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Utility broker threatens legal action against Castle Water for telling the truth about misleading claims.
Even though my previous blog post (8 March) warning about misleading statements by brokers and Everflow was entirely factual, Love Energy Savings has demanded Castle Water remove this from our website and threatened legal action. But, despite correcting the specific misleading claim (of £450 savings per customer), Love Energy Savings continues to make a series of misleading and incorrect claims on their website for water savings – watch out, this could increase your charges and damage your cashflow.
Love Energy Savings, we understand, mainly or solely sells business water on behalf of Everflow, a water retailer.
Remember:
- Brokers are not regulated.
- Business water contracts do not have protection under the Consumer Rights Act.
- There is no Ombudsman for water in England.
- It is very much caveat emptor.
Love Energy Savings still makes three specific claims:
- “fix retail fees for up to 3 years”:
you need to be aware that the “retail fee” is not the actual retail price, but just the margin charged by Everflow, about 10% of the price – why do they think customers would be excited by fixing only 10% of the price? - “protect your business from price hikes”:
great idea if they actually did this, but they aren’t offering to do this for you – Everflow T&Cs mean that you have to pay the full “wholesale” charge, which is increased in April every year and is around 90% of the bill. - “save up to 30% on water bills”:
in England, the maximum % margin for around 90% of customers is just over 10%. There is no way many customers can save “up to 30%” – for Castle Water customers with bills over £500, we have 0% of customers (yes, that’s zero per cent!) where margins are over 30%, so it is impossible to hit the claimed saving, and for customers with low bills (under £500) our equivalent charge to the Retail Fee charged by Everflow is typically only £130. If you are looking at competing quotes for business water, make sure you check carefully the unit rates and the full retailer T&Cs (and if they don’t show you the full T&Cs, it’s not a good idea to switch, just like any other contract).
One customer wrote to me having received a quote to switch to Everflow Water showing savings of over £180 per annum. When we looked at the quote in detail, it was £17 more expensive than the customer’s current price with Castle, and required payment in advance! In cashflow terms, it would have cost the customer £160 more to switch!
Look at what Love Energy Savings and Everflow customers say (from TrustPilot):
- Referring to Everflow, “I got my water bill quotation, they told me £1300 fixed annual bill. After I switched bill was £1510”
- Referring to Everflow and Love Energy Savings, “I fixed my water for £22.50 for 3 years with those company, after 5 months I received bills £52”
- Referring to Love Energy Savings and Everflow, “had contract for 3 years fix with this Broker for water supply link to everflow , unfortunately after five months instead £22.50 debited £55”
Castle Water is committed to providing fair and accurate bills:
- Castle Water has a programme of continuous improvement to billing systems and customer service.
- According to the Market Operator’s holistic reporting, Castle Water has the highest score yet again in April for meter reading (the MPS score).
- Castle Water has directly employed meter readers from Portsmouth to Portree. Castle Water has a dedicated Field Team of directly employed meter readers who are able to take the time to access complex meters and trained to investigate faults – no other water retailer does this.
- Castle Water has more 5* TrustPilot reviews than all other business water retailers combined.
- Castle Water successfully challenges “wholesaler” errors – Castle Water has taken more Trading Disputes through the water market than all other water retailers combined, to correct inaccurate charges.
