Desperate Help Needed - Life falling apart

freaksaver

Please please please is there anyone out there who can provide some advise to a very upsetting situation.

My Mum and Dad own a lock up club and have been there for around 14 years. They have always paid their electric bills on time however sadly have paid on estimates only for the last 9 years. Eon have contacted my parents a number of times asking for a meter reading however my dad has failed to do this. (Silly I know but unintentional). Eon state they have called at the club numerous times but the club has been shut!.

They have recently managed to call when the club was open and took a meter reading. This has now resulted in a bill of £32k. As a result of this my dad has slumped into a depression, my mum and dad have now seperated, my dad has gone crazy trying to sell everything he owns and the issues is still unresolved.

I talked to Eon to explain this cant be right and they found that the meter was "SLIPPING" and so gave them a £10k credit, they then recalculated the bill again for some reason and there was another £8k credit. All this time my dad continued to pay them the recent bills for the recent energy.

2 months later they decided without prior warning that the £8k credit was an error their side and added this cost back to their account. At the time of the initial £32k bill Eon demanded a £3500 payment otherwise there would be a disconnection, they managed to find this by taking a personal credit card out on top of their other debts so now not only are their problems with the business but with their personal finances also.

For the last 2 months I have been trying to create a database of till receipt times for Eon for the last 9 years to see where the problem is and to check that the charges they have applied are charged at a correct rate, its driving me mad.

What i really want to know is can they do this after all this time. Whilst my dad was at fault for not reading the meter surely they had a responsibility to demand it was read, they would certainly do it if they werent getting payments for the bills etc.

Aparently one of their subcontractor readers gave then an estimated reading about 2 years ago however they have informed me that as this was so much higher than the reading they had they decided not to use his estimate!!! So in effect they knew 2 years ago but were to stupid to do anything about it.

Please can anyone do anything at all to help??????????????

KimYeovil

Yes, it is very upsetting when one is caught fiddling the books. Very convenient to slip in to a depression. It is, of course, all E-on's stupid fault. Not at all your father's for not bothering his backside over nine years to correct his business affairs.

Some people.

freaksaver

KimYeovil wrote: »

Yes, it is very upsetting when one is caught fiddling the books. Very convenient to slip in to a depression. It is, of course, all E-on's stupid fault. Not at all your father's for not bothering his backside over nine years to correct his business affairs.

Some people.

Thanks Kim for your comments. Sadly there are many people in the country with many financial difficulties which have been helped by the support given by people on this very website. Whilst technically, many people with financial difficulties could be ridiculed and told "its all your own fault", this type of difficulty can cause great distress to some people. I am pleased to see you have clearly never been affected by such problems and truly hope you never are.

Cardew

As it is a business account, it is simply a civil debt matter. This means that they can claim 6 years back charges.

With electric bills, there isn't a safety issue so whilst a meter reading is recommended it isn't mandatory.

Unfortunately for your father, as a last resort E-on will simply cut off the electricity while they chase the debt.

freaksaver

Thank you very much for taking the time to respond. Is there anywhere I can refer to that states they can only back claim up to 6 years charges? I need to try and make the case as strong as possible.

lomb

What is a lock up club? How big is it?What was his average bill in recent years monthly. Any gas used or all electric including heating? The thing to do is get past payments from eon in a list. Then average monthly current consumption with the estimated bill.

Budgeting_mum

It sounds to me like there must be a reasonable compromise to be made with EON. I don't know enough to advise but could you make an appointment with the CAB who would surely be able to set you upon a useful course of action?

Mrs_Thrify

Hiya, what is a lock up club? are there not members including a treasurer?

Have you been to citizen's advice to ask for - well, advice.

A dept is made worse if it is not managed.

You did well to post on here and ask for help.

Julie

freaksaver

Thanks for the advice budgeting mum. I am not sure CAB deal with business issues but I will contact them to find out. Am also looking in to averaging out bills etc but the problem is that they have sent the estimates far to low so they say. The recent bills that have been read are much much lower but they say the only explanation in that case is that the trading hours have changed. The recent readings show an average of 54 units per day whereas averaged out over the years for the unread period it shows a reading of 112 per day.

Gerrard_8_lfc

freaksaver wrote: »

Thank you very much for taking the time to respond. Is there anywhere I can refer to that states they can only back claim up to 6 years charges? I need to try and make the case as strong as possible.

Although it is a very bad situation at the end of the day the energy has been used and should be paid for there should be no way around that. Your best chance is to request a long term payment plan as it took so long to build up the debt.

EON will have records of trying to contact the company for a meter read so any goodwill gesture may not be applied because as far as they are concerned they sent reminders and supplied the energy.

lomb

Have they calculated the bill using previous tariffs?

Where is this 'slipping' electric meter now?

The best thing if there is proof of a bad meter is to contest it, is this club owned by a limited company?