>Wednesday 6 June 2001

Powercor has topped the charts as the most complained-about electricity company, accounting for 47.5 per cent of complaints lodged with Victoria's energy ombudsman between July and December 2000, despite having only 28 per cent of customers.

Powercor also topped the complaints table in the previous six months, but the total number lodged against the electricity retailer fell 35 per cent in the second half of last year and has continued to fall.

The report notes that of the 177 complaints to the five major Victorian electricity retailers, 45 developed into disputes in which ombudsman Fiona McLeod had to help broker a settlement.

TXU recorded the highest number of disputes (16) while Powercor came in second with 15. AGL had two disputes, CitiPower three and Pulse nine.

Among gas retailers, TXU and Pulse topped the complaints table with six complaints, or 42.8per cent of the total each. The two companies had market shares of 28.37 per cent and 35.92 per cent respectively.

Overall, there was a 49.4 per cent rise in calls taken by Ms McLeod's office, compared with the July-to-December period in 1999. Most noticeable among the factors contributing to this increase were problems with billing systems used by the electricity companies.

These problems were related to the introduction of new computerised billing systems to cope with Y2K issues, the GST, and the introduction of full-retail contestability, Ms McLeod said.

"This is the second period in which I've reported that Powercor has had a high number of cases relative to other companies, so it's frustrating for me," she said. "I do see a commitment by Powercor to fix the problems."

A Powercor spokesman said a new computer system introduced late in 1999 had suffered teething problems. Complaints amounted to only one or two per thousand customers, but "we regret receiving any complaints, and are working extremely hard to overcome difficulties", the spokesman said.

In the gas industry, "disconnections and high bills have already been identified as the main issues raised against the gas companies", Ms McLeod said. "It is hoped that ... individual company reporting (introduced for the first time in the last half of 2000) will help identify systemic trends, as well as those that are problematic to specific companies."

The Age

-- Anonymous, June 05, 2001