An Aberdeen woman has blasted SSE Energy Networks after her disabled sister was left without gas and electricity for two days.
Maragret Mundie, 65, was left without the utilities after they were cut off by the energy firm for no apparent reason – meaning she had to move in with her sister.
Mrs Mundie, who lives in Howburn Place in the city centre, suffers from anxiety, depression, heart problems and is partially sighted, which means her sister, Norma Ellington, has to deal with many of her day-to-day life affairs.
Mrs Ellington, who lives in the Northfield area, helped her sister by calling SSE to try and resolve the matter and despite calling 30 times, she had no luck in getting through to the firm.
‘Passed back and forth like no one was taking responsibility’
She says that she and her sister “nearly had nervous breakdowns” due to the stress of trying to get through to someone and called 12 different numbers, adding: “I was passed back and forth like no one was taking responsibility.”
Mrs Ellington was on the phone to SSE between 10am until 8pm and says that some of the customer service that she experienced was “quite abrupt”, including getting cut off the line twice.
Once she did finally get through, the company claimed her sister moved home two days before, however, Mrs Ellington said this was not true as Mrs Mundie has been living at the same address for the past 14 years.
SSE also reportedly told her it may have been Aberdeen City Council that cut off the supplies the council house, but as Mrs Mundie expected, this was not the case and the authority confirmed it was a matter for the supplier.
As well as this, the supplier said she may not be on their database due to the merger between SSE and Ovo that took place in 2020 and subsequently “not having everyone on the database”.
“None of the companies were taking responsibility for her paying her bill to them, so I said ‘she’s actually invisible,'” Mrs Ellington added.
Goodwill gesture provided due to disruption
However, she expected things to get sorted when an engineer was sent round to the property in Aberdeen city centre, however, this was not to be the case, as the engineer told them that he was “not trained” to fix it and could “do nothing”.
It was only after Mrs Ellington spoke to Energy Advice Scotland that her sister was reconnected to the network.
It was not just stress and inconvenience that Mrs Mundie and her sister faced, as the former was out of pocket, having lost £90 worth of gas and electricity, as well as all of her freezer goods.
A goodwill gesturehas now been provided to Mrs Mundie.
Looking back on her experience, Mrs Ellington said: “It’s just a disgrace, because I had two days sitting drinking tea and being on the phone, it was just frustrating.
“Between Ovo and SSE, they’re just totally rubbish at communications and it shouldn’t happen to anybody.”
A spokeswoman for SSE Energy said: “We’re very sorry to Ms Mundie for her experience and can confirm she has credit on her meters and her case has been resolved.”
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