E.ON sending me a bill for a prepayment meter 2 years after leaving the property!!

whytem

Hi all i wonder if anyone can help me - to save me explaining everything again i'll paste the email i have sent to E.ON's customer service director -


Dear Sir/Madam,

I was a customer of yourself in the form of Powergen and later E.on from June 2005 - May 2008 at the address of xxxxx Close, During this entire period the gas was paid quarterly and the electricity was paid using the pre-payment metre installed at the property.
In May 2008 I moved out of the property.
This morning (28/06/2010) I received a letter from a debt collection agency LCS acting on your behalf asking for payment of £548.48 for electricity consumed at the address of xxxxx close - this came as huge surprise to myself as previously stated the electricity was pre-paid.
So I followed the complaints procedure on your website and call your complaints department and explained the situation to a lady named Chantelle, Chantelle found my details and explained she would need to contact the pre-payment department to investigate and would call me back.Chantelle did indeed call me back as promised and informed me that you have no records of any payments between the dates of December 2006 - January 2008 - over a 12 months with no payment - how is this possible when using a pre-payment metre? During my timne at the property the metre was topped up on at least a fortnightly basis. Chantelle has told me the only way to loctae payments now would be for myself to provide either a card number or a receipt of payment. Now as you can imagine two years after leaving the property I do not have any receipts or the card I was using to hand, the whole point of pre-pay is that it is easy and clean to use - you know what your paying and there are no bills, you do not expect a bill 2 years later expecting payment for electricity you have already paid for.

My concern is that this happened before during my time at the property - i received a bill for electricity when using the pre-payment metre, on that occaison I called your customer service team who stated it was a mistake.
During this time one card was lost and another stopped working, on both occasions I was told to go to the local shop that provided the cards - located at xxxxxxxxxxx
I am completely in shock at this bill and angry that I am being pursued for an energy bill 2 years after moving house when I was using a pre-payment scheme and this has gone to a debt collection agency and is therefore affecting my credit rating, I would like this to be fully investigated in to how a pre-payment metre can generate a bill when it has been regularly topped up without a record of payment, and I do not expect to be asked to provide proof of payment 2 years after the event when using a such a supposedly easy system, where you pay before you use, I would also like you to contact LCS and have the payment demand suspend while this is investigated.

Kind Regards




I really don't know what to do with this has it happened to anyone else? There's no way i'm paying for electricity i've paid for!

anniecave

You have put your exact address in the post - you may wish to remove this!

Was Eon/powergen your supplier thoughout the entire time you lived in the property? Or was there another supplier you might have paid as well (for some reason)? Can you remember paying any other suppliers?

spiro

When you purchase a replace key/card for a ppm it has to be linked to your meter and your supplier. As you got power it was obviously linked to the meter but I would guess it was not linked to your supplier.

I would contact them and ask the to initiate the 'Misdirect Payments Process' which means they check if another supplier or prepayment infrastructure providor (link between shop and elec companies) has their money by mistake.

I suppose it would be very unlikely that you have even a single receipt from that period. If you know the shop and outlet type (paypoint, payzone) you always/mostly used then this will help them track it down.

whytem

Thanks guys, we were with Powergen/E.ON the entire time i was there, a couple of time we did need to repalce the card we used to top up before it was changed to a key meter, i'll see what they come back with and then try this misdirected payment process see if that gives me any joy, as you say its highly unlikely i'll have receipts or the card i used considering i left the property over 2 years ago now.

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

Hi whytem

I'm really sorry we have sent you a bill for electricity already paid for. You are doing exactly the right thing in referring this to our Director's Office. They will carry out a full investigation into the circumstances behind your case.

If not already done, ask for a complaint to be raised. This will stop any debt follow up whilst this investigation is carried out. Also, after 56 days, this will allow you to refer the matter to the Ombudsman if you are unhappy with the resolution offered.

There are several reasons why payments made on a Prepayment Meter do not reach an account.

Spiro has correctly highlighted the Misdirected Payments route. This is where a customer has used another supplier's device to buy their energy. In these cases, all payments made will have gone to that supplier.

There is an industry wide process in place to help track down these payments and re-direct them to the correct supplier.

Another possibility is where a customer uses a previous occupier's device. All payments made in this way end up on the wrong account. Once we can identify where the payments have gone, we can transfer them to the correct account.

Sometimes the wrong reference number is used when buying cards. This tended to be more widespread on the old Token meters, most of which have now been replaced with new Key Meters.

Faulty cards/devices can also cause problems with the allocation of payments.

We have a responsibility to try and find missing payments and receipts certainly help. I fully understand, though, it is highly unlikely you will still have these given how long ago you left the property. However, there are other searches we can do and these definitely need to be explored.

Also, we should have provided statements every so often detailing the energy used, prices charged and payments made. With no payments hitting the account, these statements would have shown a debt on the account. Did we send any statements?

Hope this helps a little whytem. As I say, involving our Director's Office is definitely the best way to go. Give me a shout if you need any more advice as will be happy to help.

Malc