The worst broadband company I have ever had to deal with

21 MAY 2022

The content below is sourced from current verifiable customer reviews of Shell Energy published on Trustpilot.

NEVER USE THIS COMPANY

NEVER USE THIS COMPANY. The worst broadband company I have ever had to deal with. No one seems to know what they are talking about. Took ages to set up as staff kept getting details wrong, such bad connection I would give up watching a programme and go to bed, cheap tacky router which they actually wanted returning when I moved, router was is storage as I intended on continuing with shell when I found a house (living with my daughter at the moment). Now they want to charge me for the router and charge me for the rest of the year – nearly £200 – as I ‘have a contract with them’. All other companies connected with me selling my house have been great, occasional charge for ending a contract early but all expected. This company just want your money, not interested in the customer. the fact that they want money for providing no service is disgusting. One very helpful member of staff said she would refer me to the complaints department, then quite happily told me I would still owe them to the end of the year! Another unhelpful member of staff said she ‘understood’ why I was annoyed at the cost, but she clearly didn’t ‘understand’ at all – no one “understands” that it is fair to charge a customer for the year with no provision of a service. My ‘complaints’ phone call was a message to call them back! Great customer service! They obviously have so many complaints they only have time for one call. AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE

Transferred my broadband to them and…

Transferred my broadband to them and will move away as soon as contract ends. Fault online (happens every time we get heavy rain). Can’t do web chat as broadband crashed, took two weeks to respond to email and that was to tell me to call. 20 min to answer phone. I don’t have that time to spare.

Appalling customer service

Couldn’t give this company a lower rating which I think it deserves – no stars. Spent 27 minutes on the phone trying to establish if I even had an account ! KC your a star , your inability to be able to process the responses to the security questions , you lack of ability to find the account, and blatant lies about being the same person to make a complaint to! You’ve taken your last payment from me , I have instructed my bank to cancel all future payments . What appalling customer service

Shell – unable to afford to employ call centre staff

I am a landlord and the tenants moved out of a property I won on 5 April 2022. I took a meter reading and after waiting for 30 minutes on the Shell online web chat was told to call them as the chat could do nothing. I called and after a long wait l asked for the call back facility to be activated. Nobody called back so I called again and after a long wait I got connected to an operator. I explained the situation to them and gave them my details and the meter reading. After a month I got a request for a meter reading for the bill and I input this online. I received a bill for GBP 129. I calculated the bill should in fact have been about GBP 26! I again called and after the usual 30 minutes wait manged to speak to an operator. I noted her comprehension of English was poor and she could not seem to understand that I was a landlord. She agreed the bill was incorrect and said she could actually see somewhere on the system the meter readings I had submitted. She agreed to get a revised bill generated. I know find I have a bill for GBP 1236!!! I have better things to do with my time then spend hours on the phone because Shell in spite of record profits are unable to provide sufficient properly trained operators. My next stop will be my MP and a daily newspaper. I think it would make a nice headline!

I was sold my energy tariff on a lie…

I was sold my energy tariff on a lie but it’s only got worse since then, a customer service agent entered a meter reading resulting in a bill so high they blocked my account. They never thought to try and get intouch with me though and left it to me.
Recently they have decided to calm in their in house debt collectors Zinc to harass me after my direct debit failed. This would be fair if they had attempted to contact me.
Today their customer service adviser told me they go straight to threats and debt collectors as the public don’t listen otherwise. He also told me they don’t want to pay people to call or send letters. Ironic as that’s exactly what your doing but now with the added step of someone having to call the debt collectors.
Use shell if you like to be treated like scum, Otherwise avoid.

Don’t bother ringing!

Never had a problem until I had to ring them! No idea who I spoke to but he was sighing down the phone because I didn’t always understand his accent so asked him to repeat himself. He told me he didnt know what to do to help me and he also said he could not transfer my call to another member of staff or manager to help me either. DD is £80 and im £200 in credit, DD increased to £130 so I asked for it to be lowered back to £80. Was told yes I dont have to accept the increase, but this never happened because I was still going to be charged £130 for this months payment. I’ve cancelled my direct debit and will pay what I can afford from now on. Customer service is not the same quality as their Vpower!

Smart meter = no meter, awful experience

New house and new bad review for Shell Energy, we had a smart meter installed 8 weeks ago and it still doesn’t talk with shell providing readings. Meanwhile we also installed solar panels and battery to lower our costs and I can’t even send the new (lower) reading to shell. Two chats and one call resulted in absolute no change of the situation. The funny thing is that the gas meter is working as expected sending half hourly consumption to shell.
I’ve just filed an ombudsman with the hope that this review plus the complaint will get shell to put some serious effort in resolving the situation.

Not reliable landline service I am not impressed with this provider

I am not impressed with this provider, there was a fault on the Line at Easter and the phone was not working for 4 days, it’s my mums landline and she is in her 90’s and needs it for her support line, it’s 21 May and it’s stopped working again!!!! I think it’s time to search for a new provider.

Utterlu uttlery woeful

Hands down one of the most woefully inept companies I’ve had the displeasure of coming across.

Got moved over to them in Jan of 2022 due to my previous supplier going into administration, which is understandable given the climate. Everything since then however, far from understandable. The very first bill sent by shell covered periods in the past that had already been settled with the previous supplier. When I called them to discuss this, I was told that it can take up to 6 weeks “but sometimes more” (which means they’re dragging their feet) to get the information from the previous supplier and that it could help speed up the process if I emailed over proof of payment for the periods in question (which I did), periods which totalled over £500 so thank God they didn’t transfer the direct debit over.

Following month, no issues.

March – the bill was close to triple the price of the previous month due to Shell rebilling me for the January period (a period which had already been settled in full) at an extortionate rate. I was told they’re going to investigate this, and it could take 6 weeks, same as before. At the same time, seeing as it had been over 6 weeks since the first complaint, I raised the original issue with them again as they had now passed that debt on to a debt collection agency despite assuring me the account was put on pause while the issue was being investigated. Thankfully Shell did put stop to that promptly, potentially due to them seeing the error of their ways or some divine intervention for all I could tell.

April, no problems.

May – both issues still haven’t been resolved despite multiple calls from myself to shell and even times when shell called me chasing payment to which I responded with the nature of the queries. While this was going on, I was receiving daily automated phone calls requesting payments and multiple text messages a week stating that I owe in excess of £700.00 and more recently (albeit 4 days apart) over £900.00. I made the request that these messages and phone calls be stopped immediately as the debt they’re referring to is and has been under investigation for months now and from where I’m standing should be written off entirely as they are no grounds for them.

Today (20/05/2022) – after another call with shell regarding the same issues, the only things they can tell me are “these things can take up to 6 weeks but sometimes more”… it has been well over that time now for both issues. I asked multiple times if there’s anything I can provide to help speed up the process but apparently, they “have all the information they need” and they just need to “wait for the relevant department” to send over the information.

Only once since January have I spoken to someone who, and I don’t say this lightly, doesn’t show a complete lack of empathy and willingness to resolve a customer’s ongoing multiple complaints. I can’t say for certain why that may be the case, perhaps the staff are treated poorly by management, perhaps the management teams are pitifully trained and inexperienced. who knows? What I do know is am genuinely impressed and stunned the depths of their incompetence. I will be raising with the Ombudsman Service

The worst and most underwhelming…

The worst and most underwhelming experience I ever had with any energy supply company, even Avro or Green now bust had better customer services.

First I was transferred from Green no account for months, ok I can understand this, no bad feelings, many were transferred at the same time.

The hell started with Shell installing smart meters, gas meter failed only few weeks in cutting off gas supply and therefore heating and hot water in to the house. No one knew anything and could not help, eventually a 3rd party “engineer” is being sent over and replace the meter, gas supply back no readings from the meter on the hand held. “Engineer” lies that it take some time to re-connect, about 24 hours. Next day I call Shell, customer service tells me (another lie) its not 24 hours its until next bill and they can see the reading from the meter (another lie). After a month I don’t see the usage I call Shell and they lie again, handheld has to be reconnected but they can see the reading, work order created no one ever does anything about it. Comes April I see my gas bills are estimated I call Shell and first time truth is coming, they have no visibility of my gas meter since the beginning I am underpaying for months for gas. Second work order this time to fix smart meter, I need to wait 5 days. No action for more than 5 days, I call them again, shell apologies and … create new work order this time 10 days. Day 9 I get an email asking me to give them time when they call me… they call 3 days after. I am being offered a possibility to raise another work order this time sometimes in July, yes July!!!! Maybe than they will be able to assign someone (NOT to fix it!!). I asked if this is a joke and if it would be fair for me to stop paying until this is fixed? I got as a gift another 10 days work order to maybe fix it with following message: “We have arranged an email to be sent to SMS Company to open available dates for you at soonest date”

As you all can see it is not to fix it! Shell raised a 10 day working order to arrange and email to be sent, 10 days to sent an email!!! and who is this SMS company!

Five months of lies and disinformation’s which caused me to lose money and time. I am going to look in to regulator complains or legal actions… For sure going to jump the ship the first opportunity I have.

The above are extracts from negative customer reviews about Shell Energy posted during the last few days on Trustpilot.  Visit the Shell Energy page on Trustpilot to view all reviews in their entirety, positive and negative (and Shell Energy responses). Watch out for any fake reviews. Note the reoccurring themes in the negative reviews, including difficulty in communicating with the company. 

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