EON - Final Gas Bill changed after 2 years... and £580 now due... HELP PLEASE!

doherty81

Hi there,

I previously rented a property before I purchased my current home, which was over 2 years ago.

When I left, I contacted my energy company eon and provided my final gas electricity reading and paid my final bill.

2 years later I have received a letter from a civil enforcement company on behalf of eon claiming I owe them £580+ from my final bill.

My bills were always estimated until the final one which was about £40 to settle the account.

They are now saying that all my bills were estimated and that I had accrued aprox £580 in extra electrcity while I live there (15months).

Currently in my new home where I have more lighting, bigger TV, and more electrical equipment it works out that I pay around (£28 a month.)

Based on what I had paid them when I left, and what they say I now owe them it would work out at about £78 a month for where I lived in the flat.

They are saying that the renting company provided them with a meter reading them I left which differed from what I gave them.

With it being 2 years on, I have little evidane to backup my claims on the bill, but they are saying they will start proceedings against me in order to pay.

If I did in fact use the electricity I would have no problem about paying the bills, but I really dont believe I did.

Is there any advice anyone can provide where I can dispute this with them?
They are standing firm saying the final bill is correct but I dont believe it is.

Thanks, Paul

Vestra

You say you paid your final bills, was this both the gas and electric accounts you paid? Do you still have a copy of the final bills?

doherty81

The electricity was only with them. The gas was with a different supplier.

I don't have copies of the final bill any longer. I normally keep bills etc like that for a year then shreed them. As time had gone by and everything looked OK I had gotten rid of them.

If I felt the bill was correct and fair I would have no issue paying it.

Magentasue

doherty81 wrote: »

They are saying that the renting company provided them with a meter reading them I left which differed from what I gave them.

Were the final readings witnessed by the letting agents (or anyone else)? If so, they will be able to verify your claim.

doherty81

Just me and my girlfriend. We both lived there together.
We then provided the details to the letting agency when we had moved out and paid the remainder of the bill so we could redeem our deposit.

hopingforahouse

Your supplier cannot make you pay your bill if they never originally billed you for it, and if the charges are for over a year ago - go to the consumer focus website> your questions, and then select billing errors> back billing.

Tried to post a link but its tooooooooooooooo long

spiro

Ask them for a copy of the original final bill that they sent you 2 years ago and check if the closing reading is listed as a customer own reading (the one you supplied). Your agent should also have taken a copy of this reading. Once you have this ask them what leads them to believe the original bill was wrong. If they sent you final bill to your new address then they have no excuse for the 2 year gap otherwise they may have bee trying to track you down.

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

Hi doherty81

Sounds as though we may have conflicting information from you and the letting agent.

Did the original final bill close your account to the reading you gave us?

Did you pay EON for the electricity or the letting agent so you could reclaim your deposit?

Also check the date the account was closed to. Make sure it has been closed to the date you informed us you were moving out and not to the date your letting agent contacted us.

If there is a discrepancy here a copy of the Tenancy Agreement may be needed to establish responsibility. Do you have this if required?

I know you have shredded your bills but ask for copies. Not just the new final bill but previous ones too. It will help establish what happened before you moved out.

It is important you keep talking to us about this. Ask for a complaint to be raised whilst the matter is being investigated. This will delay any debt follow up until the matter can be resolved.

Hope this helps.

Malc

doherty81

Hi Malc,

Thanks for the response.

I paid Eon for the electricity, which I then needed to provide the fianl bill and payment evidance to the letting agency to reclaim my deposit.

With regards to the letting agreement, again this was two years ago, however I believe I may well have a copy of this somewhere, if not I could I presume abtain a copy of that which was signed by us from the letting agency.

When speaking with your staff I asked that they send me out details of what was owed, so I will wait and see what they send through and can then contact them back to discuss any further documentation I may need then.

Regards, Paul

joels

I have a very similar problem....

I left E-ON in March, to go to another power company for Gas/Electric. Last bill was paid, I was in credit because I was paying by direct debit and they paid back the money they owed, not much, about £100.

Previous to this, in Jan 10, my electric meter had stopped working, so E-ON had replaced it (by early Feb), nothing major, slightly adjusted bill before I left them.

Now, May20th 2010 I get a bill for £650, with a letter saying that since they'd replaced the meter they noticed my usage was different and therefore ALL my bills since March 2008 were incorrect and needed to be re-billed.

I spent hours on the phone with them yesterday arguing that I am not the one who should be paying for their mistakes, the meter was read by an E-ON employee many times during this period and I was paying bills by direct debit during this period.

They are demanding I pay, that I used the electricity (which they are estimating) so it's my problem.

They are contradicting themselves - if the meter was reading incorrectly and they were estimating my bills, then they were billing me wrongly, but now they're saying they were wrong all along, so have RE-estimated the last two years of energy consumption???? I don't get it!! Either way you look at it, they are estimating my consumption!

Where do I go from here? I have 'some bills' from 2009-2010, I can go through my bank statements to gather the amounts I paid to them.....I don't understand how they can do this.

Would your mobile phone provider come back to you after you left them and say - oops, sorry, here's another bill, we got it wrong??? NO!

So, currently, I am having to pay them something each month to avoid it going to debt collection, but I need to contest this, it MUST be illegal or something....

Premier_2

The meter stopped. Whether it was read or not makes no difference - the meter was faulty ... and it is being suggested that it was faulty before it eventually stopped.

What do you expect the company to do? They can only estimate usage if the meter was not accurately recording consumption. (and that would be estimated from later known, accurate readings) If you don't agree with the assumptions made in their estimation, put forward an equally plausible alternative calculation and then negotiate.

But please get away from the notion they must be doing anything "illegal or something"; that is not the right mindset to start any constructive and meaningful negotiations to remedy your issue.