RESIDENTIAL CONSUMER CARE
POLICY

Introduction

As your retailer we understand the essential role electricity plays in our customers’ lives. We are committed to helping you manage your energy costs, and staying connected.

This Customer Care Policy sets out our service promises to you. It is not a legally binding document, but one which guides how we operate.

Our Customer Care Policy is aligned to The Electricity Authority’s Consumer Care Obligations here.

Important things to remember

• WISE Prepay is a “pre-pay” only electricity retailer and we do not have any “post-pay” electricity offerings. You must have a smart electricity meter to join WISE, and you must have a mobile phone and email address to receive alerts and emails from us.
• Our pre-pay electricity rates (which can be found on our website for your property, and in your Welcome Pack when you are signing up) will differ from the post-pay electricity rates offered by our related retail brands Megatel and Nova Energy.
• We strongly recommend you do not use Wise Prepay if you or any other member of your household is (or becomes) a Medically Dependent Consumer (i.e., dependent on electricity for critical medical equipment or support).
• There is no joining fee or bonds, but your first top-up must be at least $50. This will be credited to your account for power consumed during the switching process. After you are connected, the minimum top-up amount is $10. See below for how to top up and our payment methods (fees do apply for some methods).
• It is very important to retain a minimum balance of $10 on your WISE pre-pay electricity account to avoid being at risk of electricity disconnection. If your account drops below this $10 minimum balance:
  • We will notify you by TXT and by email reminding you to top-up (or you be at risk of disconnection). See below for more info on our balance alerts.
  • If you do not top-up within 48 hours and your balance drops to $0 (zero), then disconnection may occur at 11:30am Mon-Fri.
  • To avoid disconnection, either top-up your account or get in touch with us as soon as possible to advise you are having payment difficulties (see below for more on this topic).
• If your balance drops to $0 (zero):
  • There is never a fee for disconnection.
  • Remote reconnections are free, provided your account has been disconnected for less than 7 days. If your account has been disconnected (due to your account balance running out), then reconnection fees do apply. See below for more information on these fees.
• You can contact us at any time to talk about your situation, ask questions about this policy, or to give us feedback. Our website FAQs can also be quite useful!

Our service promises

As your electricity retailer, we want to make sure we:

• Listen and respond to your needs and concerns with respect
• Work with you collaboratively and constructively to solve problems
• Are proactive in offering assistance to meet your needs
• Communicate with you in a timely and clear way
• Make sure you have every opportunity to choose the best pricing plan to meet your needs
• Make sure all our customers have access to support regardless of language, ethnicity, educational achievement, culture, gender, physical and intellectual ability, age, health, income, and wealth
• Work with you to resolve payment difficulties and, with your permission, can link you to one or more support agencies or social agencies to assist you
• Should your pre-paid power run out (account in arrears -$0) disconnection will be scheduled, however we can work with you to make a repayment arrangement (or request a short-term disconnection hold) to keep the electricity connected and/or arrange reconnection of power.

If you use electricity from us, we will try to communicate with you clearly about your rights and the choices you can make, even if you have not signed a contract with us yet.

We offer all our consumers a variety of advice and support, ranging from helping with decisions on the best pricing plans for their consumption and connection type through to payment plans.

While we might not always get it right, we are committed to learning continually from our experiences to improve the support we offer our customers.

Your personal information

In providing you with electricity and related services, we need some information from you. We will ensure this information is stored securely and only used for its intended purpose.

We ask that you ensure your details are correct and let us know if anything changes.

You can find out more about how we manage your personal information in our General Terms and Conditions and our Privacy Policy on our website.

Joining Wise Prepay

Our current electricity plans and payment options are available online, or you can contact us to go through which plan, and payment option meet your needs.

Before you become a customer, we may ask you questions about yourself and your situation. We will also get your permission to do a credit check and consider this along with all other information provided.

If we do not accept you as a customer, we will tell you why. If you are having a hard time finding an electricity retailer, we can refer you to a financial mentor or give you advice on what you can do.

If you would like an independent place to check energy prices, you can go to the Powerswitch website.

Choosing the right electricity plan

We offer a range of electricity plans designed to suit different households, usage levels and to provide extra services you might like to receive.

To help you decide which electricity plan might suit you best, you should tell us about how you usually use energy in your household and your past electricity consumption.

All ours plans include a daily fixed charge and variable electricity usage charge, which are based on your meter type and your network's pricing category.

Self-service – The Wise Mobile App & Website Dashboard

You can manage your account anytime via our handy Mobile App, which can be downloaded directly from Google Play or Apple's App Store.

You can also manager your account online by signing into your Wise Dashboard.

The Wise App and the Dashboard let you keep an eye on your electricity usage, your account balance, make payments, and update your communication details.

The App also sends account balance alerts as follow:

• Level 5- Credit left for more than 28 days; No worries
• Level 4- Credit left for 14 days; Sufficient credit
• Level 3- Credit left for 7 days; Run out soon
• Level 2- Not enough credit left; time to top-up
• Level 1- Your account is disconnected; Top-up and contact us

At level 2 and 1 you will receive balance alerts via text and emails too.

Alternate contacts and Authorised persons

You can ask us to communicate with you using an alernative contact or authorised person. They could be a family member, friend, support person, or community worker.

• Authorised contacts can help manage your account and/or make decisions for you in relation to helping you manage your account (for example they can help top up your account, advise us of payment difficulties, request a short-term disconnection hold and update your contact details).
• Alternative Contacts can help you communicate with us (and vice versa) when we are unable to reach you. This person cannot make any decisions or act on your account.

Before you give us your alternative or authorised contact details, make sure you ask this person first. Then, if they agree, let us know their name and contact details.

If your Authorised or Alternate Contacts advise us that they no longer agree to act in their capacities we will notify you or their decision and seek your advice regarding new contacts.

Speaking your language

If you would like to speak to us in a language other than English, we will try to help.

You can use an alternative contact or authorised person to talk with us instead.

Another option is to use a different communication method that suits you. For example, you could receive information from us in writing, or you can go to our website to engate in a chat with our AI chatbot "Willa" with your preferred language. Willa should be able to assit you in most cases.

Payment methods

You can top up your account via:

• The Wise Mobile App (available from the App Store or Google Play)
• Online by signing into your Wise Dashboard.
• The Recharge Cards we supply at one of our participating merchants(Payment fees apply).

And you can pay by using:

• Credit card or debit card (payment fees apply)
• Internet or telephone banking
• Automatic Credit Card payment

Bank Deposit or Online Transfer through Banking App may take up to one business day to process and be applied to your balance.

If you have payment difficulties

It’s important we work together to help you manage your payments and keep your account in credit, particularly if you are having difficulties.

Sould you ever require payment assistance, please call us to discuss.

We will also get in touch with you through your preferred contact methods when we see you are frequently running out of credit and getting disconnected, or if we notice any severe spikes in your electricity usage that is not explained by known circumstances (for example, seasonal changes).

Here are some ways we can help:

• We can check to see you are on the best plan for your usage.
• Provide you with power saving tips.
• If you are a beneficiary with Work and Income NZ, we can send you a support letter to forward to WINZ requesting assistance with your electricity supply.
• We can look at making a ‘one off’ special arrangement that suits - such as a special repayment plan for overdue amounts owed to us, and agreeing an "IOU" / "disconnection hold" if you are soon to be disconnected (see further below).
• We can put you in touch with social agencies and free budgeting advice agencies. More on this below.

Linking you with financial mentoring and support organisations

If you are struggling to keep up with your payments, with your consent, we can connect you with support agencies, who will help you with things like keeping your electricity account in credit.

Once contact is made, we will give you some time to talk to these agencies and receive help without disconnecting your electricity supply.

We will work with you and your support organisation as a partnership, making sure we all use agreed ways of communicating with each other.

The following organisations may also be able to help with financial assistance and/or free budgeting advice:

Protecting the health of Medically Dependent Consumers

The health and wellbeing of our customers is very important to us.

If you or someone living with you (even for a short period) depend on electricity to run critical medical support equipment, then you are considered a "Medically Dependent Consumer" ("MDC"). Examples of critical medical equipment include ventilators, renal dialysis machines, oxygen concentrators, and ventricular assistance devices, as well as other non-medical equipment which may be needed for critical medical support (e.g., a microwave oven to heat fluids for renal dialysis).

We strongly recommend you do not use Wise Prepay if you or any other member of your household is (or becomes) a Medically Dependent Consumer (i.e., dependent on electricity for critical medical support).

However, if you or someone living at your property is medically dependant, or if you think that you or someone in your household, may be, or become medically dependent on electricity, you should get in touch with us to let us know as soon as possible.

Once you have let us know all we will register this status on your account. We will also share this information with certain third-party providers, for example, your network and metering companies and our field services staff, so they are aware if they are working at your property (e.g., checking or upgrading your electricity meter).

The medical dependency will need to be verified by a qualified Health Practitioner (e.g., your doctor, District Health Board, Private Hospital) at your own cost unless we ask for a re-verification. We may ask you to get your doctor to return a completed form that confirms your Notice of Potential MDC status, or potential MDC still applies.

If we do not receive the required verification from you, or your Health Practitioner by the date we’ve outlined, we may remove you from our Medical Dependency Register and change your account status accordingly.

Disconnections and reconnections

Disconnections and reconnections are automated with Wise Prepay, based on the amount of credit you have in your account.

In the event of disconnection, you will need to top up your account via our website, Mobile App, or using your top up card at a participating retailer. (you can find all of this on our website under "How to Top UP").

You can avoid disconnection by:

• Ensuring you always maintain a balance of at least $10
• If your balance drops below $10, topping up within 48 hours of receiving our reminder text and email notifications.
• You can also contact us to request an "IOU" / "disconnection hold". This means we will apply a $5 credit to your account and "hold off" any disconnection until 11:30am the following day. Please note that:
  • Requests for a "disconnection hold" need to be made between 8am and 5pm, Monday to Thursday.
  • To request a "disconnection hold", your account does not have a negative balance of -$15 or more

Once you have topped up, your power will be reconnected automatically within 30 minutes of the arrears being cleared.

If a communication fault occurs (meaning we can't reconnect your property remotely), a serviceman will attend to do a manual reconnection. In this case it may take up to four hours to reconnect.

Disconnection Fees, Reconnection Fees and other Service Fees

Disconnections:

There are no disconnection fees for Wise customers who run out of credit. This applies to both remote and manual disconnection processes.

If a customer gets disconnected overnight, we perform a welfare check (and for each day thereafter they are without power). This check involves offering reconnection assistance and if/where needed assistance via Work and Income NZ, budgeting advice, and power saving tips.

Where we are unable to make contact, we will leave voice messages, as well as sending reconnection texts, emails, and alert notifications via our Wise app, to encourage the customer to reach our and reconnect.

We will not disconnect a customer while there is an ongoing dispute about any charges (see below under feedback and complaints).

Reconnections:

There is no reconnection fees (remote or manual) for Wise customer who run out of credit and get disconnected.

If a customer disconnects and does not make contact, and our attempts to contact them are unsuccessful, after seven days, we will close their account. This will prevent any other charges being applied to their account.

To reconnect (after seven days of being disconnected) customers need to pay:

• A $20 remote reconnection fee.
• A $150 manual reconnection fee (this only applied if we are unable to remotely reconnect your property).
• Any Daily Charges incurred for the period they were disconnected.
• Any other charges owing on the account (if any).

Service fees generally:

As a customer you are responsible for paying all charges and fees from the date your property gets switched to us, or from when you first used electricity or services we provide.

Your electricity plan’s pricing charges are included in the plan information on our Mobile App.

Our schedule of service fees is available on our website here.

This schedule includes charges for additional services. If you ask us or require an additional service, we will tell you the amount or provide an estimate so you can decide if you want to go ahead with it.

Feedback and complaints

You can contact us at any time to talk about your situation, ask questions about this policy, or to give us feedback.

If you have any concerns about the service you have received from us or if we haven’t lived up to our commitments to you, please let us know.

We have a free comprehensive complaint process in place to ensure such issues or concerns are thoroughly reviewed.

You can raise a complaint by contacting our Customer Care Team on 0800 00 9473, by emailing enquiries@wiseprepay.co.nz, or by writing to:

Wise Prepay
PO Box 305 292
Triton Plaza, Albany
Auckland 0632

We will try to resolve your complaint as quickly as possible and will acknowledge your complaint within 2 working days of receiving it.

If we have not resolved your complaint, we will respond to you within 7 working days to let you know the steps that have been taken or are/will be taken to try and resolve your complaint. We will attempt to resolve your complaint within 20 working days after receiving it.

If you are not satisfied with the outcome of your complaint, or at any point, you can contact Utilities Disputes for free independent advice on 0800 22 33 40 or by sending an email to info@utilitiesdisputes.co.nz.