ESB Energy Head Office - Manchester

Jamil A.

ESB Energy has provided an appalling and substandard level of service throughout my interactions with them, marked by delays, inadequate responses, and a blatant disregard for my rights as a disabled customer.

Their financial mismanagement has been astonishing. I was overcharged multiple times due to their defective pre-authorisation process for one EV charging session. It took a month for them to calculate and refund the amount owed.

As someone with disabilities that affect my communication and cognition, I made clear and explicit requests for communication adjustments in line with the Equality Act 2010. These requests were ignored in the initial interactions, with the company sending unstructured and confusing emails that only added to the stress caused by their mistakes.

Their customer service was similarly unacceptable. During a phone call, one of their agents, Niall, was dismissive and rude and responded immaturely when I challenged his unprofessionalism. ESB Energy’s response to my complaint about this call handler was disturbingly generic, offering vague assurances of “training” and issuing disingenuous apologies for how I felt about things, ultimately failing to address the gravity of the situation or demonstrate any real accountability.

Adding to these failings, their privacy policy listed an invalid email address for complaints, which was incompetent and potentially a breach of data protection legislation.

Overall, ESB Energy has shown shocking incompetence and a complete lack of respect for its customers. They cannot be trusted to handle finances correctly, respect customer rights, or deliver even basic service levels. This is a company to avoid at all costs.

Gemzy

Was sold ESB on at the door with grand promises of a cheaper tariff, my early termination fees covered, keeping my warm home discount and green energy. Sounds too good to be true? That's because it is.
After calling at the beginning of October about my fees I was told to send in my final bill and they'll credit the amount (£90) onto my ESB account, 3 weeks later, nothing. Called up today to be told it was on my account as it was in credit, okay fair enough, then to be told that they only offer the warm home discount to those of pension age, I'm 30, so there's no way the door to door sales person could think I was pension age!
After coming off the phone I look into my account credit to see the only credit on there is the payments I have made to them.
Call number two, explain everything again and the advisor asked me if I have already left them! Talk about not actually listening! He then tells me that the fees are paid directly to the old supplier.
Now I've just come off the phone with the old supplier who have confirmed that no fees have been sent to them. Lie number 2.
The only thing they have stuck by is the cheaper tariff which judging by other reviews that won't be true much longer.
Absolutely atrocious! I was even shown their trust pilot score of 4.4 on sign up. I wish I checked Google reviews too.
Edit 06/11
Since writing this review I have gotten no further other then now being told that ESB won't wover my early termination charges either now but have offered £60 credit on my account, not much of a gesture seams as now this switch is costing me £230 with the warm home discount and now the £90 in charges they won't cover.
Update 17/02
I am now finally back with my old supplier, after a Ombudsman complaint and (unsurprisingly) ruling in my favour I have had all payments I made refunded to myself but I am yet to receive the agreed upon compensation amount from them as rather then pay it me directly they put it on my account as credit.
For anyone having issues with ESB I highly recommend getting in touch with the Ombudsman, process is really easy and if unhappy customers let it slide nothing will ever change and they need to be held accountable.

Ron W.

I enrolled with ESB in late 2017 and have since then received good service at a good price, with ESB proactively offering their best available tariff when each of my fixed term contracts approaches expiry. On the the very few occasions I have needed to speak to them, my calls were promptly answered by polite, friendly and efficient staff who were able to resolve my query whilst I was talking. The latest e-mail from ESB advised me that I was paying too much on my direct debit when compared to the energy I have used so far this year / predicted to use in the remainder of the year and reduced my monthly payment by £10 per month. This is the first time in my 42 years being a householder that an energy company has proactively reduced my payments, I am very pleased with their honesty and integrity. I have recommended ESB to relatives who like me are also pleased with their price and good service.

Laura B.

I was sold a contract on the doorstep (my own fault). When looking at the rates I realised they weren't really cheaper than my current supplier, they would just keep my payments lower than my current supplier which meant I would not necessarily be paying for my usage and would create a debit on the account. This was Aug 2021. I immediately used the cooling off period to advise I would be staying with my supplier. I am still yet to have my gas transferred back and literally no response to the numerous emails I have sent since then. I have spoken with a couple of people and as much as they're perfectly polite, they do not carry out the actions they promise. I'm basically being held against my will by this company. I haven't paid them a penny and have no intention of doing so. Please do not use this company.

Costi M.

Worst company ever!
Not recommend.

Got 2 year deal. For no reason what so ever I have been changed extra for the past 8 month before my contacts expire.
Dispide the fact that I submit my matter reading over the phone every single month since I became an ESB customer, is still not clear why I received various estimate matter reading thought my account every month and it was no explanation for those charges as same of the customer service representative told me, it my be because of the system error.
Nevertheless, I have to contact the ESB customer service couple of time to find out what was the reason of those charges as they never notified me at all in any way regards this matter.
Therefore I've decided to cancel my direct debit as I was paying estimate bills as I been told over the phone by an ESB agent.

Therefore, if you do live an irritating review, you'll receive an mistirious automatic reply from Stephen or whatever he my be, asking you to reply whit your email address in order to short out the issue.
Do not worry.
Is fake as the company it self. Do not reply as you'll never get any answer.

Keep up the good work ESB

Desi B. W.

I stayed with ESB for 12 months, when I changed the supplier then new supplier asked for meter readings which I sent. But ESB never sent me email or letter or phone call to discuss final payment I owe etc. After 3 months I received a call from debt recovery agency that I owe 307 pounds to ESB which was shocking because I was paying regular amount every month to ESB . So I feel they scammed me unknown way. They should have contacted me to ask for final meter readings and settling the account, sending my information to debt recovery agency like this was really shocking as I never made any late payments. So ESB customers keep this in mind if change supplier

Parry E.

I switched to ESB in Sept. 2018 with a 2 year fixed price tarriff. All has gone well with quarterly accounts rendered until I had a smart meter installed.I was expecting a quarterly bill on March 25th 2020, but no sign of a bill despite many e.mails sent them asking WHY THERE WAS NO ACCOUNT for the first quarter of the year. I have a very large credit balance with them and I will leave them at the earliest opportunity without incurring the £60 charge. My next step will be stopping my monthly DD as I do not trust them to repay my credit balance when i do switch suppliers. ESB have poor communicative skills and they will lose me.

Ursula P.

After switching suppliers for guaranteed lower energy costs, a few months of exchanging, my bills were nearly more than my previous suppliers.

I again had to switch suppliers due to affordability, leaving me with a small debt.

A payment arrangement was arranged and a DD was set up which they refused to take out as agreed, instead they sold my account to conexus recovery.

After informing the debt company of the DD they put the account on hold to contact ESB.

ESB then went ahead and took the full amount out of my account breaking the arrangement.

I will be making a full complaint as this is absolutely poor service.