such high bills!! I was then told that the manager would call me back, AND DID NOT!! RUDE!! Funny how there was a problem only when i wanted my money back! So they didn't pick this billing issue up on ANY of my meter readings? Or after the smart meter was installed?? REALLY?? I am a single mother of a 10 month old baby, on benefits!! And they just took what i had overpaid!! REALLY WOULDN'T RECOMMEND THIS COMPANY!!”

Helpful Report

Posted 3 years ago

Hi Anneka, Thanks for taking the time to leave us a review. I'm really sorry to hear that you have had issues with your account We always aim for the highest level of service, and it seems like you haven't experienced that. When you first got in touch to request the refund we should have looked into your account further to ensure it was all up to date and the account balance was correct. We shouldn't have left it so long to update your account balance. I'd like to look into this further and get a better explanation for you, so please could you email feedback@bulb.co.uk. All the best, Megan

Posted 3 years ago

“So to start, I moved into a property a month ago that is supplied electric through Bulb. Recieved letters every week asking to sign up online as a new owner. After going online to sign up I saw they wanted over £130 a month for a 2 bed with 2 people living there. I thought it must be a mistake, I moved from one end of the village to the other and previously paid £55 a month for a 3 bed. I tried ringing for 3 weeks every few days on my dinner break to speak to someone. On hold for over 30 min every time and couldn't get through. Bulb only open the customer line 9-5 (the times everyone is at work). Finally got through after 25 mins on hold, 4 weeks after moving In. The adviser started throwing out high estimates again. Said it was based on previous owners usage. The previous owners had 5 PEOPLE LIVING THERE!!! how can you use that to estimate the cost of 2 people. I told him to check our usage over the past month, he agreed we had barely used any electric (we have an oven and an immersion water heater) and 2 wood burners for heat, so I knew we didn't use a lot of electric, even after confirming himself we don't use anywhere near the amount of electric they wanted to charge us for, he still wouldn't massively drop the price to the amount we needed, saying it was based on the previous owners estimate (even though I had already been through this with him about usage and less people at the property) He eventually only dropped the price £20 saying he would do it just to get me signed up then the price may increase anyway to cover it. Was given no details on the plan, or price increase amount, just tried to make me sign up. I declined to sign up and told him I would pay the outstanding now and go to another company. Adviser refused to give me the amount as it would be sent out in a bill. Looked online at bulbs plan. It's a vari plan, not fixed, the standing rate and unit rate is up there with the most expensive, and it can change at any time. To wrap it up, very expensive, poor pushy customer service, estimated tariffs are pulled from this air with no logic, extremely long hold times on the phone. If this is how they treat a potential new customer, I cant imagine what it's like being an actual customer. AVOID THIS COMPANY”

Helpful Report

Posted 3 years ago

Hi Ben, Thanks for taking the time to leave us a review. I'm really sorry to hear that you have had issues with getting your account set up, along with an accurate monthly payment. We always aim for the highest level of service, and it seems like you haven't experienced that. This is not the start we would want any new member to have. When you spoke to my colleague they should have generated a new quote for you if the amount of tenants in the property had changed, so again I'm sorry they didn't do this for you. I appreciate you may have already switched away, but if there's anything I can do to help, please email feedback@bulb.co.uk. All the best, Megan

Posted 3 years ago

“I sent an email as suggested in the response to my last post and no-one has got back to me. I’m getting increasingly fed up with the lack of response.”

Helpful Report

Posted 3 years ago

Hi Jane, I'm sorry for the delay getting back to you. I can see since you've left this review my colleague's have now got back to you over email, so I hope we'll be able to resolve your issue. All the best, Megan

Posted 3 years ago

“My account was in credit by over £560 when I decided to leave Bulb in August. They said I would have to wait 2 months to have my overpayment refunded and said it would be paid back to me by 10.10.21. I contacted them 11.10.21 to ask why I hadn't been refunded. On 12.10.21 they said I had caused the delay as I had cancelled my DD. No one told me this would interfere with my refund. It would seem they wanted me to continue to pay £150 per month into a closed account which already had a credit of £560, this would have taken my credit amount to over £800. My final bill was £55. It is now 13.10 - 3 days after I was due my refund and I am still waiting to get my money back.”

Helpful Report

Posted 3 years ago

Hi there, I'm sorry to hear about the poor experience you've had switching away from Bulb. As an industry standard it can take up to 8 weeks from your switch away completing for the refund to be processed. However, you should've been told cancelling the direct debit can delay this process. I can see this has now been resolved with a member of our complaints team and the refund issued. If you'd like to discuss anything about your issues further feel free to email feedback@bulb.co.uk and I'm happy to help. All the best, Curtis

Posted 3 years ago

“I was quite happy with Bulb until they started using me like a bank. My account is over £200 in credit and my usage is averaging at around £30/month - but they insist on "increasing" my payments from £40 to £47 a month. This is happening to most of their customers apparently. They are effectively borrowing money from their customers at 0% APR!!!!! I have contacted Bulb about it but have not had a reply.”

Helpful Report

Posted 3 years ago

Hi Robert, Thanks for taking the time to leave us a review. Every year as we head into winter, we contact our members to give them an update on their account and make sure it’s healthy, as people tend to use more energy during the colder months. This might include changing your payments or topping up your account. I'd be happy to take a look into your new payment amount and the calculations used, so please send us an email at feedback@bulb.co.uk. All the best, Megan

Posted 3 years ago

“It's a con! Don't waste your money on this energy company! My electric is a lot higher than they said it would when I joined. It's very dubious, because I live alone, it's only a small flat and I don't turn the heating on! Ironically you should avoid bulb like the plague!”

Helpful Report

Posted 3 years ago

Hi there, I'm sorry to hear your payments are higher than the initial quote we gave you. Our initial quote is based on property size and postcode if we don't get usage figures on signup, which is why it can sometimes be too low or too high. If you're concerned by usage at the property there are some checks we can run through with you. If you then believe the usage is still too high we can look into sending an engineer to check the meter for you. Could you please email feedback@bulb.co.uk with a bit more info about this and I'm happy to help? All the best, Curtis

Posted 3 years ago

“Account always in credit and have now been informed I must increase my direct debit from £103 to £163 despite having £100 in credit on my account.”

Helpful Report

Posted 3 years ago

Hi there, I'm sorry to hear we've had to increase the payments on your account. Whilst your account was in credit already, we take payment in advance meaning we'd always expect a minimum of one month's credit in the account. We also expect further credit on top of this at this time of year. This is to serve as a buffer for winter usage, which is much higher than other times of year. We'd therefore be increasing payments to accommodate higher winter usage in your case. If you'd like to discuss this further with us send an email to feedback@bulb.co.uk and we're happy to help. All the best, Curtis

Posted 3 years ago

“Worst enery company ever..prices… Worst enery company ever..prices extortionate.. changed to a smart metger and they started charging me from £20 a week to £20 every 2days... Engineer came in a ripped off wires in my house and they made me pay an independent electrician to fix it.. TERRIBLE WORST OF THE ALL”

Helpful Report

Posted 3 years ago

Hi Ibi, Thanks for sharing your review of Bulb. I'm sorry to hear about the negative experience you've had with the installation of your smart meter, as well as the ongoing issues since. We'd need to take a look into this for you, so please can you email feedback@bulb.co.uk. All the best, Megan

Posted 3 years ago

“I've been paying £80 a month for my fuel,you now want to put my direct debit up to £245 a month this is extortionate,also saying I am £280 in debt on my account when I've given metre readings and my monthly payment never changed.”

Helpful Report

Posted 3 years ago

Hi there, Thank you for sharing your review of Bulb. I'm sorry your payments have increased so much. Your suggested payment will be based on your usage and account balance. We'll need to take a look into this large jump though, so please can you email feedback@bulb.co.uk All the best, Megan

Posted 3 years ago

Shipping & Delivery
Delivery Methods	Courier
On-time Delivery	100%
Customer Service
Communication Channels	Email, Live Chat, Telephone
Queries Resolved In	Under An Hour
Customer Service	4.6 out of 5

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