increase in direct debit

2049ellie

hi,
i have recieved a letter from e-on who supply both my gas and electricity, they are informing me that my direct debit will be increseing by £40 due to an owing debt from the past few months. my husband has just recently changed his job and has taken a huge pay decrese and we simply cant afford this amount. i have spoke to e-on and asked for some help, however they tell me that they are already being resonable by only increasing the payment by this amount as we will just get deeper in the debt.
any advice would be greatly appreciated
thank-you

Moglex

It would help if you said how much the debt was and over how many months.

That information is necessary to determine whether the request is reasonable.

Remember, part of the increase is to account for the fact that you are using more energy than you were paying for so only a part of the increase is to pay off the debt.

Magentasue

Thing is you need to build up a credit balance over the summer to offset winter bills and repay what you owe, so paying any less will mean you ending up in debt. Is there anything you could cut back on to give you the extra? Getting rid of Sky, mobiles, £10 a week off the shopping ...

2049ellie

thank you...
we currently pay £89.00 a month are they are increasing it to £126.00. the debt is £230.81... the way they have explained is that they have averaged the payment out over a year taking into consideration my estimated usage for the forthcoming summer and winter.
with regards to any cut backs on our budget we have already had to do that to take into consideration my husbands reduced salary..i forgot to add that i am expecting my second child in four weeks... so this bill is just adding a huge amount of pressure on our finances.

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena

Hi 2049ellie,

Moglex and Magentasue are both right, the Direct Debit will have been increased to cover your usage and pay off the outstanding balance.

It may be that you can spread the debt over a slightly longer period of time, this will reduce the monthly amount, but If you do not build up a credit over the summer months, your account will fall in to debt again once you have received a winter bill:eek:

This will result in the payments being increased and being in the same position again.

Check you are on the best tariff online or by calling.

Hope this helps

Helena

Magentasue

You'll be better off presumably when your baby arrives - increased child benefit, tax credits etc? At the risk of sounding like your great granny, second babies can be fairly cheap to run if you breast feed and use washable nappies! Of course, if you've given up work, you will be worse off - are you claiming all benefits you're entitled to?

2049ellie

dear helena, i do understand why the payment has increased i have already had it explained to me, however what e-on are failing to understand is that we currently do not have the available funds to pay the amount required. thank you anyway

dear magentasue, thanx for the baby tips i intend to do all of the above, i am due to stop working myself in two weeks time and have been informed by tax credits that my amount wil increse.... i am beginning to sound a little ungrateful now but the money that is owed to us we are actually dependent on as we have included it in our bedget. i am not looking for sympathy from e-on, just some empathy with our situation, i thought that maybe they could freeze the debt owed untill we improve our finances, my husband is looking for another job but as i am sure you are aware employment is hard to come by these days.. just really bad timing for us at the momment

Magentasue

The other option is prepayment meters. Eon will be prepared to reclaim the debt over a much longer period. You would need to put money aside for the winter though, because, obviously, once you start using heating, the meter will want a lot of feeding. Would give you breathing space over the summer.

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena

2049ellie, I do understand that you are having some difficulties, but E.ON won't freeze the debt, they will require this to paid.

I would suggest getting some energy efficiency advice and making as many changes as you can, to reduce the amount of energy that you use. You can contact E.ON to get some help with this.

Also check the tariff that you are on, maybe this could be changed to give you more discount, again this is something to ask.

I know these are small changes, but it will help, as you will have to pay your usage and debt off, but the more you reduce what you use the more the payments can be reduced as well.

Magentasue, has suggested pre-payment meters, this may be a good idea if you can not make the monthly payments at all and you will be able to pay the debt off over a much longer period of time, but just be aware, if these meters are installed to collect a debt E.ON will not remove them if you wish to change back to normal meters in the future.

Hope this helps a bit.

Helena

littletommytucker

, i thought that maybe they could freeze the debt owed untill we improve our finances, my husband is looking for another job but as i am sure you are aware employment is hard to come by these days

How many other hundreds of thousands of people do you think would want E.On to do this? They are a private company that will be doing its best not to be hit by the credit crunch. Giving all their customers experiencing financial difficulties a loan on their gas and electricity would obviously push them over the edge. You need to think of it like Tesco, a company that also sells a necessity(food). If you had eaten their groceries, they would want paying.