OREANDA-NEWS. SSE has made significant progress in responding to contacts from customers about its Sales Guarantee, the only one of its kind in the energy supply sector. Under it, any household customer who shows that they switched their energy supply to SSE after being given inaccurate or misleading information will have any resulting financial loss made good.

SSE announced its Sales Guarantee in December 2011 and it initially applied to any household energy sale made by SSE since October 2009, when Ofgem placed additional obligations on energy suppliers to make sure sales activities are conducted in a fair and transparent manner. SSE also now considers claims from customers relating to sales from the start of 2008.

Since Ofgem announced on 3 April 2013 its decision to fine SSE for breaches of two Standard Licence Conditions, SSE has received contacts from around 14,000 customers about the Sales Guarantee. It has:

already assessed around 80% of the cases raised since 3 April and advised the customers concerned about the outcome;

in around 85% of the cases assessed, the customer has not experienced any financial disadvantage as a result of switching energy supply to SSE;

in around 15% of cases the customer has experienced financial disadvantage; and

discussions with a further 25% of customers about the Sales Guarantee have resulted in a decision by SSE to address concerns other than financial disadvantage arising from the sales process.

As a result, since 3 April 2013, SSE has so far made payments averaging around GBP 80 to just over 5,000 customers – a total of around GBP425,000. SSE is continuing to assess the outstanding cases raised by customers.

As a result of its work on the Sales Guarantee and the data emerging from it, SSE intends to write again in the next few weeks to a group of customers who may have been at a higher risk of experiencing a financial loss as a result of switching energy supply to it, but who have not yet been in contact with the company, to highlight to them the Sales Guarantee and how to make a claim under it.

In addition to the independent external scrutiny to which the process has already been subjected, SSE will shortly be appointing independent auditors to review further the implementation of its Sales Guarantee. They will be asked to submit a report on their findings to Consumer Futures (formerly Consumer Focus).

Between the original announcement of the Sales Guarantee in December 2011 and the Ofgem announcement on 3 April 2013, SSE sent 970,000 letters to customers to tell them about the Guarantee and made payments to customers totalling over GBP 400,000.

SSE has decided to donate to energy-related charities all of the money that is remaining on 31 August 2013 from the GBP 5m it provided for the retrospective implementation of its Sales Guarantee. The sum that will be donated is currently expected to be around GBP 2.5m. SSE will confirm which charities are being supported at the end of August.

The Sales Guarantee will then remain open as a permanent safeguard to existing and potential household energy customers of SSE.

Will Morris, SSE’s Managing Director, Retail, said:

“Everyone associated with SSE is still very sorry about the clear shortcomings in household energy sales that Ofgem highlighted and the Sales Guarantee illustrates our determination to back up words with action. We have made solid progress in responding to customers who have contacted us about the Guarantee in the last seven weeks. Our aim is to treat each customer as an individual, dealing with their situation in a fair and sympathetic way, and we believe that is what we are achieving.

“We estimate that around half of the ?5m provided for the retrospective part of the Guarantee may be remaining when we have finished this work, and we feel that it is only right to put that money to good use by making donations to energy-related charities. We already work with a number of such charities and would be pleased to hear from any such charity which would like to be supported in this way.

“Thereafter, the Sales Guarantee will remain a permanent feature of the safeguards available to customers of SSE.”