First British gas and then eon

meanastheycome

When i moved into my flat (council) 8 years ago my electricity was supplied by Powergen now called eon.At that time i decided British gas was cheaper so i switched. Now 8 years on i receive a bill for £2763.67
from eon . Wow i was surprised being as i had been paying british gas all this time and they were my suppliers. (or so i thought ). So i rang British gas to find out what was going on. After about an hour and several calls back it turned out when i did the switch British gas had not done the switch correctly and they were not supplying me the electricity that i thought they were. But they had taken the money, but as they had charged me on a single tariff meter not a dual supply meter, which i found out during this process that i had, They would only refund the cash they had taken. £1547.49. As you can see i was in trouble having a deficit of £1216.19 still owing eon.I spoke to eon customer complaints advisory dept and they said it had been an oversight on their behalf along with faults at British gas. Poor communication/system faults etc, and accepted the £1547.49 as full payment in light of the circumstances etc. To which i was happy to do so i paid up and everything was set up from the start with a clean sheet last October 2009, they set me a £41 a month direct debit. Which i was happy with. All was well until today when i receive a letter telling me that i am having my direct debit altered to £272 a month. So on the phone i go again to speak to firstly a customer adviser who cant sort it out has to contact a supervisor and will call me back, but during this call he told me it looks like i am on the wrong tariff, what tariff is that i asked.
Er umm i will have to speak to a supervisor you should be on a Heatwise tariff not the one you are on you have economy seven don`t you he said, yes i said ok i will call you back.
There was that no call back all day, so i ring complaints dept who tell me yes there is a problem £272 a month is too much, so until this problem is sorted out we will readjust your account we will reset your direct debit to £58 a month call you back tomorrow sir..Apparently they were having system faults all day..Jesus christ what is it with these firms does their right hand know what the left is doing..
I have unanswered questions
1.I have two supply numbers for two reference numbers
why is this ?
2 British gas said to supply you it would cost 80% more on your bill
than eon are charging you because you have a heatwise meter with two supply points ..why ?
3.When on u switch or other switch sites there is no mention of either these things on the screen to put in to get a real feel for what i could save .. Why ?

---

I have storage heaters fitted in my flat i have never switched them on. Nor will i ,they are too expensive. I have a oil filled radiator and a warm fleece i use in winter.I live on my own am at work all day so no electricity used during day apart from water boiler fridge/freezer.
I run kettle fridge and freezer telly and computer/printer when i am at home. I have power cut out plugs fitted to all my devices so nothing is left on standby except freezer and fridge obviously.
i dont understand how i am using £492 worth of electricity a year
let alone £696 that i will now be paying...
what can i do ???
These energy companies have us by the short and curlies:mad:

ziggyman99

Why are you on a E7 tariff if you don't and never will use your storage heaters?

meanastheycome

i have no idea i can only assume that because i have storage heaters in the flat that the eon people
assume that you could use them at sometime.
I can get very little help from these people in answering questions. I dont know what tariff i am on yet. When i asked i am told look on your bill .I have it is not there.
What tariff should i be on. ? I submit meter readings online, i check online. As far as i am aware i don`t get any discount for this and still don`t know what tariff i have. I am getting a call back tomorrow apparently from eon to sort out this direct debit fiasco and i will then know what tariff i have and will ask more questions to which i don`t think i will get many answers or even true ones they say they are customer focused and want to help us but we all know its nice noise to keep us sweet and all they really care about is profits .

dogshome

Hi meanastheycome - OK. Stop using the phone and put your problems in a letter headed of Complaint - this puts it into the hands of a dedicated team who must deal with it within a fixed timescale

You certainly must know what tariff you are on, so look very carefully at the bill to find it and if it's not there, make this part of your complaint letter and enclose a copy of a bill.

Your not using the Storage radiators is also something of a problem - The NIGHT units they would use are charged at a cheap rate,but, the DAY units used are charged at a premium over and above the cost of a Standard meter - So you are losing out an the low cost Energy and paying a high price for what you use in the day
And
The supplier being confused as to which meter reading is Night and which one is Day is a common problem, often caused by the supplier assuming, without reference to the customer, that the meter reading showing the highest use is the Night reading, and the lowest is the Day reading.
So there is a strong possibility that your Day units are being billed as Night units and Vice Versa

Fortunately, Eon accepted that they would only charge you what you had paid to BG during the failed switch period, BUT, from that point forward they are going to bill you for an ECO7 tariff, which because you not using the Storage Radiators, the power you do use is going to be very expensive.
You must get EON to charge on the basis of a Standard meter - This can be done by either adding both meter readings together and charging the total at Standard meter rate, or changing the meter.

Getting Eon to do this will not be easy, so use the combined ineptitude of both them and BG as a lever
Good Luck

Premier_2

meanastheycome wrote: »

...Now 8 years on i receive a bill for £2763.67

... They would only refund the cash they had taken. £1547.49. As you can see i was in trouble having a deficit of £1216.19 still owing eon.I spoke to eon customer complaints advisory dept and they said it had been an oversight on their behalf ...

You need to get to the bottom of this huge difference in cost.

Yes there are differences in suppliers tariffs prices, but nothing of this order of magnitude.

I was going to suggest that the money you had paid BG (and so would expect to be refunded) would cover most of the bill you now have from Eon (that's before we get into the nitty gritty of whether you owe Eon anything and if so, how much)

Find out the full details of why you paid BG only £1547.49. compared to the £2763.67 Eon are now asking for. e.g. was this a case of 8 years continual under estimated readings?

meanastheycome

The reason bg had only taken £1547.49 during this time i was told was because they had only charged me based on one supply point(where as i have two) so they refunded all that i had paid.
eon however were asking for the full payment of £2763.67 as they had been supplying me based on two supply points although b gas had been taking the money. so that`s why from what i was told by a chap called Tim Brundell of the eon complaints dept.
today i received an email telling me my tariff had changed to a heat wise tariff from standard electricity which was the tariff i found out today as one of the eon people rang me to tell me it was being handled now by the pricing maintenance team and that i would be gettin a call next week to inform me of what the result was.having looked at this email was my new energy bill 8 pages of it all
7 of which had all the info i required on it including my new tariff but no mention of how much i would/will be paying on direct debit. now apparently i am £384.78 in credit..BUT on the next page it shows how much i am estimated to spend in the next 12 months which is £2193 a year.
this works out at £182.75 a month or £42.17 a week.Which cannot possibly be right i cannot afford to pay this sort of money a month.this estimate is based on apparently my current usage..i would show you the documents if i new how to get it on here so you can see for yourselves i am wondering whether i should be getting in touch with an ombudsman or someone to look into this.single man living on own. one bedroom property all energy bulbs fitted all powerdown plugs fitted at work all day and quite a few weekends cannot possibly use £2193 worth a year of electricity

meanastheycome

writing a letter is all well and good but it all takes time phoning is costing me yes but i want this problem sorting asap.
the bg taking cash and not supplying me and eon supplying and not being paid is now sorted as i have paid the sum bg gave me and paid eon and they cleared all debts and started afresh from last october
now it appeas i have been placed on the wrong tariff from the start this should not have happened as the chap i spoke to a mr tim brundell eon complaints adviser new full well what type of meter i had from the start.so now i am it seems in credit due to my tariff being changed which i find out via an email of my new bill to view on eon website but no call to tell me how much i am to be paying direct debit except a estimate that based on my previous usage i will spend £2193 annually in electricity for the next year. this is wrong surely they should be charging me on what i use and not on what could be used this is so confusing and annoying.i dont know who really to complain about this to..ombudsman?

meanastheycome

i would like to add. Thank you to all of you for your help and comments it is appreciated.

Premier_2

So were you on Powergen's Heatwise tariff 8 years ago?

Unfortunately that is a tariff that has 2 MPANs, and your post seems to be another example of things ending in tears when someone attempts to switch supplier when they have this type of electricity supply because other supplierss are not able to support this even if they suggest they can so the salesperson gets their commission.

I would appeal to Eon to see what they think. They may offer you a goodwill gesture discount (but since they effectively have a monopoly over your supply, there's possibly no reason for them to provide any goodwill gestures) or at least will agree with you a repayment plan to spread the cost.
I don't think the 12 month back-billing rule will apply here, but you could ask them to check. You may have a bit more luck with the statute on limitations that may mean they can only go back six years instead of the full eight.

Poosmate

Hi Meanastheycome, I am in a similar lifestyle situation as you in that I live alone, work full time and am frugal with my electric (sort of). I am on Economy7 (although I should use more at night or change tariffs!).

I've had a problem with BG just recently whereby I had a new digital meter fitted in January of 2008 (which was set to zero). I was mis-informed how to read the meter from early on. I was told to give the first figure and the second figure, which I have recently discovered was the total amount of units used and the day units used. In Oct 08 I was informed that my DD would go up from £32 to £85 per month (which I complained about) then per month to £234 (which I went ballistic about!). I forbid them to take that amount as it was obviously wrong for my lifestyle and property size. THEY TOOK IT ANYWAY!!!! They took £234 from my account leaving me overdrawn and with bank charges.

Be very careful with the DD. Make sure you have enough money in your account to cover the high amount they have told you they're going to put your DD up to as even if you think you've sorted it on the phone (as I did), they lie to you and take it anyway!

I cancelled my DD and now pay what I want to pay them when I want to pay them by direct bank transfer. I am totally in control of what BG get and they don't have access to my bank account.

Anyway, as my electric meter was set to zero in Jan 08 and I've sorted out the wrong meter readings recently, I now know exactly how much electric I used over a given period and how much I've paid for that electric. My yearly bill has averaged to £336. I have 2 oil filled radiators (a 1kHw and a 1.5kHw) which I used over last winter and a gas fire to heat my home (which is a 2 bed semi).

Please be careful with your DD, don't get bit like I did.

Hope that helps.

Poo

meanastheycome

Thanks for that i will check with the bank to find out what the direct debit is set at now.The phone call i had with yet another adviser set my dd from the £272 stated in the letter to £58. (apparently he altered it on screen during the call).Yes you are right these people do lie and cheat and in my honest opinion steal.The charges we have to pay are an absolute rip off, how pensioners cope i do not know.
I may well go down the pay upon receipt of bill route like yourself as this does give back some form of control to yourself.As for the fact that they might take the full amount i have an agreed overdraft so i would not incur charges from this.But believe you me i will be checking and re checking my statements
very regularly. thanks a lot for your post