Airtricity are running an advertising campaign on the radio currently in an effort to get businesses to switch to them from the semi-state monopoly electricity generator, ESB. They offer to save you 10% off ESB prices and they’ll freeze your energy prices until 2010. That’s very attractive considering that the ESB is getting yet another price increase this month from the rubber stamping regulator. Unfortunately when you click “Switch now” on their site all you get is an error message:
XSLTransform Error
XSLTransform: Unmatched end tag.
File: VCFile(N/E:0:[website]::/ireland/switch_to_airtricity/switch_now/index.xml)
Line: 288, column: 18
Context:
Oops. That’s a pity because I wonder if I qualify as a small business being a self-employed person working at home. I’ll have to check back later.
I’ve been contemplating switching, but I’m worried — too much of it looks like the kind of modern Irish utility company model, with lots of sales and advertising spend, but no support apart from via a call center, and absolutely shite customer support as a result. (see Smart, Digiweb, Irish Broadband or the other new ISPs for other examples of this phenomenon.)
Until I hear from a few people with good experiences, by word of mouth, I won’t touch them with a barge pole!
BTW guess who’s the new regulator of the Irish electricity sector, fresh from her resounding
success regulating telcos? you guessed it…
According to this, btw, they are also supposed to be selling to Irish consumers:
http://www.valueireland.com/articles/wheres_the_electricity_competition.htm
no mention on their site, though.
The Airtricity link seems to be working now. I’ve asked for the callback – will be interesting to see if the offer is open to all business , not just big business , customers.
hiya Donncha
I think that the ESB connection differentiates between a business and domestic service and that you pay more for business. So a domestic user will always be domestic. So you cannot get Airtricity – me thinks 🙁
We have it at home for years – but only because we got it while they were still desperate enough for business to take householders!
keith
just like to say have been with airtricty now for past year
bills come on monthly basis which is much easier on pocket
doing great deal at moment freeze there prices for next 3 years
why cant esb do this i would like to know
Lads stop farting around on the net and sending emails just call them. I am a domestic user and signed up with them in December, no problems with them yet and with the call center. Any power outages you can call them or the ESB. When the power goes your stuffed no matter who the supplyer is. I DO NOT WORK FOR THEM.
What |Airtricity don’t tell you is that there is €500 penaly per meter unit if you want to opt out within the 3 year lock in period – the trend fro the next three years is likely to be downwards for electricity prices because cost of gas is actually going down for commercial users, are you not suspicious as to why they are asking customers to take a three year contract especially if electricity cost are due to increase over the period!
Martin.
I’m considering contacting Airtricity to suggest that they use XMLSpy to check their XML start and end tags.
Though if I were to follow their business model perhaps I should develop an add campaign instead.
‘Do YOU have trouble with XML end tags?’
‘Well so did I.’
‘Til I bought “Developer who isn’t on shit money”‘
‘See what “Developer who isn’t on shit money” can do for your business, by getting one’.
Conor.
I was a customer of Aitricity.My meter was not read for a while. When I decided to switch to different supplier I had build up a credit of over €1000 as the estimates were to high. I did not get a refund for my money for over 10 month sending letters and calling customer service which were totally useless. Eventually I got my money back after getting the regulator involved! I would be very careful about this company! Business customer in Galway.
Airtricity switched us on to their “level payment paln” in September 08. Didn’t notice until I saw a credit building up on my recent bills. Their customer service said they had sent out details in August and it was an “opt-out” choice. We didn;t get any details in August or since however. Have now asked to be put back on to actual amount debited. Anybody else have this experience?
I am considering switching to Airtricity, does anyone have any advice for me please?? I am a domestic user with 3 teenagers who don’t know how to economise on electricity costs!!
yeah, don’t do it. I’ve had nothing but problems since i joined. Firstly it took 3 months to get my address correctly. Then they didnt allow me to give meter readings for 5 months.Then they “estimated” my bills but never actually changed the meter readings so 6 months later when i was finally allowed to submit a meter reading, my bill came to 760 euro. Calling customer service was useless, they initially expected me to pay this all in one go even though it was their mistake but were going to “stretch it” to allow me to pay within “a couple of weeks”. After a very long argument and a transfer to a manager i had to fight to get a repayment schedule stretched to 8 months. Now, they aren’t taking out the correct amount and i can’t get through because they have problems with their phone lines. They are completely useless!