Ebico Reviews 1,994

Another hopelessly incompetent company, seemingly from the atrocious Robin Hood Energy family. I want to pay them, but they have never sent me a bill, and my emails only elicit automated responses.

The Customer Service provided by Ebico is beyond awful, I had to arrange an engineer callout to fix my meter that's making a really horrible buzzing noise however after waiting 40 minutes to get through they took all the details and never booked the call out. Three weeks later I chased it up only to have to go through the entire process(including being on hold for half-hour) to then be told I have to wait another 2 weeks for the callout to happen which is ridiculous. Then they had the gall to threaten me with a £75 charge if I was not available when the engineer turned up, amazing.

Now their external company for calling and performing pre-checks on the site visit rang me out the blue to arrange my "Meter upgrade" which has absolutely nothing to do with the fault I reported in the first place. They are bad and I no longer wish to be a customer of theirs...

I am currently still with Ebico but not for long. If I wrote this 18 months ago it would be a 5* review. I signed up originally on their zero standing charge plan, which was ideal for me. They then scrapped that plan which is strange because I'm sure most people who switch to them do so for that plan as they were one of few still offering it at the time. They then swapped me to their standard tariff and then a few months later sent me a letter saying my current tariff was costing me hundreds more than a different tariff they offer. Well you chose it for me, so thanks for that. I'll take my money elsewhere very soon.

Why do I have to give Ebico 1 star?

I live alone, registered disabled and partially sighted.
I swapped to Ebico after chatting to their sales guy on the phone. Filled in the form and supplied them with actual photographs of my meter reading via email as they asked because the meter is hard to access and not possible for me to read. this they admit they did not use but some other reading. As a result o received a few days before Xmas for a bill around £1,200. I had to pay of course and as I am on a low income I paid them about £1,000 which was all the money I had saved for Xmas. I had no Xmas or tree as a result of the worry they caused me. Stayed in bed with nothing on. As a result I have put my house up for sale as just cannot afford to live e here. It is a one bedroom hone and costs me by Ebico readings £300Pm and I do not have electric heating. I have an electric shower, immersion heater and a small wall heater on a safety 30 minute turn off timer. Ebico also promised me I was in their other core group. Don’t be fooled i am not old enough. Was forcibly retired through poor health so yet another lie.to get me as a customer.

So much for the winter heating Grant, one of the few companies that do not give this if you are not i their main core group. Oh yes I have been told by Ebico staff twice that I was eligible and again told this in jan. The winter Heati grant was worth £140 to me and would have allowed me to stay warm.

Oh and if I leave Ebico after they fooled a vulnerable and registered disabled person to join I have to pay them an exit fee. It’s a win win for Ebico .

Ebico offer no explanation for their failings to put in my actual reading that they asked for and was sent by picture while I was on the phone to them.

Ebico called me today and say now they have £250 too much of my money but now will not refund the money until March 2 the earliest that they can read the meter themselves even though they have consistently made mistakes. How long can they keep my money for without interest?

Seriously how much does a 1 bedroomed insulated home use.

Why Ebico do you keep making excuses.

Today Ebico offered me £50 compensation which I refused as this is not good enough lying to get business and making serious mistakes.

I have found Ebico appalling to deal with. Things were not too bad when they dealt with SSE but when accounts were moved over to Robin Hood they were a disaster. I have more than one gas/electricity account at my house, installed by the previous owner. The standing order for one of the accounts hadn't been paid to SSE and so the account could not be moved over to Ebico. SSE couldn't tell me why the standing order hadn't gone through and credited my account with a sum to cover the outstanding balance so it could be transferred to Ebico. I emailed Ebico to let them know but they did nothing for quite a time so when they eventually tried to move over the account there was an outstanding balance again and so the account could still not be moved. They didn't let me know and I wasn't aware of the situation until I received a bill from SSE and eventually managed to get through to them on the phone after I don't know how many attempts. They said SSE had refused to transfer the account. So I contacted SSE, paid the account and with great difficulty managed to get through to Ebico to tell them they could move the account but they didn't and so there was another outstanding balance to SSE which I again paid. This kept happening until I gave up and left the two companies to sort it out as I seemed powerless to do anything. My experience of Ebico over the phone has been pretty dire. I asked them why they hadn't told me the account hadn't been transferred and was quite rudely told that it was up to me to check with them. All very well, but they didn't seem capable of answering the phone as it was let alone if everyone who wanted to move to Robin Hood were supposed to phone and check.. Their stock answer was always "I've done it for you" but of course they hadn't. I even had one guy who promised faithfully to check and let me know if there was a problem. Of course he didn't. They seem to tend to lie just to get you off the phone. I wasn't given online access to my accounts until a couple or so weeks ago, well over a year. Every time I phoned to ask I was told "I've done it, its okay now". In fact I wasn't given access until very recently when I emailed my meter readings saying I wasn't able to access my accounts online and a reply came back saying I could always send in my readings online. So I replied saying that was a pretty silly thing to say. I was then given online access! They come across as a very low level company, the staff are often rude and emails are not always replied to. At some stage they took over £300 from my bank account for a gas account that only used about £18 a quarter and have never returned it. It was only when I was recently given online access to the bills that I realsed which account it was. They are quite expensive and they make a profit. The fact they choose to give some profit away to people they believe needs it does not make it a non-profit company.

I have been unable to log into my account and kept getting a "whoops something went wrong error" for the last two months. They have not been able to fix the problem and have not sent any emails confirming they are looking into it as they said they would over the phone. The tone in which the advisor was speaking to me was terrible and he was not helpful at all. As a result of this I will be changing providers and will be telling friends and family to avoid them.

Ebico give out mis leading information and when you challenge them they hang up .the advisors do not know what they are going and when you ask to speak a manager they say no one is available
Avoid Ebico as they are terrible.

Calculated my final bill from an estimated reading, who the hell does this.Ignored the actual customer reading.I will be getting in touch with the regulater this company is giving out false bills.

Despite 2 calls to let you know I paid my bill twice due to an internet issue I still haven't received my money back, the last call (check the conversation) your representative confirmed I had paid twice and he told me he had arranged for the over payment to be returned and it would take a few days to arrive in my bank, it still hasn't arrived. Poor customer service

Would give 0 stars if I could. They will increase their charges as soon as the contract ends and try to automatically switch you to a standing charge contract unless you stop them.Frankly awful customer service, surly and unhelpful. When I moved house I kept receiving bills for my old address and eventually was contacted by a credit collection agency, despite speaking to customer services on multiple occasions (including a week before I even moved) and being told it was all sorted.

EBICO can no longer say it is a "Not for Profit" organisation for the following reason. Green v4 has a fixed minimum annual usage charge for each energy regardless of the unit charge agreed so using less specific energy equates to you paying much more per unit used - hence EBICO will profit from your under-usage. If your actual usage falls below this minimum figure, EBICO will charge you for units not used at the year end. User pays significantly more than the contracted unit rate agreed in contract, perhaps as much as 30% extra profit to EBICO if actual usage is much lower than the minimum usage. Each energy annual fixed fee is treated separately so if one energy annual usage exceeds the minimum value set for one energy, the additional revenue EBICO receives cannot be used to offset the deficit usage from the other energy. EBICO has a win-win approach because it knows you might not reach the minimum level of usage they require of you. The final actual rate rises as actual usage deficit falls behind the set minimum. The rate set by your contract in such cases becomes irrelevant. Thus a "super-profit" to EBICO applies to the non-usage element of your energy shortfall.

Please stay well clear, use a reputable energy company like 'bulb'

Once gave Ebico 5 stars but boy, have they changed.
This "MINIMUM BILLING LEVEL" SCAM is shyster-speak for "STANDING CHARGE IS YOU DON'T SPEND ENOUGH".
Cancelling my DD today and will pay final bill by one-off direct transfer, because trust level through floor.

Was with Ebico almost 20 years until they got a new CEO who's all for Profit. Since hooking up with RHE it was awful. Had to get Ombudsman involved TWICE when trying to leave; no bills for over 6 months, and wrong meter reading. If they have no Shareholders WHY ARE THEIR PRICES HIGH?? They never used to be; they used to be about helping those struggling to pay energy prices. Yes, they do have Tariffs without Standing Charges, but they are the MOST EXPENSIVE. Why should there even be different Tariffs to begin with or a Standing Charge? How did the energy market operate before Standing Charges? Just fine! Is the Gas and Electricity different quality or what? Don't buy the 'green/renewable' thing; it's a hoax.

I can't complain about our actual time with Ebico because the rates were pretty good. However their renewal quote was expensive so we moved to a new supplier in August when our contract was up for renewal. A final meter reading was supplied and and they sent us the "we're sorry you're leaving" letter, with the final bill payment due to come out in the following months direct debit. However they are still taking direct debits out three months later including today and now owe me nearly £250! I've now cancelled the direct debit with my bank account and hope to hear back from them with a cheque asap. So much for helping people on low incomes with good energy rates, they've put me into overdraft today!

Slow at refunding money due
We used Ebico until September 2019 for our electricity. When the fixed term account was due for renewal their quote was too expensive so we decided to switch. I've just chased them for the 3rd time (26th Nov) to get the final bill settled and the credit of £300+ refunded into our bank account. For the months of October and November I've been paying for electricity via direct debit that they don't supply.
They've been sitting on the final bill for 2 weeks but not released until today when I phoned.
When I previously said I'd cancel the DD they said I could but then the refund would be issued by cheque and would take 28 days from issue of the final bill.
I've spoken to nice customer service staff whose hands seem to be tied.

Kept quiet about their sneaky new policy of hiking prices on zero standing charge accounts.The purpose of Ebico was to offer lower prices to consumers who had lower usage hence zero standing charges. In essence they Hiked these accounts with the price per therm. Trying to leave ebico is even harder. Final Meter readings five weeks on and still waiting for a final bill. Instead i have been billed incorrectly and the bill dated in a time frame short of contract termination. Customer service has also gone down hill after numerous attempts the whole shambles remains unresolved. Ombudsman next stop.

This turned out to be much more expensive than my previous suppliers

Ebico used to be so good. Now a disaster since link up with Robin Hood.
Customer service diabolical.
Zero Green laughable now.
It's supposed to be green but penalises low users, and solar panel users, by imposing minimum annual charges.
Will be leaving.

Decent service and tarrif until recently. As a previous review states the standing charge is now enforced by having to pay a minimum bill amount. I hardly use gas so this is now a rip off. Spoke to Customer Sevices and they weren't interested. I have now left and don't regret it.