Eon DD increase

deshepherd

Having moved from Npower to Eon jiust over a year ago due to a ridiculous increase in DD I've now been hit with much the same by Eon ... they want to increase DD from £175 to £267 when at the same time the bill gives their estimate of annual usage as £1900 - i.e. £160/month.

There are two problems

1) the new scheme of balancing bills in the spring - as I joined Eon just before winter my account was naturally in balance in Nov/Dec. Clearly if it needs to be in balance in May then at some point I have to pay for winter "in advance" ... but Eon seem to have waited till the last bill to take the full amount in one quarter. Given that they seem to estimate my usage pretty well surely they could have done this one or two bills earlier so "advance winter payment" was spread over more months.

2) To make matters worse they seem to have managed to issue this bill on the same day that my direct debit is paid so that the last DD is not on the bill. If I look at last years bills (and add 10% to take account that I'm on FixOnline v9 instead of v3) then I'll use just over £500 in next quarter + after todays DD outstanding balance is £110 - so at next bill liability is a bit over £600 - i.e. 3 DD's of just over £200 will clear it - but they want £267 - I think purely because they are basing their calculation on a bill that is missing 1 DD. (N.b. I wonder if it was "my fault" for supplying a meter reading as soon as I got the email from them asking for it as the bill is the day after I supplied the reading!)


As I assume with these DD's my account will be "in balance" in May (actually, I expect £175 in credit) will they really reduce it then down to the £160/month they estimate I'll use or is this just wishful thinking. Also, is it possible to get them to recalculate the DD in the light of todays DD payment which they managed to "omit" from my bill!

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

Hi deshepherd

As you rightly say, our payment arrangements are calculated to achieve as near to a zero balance as possible by the time of the annual review in the spring.

I do understand, having joined us midway through the billing year, the Direct Debit will be calculated over fewer months than would normally be the case. This will be amended at the annual review and future payments will be spread over a full 12 month period.

The timing of the bill and the Direct Debit payment on the same day is certainly unfortunate. As this payment is not on the bill, it will not have been included in the latest calculation. This will definitely cause an imbalance.

I would talk us to us about this as we may be able to re-calculate your Direct Debit taking this payment into account.

To stop this happening in future, I would either change the date payments are collected; or make sure you enter readings after the money is taken.

As regards the second option, if I might explain, all accounts have a billing date. This is on the first page of your online account.

Either side of this date is what is known as the Billing Window.

Meter readings received whilst the window is open automatically create a bill.

The time the window is open depends on the frequency of the billing. For customers with quarterly accounts, the window is open 14 days either side of the bill date.

In your circumstances, I would suggest entering your readings within the billing window but a couple of days after your payment has been collected. This will ensure this payment is taken into account when reviewing your payment arrangement.

Come the spring review, any credit on the account greater than a fiver is automatically refunded. Also, any debit balance is spread over the next few months and included with the ongoing usage.

Hope this helps a little deshepherd. Give me a shout if you need any more info as will be happy to help.

Malc

deshepherd

Thanks, just had a call from one of your colleagues who was very helpful. After starting with the "well its been a cold winter" and "you've used more gas this year than last" - I countered this with the fact that on the energy usage per day reported on the bill we'd used virtually the same rate as last year. Only remembered later that the reason why she could say this years feb bill was much higher than last years was because I only moved to Eon at the end of Nov 09 so last years bill was only 10 weeks usage!

Anyway, after I explained the bill had only accounted for 2 DD payments and the current "debt" she was quoting was much less than the one when the DD payment was made she went to the billing system and got it to recalculate my DD which now came out as £209 - a bit more reasonable - and that in May it should drop back to £172.

So overall much happier with the situation - DD at a more "reasonable" level + very helpful response from Eon here and on the phone. However, still a slight niggle that the system waited until I was "in debt" before it reacted to what was a totally foreseeable requirement to increase the DD if it needed to have my account in balance by May - this was always going to be the case as I started with a 0 balance in Nov 09 + due to the length of time it took Eon and Npower to agree I had switched it was 2 months after I was being supplied by them before Eon were taking my full DD!

lili011

I had the same problem with Eon. I gave a reading when only 1 dd had been taken. This generated a bill and a change in dd from £136 to £202 because the bill generated showed a debit of about £7. We had been £270+ in credit at the last bill on 10 December. I phoned up Customer Services and only managed to get the dd down to £185....he said he could not lower it any more. When will the dd be reviewed again? I thought they only did it once a year. The next bill when 2 more dds will have been paid is 22 March. I will never give a reading again until all 3 dds have been paid in any one bill period!

sweetnorthenlass

happy to share my eon horror story over pm. there should be a site dedicated to all those who dont like eon very much and are trying to win a battle or two with them. maybe if we all grouped together we could gang up. i was watching mary portas tonight and loved how she got a crowd together to go a cause a stir!

deshepherd

Postscript to story:

After saying everything was ok I then got a letter from Eon telling me that they were increasing my DD to £267 ... was intending to phone up and give vent to my feelings on the situation but didn't get round to it that day ... then next day another (almost) identical letter arrived saying DD was changing to £209 ... checking the dates then realized that the first letter was probably autogenerated by the computer before the Eon rep had spoken to me!

N.b. I'm not unhappy with Eon ... I moved to them because nPower did exactly the same to me 2 years ago - and it was their loss because the 30-40% hike in DD they wanted made me go to a comparison site and realize how uncompetitive my tarrif with them was.