Q for Eon and npower employees re 'pay old prices when you switch' clause

JayMT

I've been speaking to both Eon and npower recently regarding switching away after a price increase, and invoking the clause in the contract about being charged at the old rate if you don't accept the increase.

The jist of the conversation goes like this:

Me: I'm leaving for a new supplier, and I would like my closing bill to be charged at the pre-increase rate as per your T&C's.

Them: I'm sorry but the increase has already happened, you're not on a capped tariff so you'll be charged at the new rate until you leave.

Me: (deep breath) It's nothing to do with whether the tariff is capped. Instead, I'm invoking the clause in your T&C's which says I can reject your price increase and switch supplier. This means I will pay the old rate until I leave.

Them: I know nothing about this, let me speak to a colleague...OK this is fine, I'll mark your account as being held on the pre-increase rate.

Me: Thanks, bye.

My question is, why aren't the staff routinely aware of this clause?

If I was being cynical I would conclude they aren't told about this deliberately, so only those customers who read the small print* and argue their case will not pay any increased charges when they change suppliers.

(In any event, despite assurances by Eon about the old rate being honoured, they've sent me a closing bill on the new tariff anyway :rolleyes: ).

* Actually, it's not even small print. On both price increase letters I've had (one from Eon, one from npower), it's stated very clearly on the back of the letter just below details of the new prices. So why don't the call centre staff know about this?

brysiewysie

If the call is routed to the team dealing with price increase calls you'd be ok. However if either you called a different number (off the bill etc) or queues for the price increase team were large you could get routed to an over-flow team who may not know the way it works.

The way it works for Eon is they credit a payment to your account, not reduce your rate on the account. This information is contained in Eons 'Knowledge Centre' which any employee should be able to access and find the correct process.

WhistleBlower

oO It's news to me. Though i'm not technicaly customer services.

There are several things we actually can't tell people about and one or two we're discouraged from.

For example under no circumstances are we supposed to give the energy ombudsman contact details or Energywatch (now defunct) telephone number unless directly asked.

CS can't tell customers about aour spreading warmth tarriff, and we aren't allowed to give full details of things First Step do either.

1carminestocky

WhistleBlower wrote: »

oO It's news to me. Though i'm not technicaly customer services.

There are several things we actually can't tell people about and one or two we're discouraged from.

For example under no circumstances are we supposed to give the energy ombudsman contact details or Energywatch (now defunct) telephone number unless directly asked.

CS can't tell customers about aour spreading warmth tarriff, and we aren't allowed to give full details of things First Step do either.

What an amazing poster you are, WhistleBlower! It makes a real change to read an energy employees posts on this forum that isn't full of indoctrination. More power to your elbow, mate! :beer:

SwanJon

WhistleBlower wrote: »

For example under no circumstances are we supposed to give the energy ombudsman contact details or Energywatch (now defunct) telephone number unless directly asked.

They're going to need to change that.
Under OFGEM's new complaints procedure suppliers have to inform customers of the complaints procedure for any complaint not resolved by the end of the second day. The end of that procedure is the Ombudsman, so you pretty much have to make them aware of it.
These came into effect 1st Oct, so you shaould been through training on this by now (if you are customer facing)

WhistleBlower

Complaints probably already know, but i'm a debt collector (Yah, i'm popular aint I :rolleyes:)

Procedure if a customer raises a complaint is to put it into our complaints system (named Once, though lord knows why) then our complaints department handle it from there onwards.

Plus i'm being shunted to a new department thanks to aour "shake up" so they've probably not bothered with us.

And thanks 1carminestocky, as you can probably tell i joined here for my own reasons, mostly due to being in debt (debt free wannabe is a great forum) as per my sig. I just realised that i might be able to do some good here and i'm trying to do just that.

SwanJon

We've had to put all frontline through it (as far as I know), but so long as they get told their options it probably works

brysiewysie

Eon have put all staff that have any type of customer contact through the new complaints process training.

WhistleBlower

in all likelyhood our frontline teams have been trained on it but we're being hauled off phones for back-office positions now our department has been moved. I'd imagine they haven't trained us on that for that reason.

Either that or i was off sick when they rolled out the brief.

ricky9

If i am not mistaken there is a time limit that you must notify your presant supplier after they have increased there prices, i think it is 28 days

Premier_2

ricky9 wrote: »

If i am not mistaken there is a time limit that you must notify your presant supplier after they have increased there prices, i think it is 28 days

I think it's more like 10 working days from the time the supplier notifies the customer of the price increase.

Suppliers have 65 working days from the date they increase prices to notify their customers of that increase.

JayMT wrote:

...(In any event, despite assurances by Eon about the old rate being honoured, they've sent me a closing bill on the new tariff anyway :rolleyes: )...

Hmmm...they did that to me too about 6 months ago! :mad:

I wonder how much they have stolen from others who have objected to rate rises but not got the old prices?

Don't let them fob you off with ex-gratia payments in the hope you'll accept them. In the end, I had to write to their MD, Graham Bartlett, at their registered office before I got someone to calculate the price correctly based on the original tariff - I suspect you'll need to do the same if thats what you want.

If you do what I did and refuse to pay the bill (including a claim under the DD guarantee when they took money out of my account rather than cancel the collection as they should have done), expect some pretty bad correspondence back including legal threats, court action, etc, but if they've billed you wrong then you are quite within your rights not to pay. The amount billed is not owed, therefore cannot legally be demanded.