Help/Advice anyone? EON

KrazyKate

Hi Everybody, I was hoping someone may be able to help me.

We moved in to our rented property in April this year and have paid £50 per month each month for Gas and Electricity combined.

We live in a mid terrace and the Landlord told us it is economical on G and E because being in the middle helps keep the heat in.

Anyway everything was going ok until I recieved a bill saying they were upping my DDR to £130 a month a £80 increase per month :eek:


They tried to say I was using £120 a month, if this is the case and I have used 7x£120=840, and paid £350, then surely if their figures were right I would owe£490??? I tried to argue their workings out were wrong but they kept avoiding this and saying are you going to make a payment now???

I said I could not afford the increase so would cancel my DDR and pay by S/O instead and make token payments as and when on top of my £50 a month.
They then said this was OK and they would add notes to my account to this effect.

Yesterday I came home to another letter threatening me with disconnection and debt collectors if I do not pay the balance by 3rd Jan (nice xmas present I thought!)

I don't know what to do. My questions are...

Does anyone know whether this is a longer process than they have made out thus giving me more time to make the token payments to clear the debt? If it goes to a debt collector will this damage my credit history (Although it is fairly bad at the moment anyway)

Can anyone offer any advice or has been in a similar situation?

Thanks x

KrazyKate:p

Tupperware_Queen

well hun, my first impression is that even in a well insulated home, £50 per month for gas and electric is very low - so I'm not surprised they have asked you to increase. If you have been paying since April, what was your bill like in the summer (should have been July ish?) If this was about even, then you will be using a lot more over winter, so fair for them to increase your DD - however I agree that £80 increase is steep.

I suspect that your bill in July (or whenever) showed you owing a bit then, which has increased due to the cold weather, and that is why they now want you to pay back some of what you owe, as well as contributing to the ongoing bills.

I had all kinds of bother when I (stupidly) left powergen (as was) for NPower, then had to go back. Because I was still paying off Npower, Powergen (now e-on) let me run up my bill with them for the first quarter, then divide that bill over the next 12 months to catch up. So whereas I had originally been paying £85 per month, for one year I paid £110 in order to get back on track.

I suggest you ring them up, discuss what the outstanding amount is, and see how you can restructure your payments over the next year to make it more affordable.

HTH

KrazyKate

Hi Hun,

Thanks for the advice, I have tried to call them again today but they have again said they cant take any less than £130 per month now and I just can't afford it, I'm trying to look where I can afford to cut down next month to try and pay £75 a month instead and hope this will stave them off for a while. I don't get why its such a big deal and they really are quite threatening with me, The first bill I had was in Oct/Nov ish and this was only cos I asked for one, They cocked up when I first moved in with the meter readings and it's just got worse from then on! Just registered online with them to look at my bills and over 5 months I paid £250 and the bill was £381, so in my mind the difference £131 split over the 5 months is just over £75 (with my £50 included) so hopefully my way of thinking is if I carry on at this amount I will ever so slowly catch up.
Ive txt my fella and told him from now on heating only on in emergencies, other than that its layer upon layer of clothes, might be a bit of a passion killer but hey ho!!

Tupperware_Queen

mmm sounds like a bit of a mess up with your inital billing, if I was you I'd try and use that to argue for leniency (sp?) If you'd have had a bill in July, you could have increased your payments a bit, and not been so far behind now. I had some really good help from the eon rep Helena on here, perhaps you could pm her?

grahamc2003

KrazyKate:p[/QUOTE]


No, you almost certainly don't owe £490, and you almost certainly haven't used £840 worth of g and e.

The £130pm dd would almost certainly clear your debt and pay your bills, so your average usage over the year could well be £120pm. (seems a lot to me though, unless you have the place quite hot all the time). But that 120pm is made of (much)higher bills in the winter, and much lower bills in the summer. Most of your use up to now has been in cheaper months (hence why you don't owe £490).

Unfortunately, you shouldn't have cancelled your dd, because you have now lost your dd discount. I think it's probably time to grovel a little, and try to get your dd reinstated, and try to negotiate the amount down a little from what they propose (say you've recently cut down on energy use, turned your thermostat down etc, - then do it -). If you do nothing, I think they'll eventually do what they are threatening in their letter, so don't just ignore it. My advice is not to worry, but ring them, and try to appeal to their better nature, and somehow afford a dd of say £110pm if you can negotiate it down to that. But basically, you have to pay for what you have used, and must be prepared to pay for what you will use in the higher cost winter months.

Airmike23

KrazyKate, you are subject to payment adequecy and they can make your payments less than £130 a month, phomne in and if the drone that answers basically computer says no, then ask to speak to their manager, all power companies are able to set the direct debit for whatever amount they want (I don't mean that they literally will!!), payment adequecty is projected cost from most recent bill and cost for next 6 months, plus andy debit or credit taken into account divide by 6 thuis you get your new monthly amount. EG Nove 2010 bill owes £200 projected cost Nov to May for gas and electric is £600, you are paying 60pm then cost over next 6 months will be an increased dd to £133 a month until may 2011 dd and then account reviewed again, if no debit by may bill then dd amount reduced to more average figure of total 12 month cost i.e if spend £1000 on gas and elec in a year £83 a month is average payment. That is just an example of payment adequecy but it is system generated, an outstanding balance can be spread over up to 18 months, naturally power companies want to clear a balance ion a short as time as possible, but they can make your payment more manageable, whilst also making sure what you pay each month covers actual cost as well as helping reduce the amount owed. Also give up to date reads to ensure if there have been est reads that is dealt with. I must stress all power companies deal with monthly direct debit accounts in exactly the same way.

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

Hi KrazyKate

Thought I might be able to offer a couple of pointers.

The first thing I would advise is to make sure the bills we've sent are accurate. Are they based on actual meter readings?

If not, let us have up to date readings and we will re-bill your account accurately.

Do you have a record of the readings when you took over responsibility for the property in April? If you do, make sure your bills start from these.

Once you're sure the bills are accurate and you have used the energy, we can look at a payment arrangement to help spread the balance over a more manageable period.

However, once an arrangement is in place, this must be stuck to. I'm afraid making token payments as and when does not constitute a formal arrangement and I'm sorry if one of our agents gave you the impression that this would be ok. This was very poor advice.

When payments are missed, arrangements are automatically cancelled and debt follow up kicks in for the full balance. It sounds as though this is what happened here.

At this time of year, I would expect there to be credit on your account ready for the higher winter bills. As the account is in debit, it's likely you have not been paying enough to cover your usage and this has led to a catch up bill. The outstanding balance will have been included in the revised monthly figure.

Going forward, you need to cover your ongoing usage plus clear the balance. What length of time were you advised the debt has been spread over? Depending on the circumstances, it may be possible to lengthen the re-payment period and so lower the monthly payments a little.

Hope this is useful KrazyKate. Give me a shout if I can help further as will be happy to do so. Drop an email to the address in my Profile if you prefer.

Malc

davidgmmafan

If its going to take some time to clear the balance it might be looking at the tariff too. If there is a cheaper tariff online for example this will mean potentially a lower payment, as the amount of the payment which is going to consumption will be lower.

BTW £60 per month is q fairly low payment for dual fuel, did you suggest this or E.On? If they suggested it then you could use this as part of your argument. I would also argue this if for example this was your first property as the advisor should've been more on the ball and politely suggested that £50 per month was unlikely to cover.

If you set the £50 and this isn't your first place then its going to be more difficult to argue. I have a couple of questions. What is the balance? You say the bill is £381 and you paid £250 so that would mean the debit is £131 (unless I've read it wrong, wouldn't be the first time). This means the £120 cons amount can only be a guess. Given that they don't have twelve months of your consumption I wouldn't be happy to pay this guess (£381 divide by five is £76.20).

They can't have it both ways. Either the guestimate is based on past consumption, in which case they should've argued for the initial DD to be set higher; or they have no idea what your consumption will be in Winter and are guessing based on your consumption so far. If you cut back they have no idea what difference this will make either.

KrazyKate

Hi Everyone, thanks for your replies!

Grahamc2003 – Already tried to ask them to reduce saying I’m using less etc but they’re having none of it, I didn’t make a fuss when they didn’t send me my bill on time and now wish I had complained then maybe they would be more inclined to help now, It seems I cant do right for doing wrong here, I didn’t complain as I didn’t want to get anyone in trouble but now it seems they don’t care for me!

Malc – The readings were accurate, I read them and gave them. I gave the readings and so did my LL but then something went wrong, I think personally for some reason the bill didn’t get generated, then to try and palm off the blame they said the readings given by my LL were wrong(even though they were identical to the ones I gave!)
Regarding the advice, unfortunately bad advice doesn’t help me out going forward; I put my trust in the advisors that they knew what they were talking about. Maybe next time I should say something and mean the opposite as this seems to have happened here! I’m not meaning to be rude I’m just annoyed that not everyone sings from the same hymn sheet! And no one at any time has offered to extend the repayment period despite me asking twice and speaking to different departments regarding this.

David- I think there may be a cheaper tariff, had a scout on the website but didn’t know if I’d be able to switch with me being in debit.
I was advised by my LL that was how much they paid so asked for the DDR to stay the same when I took it over, they said this was an ok payment at the time and did not ask for more. I agree with you re the “guess” they have made, that’s why I was going to pay the £75 as I believe this is a more accurate figure according to my maths!

Thanks for your help everyone I appreciate it. I’m going to make a payment of £75 this month, Update my readings again online after I have done this then look at how much this will take my balance to. I can’t pay them any extra if I don’t have it and will give them a statement of my Income and expenses if need be.
Think the next call from me to them will have to be after Xmas as I’m going to try and not think about it till after that as I want to enjoy myself as it’s my 1st xmas in our house just me and my fella. Hopefully will try and use less G&E and then hopefully this will all balance out and I’ll wonder why I was ever panicking!

Thanks again everyone!

KrazyKate xx

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

KrazyKate wrote: »

Malc – The readings were accurate, I read them and gave them. I gave the readings and so did my LL but then something went wrong, I think personally for some reason the bill didn’t get generated, then to try and palm off the blame they said the readings given by my LL were wrong(even though they were identical to the ones I gave!)

Hi Kate

Sorry to sound a bit vague but what actually went wrong?

Are the readings we started the account from correct? Have we now billed up to the correct latest readings?

Did we delay the bill because of discrepancies with the meter readings? If this is the situation, you may have a case for an extended payment arrangement.

KrazyKate wrote: »

Regarding the advice, unfortunately bad advice doesn’t help me out going forward; I put my trust in the advisors that they knew what they were talking about. Maybe next time I should say something and mean the opposite as this seems to have happened here! I’m not meaning to be rude I’m just annoyed that not everyone sings from the same hymn sheet! And no one at any time has offered to extend the repayment period despite me asking twice and speaking to different departments regarding this.

I absolutely take your point about poor advice and I do apologise for this. I would ask for this to be taken into consideration when negotiating a payment arrangement.

KrazyKate wrote: »

I think there may be a cheaper tariff, had a scout on the website but didn’t know if I’d be able to switch with me being in debit.

Usually, when a customer changes supplier, we ask for payment of the full balance on the final bill.

If there is an old debt on the account, we may well object to the switch. However, payment arrangements are considered in certain circumstances.

This will depend on the reasons behind the debt. Things like the amount and age of the debt, ongoing disputes, mistakes we may have made or any failed arrangements. Each request is considered individually and it is certainly worth asking the question.

KrazyKate wrote: »

I was advised by my LL that was how much they paid so asked for the DDR to stay the same when I took it over, they said this was an ok payment at the time and did not ask for more.

People have different lifestyles and it's never a good idea to base future usage on what went on before at a property.

Sorry for all the questions Kate but not sure what has been happening here. If you let me have a few more details I may be able to advise further.

Malc