Abusive canvassing, non-payment... three energy suppliers banned by the energy mediator

Year after year, Wekiwi has been collecting red cards. The gas and electricity supplier has received a third warning from the energy ombudsman for poor business practices. Primagaz and JPME have joined the company in this case. This is enough to officially alert the public authorities, according to the ombudsman.

In his 2024 annual report published this Monday, May 19, Olivier Challan Belval thus blacklisted the supplier Wekiwi. The company, which entered the market in 2020, had already received a red card in 2022 and 2023. " The cause is its poor commercial practices, including cases of abusive canvassing and unsolicited subscriptions," details the annual report, which specifies that for Wekiwi, the rate of referrals to the mediator was 25 times higher than the average rate for all suppliers combined.

Liquefied petroleum gas supplier Primagaz is also being singled out "for its failure to resolve issues related to its IT system change and its virtually non-existent customer service since the end of 2023," among other things. The number of complaints increased fivefold between 2023 and 2024.

At the end of December, Primagaz was singled out by the magazine 60 Million Consumers . The cause: a botched IT switch carried out in the fall of 2023 which led to "considerable delivery delays" and even lost orders placed. "Customers found themselves without bills, but especially without heating in the middle of winter. When summer came, the delivery difficulties were resolved, but not the billing problems, and the amounts owed are sometimes enormous. Primagaz promised to accept payments in several installments without fees in customer areas... which remained difficult to access," points out the magazine's jury.

Finally, the third red card is given to the electricity supplier JPME. The mediator accuses the company of "systematic failures to pay its photovoltaic electricity producing customers." To the point of being the subject, in September 2024, of an official alert to the public authorities and a request to "withdraw its authorization to purchase for the resale of electricity."

Enedis , on the other hand, after its red card in 2023, will escape it in 2024. However, the mediator "regrets that mediations with Enedis, which received a red card in 2023, remain very difficult, to the detriment of electricity consumers."

Referrals to the National Energy Ombudsman fell by 17% in 2024 compared to 2023, with 11,678 referrals to mediation. In 2023, referrals had surged due to rising energy prices linked to the war in Ukraine.

In 2024, suppliers and distribution network operators were forced to pay their customers more than €15 million following the intervention of the national energy ombudsman, representing 90% of the amounts he had recommended. On the occasion of the publication of the latest report, Olivier Challan Belval stated that he hopes "to see legislative progress strengthening the protection of energy consumers, such as the ban on telephone canvassing without consent, currently under consideration in Parliament."