I bought a house serviced by a Utilita pay as you go meter back in May. On move in day I called and notified them of my ownership. I was directed to an absolutely useless website where I input all my details and provided proof of ownership. I was informed that it would all be sorted in 5 days. In the meantime I topped up the meters with codes they provided. I noticed that a chunk of this was not being credited to the available balance. It turned out that a previous tenant who was now deceased had run up a balance. The housing association that I bought the property from denied all liability. After a month of hearing nothing and Utilita helping themselves to my money, I did the online forms again. Still no reply. I called several times but never got through to an actual person. Just 30 minutes on hold and the calls get dropped or disconnected. Finally after a couple of hours of trying again today I got to talk to a lady who put me on hold for another 30 minutes. I was about to give up again when a man called Quintin(?) in South Africa answered. He was finally able to help me. I had to resend the documents again while he stayed on the line, but he set up an account in my name and removed the dead former tenant’s debt. He also refunded the money that Utilita had been stealing from me over the past couple of months. I personally have never had this much trouble setting up a new residential utility account and think there is something very wrong with their online systems and their phone answering. During the hours that I was on hold I did escalate the problem to the ombudsman because nobody should have to spend this much of their day setting up a simple account. A few weeks ago I tried leaving to go with a different company but Utilita blocked that. I have never had one of these pay as you go accounts before but will see how it goes. Any further hassle or problems and I will definitely be switching to a more reputable company.

UPDATE: sorry I couldn’t take your call at 10am but nobody called between 3 and 3:35

UPDATE #2: no call at 4:15pm either

Maybe your phones aren’t working?

Hi Daniel. I see the call from the Winchester number and have just called it but they don’t know of a Daniel. Please let me know when you are going to call and I will stay by the phone.