Mr Olsen/ Mr Benveniste/ Ms Goodgame

On the above date, as I am being ripped off by Powershop, I wrote the letter to you, beneath. Yet, as, instead of solving my problem, you have continued to make it worse, unless one of you replies to me by the end of today – that is, by 6pm, Monday, May 5, 2025 –  advising me as to how you intend to solve my problem, I will be copying this correspondence to EWON and beginning the process of replacing Powershop entirely as our supplier.

If your complacency with angry customers is such that you feel you have no need to respond and are prepared to let them walk away, so be it.

If otherwise, however, in anticipation, I look forward to your prompt reply.

Graham Lauren

0416 171724

Unless Powershop sorts out its possibly fraudulent ineptitude in its management of our accounts, we will be leaving it entirely as our supplier, and promoting our dissatisfaction to the media

I have long been far from happy with Powershop as a supplier, but I am now disgusted at its ineptitude in managing our accounts, for reasons I outline beneath.

I currently have two accounts with Powershop:

For our office, for Shiro Architects, at 308/35 Buckingham Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010:  806727253

For our home, at 301 2 Shirley Street, Alexandria NSW 2015: 831047257

First problem:

On Thursday, 20 March, I received an email without an invoice attached referring to an account numbered 833919141 – nothing to do with us at all – telling me: Just a heads up – there’s a payment of $175.08 overdue on your electricity account. You’ll need to make payment by 31 March 2025. It has links embedded in the page to make payments, but it appears entirely fraudulent. 

At best, If this is not just a Powershop con, it appears to suggest that your systems may have been hacked and your security compromised in managing your customers’ financial interests. 

As this is extremely bad and embarrassing news, if this is the case, this is something both your customers and the media need to know about, which is of course what will happen – I used to work for the Australian Financial Review, so I know exactly how this works.

Second problem:

On 25 March 2025, I received an email telling me: Powershop 806727253 Account has $606.73 owing. 

On 25 March, I then received another email telling me that this amount had gone up to $682.89, and this extra amount accounted for the period 8 February 2025 – 8 March 2025. 

Yet, on March 13, I had called Powershop to advise its representative that because our neighbour’s office on our floor at 35 Buckingham Street had experienced a fire on February 8, our office would be unusable for a minimum of six months, meaning that if we got billed for any usage after this date, it would be fraudulent. It appears that this is exactly what has occurred.

On 25 March, I received third email from Powershop telling me:

Please be advised we have issued you two bills today.

You have recently advised there was a fire at site on 07/02/25, so we have estimated usage up to this date, and manually created your next bill with zero usage.

This is manifestly untrue.

Third problem:

On Friday, March 28, I then received an email – to my personal email address, nothing to do with my business – saying:

You left a little something behind

Hi Shiro Architects Pty Ltd,

You’ve still got a credit of $659.10 on your closed Powershop account. Get in touch on 1800 462 668 and we’ll help get you reunited with your cash.

However, although we may well do so when we sell our office, which may occur later this year, we have not closed our account, so why I have received this message is a mystery.

Please explain by reply why your systems are so broken and sort out this mess at your end, or it is extremely likely that we will be moving our household account in the very near future from Powershop, too.  

And I will relish publicising the story of your broken systems on my own web site, Shonkr.Com, which exists precisely to discourage others from doing business with shonky suppliers.

I look forward to your prompt reply as to how you will resolve this problem for me.

Graham Lauren

0416 171724