For the second time my electricity account has been transferred to another supplier without my knowledge or consent. The first time, four years ago, went unnoticed by me for six months during which time I got supply but no bill (!). Was unable to find out who did it or where my electricity was coming from. This time ( different supplier now) I picked it up straightaway when my supplier emailed to say how sorry they were and would I come back? Which I did, with actually a slightly better deal and $50 credit. This time I was told my account had gone to Next Business Electricity which Iāve never heard of. The first time I was told it was probably an error entering my property identifier. I did get a letter addressed to someone else advising of a scheduled outage, but was unable to track that person down. Iām intrigued as to who was paying for my electricity, and what happened to them when the account was transferred back to me. Curious. Has this happened to anyone else?
That is a worrying occurrence. Clearly there is a need for two factor authentication (2FA) before electricity accounts are transferred to another supplier.
Who is your current supplier? Do they have 2FA?
Agree there may be a deficiency in how services are transferred between retailers, and account holders.
Weāve changed residences and suppliers numerous times in SE QLD, most recently 2022. While seamless it did require customer ID requirements to be met with the new supplier, and there were numerous communications including postal mailed confirmation from the new supplier referencing the correct service address.
For comparison the process of moving oneās supply between addresses with the same supplier was no more than a single phone call, supported by provision of current account details, the new address and dates to disconnect/connect. It would be useful to know more of the background from the retailers involved as to why they have acted as they have.
Itās speculative, depending on state or territory the checks and balances are insufficient to prevent errors in the information or data entry.
In Victoria the first clue to a problem will generally be an unexpected welcome message from the new supplier. 
I canāt see how this will have any effect if the owner of the system wants to pass your account to another vendor. Are you saying this would prevent the owner from doing the transfer without the usersā approval? The problem is with lack of communication and consultation.
That is a fair call if it was a decision by the supplier. However I understood from the OP that on both occassions it was due to data entry error of some sort rather than the supplier churning clients to a new provider:
My suggestion for 2FA was based on the idea that the client would have to actively confirm the churn to a new provider rather than finding out when the first new bill arrives:
Clearly, there is need to tighten security, because if someone wanted to be malicious they could sign a person up to an inappropriate or more expensive supplier without the knowledge of the account holder.
The assumption is the new provider is able to access the personal details of the resident and account holder about to be churned. I suspect they are unable to reverse lookup the identity and contact details of every account holder connected to the network, notably those with a different retailer. They only have access to their existing customer base by address and NMI. Hence they rely absolutely on the details provided by their existing customer or new customer being correct.
There could and should be some form of hand-over mandating the current retailer ticks a box that they have confirmed a transfer with their current customer prior to another retailer taking up the billing, obviously with a requirement to do it timely and expeditiously. How that could be abused is for another topic.
As with many things, how they are is not necessarily how they could or should be improved.
If you are saying that the user needs to confirm the transfer I agree. If the transfer can be done without user approval with a standard password I canāt see how making it 2FA would make any difference.
Agree. The nuts and bolts of how this is managed between the retailers, distributor and metering providers should assure authorisation has been obtained from the true account holder for the service.
Whether the industry considers it is necessary to change is also unknown?
We had the same problem in May 2022 in Hepburn Springs, Victoria to both our gas & electricity accounts that were transferred to a new owner in our 6 lot subdivision. In both cases the new owner did not have the electricity NMI or the gas MIRN so gave their choice of suppliers the property address and the first we heard of both transfers were Final accounts sent to us. After a title search followed by a Google search we were able to locate the new owners contact details, (their property was a rental), & reversed the transfers. The problem was that when our subdivision was registered in 2019 & houses built by a developer they named the smaller houses āVilla 1ā, āVilla 2ā etc which numbers were different to the Lot numbers. Neither Tango Energy (electricity) or GloBird Energy (gas) has 2 factor authorization available and will connect a new property only on the advice of the claimed new owner. If we had not requested the reversal then the purchasers would have paid for our supply & eventually been disconnected as no one had connected their property.
Above and beyond, hopefully the other party was appreciative of your efforts?
One has to ask why your existing supplier/s had not attempted to contact you directly in advance of taking a final reading and issuing a final bill. However agreement might be confirmed, is the first step a requirement the retailer/retailers involved verify the true account holder for the affected service has been contacted and agreed?
I nearly caused something similar to this. I was changing my supplier and gave the new company the NMI (meter number) to do the transfer.
However, when I received the documentation, they had moved a different NMI onto my account. It had a different unit number in my building also. Iām glad I checked it and was able to get it reversed before any harm was done.
The process used by electricity retailers to transfer accounts really is quite unsatisfactory.
Changing energy retailers is easy. Governments even pay you to check out retail offers and switch to better deals. Retailers fall over themselves in the pursuit of new customers.
So the process is designed to be simple and simple checks not bothered with.
But the supplier doesnāt change. The company actually providing the physical connection doesnāt care about retail accounts. It only cares that some retailer is paying them for wholesale purchase of energy on their poles and wires.
You are technically correct though a bit pedantic. I meant retailer of course.
The substance of my post is correct. I nearly ended up being billed for the wrong meter. Retailers need to improve their processes.
I am an unashamed pedant. True. 
And your experience does point out problems in this area.
The term āsupplierā is potentially a fiction and does not exist. At least in a regulatory sense. Fortunately nearly all our consumer dealings are with the āretailersā, or is it that simple?
English being what it is there is always another word for most things.
Turn to CanStar Blue when looking for a better deal, they will provide a list of āElectricity Providersā. Similar in a broader sense if the Energy and Water Ombudsman NSW.
Supplier, historically accurate from when electricity generation, transmission, metering and billing were all under the one business.
Of course with two sons and two daughters-in-law in the electricity industry I should have known better! Certainly itās retailers who I was dealing with. I found it interesting when the first problem occurred my retailer made no effort to persuade me to come back, whereas this time the retailer was on the case immediately. Says something about the competition between retailers for customers.
I sold my house and agreed to stay on to caretake and house sit until new owners could move in. After having moved in it was agreed for us to stay on a tad longerā¦all this time the electricity is still in my name as agreed to. Then before moving on I approached new owner and said time to change power over to you. Oh, thats already been doneā¦all he did was ring energy supplier and transferred. When i contacted the supplier to ask why they thought it was ok without my permission, they said it was not policy to refuse power to anyone. Ok, im not paying bill anymore but how did they know it was a genuine requestā¦SEQ retailer
