Eon trying to claim £6,500 payment off me due to their error!!

100wpm

I've lived in my house for 3 years now and I found out end of last year that I have a six figure meter not the usual five for normal domestic houses. i am not an engineer or official meter reading and have always given six figures to EON over the phone and they have said to me "we don't need the last figure thanks". indeed their meter reading personnel have been out to the property many times and only recorded 5 figures! This has been going on for 10 years in total as the previous owners have been paying the same figure as myself each month to EON based on 5 figure meter readings and EON have never questionned their own staff.

The previous owners themselves did not know the relevance of a five meter reading compared to a six meter reading. only know I do since I have now been hit with a demand for £6,707.09 which they say they have been taking the meter reading down wrong for the last 3 years but as a matter of goodwill they will drop it to 2 years worth !! How Kind ! :mad:

I have taken the matter up with my Solicitors as i think the debt is totally unfair as I have no idea what 5 or 6 figures has a relevance to and neither did the previous owners (which EON have said they have written off with them as it is EON's error). They have suggested a figure of £500 going forward each month to pay which I have agreed to for now until I can see what useage I have been using. My last bill suggests it is more like £350.00 which still seems steep but I am not arguing about that at this time.

However EON have come back to me stating that if I can agree to £500 a month going forward then surely i should have known that my previous bills were too low !! I cannot seem to win here. I am not taking it further that if they say the 6 figure meter reading should therefore increase my monthly bill by a higher figure then okay, who am I to argue but to say I need to pay all the previous useage at the six figure rate which they have incorrectly taken I feel is outrageous and totally unfair.

I am speaking to Energy Ombudsman today and taking this further with my Solicitor to small claims court if this is not resolved. Surely their staff should be trained up to see what is a five figure or six figure meter and also to question why I am giving them a six figure number over the phone and then to say "they don't need that last figure" which EON are now stating they have no record of doing !!! Can't believe this. How am I going to find that kind of money !???!

E.ON_Company_Representative

Hi 100wpm,

This is a dreadful situation to be in, let me try and give you some advice.

The reason E.ON will have taken 5 digits of the 6 you have historically provided will be due to the meter information on the accounts showing the meter details incorrectly.

So if your reading was 123456, E.ON will be looking for a reading with only 5 digits, so they may have been assuming that the reading was actually 12345.6.

You say you have been asked to pay £6,707.09, is this the total bill after the reduction has been applied or before?

The reduction will be a Billing Code reduction, whereby due to the error being E.ON’s fault we will be charging you for only the last 12 months of the bill rather than all 3 years worth.

The Billing Code is a code of practice that the majority of suppliers agreed to put in place to protect customers from billing mistakes made by energy suppliers.

Until this is resolved you do not have to agree to make payments, the account is on hold as long as a complaint is raised.

I can’t resolve this for you, but if you follow the complaints procedure your complaint will be addressed, and if a resolution can not be met you will be able to contact the Ombudsman.

It’s important you follow the complaints procedure step by step, as the Ombudsman will not take on your case until you have extinguished E.ON’s internal complaints process.

Brian

Premier_2

100wpm wrote: »

...I have taken the matter up with my Solicitors ...

I am speaking to Energy Ombudsman today and taking this further with my Solicitor to small claims court if this is not resolved. ...

Is that what your solicitor advised? Did your solicitor also inform you that even if you were to win a small claims action, you'd still have to pay your solicitors fees?

You'd be better off not in small claims. Possibly being over £5000 (you don't actually say what you are intending to claim for) means it may not be accepted as a small claim case anyway. If you've not paid the amount, I'm not sure what you are claiming for. Surely it would be for the creditor to sue you if they want your money (and you are not prepared top pay them)

Perhaps you need a better solicitor

DVardysShadow

The meter. The blddy meter. What does it say?

It is no good going on about how you are not a meter engineer. And it is a bit of a knee jerk reaction to take it too a solicitor without actually understanding the meter reading. Because a solicitor will work on this for a week if you let him, by which time, you might as well pay off eon and be done.

So can you tell us the latest meter readings and the meter readings for a year ago - as they were interpreted and as they should be read please? And it is gas? and is the meter reading in cubic metres or cubic feet?

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

Agree with the post above.

No solicitor would surely advise you to to be the plaintiff in a small claims court - what 'claim' are you making? The main point of the small claims court is that both parties pay own legal expenses.

In only 3 years you have run up a debt of £6707, how much have you been paying them?

Anyway back to the problem!

Are we talking about a gas or electricity meter?

As far as I am aware electricity meters in UK only have 6 digits with the 6th digit a decimal place and not required(it is usually in red). - even the old dial type meter with 6 dials, the last dial is also a fraction of a kWh.

With gas meters they also only record 5 'whole' gas units and 2 or three fractions of a unit.

So I cannot how giving a 6 figure reading, with the last digit being correctly ignored, has run up a debt.

Can you explain please by giving an example of what figures you gave and what has appeared on your bill?

My gut feeling is this is more to do with a Metric/Imperial gas meter issue. But a £6700 debt in 3 years!!!!

kippen_noedel

you don't say whether gas or electricity
on electricity (allowing 10p/kwh) this sounds like a discrepancy in excess of over 22,000kwh each year

on gas (allowing 4p/kwh) 56,000 kwh each year.

what size of property do you have, sounds more like a small hotel

100wpm

Thanks for replying Brian.

I understand what you are saying about the reason EON would have taken 5 digits of the 6 but there are no decimal points on my meter. It has been in place for many, many years and I have been told by an electrician recently that it is a three phase system instead of the usual systems in other domestic properties. I understand again what that means now ! Sorry for sounding slightly behind the times here.....!

the fact of the matter is that EON meter reading staff should recognise surely what is a 3 phase system and what is normal system (I personally do not know what the difference is apart from now knowing that normal have a decimal before the last digit and mine doesn't!!). I am therefore being billed for old debt because their telephone personnel did not take into account the last digit and their reading meter personnel also chose to ignore it either due to not being trained correctly or it was recorded on their computers incorrectly. I feel to bill me for previous old useage is unfair on this basis.

If, accordingly to my last meter reading (correct meter reading taken I should add by your company) I am currently using around £350 a month electricity then the last 12 months of the bill you will seek off me due to the Billing Code reduction will be £4,200.00. I have said going forward if the meter states that this what is being used then who am i to argue this and a monthly figure can be agreed to pay between us. However, to seek £4,200 or £6,707.09 from me for poor meter reading skills by your company for over 10 years is unfair even if Billing Code of practice reduces it down to 12 months especially as the fee you seek is so incredibly high.

When I bought the house I had sight of the previous utility bills being paid by previous owners and they had said the electricity was reasonable, the water bills average and the oil to heat the property was pretty good too. I cannot believe your company has allowed this to continue over many years with them and never questionned this before? I have no idea what the difference was and neither did its previous owners.

I will go down the Complaints procedure instead as you have mentioned and thank you for your assistance so far.

100wpm

Dear cardew,

Its an electricity meter and it doesn't have a decimal point in the screen at all. I was not aware of any difference in decimal or no decimal and thought that different meters may have had different look about the screen showing 5, 6 or decimal points anyway. Electricity meters are not my thing if you know what I mean !! Its all the same to me, read a meter reading, give them the figure you see and wait for your bill or wait for the guys to come out and read it themselves and wait for the bill.

My bills have been the same for 3 years and not far off the previous owners who stayed here for 7 years so who am I to question this when I assume all is fine and the meter reading guys have been out and taken them down regularly too?!

I always turn everything off at night, can't even leave anything on standby as I can't sleep so pretty surprised at the level of useage involved here.

Thanks for trying to help though. Appreciate it.

100wpm

kippen_noedel wrote: »

you don't say whether gas or electricity
on electricity (allowing 10p/kwh) this sounds like a discrepancy in excess of over 22,000kwh each year

on gas (allowing 4p/kwh) 56,000 kwh each year.

what size of property do you have, sounds more like a small hotel

Its electric. We don't have any supply of gas to this house. Its an old farm house. Thanks for your help.

100wpm

DVardysShadow wrote: »

The meter. The blddy meter. What does it say?

It is no good going on about how you are not a meter engineer. And it is a bit of a knee jerk reaction to take it too a solicitor without actually understanding the meter reading. Because a solicitor will work on this for a week if you let him, by which time, you might as well pay off eon and be done.

So can you tell us the latest meter readings and the meter readings for a year ago - as they were interpreted and as they should be read please? And it is gas? and is the meter reading in cubic metres or cubic feet?

In October 08 EON estimated my reading at 26453. I called them to give them correct meter reading as I don't like nasty surprises of owing them more when I get my revised bill. I told them correct reading was 269910. They told me (as they always do when I phone) to ignore last figure so I said fine (meant nothing to me). Then got a revised bill through from them saying "we have used your reading of 26991 and you are £11.20 in credit". Great. So, in Jan 09 they estimated it again and put down 27857. Get a letter in Feb 09 saying they are trying to obtain up to date electricity meter details and can I provide them once again with the serial no. and reading. Gave them new reading of 286396. Heard nothing until get a phone call from Customer Service rep in April 09 saying to be prepared as will be receiving an extra large bill shortly as they have been taking meter readings down incorrectly for a number of years.

In June 09 receive a lovely bill stating "latest electricity reading of 305013 read by you on 16 June 09 means you are now £5,880.72 in debit" !!

My meter reading today is just over 330000 so you can see that there is definitely a good bit of consumption there which I'm not disputing (until I find out what it is here that's taking it all up) but the fact i am being made to pay for someone else's errors when I have been totally innocent in all of this. Its such a large amount to ask to pay up that I don't know what to do.

E.ON_Company_Representative

Hi 100wpm

The problem with this is, it’s so difficult to actually say what the cause is or what’s stopped this being picked up for so long. The issue with the incorrect bills may pre-date your occupancy and possibly even the account holder before that.

Essentially your previous (and the previous owners) bills may appear reasonable, yet they have been wrong all a long, so there is no comparison for what is reasonable and what isn’t. What size quarterly bills have you been paying if I may ask? What sort of sized property are we talking about?

If the total bill you are in dispute over is around £6000, then the last years worth of usage can’t accurately be £4200, I would from your figures suggest, I either have missed something or something else isn’t accurate here. How long does the new (disputed) bill cover?

Sorry for all the questions.

But yes the best thing is contact the Directors’ Office, call the complaints line first, quicker resolution. The response time for email and letter will be longer due to the seasonal backlog.

Brian