Ah yes, Shell—that tireless crusader for a greener tomorrow, provided “green” means your bank account hemorrhaging cash at a Shell Recharge station and nobody at HQ picking up the bloody phone.
Meet John Stephen, just your average British bloke living in France who thought he was doing the right thing: driving an electric car across Spain at Christmas, stopping at one of Shell’s shiny, eco-branded charging points. What he got instead? A €1,195 invoice that reads less like a charge and more like a ransom note.
Let’s break it down:
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€71.77 for 18.88kWh on Christmas morning. Pricey, but tolerable.
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Two weeks later, a second bill appears from the void: €1,124.
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The receipt claims he was charging at 12:34 p.m. on December 25. The problem? John was in an Uber at the time, on the way to Christmas lunch. Because of course Shell’s idea of a “silent night” involves ghost-charging your car from a parallel dimension.
But wait—it gets better. That mysterious second charge included a delightful €925 “connection fee.” Not a single human being—not from Shell’s customer service, not from their European HQ, not even their supposed 24/7 helpline—can or will explain what the hell that even means. Maybe it’s the price of connecting to Shell’s uniquely advanced system of corporate indifference?
“I finally spoke to someone in Ireland who admitted the bill looked dodgy,” John told The Connexion. “But they said they couldn’t escalate it.” Naturally. Because when Shell isn’t accidentally triggering earthquakes in Groningen or making record profits while the planet cooks, it’s apparently moonlighting as a bureaucratic escape room where every call is a dead end.
John has now turned to France’s small claims court and the European Consumer Centre in an attempt to get his money back—because Shell’s idea of customer service appears to be “go screw yourself.”
Shell, in its infinite corporate wisdom, offered this gem of a statement: customers with issues should “reach out.”
John already has. Repeatedly. By email, by letter, by phone.
But the company’s only consistent response seems to be the sound of oil-stained silence.
Shell Recharge proudly brags about its 850,000+ EV charging points across Europe and the UK, but maybe it should focus on charging what people actually owe instead of levelling surprise “connection fees” that feel more like a shakedown than a service.
And where are Shell’s investors—BlackRock, Vanguard, or any of the other ESG-hypocrisy champions—when customers get mugged by backend billing software? Probably sipping cocktails made of melted ice caps and congratulating themselves on “sustainable investing.”
As John puts it, “If this can happen to someone with a paper trail and legal help, what hope is there for the average tourist?”
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