Before you bring your complaint to the Ombudsman, please check to see if we can help:  

• Is your energy supplier a member of the Ombudsman service?
• Have you already complained to the service provider?
• Are you a domestic customer?
• Before you complain to us, you must first have complained to your supplier.  You must follow its complaintsprocedure, which is set out in its code of practice.  This is to give the supplier a fair chance to sort the problem out.  If you are still not happy with the way things have been handled, you can contact us.

There are some rules about when we can accept your complaint:

• You must have told your supplier about the problem within 12 months of first knowing about it.  So, for example, if you realised there was a problem with your gas bill on 21 September 2006, you need to have told your member company about it by 20 September 2007.
• The Energy Service Ombudsman is a new service introduced on 1st July 2006 and the complaint must have been reported to the supplier after then.

If you have already complained to your supplier, there are two situations where you can involve us.  These are as follows:

You are not making satisfactory progress

You must follow your supplier?s complaints procedure, which is set out in its code of practice and allow it up to three months to sort out the problem for you.  If after three months of making your complaint you?re still not happy with the way it is being handled, you can pass it to us.  For example, the supplier might not have replied to your complaint or you may not be satisfied with the way they have sorted it out.

The deadline for bringing it to our attention is nine months from the date you first told the company about the problem.

You have received a deadlock letter from your supplier

You might get a letter from the supplier that says it will no longer be handling your complaint.  It might say, for example, that it can?t do anything for you and that this is the final position.  We call this a ?deadlock letter?.

You then have six months from the date of the letter to pass your complaint to us.

If you are unsure if the Energy Supply Ombudsman can look at your complaint, please give us a call.