Terrible service for Shell broadband customers!!

15 August 2022

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

Terrible customer service for Broadband Customers !!

I haven’t had my first bill yet and I spent so much time holding the line with their customer service. Never manage to have a resolution but only be passed between customer service, retention service and technical support.. not a single person has taken ownership of the issue or got anywhere close to giving me a solution. I’m dreading the thought I’m now stuck with them for over a year. What a massive mistake !!
PS Not once I’ve been given the name of the person I was talking to; this makes me very worried about the authenticity of the previous reviews praising individuals for their “great” service !!

Terrible customer service

Their customer service is terrible. I waited four and half hours on their live chat service for a reply. Then it timed out and I was sent an email. I could have just gone about my day and waited for an email response.

Don’t use the online chat

Don’t use the online chat. It is totally waste of time. I have been waited 4 hours to reach position 1. When on position 1, I have waited for another half an hour and still don’t have any response. Finally I have given up and write this review to warn all consumers.

Appalling Service

This company is absolutely unbelievable. I switched my Mothers phone and broadband because it was 50% less. Shell failed at their end and billed my Mother for 2 months running. Once I queried it she was refunded 1 payment. Then they sent emails requesting the router back but not sending an address to return too, now blow me they’ve sent a demanding email for the £35 for cost of the router. £35 is ridiculous it’s not worth 35p let alone £35. It’s paid now, but the company gives appalling customer service. Would not recommend them.

bullying emails threatening to pass my details to a debt recovery

We were forced to use Shell when our previous suppler went into administration and since the massive rises in power costs this year I have been paying in smaller regular chunks every two weeks but every few days I get their bullying emails threatening to pass my details onto a debt recovery agency and saying my credit rating will be impacted. (even though my account is up to date!). Not a great company and looking forward to moving away from them once things get back to normal!

I feel like I am being conned

I feel like I am being conned. So after 3 years of poor Broadband from the Post Office, then Shell Energy I decided to switch. They asked if I would return the router and sent me a packing slip on the 16/06/22. I packed the router in the original box and posted at the Post Office the following morning, luckily getting proof of postage.
A week or so later I got a reminder email to return the router, or to ignore the email if I had already posted it. A couple of weeks later and another reminder email, I ignored it again. Finally in early August I received another email, telling me they were charging me £35 on the 16th August for non return. I called Customer Services. After a 20 minute wait (Your call is important to us. Not important enough to have enough staff to answer it though) I got through to a very unenthusiastic agent who I told that I had returned the router and had proof of postage. He said he would refund the charge and it would show on my account within two days.
Well that didn’t happen and my account still showed that they were taking £35 out of my account on the 16th August. So I called them today. After another 20 minute wait I got through to another very unenthusiastic agent (Real theme here). I explained the situation and re-iterated that I had called before. He told me the same thing and that he would refund the charge and it wouldn’t come out of my account. He sounded very surprised when I asked for his name and said that if money came out of my account I would report it to my debit card company as fraud. He just went silent.
It seems that Shell Energy’s Router Return is about as good as there really poor Broadband. My new provider is brilliant by the way, so it isn’t all companies.

Cannot be Trusted; Immoral; Appalling Customer Service.

If I could give no star, this would have been more reflective of the appalling experienced poor customer service.
Based on my personal experience they acted immorally; dishonestly and renaked on their repeat promises. Many promises were not kept. I was put on the wrong tariff and hey promised to honour the original chosen tariff. The transfer took nearly four months to complete because of their own repeat failures and their negligence and. The transfer was on the wrong tariff, but they promised to change it to the original chosen tariff, but they failed to honour their repeat promises. In addition, although I was on a fixed contract tariff and I was in credit and my actual energy consumption was significantly lower than the estimated consumption, upon which the direct debit was calculated by them, for no logical or legal reason they wanted to increase my direct debit. When I challenged and complained; and requested the basis for this, they failed to provide any good or convincing reason.

Worse than useless.

Ratings
Satisfaction1 star
Customer Service1 star
Speed1 star
Reliability1 star
Shell Energy having taken over Post Office Home Phone are absolutely clueless! Cancelled my broadband because of an impending house move and received assurances that cancellation would be implemented after 30 days notice period. Not so. Invoices continued for 3 month for line rental. Spent hours on the phone trying to sort it out even though I had written email confirmation of termination date. Additionally wrote by email and snail mail but received no reply. All staff appear to be working from home. One phone call lasted 1 hour 31 minutes but still did not resolve the issue!! Because they are working from home if one puts you on hold you get the god dam awful music and then someone else eventually cuts in and you go through the whole security process again and again. If this company is serious about phones then they need to sort out their own ASAP! Take my advice and look elsewhere if you are looking for a broadband provider because if you get any sort of problem this lot couldn’t organise a p***up in a brewery!
Post Office Home Phone certainly weren’t the best but I’ll say it again, Shell Energy are absolutely clueless and appear to know nothing about phones and customer service is certainly not their forte.
Did I say Customer Service? Their operatives appear poorly trained and take great delight in passing you from pillar to post and basically offer no answers or resolutions to your issues. Hopeless!

I’ve given 1 star but they really don’t…

I’ve given 1 star but they really don’t earn any !!!! This company is worse than useless. I moved from them in February this year and in 6 months I’ve had too many to count phone calls, demands, letters, promises, etc etc but still can’t get a final bill !!! They can’t post one, they can’t email one ….any excuse under the sun. My new provider has had a fictitious reading from them and have requested the real reading twice with no response!!! Luckily I take photos of all my readings. This company seriously needs to look at themselves, sort it out and start delivering a service that it’s customers are paying over the odds for. Disgusting is putting it mildly.

Awful experience

I have never written a bad review against a company but this has been the most awful experience imaginable.
Similar to other stories on here regarding being transfered over to Shell from another company.
I was transferred over to shell winter of last year and was happily paying my direct debit and they didn’t contact me to warn me that my dirrct debit no longer covered my bill, and I was hundreds of pounds in debit. It wasnt until I looked it up on my app (once I finally had an account and could log in!) That I noticed.
Over many phone calls to thier customer service I have learnt the following:
1. Definitely block out a few hours of your day
2. It is complete potluck of who you will get, either someone who will be nice and try and help your OR someone who will be nothing but rude from the moment you say hello, and will be intent on not only not answering your questions but trying to make you feel stupid for asking them.

Additionally, and i cannot stress this enough, NEVER EVER let a month go by without taking a reading. Thier “estimates” are extortionate almost 4x what I am actually using!!! Only to be told that they cannot change it even if they have evidence that I am not using anywhere near that amount.
So, get a smart meter I was told. Waited 3 months for it to be fitted, for it not to work. Constantly, being told varying information on when/if it will work, twice was told someone will defiantly call me back within 48hrs, then never heard anything at all. I now need to wait another 3 months until November to have an engineer come out and sort it.
Absolutly shocking.

Four years ago I moved from First…

Four years ago I moved from First Utility services when moving into this flat. They were taken over by Shell. Shell gave me a final bill of £40.20 which I paid, I was then refunded some of that because I had overpaid. A year later in 2019 I am billed again for…£40.20. I sort this out on the phone and am assured this won’t happen again. A year later… you guessed it. I am billed £40.20 and also chased by debt collectors. The same happens in 2021. And I have just received a bill again in my landlord’s name for £40.20. As it is in his name now (for some reason) I can no longer resolve this with customer service. I am in tears with frustration and stress.

Shell Energy want to increase my DD by…

Shell Energy want to increase my DD by 200%. Website algorithm won’t let me increase by 80%. Am in account credit. Disturbingly Shell have asked me to “go over the affordability? For some this would be very distressing.

Customer services issue

My energy supplier went bust so the government moved me to Shell Energy for my gas supply. I followed all the instructions and gave readings as requested. There was no payments taken for 2 months so this left me owing money. My usual monthly payment was £160 and after a short time this went up to more than double. Even though I was giving online readings all my bills were estimated. In July I received an email to say my DD was increasing to £530 a month. I immediately telephoned Shell Energy and got through to an Indian call centre. The young women who I spoke too did not have the best English and when I asked her to change my DD amount she asked if there was anything else she could help me with. I found this strange as she had not dealt with the thing I had phoned her about. I was switched to Shell at the beginning of winter and they are basing my usage on winter usage. My heating goes off in May and does not come back on until October. I gave her a current reading which was lower that the previous months estimate. She changed the DD back to the lower amount. Sadly I have just found out that they took £530 out of my bank account. My husband has now cancelled our DD. Absolutely useless. I am going to put in a complaint.

Update to my review on 8.08.22 Despite…

Update to my review on 8.08.22 Despite companies promises and manager’s Sara that replied here my phone line is still dead. Today is 12.08. Customer service said I will have to wait for update tomorrow….Tomorrow is 13th, Sat. Sunday they dont work… I dont know what their engeneer is doing but the line has got worse. I now keep losing my internet connection as well, all day long. The phone line disruption already caused me lots of problems, I missed lots of arrangements that had to be done over the phone, now they are cutting off my internet access that will cause me further problems. Shell does not bother about it. And I pay for their services, they are happy to take my money.Disgusting. This company needs an investigation. The positive reviews here also need an investigation, i dont believe them.

Took hundreds of pounds out of my account!

Took hundreds of pounds out of my account and increased my direct debit payment by 5 times.
Purposefully let me wrack up huge amounts of debt. I have subscription with a company that automatically swaps my supplier when a better deal is found. Shell purposefully predicted that i would use a dramatically reduced amount of energy. So i was auto-switched to them in September 2021. I continue to pay my bills, thinking that the auto-switch company had got me a great deal. Fast forward to now and my bill is extortionate. I asked them if they had actual reading and they say yes, as i have a smart meter for both gas and electricity. I ask why they have not taken readings over the past (nearly) 12 months and contacted me to adjust my direct debit payments – they say they have tried but on each occasion there were problems connecting to my smart meter. How convenient; they remain my cheapest energy provider while getting me to wrack up the debt. Surely companies have a legal obligation to monitor direct debit payments for the exact reason as what has happened in my case. After so many attempts to connect to my smart meter, surely they will have had to take action to prevent the situation from escalating.

I ALWAYS pay my bills. I was so upset to call Shell and be told that i owed thousands of pounds – the person i spoke to was horrendous. He virtually called me stupid for not understanding what had happened. I was extremely polite as i understand that it is not his fault personally and was conscious that these people probably have a lot to deal with due to the rise in fuel costs. I just pay my bills as i always have all my life. I live alone so don’t use a lot of energy and, like most, i try to save on energy usage as much as i can. I felt sick that i’d suddenly found myself in thousands of pounds worth of debt. This guy was arrogant and angry right from the start of the conversation but he was losing his temper the more i asked question to try and understand. I was sobbing so said that i’d get someone else to call back to see if they could understand and then explain to me – it’s so confusing but i tried to understand, i was sobbing at this point – the guy said that they would ‘get told’ the same as me and put the phone down. This guy was called Harun.

I called back and was so fortunate enough to speak with a really nice guy called Amar. He told me that he would take the time to help me understand. I am so grateful to him. He explained the situation. I am still in a terrible situation and debt because of shell and all of this is in addition to the the additional debt we’ll all likely wrack up because of the fuel rise – that’s set to go up again in October.

Simply put they are useless

Simply put they are useless. Firstly they gave me three account numbers, then they billed me for another address nearly 100 miles away after which I made several complaints and they just said sorry but over 9 months. They are one of the monopoly energy companies who quite frankly don’t give a damn!!

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. Shell Plc CEO Ben Van Beurden openly admitted at the Shell AGM held in London on 23 May 2022 that all is not well at Shell Energy. 

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