Before  Energy Ombudsman can consider your complaint,  you must first have complained to your energy company. This is to give them a fair chance to sort out your problem.

A good place to start is the general enquiries number that should be on your bill. Hopefully the energy company will be able to sort out the problem at this time, but if not you should try to escalate the complaint within the company.

To help you with this, the energy company will have a complaints handling Code of Practice which explains how it handles complaints about its service. This is  available on its website, the back of your bill or as a leaflet which you can ask for. You should make every effort to follow this process.

Don't worry if you can't find the right address or number to contact - call us and one of our enquiry officers will be happy to give you the information.

You can ususally complain over the phone, by email or by letter, but you must follow the energy company's published complaints procedure.

Remember... before you complain:

• stay calm! You are more likely to get a good result if you do not let your emotions get to you;
• make sure that you know what you are unhappy about - is it that your bill is wrong? Is it that someone has been rude or unhelpful to you?
• Be clear and concise. If you are ringing about your complaint, make a note about what you want to talk about before you make the call, so you do not forget something. Also, have an idea of what the company could do to make things right for you. If you do not feel confident enough to speak to someone, try writing a letter or an email;
• keep a record of what happens,  notes of any calls you make or any emails or letters you send. Also keep any correspondence you get back from the energy company. An example of how to do this can be viewed here
• Don't give up! There are other organisations that might be able to help.

   

  Need help with writing your letter of compliant? You can download and print of our letter of complaint template, and remember if you are having trouble getting details of the energy company's complaints procedure - call our contact centre and we may be able to help.  

Standard complaint letter template

• There are rules about when we can and cannot accept your complaint, and rules about the types of complaints that we can look at. We have summarised these rules for the website. You must have told the energy company about the problem within 12 months of first knowing about it. So for example if you realised there was problem with your gas bill on 21 September 2008, you need to have told the gas company about it by 20 September 2009.

• You must have made the complaint to the energy company after the company became a member of the service. You can check when the company became a member on the members page.

Already complained to the energy company ?

•  You might get a letter from the energy company which says that it will no longer be handling your complaint and this is its final position. We call this a 'deadlock letter' and you should let us know about it or

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  If eight weeks have passed and your service provider hasn't sorted out the problem to your satisfaction, then you should  let us know.
  
  If you want to read through the all of the  rules that we work to - our 'Terms of Reference' can be viewed in the downloads section of this website.

   

Next stage: Complaining to the ombudsman