Energy Australia Electricity Prices Not as Advertised

highwind on 08/01/2024 - 14:10
Last edited 08/01/2024 - 14:11

I recently went to change my electricity plan online to Energy Australia's Solar Max plan, and found that the rates on the website for my postcode is not what they actually put me on. Some advice as to what (if anything) I can do would be great. Though TBH I feel there's likely not much, apart from lodge some complaints and find another provider. Hopefully at least, this will serve as a warning for people to check their actual rates rather than to trust the suppliers.

A bit of background:
My property is a standard residential house with solar panels (2.3kW) and smart meter. I compiled a list of prices online and identified from the Energy Australia website that the Solar Max plan was the cheapest (https://www.energyaustralia.com.au/solarmax#/) for my postcode. I wasn't able to input my exact address as the Energy Australia website kept giving an error message.

I changed plans via their (painfully slow) chat agent and received the welcome pack after several days. Luckily I double checked the numbers, because the supply charges and usage charges are both much higher than that shown on the website for my suburb. The prices are as follows, in both cases including GST:

Online - Solar Max:
Supply charge: $1.045 per day
Usage charge: 47.2824 c/kWh flat rate

Welcome pack - Solar Max:
Supply charge: $1.1484 per day
Usage charge: 55.000 c/kWh peak usage

That is a difference of ~10% for supply charges and ~15% on usage charges.

I tried to contact them both via phone and email to try to resolve this discrepancy. Repeatedly, the staff informed me that the website information is not correct and is not regularly updated. There is no disclaimer on the website that the prices were indicative only. They did not even provide any explanations as to why my rates are not the advertised price, but higher than that in my suburb. To me, this is a very clear case of false advertising and (possibly intentional?) misleading conduct.

Have others found this to be the case, and if so what explanation did the provider give as the reason the prices are different? Is there anything I can do apart from changing providers again? And if they can simply ignore what they advertise online and give you whatever price they want, how is anyone meant to find the best price?

It's been a very frustrating few days and many hours wasted essentially talking to a wall. Anyway, thanks in advance!

Home & Garden Electricity

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Comments

  • Dollar General on 08/01/2024 - 14:12
    +5

    Ombudsman

  • avoidfullprice on 08/01/2024 - 14:16
    +1

    Online - Solar Max:
    Supply charge: $1.045 per day
    Usage charge: 47.2824 c/kWh flat rate

    Welcome pack - Solar Max:
    Supply charge: $1.1484 per day
    Usage charge: 55.000 c/kWh peak usage

    Basically you go back and ask them specifically to put you on single tariff and not TOU.

    You may want to check what their shoulder and offpeak rates are too

    • highwind on 08/01/2024 - 14:22

      That's an interesting point that they may have put us on a different variant of the plan. There weren't any options for that when I looked, but I'll look into it. Thanks!

  • Duckie2hh on 08/01/2024 - 14:18
    +1

    Did you not get a welcome kit that outlined the tariff? If it doesn't match up then, I would vote with my feet and walk away.

    • highwind on 08/01/2024 - 14:22
      +1

      Yep - the higher prices were what was shown in the welcome pack. Glad I checked and not trusted them and waited 3 months!

  • SnoozeAndLose on 08/01/2024 - 14:19
    +2

    Dont you have 10 days coll off period? just go and choose another provider

    • highwind on 08/01/2024 - 14:24

      Yes, so I'll likely be switching soon. Just such a pain in the neck, and I've lost trust in what the numbers the provider show online. Basically a gamble at this point as to what rates I will get vs the advertised price.

      • SnoozeAndLose on 08/01/2024 - 14:25

        that is because they are changing too often now, price could change in the matter of days now, so need to keep looking

  • skid on 08/01/2024 - 14:43
    +1

    The plans that the phone agents have access to are different from what the website has. When you agreed to the plan with the chat agent, the chat agent should have quoted you what the rates are.

    To get the rates on the website, you must sign up from the website. If the website errors out, keep trying the next day. You can try again right now. There are no fees for switching plans.

    • highwind on 08/01/2024 - 14:48

      Interesting that the rates are all different. The chat agent didn't mention the rates. I'll try again with the website - though Energy Australia acknowledged it was an issue with some addresses including mine, so likely it's not a temporary thing. Thanks!

      EDIT: "We have detected an issue with the electricity meter at this address. Please contact us so one of our customer support agents can solve this error."

      • djsweet on 08/01/2024 - 15:01
        +1

        Probably you have a smart meter and the website doesn’t display TOU plans.

        • highwind on 08/01/2024 - 15:10
          +1

          Yep, I have a smart meter and I'd say it's very likely what you are saying is true.
          That being said, the plan offered is one specifically for solar and smart meters are mandatory for solar IIRC, so it's a pretty dumb issue (though perhaps unsurprising…)

          • djsweet on 08/01/2024 - 15:12

            @highwind: hmmm that is interesting then :o
            Sounds like a pretty heavy fail on their part.
            I've had a similar issue with another provider. Their website would only display their fixed rate plans, but my place has a smart meter, so when I signed up I ended up on the TOU variant (which obviously had different rates than displayed online).

  • JIMB0 on 08/01/2024 - 15:09
    +2

    They are one of the more dodgy companies to deal with.

  • Iwantthebestprice on 08/01/2024 - 15:15
    +1

    On the website you put your postcode in so it showed maybe just a flat rate tariff. And when they confirmed your actual address/meter set up it was different? This happened to me but with AGL.
    Bought my new house, put the post code in and showed some amazing rates, when I got my welcome pack I had a peak and off peak rate (the website just showed me a single rate plan). So my peak rate was MUCH higher than the price on the website, but it was my fault as I did not check my actual address and confirm my tariff.
    I would recommend you go back online to the Eneegy Aus site and put your full address in, I assume then the rates should match your pack?

    • highwind on 08/01/2024 - 15:19

      Seems I am in the same boat as you were with the rates. The issue is that when I try to put my actual address, it continues to throw an error:
      "We have detected an issue with the electricity meter at this address. Please contact us so one of our customer support agents can solve this error."
      So I genuinely can't put my address in there, meaning I have no reference. But I think you are correct in the TOU vs fixed rate may be the issue

  • highwind on 08/01/2024 - 15:36

    Thank you everyone for your inputs so far. Very much appreciate it!

    From the comments and some deduction, I think the underlying issue may be that:
    1) The rates online are only for fixed rates i.e. houses without Smart Meters. This is not really explained anywhere.
    2) If the property has a Smart Meter, they force the plans with time-of-use rates, which are generally higher cost. Again, not explained.
    3) Smart Meters are mandatory for properties with solar panels and while this plan is specifically targeted at people with solar, the plan shown online (solar with fixed rates) is actually pretty much unobtainable.
    4) Energy Australia website is terrible and throws an error whenever the address has a Smart Meter because it can't show time-of-use rates, thus masking the issue that the two plans are actually different.
    5) Staff at Energy Australia don't understand their own system or plans and so can't explain or offer a solution.

    • kipps on 08/01/2024 - 16:50

      Smart Meters are mandatory for properties with solar panels and while this plan is specifically targeted at people with solar, the plan shown online (solar with fixed rates) is actually pretty much unobtainable.

      Note that early adoptors of solar may be on older accumulation meters.

      Agreed 100% that the way electricity companies are quoting rates without regard to meter tariffs is misleading. It's particularly bad in Qld where a lot of websites are quoting fixed rates yet the meter will be on a demand tariff, and very few comparison websites take into account demand charges and rates.

      • avoidfullprice on 08/01/2024 - 17:42

        Some give further obfuscation by showing you ex GST rates.

        would like to know if majority residential customers dont pay gst!!

  • troy1976 on 08/01/2024 - 18:11

    I'm not with Energy Australia but my parents are. I recently detected an error in their billing that had been going on for a few quarters which involved a change in plan, and them suddenly thinking my parent's house didn't have a controlled load meter. This is despite me raising directly with them at the time of the plan that there was no tariff for controlled load. So the bill showed a read for controlled load and peak, but everything (controlled load plus peak use) was combined and then billed at peak.

    Edit: As context, they have been at the same (unchanged) house with EnergyAustralia from the days when EnergyAustralia was TRUenergy. And with multiple plan changes online made exactly the same way over those years without issue.

    I spent a lot of time online trying to get them to fix this and was met with a total refusal at first to see the issue, then a refusal to accept any responsibility. Apparently somehow it was my fault that in changing the plan on their website, the underlying database of what sort of meters they had at their property had somehow changed, even though there's no way for a customer to do that. And the customer (or their child, me) having raised that at the time and being told it would resolve itself in the billing (it didn't).

    No energy retailer seems great and I have had a couple of pretty awful experiences with AGL myself but in AGL's case it just seemed like total incompetence whereas with EnergyAustralia it seemed like deliberate dishonesty.

    • highwind on 09/01/2024 - 12:56

      Sounds like you've had a lot of really terrible experiences across the board… I feel like there is such a disconnect, not just with customers, but within these companies. No-one seems to know anything, no idea how any of it works or what implications different actions will have.
      In a large part, I think it's due to all the outsourcing of the front-facing staff (probably also internal staff too) - these likely foreign call centres have no idea how it works in Australia and have no power to do anything but the most basic actions. Basically they're used as fodder until the customer gives up, or it gets high enough in the chain via ombudsman etc. Management are so insulated that they couldn't care less unless it affects the cashflow.
      Did you end up engaging with the ombudsman for your multiple issues?

  • Jugganautx on 08/01/2024 - 20:20

    Doesn't matter what company you go with these days everywhere is f**king expensive and not worth the $50 reconnection fee

    • highwind on 09/01/2024 - 12:59

      I agree… The fact that they can just change their prices up on a whim but have no obligation to lower them is just absolute BS…

  • tighttighttight on 18/01/2024 - 11:25

    You are on TOU network tariff, hence they put you on TOU retail tariff - 55c peak, 20.6c shoulder and 33c off peak.

    https://www.energymadeeasy.gov.au/plan?id=ENE360412MRE&utm_s…

  • youngmic on 10/02/2024 - 09:15

    Exactly the same thing has happened to me with the same plan as per the OP.

    I did this.

    I joined on the premise of the web advertised rates.

    I was told my smart meter would need to be re-configured and this could only happen once signed up, so I was forced to sign up at the higher rate as per the OP, once signed up I asked for the reconfiguration. This was then denied as it was not possible and it did not need to be anyway.

    In short I suspect I have been stiffed.

    Several hours on the phone reiterating my position and not wavering resulted in a $50 credit for my time on the phone and an additional $90 credit to my account, this amounts to about 50% of the difference between rate A and rate B.

    My next step is to talk with SA Power to validate their story about cannot reconfigure my smart meter because it is a SA Power distributor issue or ask if it even needs to be reconfigured. Following on from this likely the next stop will be the ombudsman with the view of forcing them to honour their advertised rate, if unsuccessful I will contact the ACCC and put the details on their desk as a case of misleading advertising.

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