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First Utility Reviews

1.2 Rating 127 Reviews

4 %

of reviewers recommend First Utility

Company Reviews

1.2

Based on 127 reviews


Shipping & Delivery
Delivery Methods	Courier
Customer Service
Communication Channels	Telephone, Live Chat, Email
Queries Resolved In	Over A Week
Customer Service	1.1 out of 5

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First Utility 1 star review on 30th September 2022

First Utility 1 star review on 16th July 2022

First Utility 1 star review on 16th July 2022

First Utility 1 star review on 16th July 2022

Anonymous

Anonymous // 01/01/2019

Filter: Rated 1 None 5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Stars Helpful

“Only with Shell energy for a short while paid £170 per month, after leaving I paid my final bill only to be sent another for a separate amount, I asked for them to provide a breakdown of that bill as I didn't believe I owed it, only to be sent another bill with no breakdown of charges, then I started receiving text stating that they will be taking further action, so I reluctantly paid the bill, only for them to say I haven't and continue with the threatening text. I rung customer service only to be put on hold for over an hour and cut off. Still unresolved, so annoying to spend hours on the phone with rude staff when I can prove I've paid my final bill. Poor customer service, don't go near this company!”

Posted 4 years ago

“I was a customer of First Utility which was fine & the problems occured when the company changed to Shell Energy. I had smart meters installed Feb 2019 & I moved out of the property Aug 2019, I paid by direct debit each month & when asked where I was living in Aug I provided my current address of the property I was then living at. In Oct 2019 I moved again & Nov 2019 £179 was taken out of my bank account by direct debit from them. As I am no longer a customer I can't access my online account. I got the bank to recall the direct debit. Dec 2019 I have been on the phone to them & they advised the gas smart meter wasn't ever working & the electricity meter was reset when it was installed. A common problem with the Seimans smart meters apparently. I said how would I know this? & how is this my problem? I also asked why it took them from Aug to Nov to produce that bill & how it is so high during the warmer months when they said it was the gas meter that was the problem. Back & fourth by email to then be told the electricity meter was also a problem & the bill is just shy of £300 but they will halve that as a gesture of goodwill. I said I'm not paying that & maintained that stance since 27th Dec 2019. I now need them to email me the deadlock letter & I am ready to send everything to the Ombudsman. I've never been a bad payer & they are treating me like this is my fault!”

Posted 4 years ago

“I am contacting ombudsman energy as they are charging me more than agreeing on contract. Be extremely careful if you have smart meters installed on your property. ask the engineer to sign a paper indicating the date of the exchange, and the last reading, his name and the name of his company. Shell energy pretends smart meters have been installed in May. The have been changed in July. They reporting the reading of July as May reading and they are charging me 2 extra months of energy consumption. It is entirely dishonest, that's pure robbery and I have had to pen a case with Ombudsman. Be careful if your supplier is Shell Energy (ex First Utility). Be careful with smart meters. DISGUSTING, UNFAIR, ROBBERS.”

Posted 4 years ago

“After 7 months my moving out I recive a bill £1500. My final bill was in credit 900£ they send me cheque for that. Now they try grab me £1500. Ive got letter with due date in 2 days must ti be paid!. Just a f***** joke!! Anybody recommended good lawer in hull? I think go to court. I spend hours on line without results. My final meter was 0497 but they send me bill for 1049. I asked did you see different? I have still photos. They said doesnt matter i must to pay”

Posted 4 years ago

“During my year as a First Utility customer (prior to them becoming Shell Energy) I had an issue with my meter, which was confirmed by a member of their support team. This was reported in October and despite being assured this would be fixed/replaced, come May when I moved out, it had not been nor had an appointment been re-arranged after their engineer cancelled at the last minute in March. A few months later, they sent me a bill for £1500 (9 months of payments apparently) saying that they were satisfied they'd fixed the issue...obviously this wasn't the case whilst I was in the property. Numerous months of back and forth later, they said they'd lower it to £850 based on an estimate. Having admitted that that their equipment was faulty and then not charging me whilst the issue was being 'resolved', it seems rather extraordinary that they can pick numbers out of the air like this! Still deciding whether to take to small claims court as clearly they are just guessing at this point to try and get some money out of me...”

Posted 4 years ago

“Rude patronising customer service! Named SAMIA Had to repeat everything her colleague told her over her shoulder! Contanstly asking ‘do ya get it?’ Trying to antagonise! 1 hour call to switch supplier!! Really!! Retrain ! And teach manors”

Posted 4 years ago

“Customer service very poor!! Antagonistic person called ‘Samia’ badly trained repeating everything colleague says! Rude blunt repetitive patronising”

Posted 4 years ago

“She’ll energy are an absolute disgrace when it comes to customer service. They are patronising and unprofessional. I will Never use them again.”

Posted 4 years ago

“I have been a customer of 1st.utillity for several years and I have had no issues but now Shell energy are running the business I can’t wait to leave. Customer services are pathetic it takes an age to get problems sorted because they will not answer the phone.How can my 96 year old mum in law communicate on a chat line. Shame on you Shell.”

Posted 4 years ago

“Is anyone taking legal action against this company or thinking about taking legal action please let me know. I was with First Utility and had issues with meter then Shell took over. Shell have since added over £4K to my bill, claim that I use £4700 on average a year and are demanding £670 a month - I live in a semi detached house!”

Posted 4 years ago

“Salesman ignored 'No Cold Calling' sign on my 97-year old mother's front door and the disability ramp outside, told her he could save her money on gas and electricity and that her neighbours had just signed for the same deal. Went into her house (including bedroom) to look through her paperwork, organised a phone call to her landline while he was there and as she was being taken through the process, fed her the answers and told her not to tell them he had already left. Trying to unravel her confused story, I found buried in a pile of her former bills a document dated the day before outlining the terms of the deal, complete with salesman's name and contract no. We had switched my mum's fuel supplier only a few months ago and she did not want or need to change. Then began the appalling customer services debacle. 74+ minutes listening to muzak and recorded sales messages, still could not speak to anyone in authority alhthough a manager called Kris tried his best but it was beyond his remit. Tried online chat and spoke to another human being (thank you, Luke) who escalated the case. Eventually received a phone call from my 'dedicated resolution manager' (or some such nonsensical jargon). Said sorry abut that, contract cancelled. I did not feel this incident had been properly dealt with at an appropriate level so said I would be contracting them in writing. He immediately got very stroppy and said that only he would see such a letter. Pointless discussion ensued with my 'DRM' desperately trying to stop me taking the matter further. (Why?) When I asked if they had taken bank details or got my mum to sign anything, he said definitely not as it was a 'verbal contract'. The next day she received a direct debit confirmation with all her bank details. Customer service is so unprofessional there must be some deep-rooted issue with training here. Very shocked at whole incident and am taking it further until I get some answers. Unethical practice, keep away.”

Posted 4 years ago

“Absolute travesty of a company; unprofessional complaints resolution team.”

Posted 4 years ago

“A disgraceful energy supplier, highly overcharge, takes about 40 minutes each time you call to actually get through to someone and when you eventually do, they’re not bothered to help you. Even the complaints resolution team huff and puff! Ofgem seriously need to investigate this company. Highly avoid using them at all costs ! An absolutely appalling company.”

Posted 4 years ago

“Extremely poor service. They overcharge, takes about 40 minutes to actually speak to someone and when you do, they don’t really know what to do and are not bothered to help you. All the complaints resolution team are not bothered either and huff and puff! Ofgem seriously need to investigate this company. A joke of a energy supplier. Highly avoid! OVO Energy are 100 times better”

Posted 4 years ago

“Hello, I am disappointed again with the service I have received from Shell energy, after all the drama that occurred while transferring gas and electric over from EDF which took 3 months of constant pain while contacting you and getting no where, the same script has started to play again, my gas and electric smart meter was to be installed on 13/08/19, I took the whole day off, the engineer came over and told on his iPad we were down as getting only electric meter changed to smart meter and the gas would remain the same, he then called the head office and said I should ring shell energy and ask shell to sort out again as he can’t install both meters, he never installed any meter, I rang shell on the same day and was told someone will be in touch, not surprised at all that no one is in touch, called again after 3 weeks and got the same answer that someone will be in touch, but no one has contacted me, today got an email that your electric & gas meter is changed to smart meter.. no one has come to my property... lied again... Totally pathetic customer service and people have started lying. Disappointed”

Posted 4 years ago

“Like so many other people, I’ve been scammed by first utility with varying bills from £28 to £200 in the space of one month in the middle of summer for a one bedroom tiny cottage. I work 12 hours a day 6 days a week and mainly leave my boiler and heater completely switched off for effective energy saving. They now tell me I owe them £620 and refuse to check my metres aren’t faulty without charging an extra £250. Avoid these scam artists.”

Posted 4 years ago

“APPALLING CUSTOMER SERVICE. Dear Mr Sir I have been forced to contact you, as the service provided by Shell, is appalling. I was a customer, of First Utility for over 8 years .They fitted my Smart meter.& readings were automatically sent by the meter. Then this year Shell took over, I remained with Shell ,as I expected the great service to continue. HOW WRONG I have been. About a month ago, Shell contacted me to arrange for an Engineer to fit a new battery in the meter. It took the engineer about 2 hrs to fit !!!!!! I subsequently, went on to the live chat line to check all satisfactory. They asked me for the meter nos which I did. They then asked me to give readings. I said I was unable to as I had never read the meter ever. First Utility had installed & readings were automatic from day 1. I asked that a member of Management,to contact me ASAP to arrange for an engineer to call & give assistance ,as I have “Vision Impairment” NO REPLY RECEIVED OR CONTACT BY PHONE TODATE. Today, I received my monthly a/c Over the Summer it is usually below £90 for DUAL FUEL THE LATEST BILL WAS FOR £336.88 I AM NOT PAYING THAT I look forward to a swift response to resolve the matter. Kind Regards Yours sincerely ROB MILES”

Posted 4 years ago

“My tenant was using this company for gas and electric. She moved out and my one bed flat was empty for one month. I received a bill for £74. I was on the phone for 1 hour and 8 minutes in total. Customer service is very poor and I certainly would not recommend this company to anyone. They are prompt to get your business and payments, but are at a snails speed to rectify any problem.”

Posted 4 years ago

“Changed to Shell on a promise of them saving me £20 plus per month. They also said that my existing meter would work with them. The meter I have been told now is not compatible. My fuel prices after 3 months has also gone up by £30 per month. I feel like I have been mugged by this lying company. AVOID at all cost. Shell Energy are crooked. I am going to the Ombudsman!”

Posted 4 years ago

“**Ripped off, manipulated and scammed by shell energy posting to hopefully prevent this happening to others** Today we were in court with our (now previous) energy provider #shellenergy formerly known as First utility. To start at the beginning, First Utility supplied our energy for a full year hastle free. We moved house, switched back to them in the new property, sent reads, set up a direct debit, everything you are meant to do. Almost 2 years later in March 2017 our direct debit increased by £280 per month! Without any notification or prior warning or even a reason. Obviously we queried this at the first opportunity and froze my direct debits, continuing to put my payments into savings until they rectified the issue. The events that followed have consumed our life for 2 and a half years. They claimed that we were using excess of 20 units of electricity per day and that when they assessed our account 14 months after signing up they realised this but only increased the direct debit by £10. Two months later they realised it wasn't enough and put the account up for reassessment and a further 3 months after that they decided we owed them back pay of almost 2 years and we were using twice the electricity that we have PROVED we were using! We contacted the ombudsman services who ruled in our favour initially, instructing a deduction in the money they were asking for as they had not handled our account correctly and the accumulation of a bill was their fault. #shellenergy agreed to apply initially, and we waited for them to contact us with a new bill. 2 days before christmas 2017 they decided to appeal the OS decision on the grounds that we had apparently stolen a SMART meter and had not issued them with final readings (I have all the documentation that proves #shellenergy arranged the SMART meter AND supplied the codes to activate it - they also took the final reads and generated an invoice that they later tried to hide. (In addition to this, once the SMART meter was installed the imperial meter was meant to be held for a max period of 6 months so it could be tested for faults. #shellenergy scrapped our imperial meter to avoid it being tested. To give you a picture our SMART meter shows average daily use of about 15 units per day PEAK. The imperial was showing 20 units per day in summer. It was clearly faulty). We challenged the Ombudsman services and had their original decision reinstated!!! However #shellenergy managed to appeal once again and had the case shut down. At a complete loss we went to them personally and offered to pay the bill minus the back bill that the OS stated they should deduct. They refused. They threatened us with collection procedures that would include CCJs or Bailiffs. I have a business and 3 young children, I can't afford CCJs against my name and certainly dont want my children to experience bailiffs turning up at the door! and so the only option left to avoid that from happening was for us to take them to court as the claimant or pay what they were asking, well in excess of what we owed. What we didn't realise in all of this, and we found out today that although #shellenergy have proven they are a liability in the sense that, in more ways than 1, they are reckless and complacent with customers accounts, in the eyes of the law we can only claim back from money they are seeking from us on top of the bill. So to put into context what they have done, is allowed us to accumulate a huge debt (luckily for us the money was put aside), threatened us with bailiffs and CCJs knowing the only way out was to take them to court, knowing all they would have to do is sit back and allow it to play out! Morally and on principle we won! The judge made it clear he was unimpressed by the way they have handled this and allowed it to drag out. Unfortunately the law doesn't run on morals and this time they had the knowledge and the upper hand! To add to this, to make matters worse, in the process of trying to resolve this we have had members of #shellenergy staff laugh at us, we have been accused of being bill Dodgers, in transcripts we have been described as "super awkward people" we have been accused of being aggressive and were even told by one member of staff he would personally make sure the back bill deduction was NOT applied. They have caused so much stress to our family and consumed so much of our time I want to put this put there to warn everyone to steer clear! Read the reviews online about #firstutility. It isn't surprising they have tried to re brand.”

Posted 4 years ago

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First Utility is rated 1.2 based on 127 reviews