Maxen Power – an energy company supplying more than 10,000 non-domestic customers – has paid £1.65 million for customer service failures.
Ofgem found that third-party representatives were able to sign up new customers without their consent, by claiming to work for other suppliers, because Maxen Power did not have robust systems. It also found evidence that the supplier put unreasonable requirements on customers to evidence a change of tenancy by asking for a large number of documents, so tenants risked being locked into a more expensive ‘deemed rate’ tariff.
Maxen Power also had an inadequate complaint handling process so it had an unusually high number of complaints, relating to poor communication with customers, difficulty changing tenancy and mis-selling tariffs.
As a result of these licence breaches, Maxen Power has paid £1.65 million to the Energy Industry Voluntary Redress Fund which provides money to charities that deliver energy-related projects and support energy consumers in vulnerable situations.
The regulator has increased its monitoring of Maxen Power and has been working closely with the supplier to update its policies, processes and contractual terms to better serve its customers. This includes updating its deemed rates policy to safeguard customers from volatile price changes and updating its change of tenancy policy to make it easier to change suppliers.