GRRR - E.on taken £3,200 out of my account 'by mistake'

nudnik

Got the shock of my life today. Checked my bank account and it is minus £3,200. E.on had incorrectly taken this amount due to them having the incorrect start reading which I gave them over the phone at least twice. Incompetent barstewards. They are going to correct it as it should have only been £110 but have not offered me any kind of compensation or apology but luckily my wonderful bank have not charged me for going overdrawn.

Be warned...this is how efficient E.on is :mad:

Premier_2

You should have received a bill before they took any amount.

If you didn't dispute that bill when you received it, you can't blame eon for acting in accordance with it.

coco279

does not surprise me this company is the worst ever,they were charging me twice the amount for my electric.

chris

nudnik

Premier wrote: »

You should have received a bill before they took any amount.

If you didn't dispute that bill when you received it, you can't blame eon for acting in accordance with it.

What a strange reply. Of course if I had received a bill I would have questioned it. The fault is due to it being a final meter reading where they had an incorrect original reading. I only discovered the money had gone when I looked at my bank account.

I have never received a paper bill from E.on for all of the 3 months that I was with them and the only paperwork I received was that requesting the meter readings when I started which were correct (but entered incorrectly by them).

Premier_2

nudnik wrote: »

What a strange reply. Of course if I had received a bill I would have questioned it. The fault is due to it being a final meter reading where they had an incorrect original reading. I only discovered the money had gone when I looked at my bank account.

I have never received a paper bill from E.on for all of the 3 months that I was with them and the only paperwork I received was that requesting the meter readings when I started which were correct (but entered incorrectly by them).

Eon produce bills including final bills - without them you don't legally owe the company any money at all.

Unless you agreed to paperless billing (in which case the bill would be available to you electronically), then they are sent out by post.

1carminestocky

By special delivery? :rolleyes: (Incidentally, the ONLY service in which RM guarantee delivery, did you know?). Letters sent by any other means can go missing and frequently do though I'm suspecting Eon by law only have to prove postage. SURELY, with a domestic account there are checks in place to MANUALLY CHECK bills of a certain size (I would imagine £3200 is a rather unusual amount for an energy company to be asking a punter to pay, no?)

nudnik

Premier wrote: »

Eon produce bills including final bills - without them you don't legally owe the company any money at all.

Unless you agreed to paperless billing (in which case the bill would be available to you electronically), then they are sent out by post.

Yes, I was supposed to receive a paper bill but never got one from them. When I called them to give them my final meter readings they said they would just take whatever is owed by direct debit. They entered a '7' instead of a '1'.

Premier_2

nudnik wrote: »

Yes, I was supposed to receive a paper bill but never got one from them. When I called them to give them my final meter readings they said they would just take whatever is owed by direct debit. They entered a '7' instead of a '1'.

But they can only calculate what you owe by producing a bill. As I said previously, you only legally owe an amount once you are billed that amount.

When you call with a final meter reading, they do indeed advise that they will collect whatever you owe via DD (assuming a mandate is already in place), but they also advise you should expect a bill and within what time frame. That bill should arrive with 10 working days notice before the collection is made.

If it is the case that Eon created and sent the bill but you never received it, surely that is something you should take up with the postal company not the utility supplier.

nudnik

Premier wrote: »

But they can only calculate what you owe by producing a bill. As I said previously, you only legally owe an amount once you are billed that amount.

When you call with a final meter reading, they do indeed advise that they will collect whatever you owe via DD (assuming a mandate is already in place), but they also advise you should expect a bill and within what time frame. That bill should arrive with 10 working days notice before the collection is made.

If it is the case that Eon created and sent the bill but you never received it, surely that is something you should take up with the postal company not the utility supplier.

They didn't say anything about a paper bill, just that they'd take what was owed by DD. E.on have admitted that the mistake was theirs (actually one of their 'meter readers') and have corrected the bill (however, still no mention of a paper final bill).

The only paperwork I ever received from them was their welcome letter (mid-August) and even though they took some money from me in September, I never received a bill for this either even though I am on paper billing.

I don't know what happened to be honest, but yes, lets blame the postman, that is always easier than blaming a big energy company like E.on and the postman is some anonymous person who can't argue back :rolleyes:

freddysmith

As an Eon customer I am pleased to see that the mistake has been corrected and that no one is out of pocket.
What compensation do you expect?
Have you written to the company about this?

1carminestocky

Premier wrote: »

But they can only calculate what you owe by producing a bill. As I said previously, you only legally owe an amount once you are billed that amount.

When you call with a final meter reading, they do indeed advise that they will collect whatever you owe via DD (assuming a mandate is already in place), but they also advise you should expect a bill and within what time frame. That bill should arrive with 10 working days notice before the collection is made.

If it is the case that Eon created and sent the bill but you never received it, surely that is something you should take up with the postal company not the utility supplier.

maybe you missed my earlier point so here it is again: Wouldn't you think it prudent for an energy company the size of Eon to have some safeguards built into its no-doubt hugely expensive super-computer whereby domestic bills over a certain amount (and I'm suggesting the certain amount should be waaayyyy less than £3,200 here) should be flagged up AND MANUALLY CHECKED BEFORE SENDING THEM AND CERTAINLY BEFORE EXTRACTING THE PAYMENT FROM THE CUSTOMER'S CURRENT ACCOUNT. Common sense, surely? Although I realise that common sense doesn't seem so common when we are looking at how energy comapnies work.