ESB pays over €50,000 for complaints

THE ESB paid over €50,000 to customers hit by damaged property, power supply faults and billing errors last year.

The company had to shell out double the amount of money it paid to disgruntled customers in 2001, according to figures published yesterday.

Complaints to ELCOM increased by almost a fifth and there was also a 42% rise in phone calls to the service established five years ago. More than 260 complaints from customers, ranging from supply to metering and connection problems, were lodged with ELCOM.

A total of 71% or 242 complaints were resolved by ELCOM complaints arbitrator, Denis Henderson. This was an increase of 25% when compared to 2001.

There were 71 complaints about billing and payments and 64 were upheld or satisfactorily resolved.

A further 171 network problems that included connection, metering, supply, and connection difficulties, were forwarded to ELCOM. Of these, 143 were resolved but a further 28 were not upheld.

The biggest pay-outs were for customer equipment damage and nine people claimed a total of €31,383 after their property was damaged by electricity faults. The average payment in this category was €980 but a small number of claims exceeded €5,000.

One of the smaller payouts was claimed after a transformer fault damaged a customer’s wiring and telephone equipment.

Mr Henderson said the increase in complaints and calls was linked to an advertising campaign promoting ELCOM.

“The campaign was successful and when combined with mention of the ELCOM service on the back of ESB bills, resulted in a significant increase in awareness of the service particularly amongst non-urban customers who were our primary target in the campaign,” he said.

The ESB has 1.65m customers and issues €10.4m bills annually. The company paid €2,869 to 21 customers who experienced billing problems in 2002.

Disputes arising from connection charges led to the ESB paying €5,638 to two unsatisfied customers.

A breakdown of successful complaints shows 171 customers had difficulties with the ESB network and 71 people had problems with the ESB supply company. The opening up of the electricity market will allow the public to choose their power supplier, but they will still rely on the ESB network company.

Payouts

The ESB paid €51,497 in settlements with 87 customers last year.

This was more than double the €24,897 paid to 53 consumers in 2001.

Customer complaints rose by 19% to 268 last year.

Some 242 complaints were resolved, an increase of 25% on 2001.

Nine customers received a combined total of €31,383 after the ESB damaged their property.