Energy Direct Debit Overcharging: Reclaim Successes

Angie62_2

I am with Atlantic for both gas & electricity and pay by direct debit. Switched to them about last September (07). My interim gas bill in June showed a credit of £136.66 and I was too busy to ask for a refund (silly me). My electric bill was £12.58 in debit in June. Just received a new bill in 8 Dec and my gas bill was in credit by£291.62 and they were refunding the same amount, but not altering my monthly direct debit. My electric bill had gone up to £16.70 in debit yet my monthly direct debits were to be increased from £24 pm to £38pm from January.
I followed Martins advice and rang them to discuss my monthly direct debits. The lady was really helpful and we sorted it out over the phone there and then. With regard to my gas I explained that my house had been empty for 3 months (jan - mar 08) during and extension I had built on the house and so no gas or was used. I asked her to calculate the dd to reflect the actual annual usage and it worked out at slightly less than I was paying so I decided to stay with the payments for now. However with my electric bill I told her I felt that the suggested increase had been too great and I paid off the debit balance over the phone and then we renegotiated the monthly direct debit. Again she looked at the actual annual usage and meter readings and we came to a reasonable agreement. I had not hassle whatsoever, she was very obliging and I know that if I feel I am still paying too much for either bill I can phone and discuss with them and sort it out straight away. I was so impressed with the service I told her so and also that I had switched to them in part due to their excellent customer service record.

daveys1374

I am with Eon for gas and electricity - my monthly direct debit is £148 - just got a letter today saying that from Feb they are putting it up to £322!!!! A ridiculous amount.

Phoned and asked first if I was in credit or debit - turned out I was in credit and because of that they agreed to keep it at the original direct debit. So maybe that tactic works if you dont knw if you are in credit or debit....get them to tell you first!

stevemLS

I moved into my flat in July 2007 -set up DD for £50pm.

Didn't get a bill until Jan 2008, which showed £300 debit - clearly wrong as had been set up as a single rate rather than economy 7 type account.

It took 11 months and a complaint to the Energy Ombudsman to get it sorted.

Next bill was £700 debit - change to DD from £50 to £169.

When they rebilled, I was actually £280 in credit.

They still wanted to increase the DD to £86.

When I rang to complain about that they said they could reduce it to £83.

Ultimately, they agree that the credit balance should be refunded and the DD should actually reduce to £43.

Pure numpties!!!

I will be changing supplier.

loobs40

I am with EON

I had been paying £66 a month direct debit, and got the shock of my life when my bank statement showed £142 had been taken out yesterday. Surely some mistake I thought.

I rang up and enquired and was told the increase was because I was in debit (which I was not). As of today I am £170 in credit with one more monthly payment to come before my next bill which has never been more than £250 in the winter quarter.

After an 'interesting' discussion (in which I was told that it was illegal for EON to gain interest on any money that customers pay in advance...) I managed to get the direct debit to be reduced to £80 per month.

Lexy1210

We were paying e.on £87 pm DD for duel fuel when we received a letter saying that monthly payments were going up to £177!!! We called them and after providing current meter readings it was realised that they had misread one of our meters for the last bill, by quite a lot. They recalculated and said the DD would still need to increase to £120, we agreed to the increase to be reviewed in April.

However, after reading the posts in this thread I went back over our online bills. I rang back to see if we could negotiate keeping the DD at the original £87 pm until April so that our winter usage could be taken into account. The customer service person I spoke to was very helpful and apologetic when she calculated our actual DD only needed to be £76 pm. This has now been set, saving us £132 per year on what we were originally paying and saving a huge £576 per year on the increased DD they were suggesting!

We are also going to update our meter readings online every 6 weeks so that our bills are always uptodate and not based on estimates or false readings.

dickdecca

I'm with EON. They put my DD up from £96 to £155 for gas and electicity. I accept it should have went up a little but not that much.

I logged on to EON and went to the "change my banking details" area, didn't change anything but saved the details. Thier system recalculates the DD when you do this and it dropped to £113 (about correct).

This might not work for everyone but it's worth a try.

Brian

KimYeovil

I trust, after this cold spell, you lot are now all calling up your suppliers to increase your debits?

backfoot

KimYeovil wrote: »

I trust, after this cold spell, you lot are now all calling up your suppliers to increase your debits?

No doubt the theiving swines will have the automated letters already on the way. :rolleyes:

Nyssa

Our gas supplier is British Gas. We received a letter saying our DD would be increased by well over 300%, from £29 a month to £101.

I phoned up and the advisor immediately said he could reduce the payment to £72 (before I'd even had time to say I wanted a reduced payment!). I said I still thought that was too high, based on my calculations of what we'd used over the past year. Again, without hesitation, he offered a lower price of £55. He said this was the lowest he could offer and that it would be reviewed again in summer. I accepted this, as it wasn't too far off my estimate and the account is currently in debit by 80 odd quid. I'd guess we'll be in credit again by end of summer though.

cbrpaul

KimYeovil wrote: »

I trust, after this cold spell, you lot are now all calling up your suppliers to increase your debits?

What we all need to be careful of is this ,


Price rises in mid to end of 08 have yet to be taken into account for many people on DD , coupled with this and the increased use of energy due to the cold winter , many will find their first 09 bills very high , with DD,s adjusted to take into account the shortfall you have paid over the last 6 months or so.

This will certainly effect me as im with Atlantic duel fuel who raised prices in August 08 and have kept my DD,s the same since.

I will be to making a payment before the system starts churning out those automated DD calculations for £100,s more a month !!!!