Complaining on behalf of someone else

If you’re a support worker or family member of a vulnerable person who has an issue with an energy or water provider, you may want to work with us on their behalf. 

We can work with you and the person you’re supporting by providing:

• Disconnection advice: arranging a hold on a disconnection or negotiating a reconnection and making sure the provider has followed the disconnection rules.
• Assistance with bill disputes: investigating high bills.
• Financial hardship advice: helping to negotiate payment plans, investigating default listings and information on assistance available.

If you work for a support agency and are looking for resources to keep on hand, please see our collection of brochures available for download and ordering. 

Contacting us

Before we can help, you will need to try and resolve the issue with the energy or water provider first to give them a chance to fix it. You can read through our advice on common complaints we see, so you’re well prepared to have conversations with the provider.

If you’re unable to resolve the issue, or you’re unhappy with the outcome, that’s where you can contact us.

If you want to speak with us on the behalf of a person you’re supporting, you can do so but need their permission first. Please complete the Authority to Act form at the bottom of this page to start the process.

Once you have their permission, you can lodge a complaint with us on our online form or by calling us on 1800 662 837.

Authority to Act

The Authority to Act form allows another person to make a complaint with us on the behalf of the account holder. This could be a relative or friend, paid representative, or financial counsellor. This form is for the account holder to officially give their chosen person permission to speak or complain on their behalf.

Once the Authority to Act is completed the chosen person becomes an ‘Authorised representative’. This means we can:

• ask that person for information about you and your account
• give information to that person about the complaint
• speak to that person as if we were speaking to you.

This authority remains valid for EWOQ interactions until you or the authorised person cancels it. Contact us to change or cancel this authority.

If you decide to pay someone to contact us, you can’t recover any of their fees from EWOQ or the company you’re making a complaint about.

However, our dispute resolution service is free, so you can choose to contact us directly or have a paid representative talk to us.

Complete the below online form or download our printable Authority to Act form(PDF, 179KB). 

We may still call you to confirm this Authority to Act has been completed by you.

Click here to view form.