Amber Electric
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Overpromise and underdeliver & poor customer service
Amber are mostly marketing spin. They promise wholesale prices and smart tech but do not deliver. We have been with Amber for over a year and stuck with them in the hope that they will improve but they have continued to disappoint. The app shows a "live price" of electricity, daily and weekly cost summaries - none of these are real - the "live price" for each half hour often changes within the half hour and is based on data from previous days rather then the actual electricity price at the time. None of the costs on the app (daily, weekly summaries) take into consideration the various other charges Amber stack on like the daily supply charge, subscriptions fee, etc. There are $2 to $3 in charges each day that have to be paid before customers can generate any income. The curtailment does not work and negative FIT is occuring 9am to 5pm most days now. I understand the negative FIT is not down to Amber but Amber acts like its a rare event that they are helping with but they do not deliver. I recently saw a promo for Amber where they talk about the evil big energy companies - one example of this evil was complicated cost and bills. This is an example of extreem hypocrisy / irony - Amber costs on the app and not real and the bills are as complicated if not more complicated and incomprehensible than any of their competitors. Customer service is virtually nonexistent. They never answer the phone or return phone calls. What you get is an email 7 to 12 days after you made contact. The email is mostly spin and copied / pasted generic information that does not respond the the issues raised. Any follow up emails take another 7 to 12 days to be responded to. The app is not actually very smart - it often buys and sells electricity at times when it is not smart to do so. For example the app often sells electricity in the late afternoon / evening when the price is not that high which means that overnight and during the morning peak there is insufficient electricity in the battery. As a result we then need to buy electricity at a price that is often the same or higher than what the electricity we could have used from the battery was sold at. Amber seem to be taking advantage of the very limited number of VPP providers in the market - disappointing they are not delivery what they promise.