Eon Billing Issues

crazylegs04

We moved into our property 2 years ago and telephoned eon to set up our direct debit monthly to stay with them, it was agreed we would pay £80 per month and my husband would go online and submit readings regularly. He contacted eon several times as he could not view any bills online but only see the direct debits taken.

Last week we recieved a call from eon asking us for the serial number from our meter which my Husband gave them and we were then told that eon had made an error and not produced any bills since we had been there (even though they continued taking the direct debit!).

We asked eon to give us a bill which they did, they are not allowed to charge for anything over 1 year old, so in theory we were being billed for this last year up to October 1st 2009. They told us that we owed them £875 ish! - So we had been paying £80 per month for 2 years - nearly £2000 but still owed them nearly £1000!

From 17th August 2007 - 24th September 2007 our gas came to £15, and electricity worked out in the same period to about £75, so us paying £80 a month covered this.

We live in a 10 year old 4 bedroomed home, and eon are saying that we use £200 per month in electric and gas, is this right? It seems way too high?

Because we have not been recieving regular bills we have been unaware of this massive debt we have been running up, so in the past year have underpaid eon by £1800 approx, had we been aware of this then we would have shopped about for another supplier, or at the least made our monthly direct debit higher to cover the monies.

Can eon do this? Has anyone else had anything like this happen?

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena

Hi crazylegs04,

You say in your post "they are not allowed to charge for anything over 1 year old"

Have you been told that your account does fall under the billing code of practice? and if so have the charges for this been removed?

This code will vary depending on the individual circumstances of each account, therefore, doesn't necessarily apply if you haven't been billed for a year.

I would ask for the reason that bills have not been produced, you also say there is an outstanding balance on the account, does the £200 per month include this balance?

You should be able to spread the balance over the length of time it has taken to produce the bill.

Also check the tariff that you are on, make sure this is the best for you.

Sorry for all the questions

Helena

crazylegs04

I was advised that anything over 1 year old can not be billed by the eon advisor yesterday, and this was confirmed when I visited consumer direct and read thier literature.

Yes the bill of approx £2875 is WITHOUT the 1st year - so this amount is in theory for 12 months supply!

The £200 per month will not include the balance outstanding, this is purely for payments ongoing, the £875 is a seperate issue.

The reason they gave for not producing the bills was that they had the wrong serial number of the meter on record. I have this morning spoken to another chap who lives in the same road and he was telling me that he had EXACTLY the same thing happen with eon, and was left with an £800 bill which eon are still persuing him for - something does not add up!

In regards to the tariff point you made - we would have liked the opprotunity to check the tariff was the correct one for us before we esculated this huge bill! - We are on a standard tariff for both elec and gas.

Any help would be appreciated here!

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena

Hi crazylegs04,

So where are you up to with this with E.ON, it appears from your info that the billing code has been applied to your account as you say "the bill of approx £2875 is WITHOUT the 1st year"

Is the account now corrected all together and billing normally? have you received a revised bill?

An advisor should be dealing with your complaint and letting you know what is happening, you need to request the account be escalated if you are unhappy and a resolution needs to be discussed, but this can only happen when everything is sorted.

Helena

crazylegs04

I am not sure if this is helping me understand:
a - why I never had bills
b - why the costs are so high for a modern 4 bed property
c - why I already know of another person in the same street with the EXACT same excuse given by Eon
d - what Eon are going to do to make up for error after error!

I have a customer advisor dealing with this but they are unable to answer any of the above questions, so I appear to be dumped with an annual energy bill of £2875 - £875 of which is still due, I am also left very dissatisfied that I have not been made aware that my direct debit was not covering the costs - even though the bill I have just had online says that you will contact us if the DD amount needs reviewing, and very angry that I have not been given the opportunity to swap providers to a much more competative priced supplier! - which is what I intend to do now!

dogshome

Hi Crazy legs - I've just checked the % rise in my Gas/Elect used in winter to that in summer. In winter the Electric consumption increases by 20%, which is fair enough because the lights are on longer, but the gas increases by 600% simply because the heating ain't on in the summer
So it appears that whilst your D/D covers the summer period, it's way too low to pay for your winter heating and lighting..I think to stop debt rising further, you should immediately increase you Elect D/D by 20% and your Gas D/D by 600%. However you are certainly entitled to claim for only one year to be billed, but.having only just had your first bill, the question arises as to what supplies were used when, and at what price?. If you your other half still has a record of the meter readings on the E.mails he sent, the problem can solved by asking EON to supply a list of the price changes and the dates they were implimented, then with a bit of homework you can work it out .
If you only have your Start meter reading and the reading on your first bill, I suggest that you approach EON with an offer to pay off the debt, either as a lump sum or increased D/Debits on the understanding that when you have actually a full years meter readings, the debt is recalculated on those figures. EON won't like this, but it is the only fair way to
estimate what you use a year, so if EON won't play ball, complain to the Ombudsman

Premier_2

crazylegs04 wrote: »

...From 17th August 2007 - 24th September 2007 our gas came to £15, and electricity worked out in the same period to about £75, so us paying £80 a month covered this. ...

Energy prices have increased considerably since 2007. e.g. last year prices rose by about 50% spread over 2 increases and I think there may have been an increase end of 2007 too. Prices did decrease, but only by a small amount (<10%) this year.

Also as dogshome says, the £15 you used on gas in the summer was probably miniscule compared to the amount of gas used in the winter, especially last winter that was exceptionally cold.

As you say E.On accept that the 1 year back billing rule applies in your instance, I'm sure they will abide by that process.
Your bill should show the meter readings and indicate the dates those meter readings apply to. You should then see a gap between the earlier of those meter readings and the latter meter reading the bill you had for the period 17th August 2007 - 24th September 2007 - it's that gap that represents the energy you have not been charged for.

Hiveoccupier

Hi Crazylegs - the missing bit in all of this is what they are basing their charges on. Do they have actual meter readings from a correctly working meter covering the whole period they are trying to charge you for or are they using estimates to cover a missing period.

If they are using valid meter readings and agreed rates you obviously need to agree a way of paying them for what you have used. If they are using estimates without having the relevant meter readings dispute the validity of their readings and ask them to agree a future reference period in which proper readings will be taken and used to work out how much it is likely that you were using in the past. In the mean time until they can submit a bill based on such an assessment you should ask them to suspend any further attempts to extract cash from you based on flawed data.

I had a problem of this nature with Eon, getting it resolved was painful but they were wildly wrong and seeking to charge me for electricity I could not possibly have used - they ended up giving me a refund of over £1,000 and compensation for wasting my time.

AppleMonkey

I would also check to make sure you were billed on the correct tariff as you said you agreed to have an online account. Make sure you have been billed as an online account including the online discount.

Alot of the times the bills for correction are sent as as standard tariffs and not the correct product (If its incorrect then it will say something like Single Rate Unrestricted instead of something like EnergyOnline).

Can make quite a difference especially if you were originally on an EnergyOnline ExtraSaver product.

As mentioned above check meter readings as well. Also bear in mind that from the first year to now the prices have gone up as well. So what in Year one was adequately covering your usage at £80 a month is probably more likely to be £120-£130 now if your usage is the same.

mattcanary

I concur with the above 2 posts. Often, things get messed up on bills when meters get changed. It is possible that your supplier messed up the final reading on the old meter and/or the first reading on the new meter, thus billing you for power that you didn't use! As you didn't get a bill for a year after the meter was changed, I suggest that it is extreemly likely that your bill is not accurate!